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AmbiEntrance: Tell us about your early childhood musical experiences.
Bowles: Let's see....both of my parents are classical music buffs, so I was pretty
much surrounded by music from the time I was a newborn. Apparently I must
have been a fussy little creature, for my mom used to play Mozart and stick
me in front of the loudspeaker during those moments of sheer desperation when
nothing else would calm me down. Well, it worked! She was ahead of her time
and obviously stumbled onto the "Mozart Effect!"
My dad is a musicologist
with a specialty in music of the Middle Ages and Rennaissance, so I got a
heady dose of all of the wonderful sacred and secular music of that period as
well. Anyway, both my brother and I began serious classical music study very
early....I wound up a flutist and he a cellist. I was so caught up in it
throughout my school years that I kind of missed out on a lot of rock and pop
and all that stuff.
AmbiEntrance: How different do you think your musical aspirations would have been if you *had* been more exposed to rock and pop?
Bowles: Well, I feel that training is the more influential piece here...and if mine had included more exposure to rock and pop from a crafting perspective, my writing process might possibly be quite different....maybe more improvisatory and less orchestrally-oriented for starters.
AmbiEntrance: When were you first exposed to ambient/electronic music? What was the defining moment when you found yourself wanting to create these more abstract sounds?
Bowles: As I recall my first exposure was around eight or so, to the electronic music of Otto Luening....I can't remember the specific album, but the sounds he created entranced me and conjured up images of strange planets and all sorts of weird things. My brother and I would create haunted houses in the
basement, invite our friends over, and play Otto Luening.....so that's how it
all started.
As far as when I felt the urge to compose ambient/electronic
music, that didnāt happen until much later. My husband bought himself a
K1000 synth for his arranging work many years ago. I began playing around
with it, and promptly appropriated it when I realized how much fun I was
having...and the rest is history.
AmbiEntrance: How would you describe your first compositions on the K1000, and how has your style evolved since then?
Bowles: Actually, I mainly used the K1000 as a controller in the beginning days.
Most of the patches on Inner Space, my first release, were Emu sounds, and I
still use the Morpheus quite a bit. Describing my style is not something I
feel particularly adept at, although in general it probably has become darker
and more complex, both sonically and compositionally, and more refined. But
those are generic words that can't really capture the nuances that the
individual listener might pick up. You see, I find it really difficult to
extract myself from the present moment of whatever I'm working on in order to
look at where it has come from or where it is going.
AmbiEntrance: My first brush with your music was on the Hypnos comp, The Other World; what can you tell us about In the Arms of Morpheus (which I described, albeit briefly, as "a gorgeously expressive piece with various
movements")?
Bowles: I'm not sure if you want me to address process or content here.....so I'll
try to do a little of both. As you know, the Hypnos comp consists of a
series of musical evocations of some of the subtle, shifting dimensional
states we experience as we dream and move into a "non-ordinary" reality. An
interesting parallel during the writing time of this piece was that I was
experiencing some wicked insomnia....not fun. I'm never sure how (or
whether) a concept actually manifests in my work...that is such a subjective
thing. Concept is usually the last thing I become aware of. The beginning
stages are purely feeling-oriented, almost palpably so. In the case of
Adrift in the Arms of Morpheus all I could do was to trust that whatever
piece that wanted to be born then would fit into the general theme.
AmbiEntrance: So, From the Dark Earth isn't your first synth-and trumpet recording? I just read on the page about 1996's Night Sun Journey and 1997's Places Where Rivers Meet. How did this blend of sounds evolve?
Bowles: Night Sun Journey was the first piece I wrote for trumpet and synth (and
one of the tracks on From the Dark Earth), which Dave Bilger commissioned
from me for a recital he gave at the International Trumpet Guild Brassfest in
June of 1996. We've known each other for many years, and Dave was familiar
with my music. He basically just called me out of the blue, and after the
few seconds of initial shock from contemplating a combination I would never
have thought of myself in a million years, I said yes. Then came the
challenging part....making it work! Needless to say, the fact that Dave is a
brilliant musician with a magnificently lyrical style (plus being a lot of
fun to work with) was also a factor.
AmbiEntrance: How was this (assumedly atypical) piece received when he performed at the International Trumpet Guild Brassfest? What's the opinion of your recorded
collaborations from the world of "straight/traditional" brass listeners?
Bowles: The response was (and continues to be) great. In general, I get the sense
that those you call "straight/traditional" brass players tend to be pretty
hip to different musical styles...maybe that's been influenced by the jazz
connection, I don't know. Anyway, they're pretty open to the space/ambient
world as it is. I find that instrumentalists who have had NO exposure to
synths, however, have a bit of difficulty with the sounds and the "darkness"
in particular...which could be my writing as well.
I think classical trumpet
players (and classical musicians in general) are always hungry for "atypical"
additions to the recital repetoire which will really engage an audience,
particularly given the dearth of "new classical music" that both musicians
want to play and people want to listen to. I'm sure I'll get some flack for
saying that, but all the feedback I get from my classical musician friends
indicates that the new music situation out there is depressingly grim, with a
few exceptions of course.
AmbiEntrance: Introduce us to your husband, Richard Price. Did his work with brass influence the marriage of trumpet with your synthesizers?
Bowles: Oh, absolutely...I might not have considered this project otherwise. Richard
provided me with some essential technical pointers and moral support as well!
He played French horn professionally for many years in the New York area
(free lance classical, Broadway, and a founding member of the Borealis Wind
Quintet) and has achieved quite a following as an arranger in brass circles.
For the past seven years he has been a senior recording/mastering engineer
and digital editor with Squires Productions.
AmbiEntrance: How would you describe your "working" relationship as you both produced and mixed From the Dark Earth?
Bowles: I often jokingly say that Richard subjects me to "ritual audio torture"
during the mixing phase of a project! He has an extraordinary set of ears
and a way of listening that forces me to listen on a number of new and
different levels myself, at that stage of the process. His attention to
detail is fearsomely precise, and as much as I may bitch and moan about some
of the time-consuming, fine-tuning stuff that we do, I must say that the
quality we come up with makes the whole experience worthwhile. We have a
deep love and respect for each other.
Richard is my biggest fan and my
strongest ally....which is a wonderful thing to have in a marriage that's
lasted for fourteen years! The challenge in our working together is to make
sure that our projects don't consume our marriage....sometimes we get
dangerously close to that happening!
AmbiEntrance: Have you performed on any of your hsuband's recordings? Are there (or might there someday be) any Meg Bowles/Richard Price releases?
Bowles: My husband's recordings were done long before I began releasing my own work.
He's no longer performing professionally, anyway...now he makes his living as
a recording engineer/producer/digital editor. He does make occasional forays
back into the arranging arena, something he's especially gifted at and known
for. But arranging is a very different ballgame from composing. I really
don't see us collaborating in that way.
AmbiEntrance: As principal trumpeter of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I'm assuming this is a bit of a crossover for David Bilger; Do you write his parts or does
he improvise? Do you play together or record your parts individually?
Bowles: I wrote everything out for Dave, but was very clear with him about the parts
where I wanted his playing to sound improvised. Basically, we recorded the
synth and then played that back through the headphones as Dave played and was
recorded himself. So in a sense we were playing together, but not
contemporaneously and not with the kind of immediacy experienced in a live
performance.
Nevertheless, there were subtle adjustments I would then make
in the mix, once Dave was incorporated into it, so there was definitely a
give and take for both of us.
AmbiEntrance: I'm really enjoying From the Dark Earth, but frankly, would prefer to hear more of your synth sounds than David Bilger's trumpet, as impressive
as it is. Would you describe the sound of your previous solo releases
(Blue Cosmos (1996), Inner Space (1993), and Solstice Dreams (1993))?
Bowles: Well, I can understand your preference....the fact that this is a trumpet and
synth album, and that the trumpet is a pretty forward-sounding and direct
instrument, may delight some with the tension that this combination creates
and distract others.
Anyway, getting back to Blue Cosmos, that release is
also an atmospheric and textural one, and fits well into the space music
genre. Inner Space was my first release, and while it also falls into the
space music category, it is more meditative in quality - a simpler album.
Soltice Dreams is a seasonal new age-ish album and grew out of a tradition
I had begun of composing and arranging Christmas tunes for friends and
family.
AmbiEntrance: Why do you think there are so few women involved in ambient/electronic recordings? Is there a gender bias, conscious or unconscious?
Bowles: That's a really good question. I honestly don't know. The fact that the
audience is predominantly male suggests that maybe women are not being
reached by this sort of music. On the other hand, I've noticed that some
outfits (distributors and retailers) that feature music for and by women are
not interested in supporting ambient/electronic music, regardless of whether
the composer is female or not.
So maybe there is an unconcious bias
somewhere...at least a bias against music which can sound "dark." Just
listen to the crappy soundtracks on the Lifetime Channel which bills itself
as "television for women," and you get the idea that the media has decided
that what women want is insipid, swoopy music with breathy vocals and 101
strings. I don't get it.
AmbiEntrance: If the Lifetime Channel commissioned you to do the music for their own promotional spots, what would you do with it?
Bowles: Okay, I'm going to try to suspend my disbelief here. All I can say is, if they didn't realize from the get go that they had the wrong person, they'd be in for a real surprise....
AmbiEntrance: How important do you feel your sex is to your artistry, or should that even be an issue?
Bowles: When I compose I'm not aware of identifying myself in any of my various roles
as a woman or an artist or whatever. There's simply a process that takes
over and demands that I open to it and serve it. For me, this creative
process contains both masculine and feminine elements, regardless of whether
the "channel" is male or female. I have a sense, though, that women may find
it intuitively easier to tune into the cyclical nature of the creative
process because of their own biology. At least, that's my guess.
AmbiEntrance: Do you get much feedback from female listeners? What are they saying
about your sounds?
Bowles: You know, probably 99% of the feedback I get is from men. Certainly that's
been the case so far for From the Dark Earth, and the response has been
overwhelmingly positive. Most listeners seem to feel transported by the
soundscapes into a different world, in a shamanic-like way. I feel very
fortunate that through a bit of divine inspiration and surrendering to the
process and a lot of very hard work I've been able to create a space for that
to be experienced by another.
AmbiEntrance: Tell us about your future musical plans... solo and/or collaborations; what's next?
Bowles: There's nothing definite as yet.....probably another solo release for
starters. But it all depends upon the Muses......
AmbiEntrance: Thanks for joining us at the AmbiEntrance; please keep us posted.
Bowles: Thanks for the questions!
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