Elaine Cheng
Instead of Dreams

Instead of Dreams is a collection of five pieces that explore compositional techniques in drone music. I put into practice what I had learnt in my research using a combination of analog and modular synthesisers as my sound source. The pieces took inspiration from drone legends such as La Monte Young and Éliane Radigue as well as more contemporary artists such as Caterina Barbieri and Celer. I also took some inspiration from early Western choral music coming from a trained choral background. As my work is constructed with lines of drone, I drew this from choral music being structured around polyphonic lines that weave together, beginning particularly with the cantus firmus. 

In this project, I began by looking at the historical origins of drone in Western experimental music practice and how it has been used. I discussed its usage in vocal Eastern European music as well as in Indian classical and Scottish bagpipe music. From there I explored ways in which drone can be engaged with whether through reduced listening, deep listening or meditation. I learnt that listening to drone can evoke a variety of emotions in the listener ranging from fear to escapism. I also looked at features of drone music such as a sense of timelessness, a lack of pulse and pitch, slow-changing sounds and time-stretching. I then went on to look at boredom which may be induced from listening to drone music that lacks dramaturgy and change. In one part of my analysis of drone, I drew a parallel with Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome; arguing that the drone music in Celer’s record Future Predictions has rhizomatic qualities within the tracks.

I found that using sounds from a similar palette helped to create my compositions and stretching out the sounds were an effective way to produce drone. I was also able to make use of the common concepts found in drone in my compositions such as those mentioned above.