A Bhaskar Rao is an independent Composer, Academic and Writer. He explores minimalism and dissonance in audio and audio-visual composition, soundscape ecology, languages and poetry, human stories to create conventional and experimental experiences for design, research and storytelling.
Check out his work!
Recon episode on Migration: https://rec-on.org/onmigration.html
Sound blog: https://soundcloud.com/user-254478063/albums
While listening to a piece of music:
I am listening to a summation of sounds created by various means, brought together through composition. Perceiving this soundscape for me, is a process primarily rooted in just letting the sounds be on their own, and in the sanctuary that the composer has built for them. A process of accepting that something like music, happens when boundaries cease to exist or don’t exist at all, instead of dissecting the internal and external boundaries of its being, in the sonic sense or otherwise. I am learning to bridge the gap between hearing and listening.
I am constantly reminded of my own audio literacy. I try to understand that listening as a process is a result of careful conditioning of the auditory sense. That listening to music is an act of creating a repository of auditory knowledge, but at the same time it is a responsibility which should enable unlearning, and making space for newer dimensions and perspectives. I am questioning whether I am truly pursuing the listening process or is it just an act of consuming audio through my ears.
I am listening to a composition which encapsulates space and time. I am visiting and revisiting spaces and places, and accessing the past, present and future. All at once. I am observing manipulation of space and time, turn into a musical experience.
I am accessing a diverse range of natural and human made themes, through a medium which is a repertoire of its own history, course of development and progress. I am understanding the concepts of disciplinarities, through one of the most exhaustive and precise transdisciplinary mediums that exists.
I get fascinated by the unique ways in which people encode their literal and metaphorical voices, into musical compositions. What makes this more magical is the way these codes then seamlessly decode in my head, as if I am biologically programmed to listen to music and absorb the essence of it.
I am listening to musical systems. I am coming across the truth that in spite of originating from different parts of the world and belonging to different cultures and civilisations, these musical systems have a lot in common. It feels suggestive of a common source or a teacher which I like to believe is nature. What is also magnificent to experience is the subsequent ways in which these musical systems, subjected to different influences over time, have further developed in form and structure, to vast expanses. And as the cultures are becoming more and more hybrid, the steady rate at which diversification of music is still happening, makes it a crucial element of the living memory of which we all are a part of. I am learning about the modular nature of music and its responsiveness to growth and evolution.
I am listening to the technical pursuits that have accompanied the musical ones. The delicate relationship that these two domains have with each other has resulted into development of technology, which has shaped music making and production at innumerable instances. I am listening to the pathways that music and technology have tread together, and the impact this relationship has, on the way music making has progressed and is continuing to do so.
I am listening to the idea of shared realities. To the role of collective awareness of human state, in the perpetual pursuit for intercultural competence. I am listening to a medium which can reflect the subjective nature of truth.
But most importantly, I am listening to fellow human beings. I am listening to their social, political, cultural and environmental lineage, which they transform into musical building blocks and put forward a story to be shared. To the things we already know about each other and to the revelations we converse about and share in the musical language. I am listening to a fiction, the world of which is built around the collective consciousness that we share and also to the things which we want to keep devoid of any explanation and eventually turn them into our own intimate secrets. Each time I listen to a piece of music, I am understanding humanity a little better.
What are you listening to?
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