An airport prelude

May 19, 2023, 11:35 AM

"This is a loose piece built from a scene in an airport waiting area. The soundscape is sparse: low background conversation; the chirps of either birds or sneakers; an idly whistled tune; and toddler jargon - from a phase of speech where words are beginning to come into coherence. Those sounds provided the main musical cues and phrases. I started at the middle, learned and played the vocal phrases on a few different instruments, and then worked backwards to build the piece around them.

"Having recently spent my first day in airports since 2020, I was surprised at what seemed to be a slackened pace and generally lower tension than I remembered from pre-pandemic airports. Likewise this field recording, from the baggage claim at LAX, already seemed to have the feel of what Brian Eno called “a calm and a space to think.”"

Los Angeles LAX airport reimagined by John Savarese.

IMAGE: Andre m, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons