Where’s the sound bath?
We used to, as a species, often take part in making music when we would come together. Everyone creating and contributing, it’s what we did. A bit like the piano in the pub with everyone singing along. Now music is something we consume, and to be a creator comes with a whole host of challenges, not least of which is validation.
When are you a musician? And when are you a successful musician? When your music is paying your mortgage, or to put it another way, when it’s your sole income and you’re not on the breadline… that’s the most commonly assumed measure of success, and by association, it’s also considered a measure of quality…
Ooof, there’s a lot of problems with that. But what dismays me most about this social expectation is just how many people “give up” music or don’t even dare to begin playing an instrument. It’s tragic. Because I believe that being creative, wether it’s drawing a doodle on a piece of paper or playing a power chord on a guitar through an amp with distortion, is simply one of the most rewarding actions we can make as humans to improve our wellbeing, physically and mentally. To be comfortable enough to express yourself without fear of criticism, it’s essential to being happy with who you are and to be ok with how you’re feeling. Hold that in and bad things happen, generally.
When it comes to music, we are now, more than ever, encouraged to consume other peoples music. The mad thing is that these days the technology that’s in your pocket, that ‘phone’, is one of the most engaging and powerful creative devices we’ve ever made. And there are hundreds and thousands of other devices and thingamabobs just like that. We’re just not very good at recognising their potential and giving ourselves the permission to enjoy them… because we’re not musically trained, or we never suffered the hardship of gigging around the UK in mid-winter sleeping in a cold van, suffering for our art… bollocks. Never mind that… just grab anything that makes a sound and play. You will feel better once you stop worrying about what other people will think if they were to hear you, stop judging yourself too, and just enjoy the process of creativity. We work hard these days, and we rest reasonably well (not enough though), but we hardly ever play! It’s considered frivolous, unnecessary… again, bollocks. Play is the first thing we forget to do as we “grow up”. And our imagination dies with it too, because the two are instrinsically linked.
I’m keen to keep the spiritual side of our retreats to a minimum, at least anything prescriptive. If folks want to meditate or do yoga at the retreat, they absolutely should, indeed we hope people might reach a meditative state while exploring sound and music using the contents of their Field Kit. It’s why we chose the devices we did. But it’s not something we are organising your time around on the retreat. It’s all a personal journey and we would rather folks were free to do as they pleased. We each hear and experience sound uniquely, we want to give you the time and space to explore your own journey, and if yoga helps you get there too, all power to you, we’re happy to help provide you with a mat and some space if you’d like.
We want to focus on sound, the environment and listening - on strategies and techniques that simplify and show how to engage with, control and explore sound in our environment and in the moment. Less about making albums/recordings, more about approaches to sound which are rooted in play and bring about the benefits of just playing around without worrying about output, recording levels etc.
Why Ambient? Ambient is so well understood and used these days. Just look at the popularity of the Calm app, using ambient music as a platform to help people enhance and control their own state of mind through sound. Well, we are doing the same thing but, instead of consuming other people’s sound, we want you to learn how to create, and enjoy playing with sound and music, We really believe this improves your mental and physical well-being. And if it doesn’t, at least you had fun trying!
We hope you’ll create your own sound bath, immersed in the sounds you are creating can be be as enriching as the traditional concept of sound baths. It’s just a different approach, a personal one, and we hope you’ll like it.
So that’s what Play All Day is really about, creating opportunities to play, with sound and music ideally but who knows what we’ll get up to in the future.
For now though, our Ambient Sound & Music Retreat and PlayFader* endeavours are simply made to create more opportunities to play. Nothing more complicated than that, no pretence, no judgement, no pressure, just plenty of encouragement to play, all day if possible.
*sorry it’s too soon to tell you more about this but the clue really is in the name, just as it is for most of what we do :) We should be able to share more about this during the summer though, sign up to our newsletter to be first to hear more.
I love this statement from Tim Exile, founder of Endless app, maker of awesome music and generally someone who inspires me with how he thinks of music.
“As creativity is set to be disrupted by AI, real-world experiences that bring us together and prove our humanity will become more and more important … The 21st century needs its answer to the piano in the living room or local bar, the instrument that brings everyone together whether you can play Chopin or Chopsticks or are just there to enjoy the masters at work…. our mission (is) to transform music from a product we consume alone to an activity we do together” Endlesss founder Tim Exile.