Distributed ambient music - an experiment

mosc

Here in Durham, almost every month the Triangle Synth Party hosts an Ambient Thursday event at Rebus Works, a local cafe and grocery in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm scheduled to play this coming Thursday.

Ambient music isn't formally defined to my knowledge, but to me it's music for the background that should be played without expecting the audience to listen with the same intensity or intent as they would do for a conventional musical performance. Thus, I think composer/performers should ratchet down their egos a bit and relax when people in the environment talk, or order a coffee, or make some other noise while we are playing.

I think the masters of ambient music are crickets, frogs, birds and similar musicians who inspire me to make music with no compelling need for reward or recognition. I also always feel encouraged to whistle along to my local birds' morning and evening choruses, and no bird has ever asked me not to join in.

I sometimes I bring little instruments to these ambient Thursdays for people to play along with me if they wish. To carry further this a little bit, I have written a little ambient music web app. At this coming Ambinet Thrusday I'm going to hand out little cards with the URL so people can load and play this little granular sample player. I'm hoping 10 or 20 people will launch this app and start making music along with me in the same manner as crickets or frogs. (The app includes samples from some of these fellow musicians).

Here is the URL to this little app: https://mosc.com/rebus/granular

To play, just touch the waveform window. There are come typical granular controls, but I'm thinking of removing them.

Give it a try. Let me know what you think. If there are bugs please let me know. What do you think of this idea? Feel free use this app.

qr-code (1).png

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https://mosc.com/rebus/granular

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Airlock · Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2026 8:59 am Post subject:

Using Brave browser (Linux) the waveforms collapse to zero volume over time; is this on purpose?

EDIT: app iPhone does not exhibit the above noted decrease in volume.

EDIT: do not remove the controls!

djfoxyfox

bachus

Way cool, Howard. The frogs are amazing! I think I'll croak Wink

mosc · Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2026 11:58 am Post subject:

djfoxyfox · Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2026 12:40 pm Post subject:

Audience Participation! It's been used and applied to many things. At least you won't run into any infringement issues.