Where This Idea Came From...

Describing the making of The Path of Peace - how it was conceived, what technology informed its development, how the artists worked, etc.

From pianist, Ben Dowling:

After the DVD specification was announced in 1995, I had this inspiration for a new way of combining music in surround with different traditional art forms - painting, dance, poetry, etc. But the technology for combining them was so expensive that I really couldn't commit the time and resources to making it happen. That changed when Apple Computer announced Final Cut Pro and the DVD Studio Pro software that permitted mere mortals to edit video and "author" DVD - combining video and audio into an interactive form.

At the time, I saw the multi-platform issue as being primary. Here was a technology that could play on PC's, Mac's and the new market of Home Theater playback systems. You could create a single product that could address all those people. While that is no longer such an issue today, it was a huge issue back then.

For myself, my interest was primarily musical. Surround-sound was a logical extension of the work I had done in sound synthesis with Korg Research and Development. And DVD actually introduced two expansions in audio - a new 5 speaker dimensionality for spacial placement (the 5 in 5.1), and an expansion of the low frequencies with the addition of sub woofers in Home Theater (the .1 in 5.1). I refer to these two vectors as "sonics and space."

As someone who had worked with comparatively crude sonic tools in the synthesis realm, this was very exciting to me - full bandwidth with extended bass and spacial placement. Wow. So I spent considerable resources to get a surround system for music production, and started getting acquainted with these new dimensions in sound.

The Surround Field

Here's where it gets interesting for me. I found that surround sound was such an extraordinarily powerful technology that it was easy to bombard the listener with too much input. It could easily become a form of sonic torture, rather than a useful creative expansion. The surround sound-field actually required a lighter touch to be effective. Of course, the movie industry had discovered that a long time ago, but as a synth programmer all those years, I was always looking for a bigger or more impressive experience.

What I discovered was that sonic density was not the friend of the surround sound-field. It required more space, and far less density. So music had to adapt in order to excel in this new environment. Thinking historically, this should not have been a surprise, but it was to me. No wonder stereo conceived music was not well suited to a "straight across" repurposing...

My first steps involved experiments with recording and mixing surround sound. And in the beginning, I focussed on the easier-to-manage synths in the studio. I would pan different sonic components to different areas of the surround field, experiment with different effects, phases on different speakers and the like. I found that it was a complicated area, due to the complexity created by speakers facing each other, bass management and other issues. And there just wasn't much information in the world as how to proceed at the time.

Why the Piano?

It was when I started experimenting with recording the piano where the breakthrough came. Here was an instrument that has thousands of reflections, a multi-octave chromatic resonator and is an incredibly complex natural system.

This brought me back to my roots as a pianist. I started exploring different ways of playing to achieve the space needed for this new environment. It needed to be interesting, yet slow. It relished complex harmony - even dissonance - but had to unfold in slow motion. It was particularly well suited to a "pedal down" approach where played notes would sympathetically excite the non-damped strings. But that required that the music develop "modally" rather than diatonically - and that risked being boring. The last thing I wanted was more vapid New Age music.

Over time, I developed a style of playing and improvising that resulted in the recordings made for The Path of Peace.

On a parallel, I was trying to come up with a concept for the work. What is the message of this music? Who does it speak to? What kind of visual imagery was the best fit for it? How was I to convey this idea clearly? I had released some of the music as an EP called, "Ahimsa." This is the term Gandhi used referring to the spiritual path of "harmlessness" - a concept very close to my heart. My friend and business partner, Kit Thomas was the one who suggested the name, "The Path of Peace."

The Development of the Visuals

So I had a name, a direction and some music, but I still didn't have the visual imagery, and I was totally intimidated by the size of that job. I borrowed photos from my friend photographer, Carl Studna, downloaded photos from NASA, even became a photographer myself, and started experimenting with using high-res scans and video editing software (Final Cut Pro) to move photos around slowly to match the character of the music. It was quite a process, but over time it became clear that I would not be able to do this on my own. Already, I had learned how to do interactive DVD authoring, and things were getting far too complex.

Again and again, I was overwhelmed with the scale of the project and tried to set it aside. But it would not stay quiet for long. In the middle of the night, I would be woken up with another inspiration about how to proceed. While I was perfectly happy to put this on a back burner for "someday," it seemed that the creative muse was unprepared to let this one go.

In mid 2005, after a year's hiatus, I was visiting my painter friend, Mark Wagner on a family trip to Northern California. He was showing me his extraordinary painting, and mentioned that he had been doing experiments in iMovie on his Mac. I decided to tell him about my project. He seemed mildly interested. I was more so...

I was able to convince Mark to join me on this journey. I told him how I had been experimenting with slow movement and multiple layers, and he took that and ran with it. The result of our collaboration is this incredible project known as The Path of Peace. I am so proud of our efforts, and of what it has the potential of doing in the world.

Conclusion

I think that ultimately, I realized this idea was not going to release me, and I gave into the process. Creativity is a funny thing. You don't have creativity, creativity has you. It's like a river that takes ahold of you and carries you as far as it is going - and often not in the direction of your desires and "petty needs" (like making a living).

From its first inspiration, the creation of The Path of Peace has been a seven year obsession. Not the whole time of course, but it has been a constant companion during these past seven years - becoming an actual part of my life and personality. So now that the creation is done, I'm not even sure who I'll be anymore!

I've always felt that music and art are the answers to the ills of the world - that the creative art's ability to transport someone to a new energetic is an important form of healing. It certainly is for me.

I truly hope that people will discover this incredible project. It is one of those rare instances when the planets align, and something extraordinary comes out. I love the fact that it is so fulfilling artistically, and yet it also has the capacity to serve people in a profound way as they experience the challenges of life.

Art as the Cure...

The Path of Peace has been an act of love and of faith, of commitment to excellence, a desire to heal, and to an expansion of artistic expression. It has also been a "right use" of technology - turning it from a controlling influence to one serving our humanity.

But mostly, it has been the ride of a lifetime.

Peace and love,

Ben Dowling
January 24, 2007

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