This song is an example of how you can start down a musical path, realize you're moving in the wrong direction, and then turn the composition into something completely different.

It had been a while since I'd experimented with ambient music. As practiced by Brian Eno, ambient music can be very quiet and peaceful. It is often created by devising a system to create musical sounds, and then seeing what comes out when the system is activated. I decided to see what would happen if I recorded several layers of violins all playing different notes of a chord. By alternating when the violin bows scraped back and forth, I was able to create an unending pillowy violin sound. It was what I started out to do, but it felt incomplete. A nice effect in search of some context. A photograph with nothing in the foreground.

When Eno's example failed, I turned to another favorite composer, jazz artist Ornette Coleman. Coleman had made his name as a saxophone innovator (he played a plastic sax, a "toy" to most jazz critics), but then he picked up the violin. He taught himself to play the instrument, much as I have done, and began to use it in concert and on record. His violin style could best be described as expressionistic, as it brought a certain untamed, chaotic element to the music, but most people seemed to think he should have stuck to his original instrument. Despite that, Coleman still plays violin to this day, and he still sounds self-taught.

I thought of Coleman's example, and I overdubbed some frenzied violin solos over my pillow of noise, utilizing just about every sound generating trick I had in my quiver. I liked the result, but felt that the song needed a theme of sorts. I picked out a piece of improvisation that appeared to be a good hook, and I copied that into the beginning, middle and end of the song to provide a thematic element. I added a clavinet to the theme to make it stand out from the rest of the soloing. The remaining solo was then split into two parts and nestled between the three themes.

Some people may accuse this piece of being nothing more than a series of violin noises. When I listen to it, I hear something like I've never heard before. Not Eno, not Coleman, but something original. Not from around here, but from someplace else.

Rick Hines: electric violin, MIDI keyboard (clavinet, feedback), metronome.

Produced, arranged, engineered, edited, mixed and mastered by Rick Hines.

Recorded November 27, 2007-January 23, 2008 at Rick's Studio, Atlanta, Georgia.