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Freeplay: Kenneth Kirschner
By Joshua Smith
jsmith293@mscd.edu

Kenneth Kirschner is not a familiar name in the music industry.

As an obscure composer in an esoteric style, Kirschner’s contributions to abstract, experimental electronic music haven’t exactly made him famous, but he has quietly released a prolific body of beautiful, emotional music. A champion of the Creative Commons school of music distribution, he makes his music freely available for download. A huge retrospective of his released and unreleased work, stretching back to 1989, is available on his website.

This chronology is easy to follow, as Kirschner titles each of his songs with the date on which it was created, allowing it to be placed within the timeline of his career. Focusing primarily on ambient music, his compositions range from sparse microsound compositions to large, all-encompassing walls of sound.

Along with his more traditional music, Kirschner offers what he calls Indeterminate Pieces. These are pieces of music put together through layered MP3s that, once triggered through a small Flash application, can play indefinitely, existing as organic pieces of constantly changing music.

One of the more recent pieces of Indeterminate Music available on the site is “5/3/05,” a haunting minimalist piece, primarily composed of short snippets of piano and washes of ambient sound.
Many of Kirschner’s offerings are the perfect background for study sessions, unobtrusive yet engaging. Listening to “5/3/05” for 15 to 20 minutes offers continual variation in the pieces of music that make up the release. There are bits that seem familiar, but the context in which they are presented changes each and every time.

Some of Kirschner’s music explores the genre of microsound, which prompts the question: “OK, what’s that?” Microsound is a growing style of music in which a composer processes and manipulates milliseconds of sound until an entire piece is built.

“4/17/06” is a perfect example of this style, with tiny noises stretched infinitely into tones and shapes, creating a sprawling wall of sound. With minimal use of sound and structure, Kirschner shapes an emotionally compelling piece of music perfect for late-night contemplation or, to be honest, going to sleep.

Ambient and microsound have long been hubs for pretentious chin-scratchers and intellectual know-it-alls with an ear for the obscure and inaccessible. Kirschner’s music and his open, friendly personality offer a perfect gateway into a genre of music that most find daunting to appreciate.