: The 30-minute centerpiece, "Being & Doing," is explicitly inspired by John Coltrane's A Love Supreme . It functions as a musical meditation on life and death, attempting to capture the "ecstatic" experience of existing in time.
It is important to distinguish this musical work from the technical research of the same name (often associated with the University of Limerick and researchers like and Anthony Brabazon ). In the technical sphere, O'Neill is a leading figure in Grammatical Evolution —using evolutionary algorithms to "evolve" computer programs. While the album explores the "ontology of sound," his academic career explores the "ontology of code." Conclusion Michael O'Neill - Ontophony_iso
At its core, is a "passionate response to the unrealized potential of a deep tradition". O'Neill challenges the restricted expressive range typically associated with the bagpipes, moving beyond military or folk tropes into a realm of "duration, stasis, and change". : The 30-minute centerpiece, "Being & Doing," is
: While the works are sophisticated, they avoid being purely academic. O'Neill utilizes techniques like lowering drone notes to create major scales, as seen in "Luffness," which blends pipes with Japanese taiko, shakuhachi, and didgeridoo. In the technical sphere, O'Neill is a leading