Ambient music was once just an afterthought in electronic dance music; but during the 1990s, ambient artists like Aphex Twin, William Basinski, and Pinkcourtesyphone transformed its genre by crafting disintegrated tape loops with no clear tonal center or creating layers of noise without clear tonal patterns.
Today’s ambient music can draw on various techniques like modular synth exploration, field recordings and sampling to craft engaging sonic environments that transport listeners. Many compositions feature contemplative or meditative qualities.
What is Ambient Music?
Ambient music stands apart from mainstream genres in that it relies on soundscapes, textures, and drones to create mood and atmosphere – often creating an meditative and contemplative space where listeners can relax and reflect.
Ambient music encompasses a broad variety of styles and techniques from classical avant-garde to electronic, and may incorporate any number of techniques and instruments. Early ambient pioneers including Erik Satie, Morton Subotnick, and Terry Riley employed minimalist concepts into their compositions in order to explore uncharted musical forms beyond traditional genre boundaries. By mid-20th century this experimental style had inspired composers across genre boundaries (rock bands like Pink Floyd as well as krautrock musicians such as Tangerine Dream).
Recent years have seen ambient music’s embrace by artists and producers from all backgrounds. Its relaxing nature makes it suitable for meditation or relaxing purposes, while its minimal production methods allow for highly creative pieces. Ambient artists often employ digital or virtual instruments to build immersive soundscapes while experimenting with sound design or mixing techniques in order to produce desired effects.
As well as synthesizers, ambient music often makes use of acoustic guitar and electric piano washed out in reverb to add texture and depth to its tracks. Acoustic or electric guitars played with light touches can serve as close an equivalent melody as any ambient track can get; combined with slow tempos and droning tones they create an engaging listening experience for listeners.
Ambient music’s rise in popularity over the last several decades has coincided with an increasing cultural awareness around mental health and spirituality, making it a staple in yoga studios, massage therapy sessions, meditation centers, and any other forms of relaxation or mediation practices.
Ambient’s popularity has given birth to several subgenres. Ambient dub is a melodic form of ambient which draws influence from Jamaican dub music traditions; ambient house combines ambient’s rich layered sonic textures with four-on-the-floor beats from classic house and acid house music genres for an exciting listening experience.
What is Electronic Music?
Electronic music refers to any composition that utilizes electronic instruments, effects or recording devices for its composition. But it can also refer specifically to genres like ambient which use drones and atmospheric sounds to create an experience of space and time.
Recent years have witnessed an exponential surge in ambient music’s popularity due to technological developments and cultural trends that emphasize mindfulness and creating an immersive listening experience for listeners. Some fear, however, that ambient could cause sales for traditional genres with more intricate compositions and vocals to decline as it becomes increasingly mainstream.
New Age and Ambient music both developed during the ’60s as expressions of sound therapy; each style stemming from the concept that certain kinds of sounds could influence one’s state of mind or mood. While New Age sought to express traditional (romantic, classical) ideas by replacing orchestral instruments with synthesized sounds, Ambient used more experimental and less structured sounds.
Ambient music’s roots can be traced to French composer Erik Satie’s unique concept of “furniture music”, in which slow, unresolved chords and textures could serve as soothing background noise in homes or offices. His approach had an influenceful ripple-effect with contemporaries Debussy and Maurice Ravel who both composed ambient-inspired compositions.
Pierre Schaeffer popularized the term musique concrete during his experiments using recorded natural sounds altered or modified through manipulation and manipulation in order to form compositions, leading the way to modern electronic music and influencing Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel, both working in similar styles with electronically generated sounds blending seamlessly with more conventional orchestral arrangements.
As the 1990s and 2000s progressed, technologists and musicians began developing software that made creating music simpler. Products such as Ableton Live and Reason were made available, enabling virtually anyone with just a computer and piece of software to produce electronic music of their own.
As the century progressed, ambient artists like William Basinski and Pinkcourtesyphone used disintegrating tape loops to produce atmospheric sounds. Meanwhile, an increasing number of guitar-less electroacoustic practitioners like Lawrence English with drones, sounds, tones and tones; Rafael Anton Irisarri with noise, drones and found sound samples; Stars of the Lid; continued the trend of slow, droning building tonal music that looked back towards minimalism of the 70s but used modern techniques and equipment like effect pedals.
What is Ambient Electronic Music?
Ambient records were initially like musical wallpaper: gently melodic pieces that fused modern electronic sounds with natural ones (such as ocean waves, birdsong, and train whistles) to evoke an environment. Samples were rearranged and altered using digital effects such as pitch-shifting up or down, loops and various forms of delay to achieve the ambiance required for an ambience record – this ultimately established what we know today as ambient.
Ambient music’s cultural relevance reached new heights during the 1990s due to rave culture and British artists like Aphex Twin. His works, as well as those by Seefeel and Irresistible Force were used as dance floor accompaniment. Ambient provided an alternative to hard hitting beats that dominated rave dance floors while creating rooms or zones within warehouses where people could relax from its energy and noise.
Ambient’s early pioneers began exploring darker territories during this same timeframe. Dark ambience or drone music uses soundscapes that conjure feelings of fear and dread, popular among artists like Scorn’s Mick Harris and Current 93’s David Tibet; furthermore it borders industrial music and avant-garde noise.
Ambient’s core aesthetic, however, continues to develop over time. Artists worldwide continue to explore its subgenres as well as genres that borrow from it such as drone and electronica. American guitarist-songwriter Liz Harris of Grouper fame utilizes chorus and effects pedals on her guitar to produce dreamscape dronology that recalls thunderstorms, airport runways, or city streets in her music.
What is Electronic Ambient Music?
Ambient music can be an enjoyable, soothing experience that helps you focus and relax, even aiding with better sleep. Many are turning to ambient music due to the numerous benefits it provides – but what exactly is electronic ambient music? This genre uses synthesizers or other electronic instruments to create an ambience, making it distinct from other forms of electronic music by not featuring beats or melodies.
Brian Eno was one of the pioneers in ambient music when he released Ambient 1: Music for Airports in 1977, then followed it up two years later with Day of Radiance using both analogue synthesizers and acoustic instruments to create an ambient soundscape.
Ambient music was initially inspired by musique concrete, a French musical practice dating back to the 1940s that used a Buchla system for compositions characterized by experimental sounds. Early ambient musicians included new-age musician Laraaji who busked at Washington Square Park before being discovered by Eno; together, they would go on to collaborate on multiple albums together.
Modern ambient music continues to explore and experiment with sound and technique, expanding to encompass other genres like electronic dance music, minimalism and contemporary classical. Some ambient artists draw their inspiration from nature while others create more abstract soundscapings; many innovative artists working within this style use technology to push its limits further than ever.
Ambient music has seen an upswing in collaborations and blurring of genres. Genres such as techno, house, and even post-rock have adopted elements from ambient music into their compositions for greater reach and to bring in fresh ideas into ambient. This development can only serve to strengthen this genre’s future success!
Dark ambient is one of the more intriguing developments within ambient music, spanning industrial metal experimentalists (Scorn’s Mick Harris and Current 93’s David Tibet) all the way through Japanese noise artists (K.K. Null and Merzbow) to later-day indie rockers (Main, Bark Psychosis). This genre often features toned-down or completely missing beats as well as drones, eerie samples, effects pedal sonic manipulations.