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Ambient music

Ambient music
Sounds of natural habitats are common in YouTube uploads of ambient music, with their thumbnails typically having images of landscapes and/or space, to attract listeners.
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1960s–1970s, United Kingdom, Jamaica (dub music)[2] and Japan[3][4]
Derivative forms
Subgenres
Fusion genres
Other topics

Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. Often "peaceful" sounding and lacking composition, beat, and/or structured melody,[5] ambient music uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening,[6] and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation.[7][8] The genre evokes an "atmospheric", "visual",[9] or "unobtrusive" quality.[10] Nature soundscapes may be included, and some works use sustained or repeated notes, as in drone music. Bearing elements with new-age music, instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.[11][12]

The genre originated in the 1960s and 1970s, when new musical instruments were being introduced to a wider market, such as the synthesizer.[13] It was presaged by Erik Satie's furniture music and styles such as musique concrète, minimal music, Jamaican dub reggae and German electronic music, but was prominently named and popularized by British musician Brian Eno in 1978 with his album Ambient 1: Music for Airports; Eno opined that ambient music "must be as ignorable as it is interesting", however, in early years, there were artists that were pioneers in this genre, like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Wendy Carlos, Kraftwerk, etc.[14] It saw a revival towards the late 1980s with the prominence of house and techno music, growing a cult following by the 1990s.[15]

Ambient music did not achieve large commercial success, being criticized as everything from "dolled-up new age, ... to boring and irrelevant technical noodling".[16] Nevertheless, it has attained a certain degree of acclaim throughout the years, especially in the Internet age. Due to its relatively open style, ambient music often takes influences from many other genres, ranging from classical, avant-garde music, experimental music, folk, jazz, and world music, amongst others.[17][18]

  1. ^ a b Drone is now classified as a subgenre of ambient music, but early drone music influenced the origin of ambient. See the other note from Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music (Cook & Pople 2004, p. 502), and the note from Four Musical Minimalists (Potter 2002, p. 91).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference eem was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference weekender was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference vice was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003.
  6. ^ Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy Listening & Other Moodsong by Joseph Lanza, Quartet, London, 1995.
  7. ^ Crossfade: A Big Chill Anthology, Serpents Tail, London, 2004.
  8. ^ "Ambient music". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2018-02-12.
  9. ^ Prendergast, M. The Ambient Century. 2001. Bloomsbury, USA
  10. ^ "Ambient". Dictionary by Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2015-04-20.
  11. ^ "Ambient". Cambridge Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2018-02-12.
  12. ^ George Grove, Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Macmillan Publishers, 1st ed., 1980 (ISBN 0-333-23111-2), vol. 7 (Fuchs to Gyuzelev), "André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry", p. 708: "in L'épreuve villageoise, where the various folk elements – couplet form, simplicity of style, straightforward rhythm, drone bass in imitation of bagpipes – combine to express at once ingenuous coquetry and sincerity."
  13. ^ Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 185. ISBN 0-472-08942-0.
  14. ^ Eno, Brian. "Music for Airports". Hyperreal Music Archive. Archived from the original on 29 January 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  15. ^ "Music Genres". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 2012-02-13.
  16. ^ Cooper, Sean. "Ambient". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 2011-11-14. Retrieved February 19, 2025.
  17. ^ New Sounds: The Virgin Guide To New Music by John Schaefer, Virgin Books, London, 1987.
  18. ^ "Each spoke, tracing a thin pie-shape out of the whole, would contribute to the modern or New Ambient movement: new age, neo-classical, space, electronic, ambient, progressive, jazzy, tribal, world, folk, ensemble, acoustic, meditative, and back to new age... "New Age Music Made Simple Archived 2010-04-05 at the Wayback Machine

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