Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 413 views

    13 AmbientMusic1

    Uploaded by

    weriwulf
    This document provides an overview of the history and development of ambient music. It begins in France in the early 20th century with composers like Debussy and Satie who focused on music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure. Pioneers of the genre include Erik Satie, John Cage, and Brian Eno who is considered a visionary of ambient music. Eno coined the term "ambient music" and created seminal albums like Discreet Music and Music for Airports. The document also discusses other influential ambient artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Aphex Twin, and more recent artists like Novelle and Tim Hecker.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    13 AmbientMusic1

    Uploaded by

    weriwulf
    413 views36 pages
    This document provides an overview of the history and development of ambient music. It begins in France in the early 20th century with composers like Debussy and Satie who focused on music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure. Pioneers of the genre include Erik Satie, John Cage, and Brian Eno who is considered a visionary of ambient music. Eno coined the term "ambient music" and created seminal albums like Discreet Music and Music for Airports. The document also discusses other influential ambient artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Aphex Twin, and more recent artists like Novelle and Tim Hecker.

    Original Description:

    Ambient Music

    Original Title

    13_AmbientMusic1

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document provides an overview of the history and development of ambient music. It begins in France in the early 20th century with composers like Debussy and Satie who focused on music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure. Pioneers of the genre include Erik Satie, John Cage, and Brian Eno who is considered a visionary of ambient music. Eno coined the term "ambient music" and created seminal albums like Discreet Music and Music for Airports. The document also discusses other influential ambient artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Aphex Twin, and more recent artists like Novelle and Tim Hecker.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    413 views36 pages

    13 AmbientMusic1

    Uploaded by

    weriwulf
    This document provides an overview of the history and development of ambient music. It begins in France in the early 20th century with composers like Debussy and Satie who focused on music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure. Pioneers of the genre include Erik Satie, John Cage, and Brian Eno who is considered a visionary of ambient music. Eno coined the term "ambient music" and created seminal albums like Discreet Music and Music for Airports. The document also discusses other influential ambient artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Aphex Twin, and more recent artists like Novelle and Tim Hecker.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 36

    AMBIENT MUSIC

    France, Turn of the Century


    Claude Debussy (left) & Erik Satie (right)
    Counterpoint to the drama of the late romantic period
    Music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure
    moving without a specific destination

    France, Turn of the Century


    Claude Debussy (left) & Erik Satie (right)
    Counterpoint to the drama of the late romantic period
    Music as an environment rather than a dramatic structure
    moving without a specific destination

    ERIK SATIE
    Composer, preferred phonometrician
    Dada

    Listen: Gnossienne No. 3 - Lent (1893)


    Gnossiennes are without time signatures or bar lines, free time.

    ERIK SATIE
    Composer, preferred phonometrician
    Dada

    Furniture Music:
    not a centerpiece, but a backdrop
    Listen:
    Furniture Music, Part 2: Tapestry of Wrought Iron: for the arrival of
    the guests (Grand Entrance)(1917)

    JOHN CAGE
    433
    [it is] more possible to live affirmatively if you find the sound of the
    environment beautiful.
    Listen: Sonatas for Prepared Piano

    LA MONTE YOUNG
    Dreamhouse
    Standing waves and static drone textures

    WENDY CARLOS
    Sonic Seasonings
    Mixed field recordings with modular synthesizers to create one of the
    first undoubtedly ambient records.

    LAURIE SPIEGEL
    Early experiments with computers driving synthesizers, creating long
    works focus on texture

    MUZAK LLC
    A company that created, arranged and sold background music
    Became prominent in the 1930s, was still popular through the 60s,
    and still exists today! (bought by Mood Media)
    Would score the workday in an effort to maintain productivity (a
    technique it called "Stimulus Progression")
    Company had its own orchestra
    as of 2010, Muzak distributes 3 million commercially available
    original artist songs, over a 100 channels and types of programming

    Brian Eno
    Studied experimental and conceptual art.
    Started using tape recorders to create sound art.
    1969: Joined Cornelius Cardews Scratch Orchestra
    1972: played in the glitter rock band Roxy Music as their engineer,
    eventually playing synthesizer.
    Tired of the commercial music scene, he left the band in 1973 and
    created dozens of solo and collaborative albums (David Bowie,
    David Byrne, John Cale, Talking Heads, U2, etc).
    He is known as a visionary record producer, adding his unique
    sound and experimental approach to popular music.

    Discreet Music (1975)


    Eno began his exploration of ambient music with
    Discreet Music (1975), but his real
    breakthrough was with 1978s Ambient I: Music
    For Airports.

    Excerpt from Discreet Music

    MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS

    (1978)

    Piano, arp, reverb... recorded musicians separately, cut them at


    random, looped them and mixed them together.
    Listening: Brian Eno, 1/2, Ambient 1: Music for Airports, 1978

    "Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of


    listening attention without enforcing one in particular: it must be as
    ignorable as it is interesting." - Eno

    OBLIQUE STRATEGIES
    Influenced by Cage, Eno became interested in Chance Operations
    Oblique Strategies are aphorisms on cards that are pulled up at random
    during recording sessions to "check the path of least resistance in the
    studio."
    Eno published a set of 113 cards (with a painter friend). Participants in
    studio must follow the cards advice.
    Gets everyone in the studio away from obsessing about the particulars
    and details and gets them working on the level of concept.

    Examples:
    Honor thy error as a hidden intention
    Reverse
    Go Outside. Shut the door
    Emphasize flaws
    Once the search is in progress, something will be found
    Take a break
    Regard your limitations as secret strengths

    Enos Ideas about Ambient Music

    Eno contrasts canned music (or muzak), which tries to cover up surrounding sounds,
    with ambient music, which is intended to enhance the sounds of the environment.

    Canned background music (Muzak)

    Ambient Music

    Blankets with sound, covers up the space

    Invites you into the space, incorporates

    vs.

    Strips away all sense of doubt and uncertainty

    Mysterious, uncertain (and thus genuine interest)

    Brightens the environment, stimulating

    Induces calm and a space to think

    so, what is ambient music?

    and what does it have to do with music technology?

    Producer as Artist
    Eno thinks of himself as a technician rather than
    musician.
    He has been brought in as a full artistic
    collaborator and producer for bands including
    Genesis (Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), Devo,
    Talking Heads (and later David Byrne), Laurie
    Anderson, U2, Coldplay, and Grace Jones.

    Excerpt from A Secret Life from Eno and Byrnes My Life


    in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)

    DAVID BOWIE
    In the late sixties, Bowie began to make experimental works with
    tape collage
    He created the stage character Ziggy Stardust in 1972, exploring
    themes of alienation, gender, space travel and artificial
    intelligence.
    Over the course of his career, Bowie moved between styles and
    influences, including rock, ambient, disco, avant garde, glam and
    punk
    inspired by the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, Steve Reich, and
    of course, Eno
    His first hit was Space Oddity in 1969...

    ZIGGY STARDUST

    performance persona in the early-mid 70s


    Ziggy made Bowie a pop culture icon
    Listen: Starman from the 1972 Album Ziggy
    Stardust

    The Berlin Trilogy

    (1977-79)

    In 1977, Bowie went to Berlin to kick a drug addiction


    while there he made three influential albums with
    Brian Eno:
    Low (1977) - Heroes (1977) - Lodger (1979)
    Side B of Low contained primarily long electronic
    tracks without vocals.

    Excerpt from Lows Subterraneans

    The Berlin Trilogy

    (1977-79)

    Low peaked at #2 on the UK charts.


    Phillip Glass used the album as inspiration for his
    1992 Low Symphony, a collaboration with Bowie
    and Eno; later followed by Heroes Symphony.

    Excerpt from Lows Weeping Wall

    The Berlin Trilogy

    (1977-79)

    Heroes features guitarist Robert Fripp.


    When John Lennon started working on on his Double
    Fantasy album, he was quoted as saying I hope to do
    something as good as Heroes.
    The title track is one of Bowies best known songs.

    Excerpt from Heroes

    Ambient Music Recap

    Ambient Music often focuses on the timbre, changes in the quality of the sound rather than the traditional
    focus of rhythm, melody and harmony.
    Often evocative of a place, atmosphere, visual or environment.
    Not music from the environment but music for the environment - Eno
    Its typically less-dramatic, and often non-linear, without clear directionality.
    It has roots in the work of John Cage, Wendy Carlos, La Monte Young and the minimalist composers.
    It spans aesthetics ranging from Sound Art to Dance Music
    matured as a genre through the work and writing of Brian Eno

    Later and Current Ambient Music

    Since Eno, Ambient has grown and divided into more specific categories:
    Industrial, Drone, Isolationism (post-metal), Ambient Dub, Space Music, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo,
    new-age music, meditation music, ethno/ambient.
    Vangelis (film composer) and Jean-Michel Jarre (pop composer) were two of the most and prolific later
    ambient composers.
    Later lectures - Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream brought ambient ideas to the german scene in the 70s

    JEAN MICHEL JARRE


    worked at the GRM Studios in Paris with Pierre
    Schaeffer in the late 60s where he leaned to tape
    manipulation techniques and discovered the Moog
    Synthesizer.
    Later, worked in the Cologne Studio under the direction
    of Stockhausen.
    He achieved international fame with his concept
    album, Oxygene. The six movements, simply titled I, II,
    II, etc., lasted the entire length of the record.
    Jarre composed the album using an array of
    synthesizers and an 8-track tape recorder set up in his
    kitchen.

    Without titles, and a singer, no record label would touch


    it.
    The album ended up #2 on the UK charts and sold 12
    million copies, the best selling French recording of all
    time.

    OXYGENE (1976)
    JEAN MICHEL JARRE
    Combining ambient ideas with pop music, Part IV
    starts and ends with space atmospheres. It is the
    best known single, and a variation on Kingleys
    Popcorn.
    Excerpt from Oxygene IV

    JEAN MICHEL JARRE


    ARP Synthesizer, EMS Synthi AKS, VCS 3 Synthesizer
    (pictured), RMI Harmonic Synthesizer, Farfisa
    Professional Organ, Eminent 310U, Mellotron and the
    Rhythmin' Computer (later revealed to be a Korg
    Minipops-7 rhythm machine) & laser harp
    His 1979 outdoor concert at the Place de Concord in
    Paris, celebrating Bastille Day, set a world record for
    attendance - over 1 million, with 100 million
    television viewers worldwide. Equinox

    VANGELIS
    Film composer and synth virtuoso
    1981 academy award for Chariots of Fire score
    declined an offer in 1974 to join Yes, after the
    departure of Rick Wakeman.
    Prolific composer: 52 albums, mostly of electronic
    music, and many film scores, including Chariots of Fire
    (Academy Award Winner), the PBS Cosmos series, and
    Blade Runner.

    APHEX TWIN

    Aphex Twin (Richard James) began building synthesizers and


    studying electronics at age 15.
    1991, released his first EP, Analogue Bubblebath, which was acid
    house techno.
    1992, released Selected Ambient Works 1985-92, which received
    critical praise.
    Aphex Twin extended the limits of ambient music by adding beats
    and bass lines to lush textural tracks.

    Excerpt from Selected Ambient Works' Xtal

    RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
    Began his music career with the Yellow Magic Orchestra
    Composes music for films and games, and collaborates as a pianist
    and keyboardist with other composers and engineers

    excerpt from Duoon, off the album Vrioon, collaboration with Alva Noto

    NOVELLER

    (SARAH LIPSTATE)

    Guitar-based Ambient/Drone/Noise/etc
    Performs live using various pedals effects, delays and
    reverb, mics the amp.
    Listen: St. Powers from the album Paint on the Shadows

    TIM HECKER
    Digital drone/ambient/noise
    Performs live with a laptop
    First and foremost, Im a studio musician. My main skill
    is making studio artifactsrecordings. Having said that,
    I enjoy playing live, and I do with great interest and
    intensity. Its a totally different thing for me than making
    CDs.
    Listen: Hatred of Music from the album Ravedeath,
    1972

    CAROLINE PARK
    Right here at Brown in the MEME program
    Ambient process music combining automated systems
    with manual control, steering the system
    Custom software built in Max/MSP
    Listen: Octavluv (excerpt)

    MIDTERM TEST ON 10.31

    (SCARY, RIGHT?)

    People/Groups (examples: John Cage, Delia Derbyshire, The Beach Boys, Wendy Carlos)
    Technologies and Instruments (examples: Theremin, DX-7, Minimoog, Phonograph)
    Terms and Concepts (examples: frequency, additive synthesis, low-pass filter, sampling rate)
    Listening (Artist/Group, Date (within 2 years either way), technological processes employed)

    You might also like