Description
Aiming to develop mood and atmosphere through mainly sound, instead of composition or structure. Style is heavily adopted into other genres.
- Although a large proportion of Ambient is instrumental, a lack of singing is not requisite
History
- Decade of origin:: 1960s, 1970s
“Brian Eno is generally credited with coining the term “ambient music” in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either “actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener”, and that exists on the “cusp between melody and texture.”
Avant-garde movements in art and music such as Impressionism laid the very early foundation of the artistic exploration of mood and atmosphere.
In the 1940s, Musique concrète, Electroacoustic, and related approaches pioneered the manipulation of recorded sounds, allowing artists to experiment with altered sonic textures and spatial effects.
Minimalism in academic music is a major influence on the use of repetition, sustained tones and meditative atmospheres as structural elements.
Krautrock, which used lots of Musique concrète techniques, was a major influence on the early development of Ambient.
Preceding genres
Musique concrète Krautrock Minimalism Electroacoustic
Exemplar
- Ambient, Electronic
Child genres
Fusion genres
Ambient Americana Ambient Noise Wall Ambient Techno Ambient Trance Dark ambient