KVR Audio

pHz · Post by **pHz** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 8:53 pm

(much like this thread is a bunch of drug-addled fuckwits describing abstract concepts)

slainte

rob

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:01 pm

herodotus wrote:Will someone, ANYONE, just tell me what the hell "Ambient" is? I mean, we have had 26 pages of arguing, but aside from a few examples (which were promptly laughed at, with no alternative examples proffered) I have no idea what anyone is talking about. The only thing that I KNOW as ambient is early Fripp/Eno stuff. Take it from there. (Please)

One working definition might be that the ambient style is music realized with a dual intent and dual purpose. It can serve as foreground listening or background listening. It need not be composed music, merely realized in some listenable form.

I recall that Eno referred to it lovingly as musical wallpaper.

I tend to think of it as music that makes the best use of these dominant elements: silence, long envelopes, unpunctuated events, and static formal structures.

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:26 pm

Thanks, Shane.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:34 pm

pHz wrote:(much like this thread is a bunch of drug-addled fuckwits describing abstract concepts)

slainte rob

i am not describing abstract concepts!

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:46 pm

I like to call some of my musical output scorched-earth ambient because there are damnbient* aspects to it, but the pieces evolve too much to be strictly ambient. Plus, they aren't generally soothing in the way that people often associate with ambient music. So I made up a term, being inspired by some of the styles that Michael Hedges used to make up for his own work, such as calling it savage myth guitar.

*I think that term was coined by Middle Pillar
http://www.middlepillar.com/

Robert Rich has done some of the best ambient works, imo. And there are artists who use singing bowls to great effect, too. I have a few of those albums, and they are incredible. Some of the work by Steve Tibbetts approaches ambient, but he's like me in that most of the time he can't sit still on one idea for an entire piece.

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:56 pm

herodotus wrote:Will someone, ANYONE, just tell me what the hell "Ambient" is? I mean, we have had 26 pages of arguing, but aside from a few examples (which were promptly laughed at, with no alternative examples proffered) I have no idea what anyone is talking about. The only thing that I KNOW as ambient is early Fripp/Eno stuff. Take it from there. (Please)

i would think that the 'father of history'
would just look it up ...

intel · Post by **intel** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:29 pm

SERVED

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:40 pm

Actually, we ancient Greeks don't have any dictionaries yet, hence my attempt to explore the oral tradition.

Now if only I could translate linear B, I could read the manual to this Cretan soft synth.

intel · Post by **intel** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 11:22 pm

I think you meant "cretin"

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 11:27 pm

so is this the room for the macrame class?

intel · Post by **intel** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:29 am

this is rigatoni. macaroni is down the hall on the left.

dburgan · Post by **dburgan** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:33 am

herodotus wrote:Will someone, ANYONE, just tell me what the hell "Ambient" is? I mean, we have had 26 pages of arguing, but aside from a few examples (which were promptly laughed at, with no alternative examples proffered) I have no idea what anyone is talking about. The only thing that I KNOW as ambient is early Fripp/Eno stuff. Take it from there. (Please)

THIS is ambient.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:36 am

herodotus wrote:Will someone, ANYONE, just tell me what the hell "Ambient" is?

Shane Sanders wrote:One working definition might be that the ambient style is music realized with a dual intent and dual purpose. It can serve as foreground listening or background listening. It need not be composed music, merely realized in some listenable form.

Shane's answer is good, but I've always had trouble with using the term ambient to denote a given style. I think it describes an aesthetic quality more than a style. Just as there is no real experimental style, just the experimental process.

That said, I think the main principle in ambient is that the music is made to become part of and reflect the ambience of a space. So that the music becomes part of the surroundings in much the same way the hum of a fan or footfalls or the chatter of crowds might.

What Eno called ambient grew out of the experimentalists and minimalists and process music, so the aesthetic tended to be one of limited progression. I think it sits best there, exploring simplicity and bare motifs, rather than when it's dressed up in harmonic progressions and world beats. But that's just me maybe, I have no stomach for stuff like Steve Roach.

Cheers,
Steve

So... Is ambient the new fashion or,,,