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

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Meffy quoth

CSound, as everyone knows, is the easiest, most mindless way to slap together a quick abmient/curnk/tarnce hit number by clicking a few buttons and throwing a lever. Everyone ought to try it.



That's all its good for. Music by numbers, that's all it is.

Although real crunkists use Fortran-IV. With Hollerith descriptors.

Naah, that's old skool - *true* crunkists use either JOVIAL or Modula-2. Tarnce producers also seem to have rediscovered APL!

[whyterabbyt]

psynus Hm. I'm not a big fan of ambient music so far. Maybe, I've not yet found the right CD to start with. What's a track/CD or whatever you would recommend for someone who wants to get to know this genre? Something I simply gotta listen to before I can say "I know ambient music"?

If you're talkin 'bout the sorta stuff like what the genre, such as it is, started with, then Eno's Music for Airports.

[x_bruce]

What is the fetish about styles?

I ask because when listened to, reviewers and listeners of various types of music and/or composers tell me what style my music is.

It's never the same and for me, and this applies to me as a philosophy, anything a artist wishes to do is good. If they have commercial responsibilities they have to consider how to meet the commercial and personal aesthetic involved.

I sometimes do demo songs. I pay no attention to "styles" other than what the synth inpires me to create.

I'm not sure why some people are committed to their specific music and hardly anything else. When I was 14 years old you couldn't talk about Wishbone Ash or Frank Zappa in a bad way without me going on a rant.

I still like what Zappa did and several Wishbone Ash albums, any guitarist could benifit listening to their "Argus" album to see what melodic players are capable of and how a band can be tight without hundreds of edits. Though I love the possibility I love more the spontanious aspect of music which seems to be quite dead in the electronic field, or at least it seems that way.

[Len9]

Oh there's clubs around that make opium dens look like Woolworths. Atleast in this town. And all they do is play 'ambient tones' all night. Wasted hotties that are trying to relax abound inside. I can only hope this style will spread for one and all.

where's THAT?!?
I'm in Toronto...
I could use something to do this weekend!

[whyterabbyt]

woolyloach quoth
Naah, that's old skool - *true* crunkists use either JOVIAL or Modula-2.

Losers. Oberon gives you phatter basslines...

Tarnce producers also seem to have rediscovered APL!

Coulda been worse, coulda been FORTH.

Though, I heard that Neubarten experimented with COBOL, insane buggers that they are.

[Meffy]

Fortran

APL

This is true, and vaguely embarrassing: Those are the first two computer languages I learned, as it happens. Late 1960s for the former, IMO 1971 for the latter.

This is true, but will sound like a lie: Back in the early 70s I wrote an APL program that played funky rhythms by spinning the typeball, typing characters, and performing various carriage movements on the IBM Selectric terminals (which we used to access a remote server via a branch of a new thingy called "DARPAnet").

This is a lie: A friend of mine, seeing the dancing typeball, went on to invent break dancing.

Meffy

[Steven West]

It's just 'a mode' is all X Bruce. A new non-industry marketed mode is all. Glad to see SOMETHING that takes on a life of it's own these days. We've been through the rock, the disco, the punk, the new wave, the grunge - all industry abused genres. With ambient - the industry won't barely touch it. So it will always be vurt's or Rob's or Whyterrabyts (I said it again - double cool!) and all. They set and control the motion, the expectations, the one on one with fans and non fans. So even people like Psynus and I feel we're getting something special (spatial?) out of it moreover than a overpriced Alanis Morrisette CD at HMV. These guys actually BEAT the industry.... For the moment. Tortoise or Alpine Ski Club may change that in the coming months.... And 'ambient' will go out like 'grunge'.

Psynus - my recommendation is Brian Eno's 'Discreet Music'. Much more informative on the origins of 'ambient' IMHO. And/or Wendy Carlos 'Sonic Seasonings'.

Imagine if I was a BIG fan of ambient?

[Har]

Ambient, like pretty much every other genre out there, has fragmented and splintered into various sub-genres as well ("dark ambient", "float-to-relax/Shirley McClaine ambient" , "old-skool ambient", "message-therapy-ambient", trace-ambient/techno-ambient/ambient-house/ambient-atmospheric-jungle/ambient-whatever/etc etc etc)...so all in all it's a pretty open-ended concept anymore that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Much in ths same way someone just calling their music style "rock" doesn't seem to really go very far these days in terms of explaining.

As for me, I've been doing various forms of "ambient music" since the early 80's or so, and still do quite a lot of (hence my website's name). The funny/ironic thing is, while I started out primarily as a keyboardist/synthesist...I actually tend to do very little if any ambient music using synths, but tend to instead use guitars and basses (and recently Stick) as my raw sound source and then go nuts with that. I seem to get a bigger cheap-thrill out of making non-obvious instruments "sound ambient" than using synths and samplers.

My own personal excuse that I use is: since I absolutely suck at playing anything fast on guitar, I decided to turn my weakness into a strength (or try to, anyway ), head off in the opposite direction, and try to make the most out of playing realllllllllll slowwwwwwwwww instead, and focus on the textures I could get out of the notes rather than the notes themselves.

I kinda liked how Mighty_Hero put it:

For me, I just love to be able to show you a scene with music, and I feel ambient covers this very easily.

I guess the main reason I enjoy doing this kind of music is that I personally like music that makes it easy to mentally picture a visual scene or image of some kind. And I tend to like doing that kind of thing more in a textural sense than a melodic one...so "ambient" seems to work well with that kind of direction.

[Steven West]

Sorry Len9 - more of 'speaks' (speakeasys) per say. Replacing 'raves' with a easier vibe. But there's a couple around the John/Richmond area I recall? One called 'The Velvet Underground', and another called 'The Living Room' I believe? And the good ol' Rivolli still has it's moments there. All I remember is I always wind up at The Devils Martini having to pee real bad!

Most awesome potential - Oasis at College/Spadina. The backroom is amazing! Was at a couple of poetry jams there. Perfect! And a few other joints in Kensington - keep your eyes opened.

[Steven West]

Interesting Har, there's THAT many types of ambient now? So it's kinda gone the way of 'Alternative Music' - which could mean Dayglo Abortions to Indigo Girls?

Sheesh - I thought ambient was ambient all this time?
Well there goes the neighboorhood!

[jens]

Is it because you can just load up a reaktor ensemble, press random, crossfade a few samples and call a tune?

imo you got a point...

(it's what I've been thinking every now and then )

[whyterabbyt]

Now, now jens. You're just being an armchair bastard again.

[jens]

[whyterabbyt]

[Sicklecell666]

That's gotta be the best emoticon KvR has..