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AMBIENT MUSIC

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( Sound & Space )

Today

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Brief look at how sound interacts with physical spaces.

A look back at music that is not the primary focal point. (background music)

Furniture Music, Muzak, ambient music, current music that draws on ambient traditions

The work and legacy of Brian Eno (David Bowie tangent)

Think about music itself as a technology.

Midterm Questions

I AM SITTING IN A ROOM (1970)

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ALVIN LUCIER

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording

the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room

again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce

themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception

of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant

frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so

much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out

any irregularities my speech might have.

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I AM SITTING IN A ROOM (1970)

plays at the limits of acoustics and perception.

Lucier’s words are recorded, played back into the room and rerecorded, over and over again, until the resonant frequencies

of the room completely refigure the words as sound.

A room is a filter, sound is influenced by space.

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ALVIN LUCIER

Room Acoustics

DIFFRACTION - Long waves will bend around objects.

ABSORPTION <---> REFLECTION

Hard surfaces reflect, soft surfaces absorb.

Short wavelengths become trapped in soft material - carpets, drapes, etc.

Reflected sound is REVERBERATION, a series of echoes, and reverberation

time depends on the size and material of the space

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Room Resonance

Constructive Interference: Two waves in phase, peaks and troughs line up - the resultant wave will have twice the amplitude.

Destructive Interference (aka Phase Cancellation): Two waves out of phase, the peaks and troughs summed together will cancel each other out.

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Resonance

resonating sound waves within a guitar

Resonance is also found in the "body" of musical instruments and in the voice.

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Reverberation

Natural - reflections caused by the resonant qualities of a space

Artificial - simulated digitally or through an analog system

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Reflections and Reverberation

Green = Direct Sound Red = Early Reflections (15 ms.) Blue = Secondary Reflections

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Studio Treatment for Room Resonance

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A History of Background Music

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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

Move towards impressions

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

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ERIK SATIE

Composer, preferred phonometrician

Dada

Listen: Gnossienne No. 3 - Lent (1893)

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

Listen: Gymnopédie No.1

without a rigid time structure — free time.

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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)

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 it’s own orchestra

as of 2010, Muzak distributes 3 million commercially available original artist songs, over a 100 channels and types of programming

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JOHN CAGE

4’33”

“[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

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LAURIE SPIEGEL

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

WENDY CARLOS

Sonic Seasonings

Mixed field recordings with modular synthesizers to create one of the first undoubtedly ‘ambient’ records.

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Brian Eno

Studied experimental and conceptual art.

Started using tape recorders to create sound art.

1969: Joined Cornelius Cardew’s 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.

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Discreet Music (1975)

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

Excerpt from Discreet Music

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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

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

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 card’s advice.

Gets everyone in the studio away from obsessing about the particulars and details and gets them working on the level of concept.

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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 Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)

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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...

DAVID BOWIE

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performance persona in the early-mid 70s

Ziggy made Bowie a pop culture icon

Listen: Starman from the 1972 Album Ziggy Stardust

ZIGGY STARDUST

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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 Low’s “Subterraneans”

Eno’s 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.

Invites you into the space, incorporates

Mysterious, uncertain (and thus genuine interest)

Induces calm and a space to think

Blankets with sound, covers up the space

Strips away all sense of doubt and uncertainty

Brightens the environment, stimulating

Canned background music (Muzak) Ambient Music

vs.

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so, what is ambient music?

and what does it have to do with music technology?

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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

It’s 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

Ambient Music Recap