Ambient

6.     Ambient. The term ambient music is a tautology if we hear music as being sounds that exist and move everywhere in our general vicinity. In that sense, all music is ambient. Technology and our modern living spaces lent Brian Eno the chance to formalize his invention of ambient music, something that in practice had been socialised already for some time. Merriam-Webster’s second definition of the word ambient is “music intended to serve as an unobtrusive accompaniment to other activities (as in a public place) and characterized especially by quiet and repetitive instrumental melodies.” Far from being background or elevator music, it was the start of an entire mode of composition, with its inspiration in Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No 1 (1888) and other such ‘modal’ music, and easily adapted by contemporary sound studios and computer programming. On the liner notes to ‘Ambient 1. Music for Airports’ (1978) Eno heralded a whole new way of thinking about music-making in general: “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.” Today it is an entire form in its own right, whether for meditation, elevation, or late-night study. Pictured is Bridie’s copy of ‘Ambient 4. On Land’ (1982) and her copy of the original ‘Apollo’ (1983), one of her favourites, music inspired by film and sounds of the moon landings; apologies for glare of the sun on the CD-case. April is walking across cherry-tree leaves.