Ambient Music

The perfect combination of taste, sense, and sensuality, ambient music is an aesthete way of composition. Ambient music is considered the most elusive genre of music. It is hard to pinpoint its exact definition. The sound produced to create ambient music is a beautiful combination of tone, texture, and timbre previously unheard of in any genre of music.

Ambient music originated in the 1970s when people wanted a break from thrashing hard rock and nauseatingly chipper disco. Then, it was a way for people to let their hair down and just chill- but it has come a long way since then.

Now artists making ambient music are true innovators, experimenting with instrumentality and synth to curate creative compositions that don’t really exist in any other genre. The whole point of ambient music is to create a pure, sensory experience.

Ambient music is not a very mainstream genre. It also differs from other musical genres because its origin can be traced back to a singular artist, Brian Eno. Ambient music is his brainchild, which was then adapted by other artists.

Ambient music creates a sense of heightened awareness in its listeners. It caresses your senses, sending waves of pleasure through your mind, calming anxious and unhappy thoughts, and lulling the senses into a feeling of calmness and security.

Many different artists are creating ambient music today as it defies any singular genre. R&B powerhouses like King and Solange have put their own spin on ambient music along with the electronic styling of Caterina Barbieri and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

It is authentic music of moods and has branched out into various sub-genres such as ambient techno, ambient dub, ambient jazz, and ambient lounge.

The essence of ambient music is in its name; it creates a certain ambiance of serenity and peace. It has an interesting backstory as well. Brian Eno was recovering from an accident and confined to his bed. He started listening to a record of harp music, but it didn’t sound good to him at all. The amplifier’s volume was very low, with one channel not working at all.

He was too tired to get up and fix his mistake. He discovered that music played at a low volume seemed to dissolve into the environment around him- becoming a part of the ambiance. This realization would help him create some of the best ambient albums of all time, such as Ambient 4: On Land.