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Why is ambient super popular (for iOS Producers)?
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Oh I figured you were there. That "you" was for another you!
+1 - I'm not so sure ambient is all that popular with iOS producers, but it appears to be here on the AB forum.
It depends on how you look at it. Of course, ambient can be musical and complex. But I also think it is true that ambient is a catch-all label for our noodling, experiments, and um... aspirational compositions.
Personally, I think ambient music is too diverse to neatly classify.
Genres, and to a greater extent, subgenres give me a headache. Like others here, I recently started getting into some downtempo genres which includes ambient. Not everyone will agree with that classification, but I think Music Lab does a pretty good job of breaking it down in the video below.
There is a also a British contingent here whose conception of ambient will relate to Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, and other pioneers.
hint: in my case the „guitar“ only started to work once I stopped trying to learn with tabs, scores or whatever.
Felt like torture with almost physical pain... and I don‘t mean strings cutting into skin here.
There was an initial curve to get the motoric going, of course (maybe 6 months to 1 year) but playing only what entered my mind and extending it the way that felt right at that point in time was a rewarding experience... and quite relaxing, too.
Actually it wasn‘t unlike to what may happen with an electronic sequence or a noise pattern when that fx takes the session to another level (whatever reverb, delay, filter, modulation it may be) and your mind starts floating with the sound.
It mainly takes endurance and repetition to make muscle memory match melody and rhythm ideas. The trick is a natural avoidance of comparison (as to be experienced with a Hendrix solo f.e.) because there is nothing to compare
"Why is ambient super popular (for iOS Producers)?"
This is more of a personal story. While I mostly produce EDM and Trance and Pop, Ambient takes me back to my college days a couple decades ago when I was first introduced to Brian Eno. I was like "Holy fuck. Music can be like this?! No, this isn't music, is it? It is?" And the more I learned about creating "Art Music" genres such as Musique Concrete, Electroacoustic, etc, the more I became fascinated with Ambient in general.
And so college assignments were an absolute breeze. I went to freesound.org and selected a longer sound and a couple shorter sounds for punctuation purposes. Stretch it, mangle it, mutate it beyond recognition through various effects and automation. Or I'd take Absynth, set up modulation routing (LFOs!), automation and such, and pressed "play". I scored A's across the board.
Ambient music, Musique Concrete, Electroacoustic music, experimental soundscapes, etc, are FUN to produce. Well, I also have fun with EDM, Trance, etc, but those genres stereotypically follow certain conventions and standards. Ambient is more free and open to experimentation.
What Ambient do I recommend? My (unpopular?) opinion, but "Thursday Afternoon" is still my favourite of Brain Eno's, and I also love Jean-Michel Jarre's "En Attendant Cousteau". Also, BT's "This Binary Universe" is exquisite, but I am pissed that it still hasn't been released to Spotify. C'mon BT! The album is 15 years old now.
I think ambient takes many forms: Satie’s compositions, the Barron’s scores, In A Silent Way, ragas, Klaus Schultz’s work, Metal Machine Music, Discreet Music, lots of Charlemagne Palestine, Branca, Rhys Chatham, Sonic Youth, Band of Susans...loud or soft, fast or slow, electronic or physical...it’s all good.
I apologize, i just woke up when I read that and did a double take.
The limitations of the platform don't effect ambient music making in a negative way and even enhance it in a creative way.
Woah, good stuff!
Great post.
So why this situation?
@BCKeys This is probably a different discussion, although it is related to ambient, but I can’t help and jump in to agree with you.
Audio is badly neglected in IOS. By audio I mean audio signals going in, external sources. That is, guitar, vocals or any of that. Take the past 5 years and the huuuge advance in iOS music. Synths, modular, Drambo, sequencers, multiouts, 30000 effects... How has audio recording or editing advanced?. There’s still no proper way to handle audio in Aum and DAWS are soso.
If you think about it... ancient Loopy is still the most robust, best thought of audio app on iOS. Nothing has surpassed Loopy as an audio recording and player app with a touch specific interface and a solid workflow. And what worries me is that there haven’t been many attempts either.
Linking this to Ambient... as a more indie, punk, rock guy my personal “ambient” mood is doing Kraut-like improvs. Wouldn’t you say Kraut is like ambient on amphetamines?. Same vibe, just loop, layer and build on top.
Absolutely not, but it should be fairly easy to distinguish a gem from a flint if you have a good ear and an open heart. I’ve heard trained musicians play absolutely atrociously and little kids naturally killing it.
I feel that most categorisations of music fall flat on their face, especially since it started intermixing at some point towards the end of the last century. Music is music. It’s always been used by us humans in a functional way, be it to dance to, be sad with, express frustrations. It’s a tool and we’re all using it to best of our ability whether we’re listening to, or actually making it.
I don’t think learning to play an instrument is necessarily a means to an end of performing. It could be a way of working on self discipline, finding gratification in experiencing actual physical object reacting acoustically as opposed to some virtual waveform. Playing actual instruments brings in the social aspect of easily making music with other human beings, bringing it back to basics: singing, playing guitar, banging on a drum. I find I get saturated by making music with machines while playing with my band is always an exiting experience.
This has been touched upon a few times on this forum. Many here are absolutely not interested in performing or excelling at this or that but use making electronic music because they simply like doing it.
For many of us sound loving humans, making music on an iPad makes for a great retirement plan.
....albeit I’d rather retire in a company of other human beings playing actual instruments around the camp fire. Each to their own I guess.
There is a syndrome me and friends joke about where back when at live shows. It was clear to us in electronic scene who was just Doing the DJ thing (which is fine) but not live electronics. So to me its like this: Is the artist doing doing their thing, and at least playing some non frippertronics? Then its ace. DJ's seemed to hate the live Etron guys cause of all the gear and wires and work, but in the end we will be on top. In my mind world anyway. I mean I just like live real ambient, but there has to to be 'something; else unique besides the pad synth with delay looped for 30 min.
This is apparently the way to do ambient:
@supadom : thank you for your thoughts on my comments, I broadly agree.
I guess I was reacting to the suggestion percolating some comments on this thread that ambient music is almost by definition ‘easier’ and therefore necessarily ‘less than’ other forms where technical mastery of a musical instrument and some degree, intuitive or otherwise, of musical theory were prerequisites to making ‘real’ music. I struggle with the knowledge that I am not a natural musician, and that my lack of innate ability and learned skill with actual instruments do, in fact, constrain what I am able to achieve when I set about one of my noises. I know that if I had a greater understanding, I would be able to do more. Weirdly though, I also fear acquiring that knowledge of what is proper, in case knowledge of form constrains the free form explorations I enjoy so much.
Is it just that ambient musicians make more noise on the forum?
Be insane and not proper with synths and electronics I say, I mean thats where I am at with my lil volca modular not to mention Mi Rack or drambo ! I am just connecting things that may or may not work. I know like CV GATE MIDI and just the basics so I guess with drone or ambient just muck about, and the flow will find you if you can bare the initial phase of overwhelm (in my case). Just getting some gear and or computer iPad rigged up proper for a live show can be nuts. I struggle with the computer only music, but then again Autechre is like my fav band (one of) But then again too the shows where they used electron hardware with comps or not was best ever. Like I think it was lawless, daw less shows that were love or hate. I cant even remember their LPs as after they lost their mind they released so much music well for a life time of study and or enjoyment. I have not slept so sorry if I go in weird directions... I also need grammerly BAD@!
To make it clear > @Svetlovska said:
To be clear by the way, when I agreed with someone earlier who said ambient is popular because it is easier, this was in no way meant to disparage ambient or, for that matter, easiness! It's also not to say that there can't be great skill involved in making ambient.
But also - tools shape what gets made. I think when people gravitate towards something like AUM, the lack of a timeline and the ease of setting up complex fx chains lends itself well to noodling, and ambient is definitely great for noodling and experimenting with fx.
Also, if my youtube viewing stats are anything to go by, my vids are mostly watched by people 40 years old+. Definitely my own music taste has mellowed, for the most part, over the years.
That, plus what others have mentioned - in such a terrible and stressful few years of international strife - even before covid, things were pretty shit - ambient definitely had an appeal. Who doesn't need a bit of escape and destressing.
And last but not least, ambient is lovely stuff. Well, it can be anyway. It can also be pure by-the-numbers mindnumbingly boring tosh....
Haha, I don’t do ambient so no offence here
I am of a multi-instrumentalist with no formal musical education beyond masters in music therapy which focused mostly on musical interactions between humans.
I don’t think that’s right. You can do all sorts of stuff in Audiobus/Aum depending mostly what other apps you use. This includes highly rhythm driven stuff with verses and choruses. I personally always look from a live performance angle and that’s where things get tricky but not impossible. When making tracks in a more static start and stop kind of way pretty much anything’s possible depending on the tools of course.
Mind sharing the link?
Yeah, like with most things in life
@supadom music therapy, nice!
I'll be very interested to hear from other iOS youtubers btw if your stats are significantly different to this. I do find these stats a bit hard to believe. 100 percent male?? There are definitely some women in my comments section. And so few under 24?!
This seems as good a time/place as any to shamelessly plug my radio show. I never actually use the word “ambient”, opting for alternatives like “transcendent”, “immersive”, “cosmic”, “deep” etc...you get the idea. Next month will be the show’s 3rd birthday, so that’s 72 hours of music that broadly falls under the umbrella term “ambient”. Enjoy!
https://extra.resonance.fm/series/the-infinite-inward
@Gavinski : I would definitely give those stats the wall eye. I know for a fact I have left comments and viewed your content in the last month, and unless YouTube knows something my gynaecologist doesn’t, I have been identifying as female since at least 2004... Though I’d be pushing it to try and sneak in as an under 24
Haha! Jade Starr would beg to differ with these stats too, I'm sure. Yeah.... Still, I'm sure they are accurate for the most part!
@Kashi : subscribed!
Savage. And true!
True!
I think the growth in ambient music is correlated (not necessarily recently) with the growth in the ability to make very interesting sounds with the tools we have. I don't think (good) ambient is "easier" than other music ... I think it takes a more attuned ear, in fact, than letting stale drum machine beats fly, grid clip launching, guitar chord strumming, piano root chords, root-fifth-flat seventh-octave bass lines, etc. I think a lot of you are giving way to much credit to other forms!!
Radio AU + Eventide Crystals, 100% Wet + AUM + AudioShare
= Interesting Pads/Textures