What “Ambient” Music Means to Me
Fulfilling the genre’s forgotten criterion
Ambient music is described on Wikipedia as “a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm.” The music was both popularized and named by Brian Eno beginning in the 1970’s with albums like Discreet Music and Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
Eno included an essay titled “Ambient Music” in the back of his book A Year With Swollen Appendicies in which he describes the event which inspired him to record Discreet Music. After an accident, Eno was immobilized in a hospital bed where a friend brought him a record of 17th-century harp music.
“I asked her to put it on as she left, which she did, but it wasn’t until after she’d gone that I realized the hi-fi was much too quiet and one of the speakers had given up anyway. It was raining hard outside, and I could hardly hear the music above the rain — just the loudest notes, like little crystals, sonic icebergs rising out of the storm. I couldn’t get up and change it, so I just lay there waiting for my next visitor to…
