On Wed, Dec 09, 2020 at 09:22:24AM +0100, Nicola Pandini wrote: I'm kicking myself for not knowing about him before this. Thank you, David, for the post, and thank you Nicola for the recommendation. Anyone know other standout pieces from his (extensive!) ouevre? -- A: When it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: When is top-posting a bad thing? () ASCII ribbon campaign. Please avoid HTML emails & proprietary /\ file formats. (Why? See e.g. https://v.gd/jrmGbS ). Thank you.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 3:25 AM Dave Phillips <dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com> wrote: We have: 1) the term "ambient", indisputably coined by Eno 2) the general style "ambient", indeed arguably coined by Satie (though one might suggest that Debussy and the other more mainstream impressionists had something to do with it). There's also works like "in a Landscape" by John Cage (for piano) that clearly predate Eno's work but embody most of the same elements. 3) Harold Budd, who didn't like the term "ambient" and didn't want his music labelled that way

On 09.12.2020 09:22, Paul Davis wrote: And then, there is Gregorian chant that is potentially closer to "ambient" than any of the above... (and this only if we limit ourselves to the occidental, and more specifically, West European tradition of music making). Michał

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 1:19 AM david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: Absolutely. The composers and historical performers of Gregorian chant (a distinctly religious music tradition) would likely be rather annoyed to be considered "as ignorable as it is listenable" (the core of Eno's original definition of ambient music)

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 10:48 AM Andrew A. Grathwohl <andrew(a)grathwohl.me> wrote: Eno absolutely meant "ignorable" in the normal dictionary way. He did not mean "trance-inducing", or "religiously focused". Eno's coinage had absolutely nothing to with "inducing" anything. ------- Eno remembers the event somewhat differently. “After she had gone, and with considerable difficulty, I put on the record,” he recalls. “After I had lain down, I realised that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn’t the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music – as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and sound of the rain were parts of the ambience.” [ ... ] All this sounds like a recipe for boredom, and for many people that’s exactly the result when they listen to Music for Airports. For others, the fact that the music is so quiet and so content to circulate such thin little scraps is the secret of its appeal. Eno himself describes the album as being “as ignorable as it is interesting”. -------- (from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/how-brian-eno-created-a-quiet-rev… ) [ and may the universe not react to harshly to me citing the Daily Telegraph ]

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 12:04 PM Andrew A. Grathwohl <andrew(a)grathwohl.me> wrote: I have no idea what this is in response to, but it seems unnecessarily ad hominem. I wrote what I said based on multiple-days worth of listening to Eno talk, not my own musical taste or compositional preferences. It's not by accident that every release of Ardour is named after an Eno release. I would say that it is you who are trying to mix in the way *you* listen to Eno-coinage ambient as well as various religious devotional music, rather than what Eno has actually said about it (and also what some performers of religious devotional music have said too). Eno has been extremely clear that he saw no connection between the way he imagined ambient music, or the way he imagined ambient music being used, and any other form of musicking. Now, it certainly is the case that many people who enjoy listening to Eno-coinage ambient also enjoy many other forms of music that do not obviously require the foreground experience that many would assume was present for lots of other music. Gregorian chant is a good example. And I see nothing wrong with that - I do it myself. But that's just a personal preference, a personal approach to musicking, and has nothing to do with how Eno saw what he was doing. It's also very disconnected from the way that the practitioners of religious trance music have historically seen their own practice and art form, which is intended to fully immerse the listener and engage them with the wonders of god's creation (however they might conceive of this). I know two Benedictine monks, and although I know they would be humorous and offer a wry smile if you suggested to them that their morning chanting practice was "as ignorable as it is listenable", they would almost certainly at some point try to correct you and make it clear how important the words are, and how much you are intended to be overwhelmed by the form: in short, by how you should never, ever be "ignoring" chanting. The lyrics in Qawaali music are absolutely central to their intended musicking. The pieces are not intended to be listened to as "pure sound". The most famous Qawaali singer of the 20th century was extremely clear about this. Like Gregorian chant, the music is not intended to induce a state of disconnected trance or even just a pleasant state of mind. It is music that sings of the glories of god, vigorously, and however "trance-like" someone outside of the tradition may find it, there is no sense in which this music, either, can ever be considered "ignorable" by its composers or practitioners. Even the Sufi dancers are quite explicit about *not* entering a "trance" state during their practice, but becoming more focused and more clear on god's glory. How on earth do you know this? You know absolutely about my personal history, least of all my listening experiences. I do not understand why you would choose to throw in such a personal remark to what I see as a fundamental disagreement between Eno's clearly stated take on what "ambient" is and how the long history of religious ritual music is seen by those involved in it. You are, as is everyone else, entirely free to listen to whatever music you want in whatever way you want, and to draw connections between your experiences of listening to different kinds of music. But that doesn't mean you can just hand-wave away the core differences between centuries of religious ritual and the very specific idea that Eno had in a very specific moment a few decades ago.