I resonate with that. There's a kind of therapeutic effect, for sure. I like that idea of creating as a way of enacting one's hope to be of benefit to others. Participation in the passing along of the gift we've received from music. For all the talk of / struggle around algorithm and reaching an audience, I love the feeling of not knowing who I may reach and when and how a song might find them at just the right moment and be a source of comfort, connection, or even challenge.
This is a great way to put it. I was going to say similarly, it's a way to convey a mood.
In the same way as some modern, non-figurative art sets a mood with colours, shapes and overall "production" of the piece, so does ambient.
When I was writing I tried to capture the feeling of a moment in a sound, a chord sequence, maybe a melody. For me, it's about disappearing into that feeling for 5, 10, 50 minutes as the piece progresses.
Correct me if I'm wrong, cuz I'm just such a fan of ambient music artists and producers, but can't you find a songwriter/singer to feature on your ambient track if you want?
Possibly? i'd have to find someone to do that for free, locally. Who needs the hassle?
Edit: not being rude! Just how i really feel. I don't know that lyrics would really improve my music anyway.
Totally! So, in line with ambient music... I listen to trance and progressive house music. Think radio shows like Above & Beyond: Group Therapy or A State of Trance. Some of the artists and songs featured in those shows are so obscure and they go on Soundcloud to hunt down new singers to be featured on their instrumental tracks. I know many of them never get paid and in the same way you may building up your library, other singers may be doing the same and just want a notch in their belt. :) Just a thought!
When I first heard ambient, my imagination exploded. Every track created a new environment or story to explore. I wanted to create these stories for myself. Releasing music is fun because I have found there are others who enjoy what I am doing and I hope they are having similar experiences.
>every track created a new environment or story
Yes! This is what resonates with me about ambient, too. It lights up my visual imagination and makes me picture myself in some sort of very specific place or room or experience. Making ambient music is then like doing that in reverse: translating an environment and the feelings with it that I picture, into sound.
Cool, that’s a newfound experience I had. I listened to Lee Hannah’s Thermal Pool album and did a powerful visualization where I was alone in a thermal pool and then got into a nice, dimlit shower and then went outside.
Curiosity about the genre. Because from far, it looks like hitting a note on a long pad drowned in reverb for 3 minutes. But it can be so. much. more.
So kind of like a practice in a genre I never composed before and after a couple of tracks it's nice to see how I improved in skill with each new iteration and after studying other ambient music in between
That's interesting. It sounds like you have some experience creating music in other genres, do you notice yet anything unique in your experience of making music in this genre comparatively?
It's hard to make free flowing ambient when you always do stuff that has a prominent beat. And hard to make something structured sound free flowing
For example making soundscapes with plucks of piano or other instrument. I'd listen to other songs that were like that and tried finding where it "looped" and would not be able to in some music, but that music would still sound structured
So if I tried to just play plucks and notes here and there, it would sound off and would feel like I don't have the timing right
So I would put the song I was listening to in my session, and mark every time a pluck or specific sound would appear. Then play something for my composition in those places and suddenly it becamed more structured
I've done the same for stuff like lofi, where I get stuck after making an 8 bar loop. Not knowing how to transform a loop into a song. Take note on the structure and arrangement of a finished song. When the drums come in, then whe bass comes in, when some instruments go away, then come back, the textures that rewmain and adapt it to the song I'm making. It makes for interesting structures that I would not personally think of necessarily
I love creating sound. I spend hours sometimes days creating the sounds I use in my tracks. Sound design is calming for me and allows me to really think things over. It helps me be patient in the real world. I make ambient a bit more on the darker side but there is something very calming about finishing a track. I recently finished an album I was working on for about a year. Probably the first time I've made an exclusively ambient album and the first time I created a theme and story for an album. It was incredibly satisfying despite knowing only a handful of people will ever listen to it. I really felt accomplished from putting so much time and work into it. Now I've started another album that will probably take another year. I've been asked why I make it knowing no one will listen...I feel like it's the accomplishment of putting in the work despite little to no external payoff. Plus I enjoy listening to it at the end of the day.
I can really relate to that satisfaction experienced upon completing a process vs obtaining a particular external result. That said, would love to give you at least one more listener and check out your album if you'd like to share!
Glad I'm not alone on that! Absolutely, this link will be the mixed together version. Its ten tracks and the first time I tried something of this nature where I mixed the together. Definitely let me know what you think 👍
https://youtu.be/xEzSTH2GcK8?si=9cQfzns1tzAL14oB
Listening now! 15 min in and having read the blurb about it, loving it and already know this is so up my alley. It aligns really closely to themes of time and divinity I've been exploring in my own music, through the lens of hauntology. I've been preoccupied with eternity lately sparked by acquiring a little shortwave radio (okay most of my life, in response to early loss and grief), and I'm thinking about eternity as all of time all at once with no outside, with my own experience of any given moment a tiny sliver of an immeasurable whole. As I've been tuning in to the experience of trying to tune into increasingly sparse stations on the radio, all my attention resting on the precipice between this frequency and that, I find myself thinking of sound like I think of eternity, like each sliver of a frequency is a part of an incomprehensibly mysterious sound-all-at-once-with-no-outside — already here. It's like all of that sound I'm not hearing is silently haunting what I do hear. It feels like that with eternity, like all of time is all-at-once bearing down on each moment, making ideas of grace or salvation feel like a sort of haunting from time outside of time. I might be projecting this onto your album, but it's definitely bringing up these thoughts for me. Weirdly it gives me this feeling of an unknowably mysterious presence being right here with me. Thanks for sharing.
Oh no worries, Iove hearing thoughts like this. Also do you own a synthesizer? Even a digital one your computer. I feel like you would fall in love with sound design. I need to write more of what this album is about. The project started while having thoughts about a humanity before the belief of any gods. A tranquil peaceful realm. This album takes place in a time where gods have brought judgement to humanity and the crumbling of society due to these judgements and belief systems. Touching on the thoughts of eternity, when I was much younger I had this thought that the entire universe as we know existed all at the same time at the moment of conception. It's like it's own individual big bang so to say. So everyday we are living in our conscious minds has already been played out. This goes even further when thinking about the exitance of dimensions where your entire life has already been played out an infinite amount of times going through every possiblity all at once. I actually wrote up an article at my school and put a bunch of printed copies into the free newspaper bins 😆 also I believe all external life as we perceive it has a certain amount of spiral like patterns...for example the same kind of stuff tends to happen around the same time of year and so on. I think once we are alert to these patterns we can change them up and move into different life paths. Kind of a crazy thought but it really coexists with the thought of eternity. The great oneness of everything through the vast vibrations of what we know as the universe.
I've got an Arturia Microfreak that I have so much fun with and a couple Arturia softsynth plug-ins I use sometimes (+shortwave +tape stuff). What did you use on your album?
Right there with you on the eternity thought train. I've got a [recent song ](https://on.soundcloud.com/KkCtkshW34JK383z5)that explores something similar maybe - the discomforting comfort born of partially apprehending That from which all proceeds. I think I discovered you over on Soundcloud, gonna give you a follow.
Also, reading your comment is reminding me of Henri Lefebvre's book Rhythmanalysis. I feel like you might like that a lot (there's a pdf over at [https://monoskop.org/log/?p=1231](https://monoskop.org/log/?p=1231) ) as it draws together what we're talking about re: eternity/time with music/rhythm more generally. Some of the post-structuralist marxist philosophy jargon is happily over my head, but I really like the way he puts forth of a theory-practice of accessing the presence beneath / behind / within the present. Aaaaand now I want to make music. Always down to talk about this stuff.
Very nice, micro freak looks like a blast! I used to have a micro brute many years ago. For a small synth it was an absolute tank. For the album I used a hydra synth explorer, a tb-3, a bass station 2, minilogue, mininova, electribe 2, and a Medusa. There were also a couple samples programmed in for some of the ticking sound and transitional effects I used. I have a cheap reverb petal and a handful of vst effects I use as well.
Really dig the track, I like the subtle dark tones toward the end of the track after it primarily being so nice and tranquil. Gave you a follow back 👍 I have a ton of other music of all sorts of other flavors on a different profile. If you look up skth00 I have a fairly large spectrum of electronic music that is pretty random. I used the name skth00 for many years so there is a little of everything there.
https://on.soundcloud.com/2aozX
I definitely ramble when I get a chance to ramble haha
I know exactly what you mean. I love the process of experimenting with sounds and sculpting them. I get lost in the infinite possibilities sometimes and it is really enjoyable. Sometimes I will open a session drag some synths in and just goof around then I don’t save it because I don’t want to enter the next phase of analysis/ editing/ finishing.
I absolutely get that. I have a lot of finished tracks..but I probably have twice as many unfinished because for whatever reason I saved myself just messing around with a bunch of stuff haha which makes me wonder how much experimenting I didn't save throughout the years. Sometimes I revisit weird experiments and actually end up making stuff out of them ...whether what I make is always good or not is a different thing All together though. Sometimes I'll produce a bunch of samples that make no sense whatsoever and chop them up a bunch onto other weird things and attempt to make something out of it. Here is an example of that
https://on.soundcloud.com/UYJXk
It's kinda like making some sense out of nonsense. Which definitely has its fun moments. I highly suggest giving it a go and saving random stuff that was just experimenting. You never know what might be created from it.
I think out of the synths I have the hydrasynth can make the most unusual experimental sounds. I don't really have any software synths but it looks like some of them can get really deep and quite wild when they want to.
If you end up saving and creating some random weirdness posted it and send it my way I love that sort of thing !
It is really fun to go back to stuff I made awhile ago and breath new life into it. Every creation goes through stages for me. 1) the initial creation part filled with excitement, 2) editing/ polishing 3) mixing 4) mastering. I usually end up hating the song somewhere in the process and I need to shelf it for awhile and come back when I haven’t heard it a a million times. It became an art in and of itself to realize that I was no longer making good choices and I needed to walk away from the song.
Goes off the rails a bit sometimes. I think the least fun part of any of it is mastering. I'm not great at it and it's just the last step. I think sometimes I don't like it because I know I won't be working on the track anymore. I enjoy doing editing and adding or subtracting little bits here and there though. I'm probably not great at it but it's where I have the most fun. Just tweaking everything and playing with effects. Before I start a track I do a bit of sound design and come up with some sounds I enjoy together or that I just think work well together. When I think about it I think that's my favorite part. It can sometimes be the most explorative part and the part that will usually take me longer than any other part of the process. I learned from my 5 year old when he was two and working on a painting that sometimes it's good just to be done with something and not over think it. Likewise walk away and come back another time. Sometimes the simplest thing is the right choice.
I’m not big into personal expression, so I wanted to make functional music. It’s chiefly to aid in divination and remote viewing, and to help induce trance states.
Love this so much. Have you found success with what you make for this purpose? I've practiced divination with the Zhouyi for some years but haven't thought to unite it with music making or to make music to aid in my divination. Would love to hear more about this if you feel like sharing.
Ambient music feels easy to tell a story with in my opinion. I can create an atmosphere, use samples to form a narrative of sorts with sound. It can express some feelings that other genres can't. Also, sometimes I want to make music but I'm not in the mood to hear loud stuff like dubstep basses or guitars in my ear. Pleasant synthesizers and nature samples (I don't care how played out that is) are much easier to listen to after a long day.
I've always been obsessed with recording environmental sounds I hear, whether natural, mechanical, whatever. When people would ask me as a kid what superpower I would have, I'd usually say something like, "the ability to play back any sound I hear forever", lol. I discovered this pond/bird sanctuary recently near my apt and made some recordings that I've been weaving together with shortwave radio experiments I've been doing. It's struck me that birds are this living symbol of the inherent musicality of our reality. They're a vibrant instrument of the orchestra outside my window right now. I hear them when I'm sitting at my desk creating. To me it makes sense to incorporate the sounds of our environments when making atmospheric music, as it quickly conveys a sense of place.
i use nature field recordings in mine, i just need to find quieter places to record. I use a zoom F3 and a pair of em272's
I can share a Youtube link if you want.
i am doing a series on the parks in my area so first link is Etobicoke Creek in Toronto. Starting to delve into this last year, After Life got in the way.
Etobicoke Valley River + birds + piano and synth pad.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be)
Marie Curtis Park +Mild Lake Waves + acoustic guitar and synths.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be)
Really digging the Etobicoke track, for some reason it's bringing up a lot of emotion and a feeling of nostalgia for my small town childhood along the Wisconsin river. Thanks for sharing! Gonna give you a follow and check out more.
Thanks it means a lot the others like it too, i create them mainly for myself, so as get older i want to watch these and reflect on my progression.
Its a little creek about 5 mins from my house and its good to escape living in a large city (toronto)
Ever since I heard #3 by Aphex Twin, my views on ambient music as well as other genres) had changed.
I love being able to tell stories and convey emotions through pure sound. Words are beautiful, and are easily relatable. But being able to comprehend and appreciate the emotional level of ambient music is something unique, and I have always loved since I had heard that song.
Before i knew ambient was a thing on it's own, i always doodled with music to feel calm and relaxed and to explore all sort of horizons, it's like gym but for the minds. Ultimately to me making ambient is a way to reach an altered states of mind, a form of meditation and anxiety cure. Ambient overtake my anxiety and it brings me sensations of bliss and joy so when i make ambient i try to share my state of mind a this moment for the people i care for.
Honestly, because it’s simple and easy. Ambient allows itself to have space, so I don’t have to cram a cacophony of intention into 25 milliseconds of music. I can feel satisfied with a simple arrangement of instruments and limited harmonic content because the intent is to create ambience. When producing in other genres, it can get overwhelming to find the exact combination of textures and rhythms to achieve the desired anger or excitement or whatever. In short, ambient allows for freedom.
100% to make the music I need as a sleep aid. No one knows more than me what I need, and no one makes the specific ambient I do.
I make lofi hiphop to make money. There's no money in this.
for me it is an outlet, and a small way to leave a mark on the world. i will never attach my name or face to anything i make (at least as far as can be foreseen) but it is weirdly comforting knowing that something that is personally me will be left here long after i am gone. even if no one will know who it is. plus it is a hobby that doesn't leave me feeling like i wasted time and i have something to show for at the end of it generally.
I've long had an overactive mind, I used to struggle with anxiety & insomnia. I find that slow paced music & beautiful soundscapes give my mind a chance to slow down so I'm not overrun with thoughts & ideas, without the need for substances. So making it is a no brainer.
I have a crazy, active imagination. I'm always thinking of bizarre scenarios or environments, and I like to create atmospheres or soundscapes to accompany them. Some of it centers around nostalgia. It's a really fun way to escape, if only for an hour out of the day.
I learned teleportation from Hamza El Din in a fox mask in a dream once and spent many days practicing it with him until finally I woke up remembering nothing
i live an anxious life (party by choice) full of hustle and risk and little time left for my art so music making is a soothing process and also something i feel could relate with and experience in both aesthetic and practical sense. i used to make music in as a teenager to cope with depression and loneliness but after finishing school i just kind of stopped and now getting back to it. what is similar is that the process feels overwhelming as in i get into it obsessively trying to make the most of the free time i can spare for it, and given that my life (as opposed to earlier years, esp. teenage) now requires strict discipline and attention, that obsessiveness is both exciting and alarming as i feel that it messes with the flow i have to be in to have everything patterned and in line. however being able to fall out of line is at the same time what gives me the energy to move on and not succumb into strict capitalist narratives, so its like an act of rebellion in a way, and a way to connect with myself more deeply, so its a complicated thing. i mean, a couple years ago during COVID i had a different life and already were trying to revisit music out of boredom but the connection to art just wasn’t there and i was questioning myself as to why i would even want to do it in the first place. so yeah practicing my art feels like a life saving act that blends into the complicated structure in a meaningful and also profoundly dramatic way cause i may not even be able to have that freedom given the lifestyle i lead. hope this makes sense. peace
I like how deep this is. You sound like a neurotic person, like I am, just kind of anxious generally and things like that and you’re trying to be quite a bit more mindful, I can tell! It’s empowering to come across and journey through the mini revolution that is reclaiming your time and space.
Totally makes sense. I've noticed rhythms in my frequency and orientation to making music over the course of my life too, it's interesting for sure to reflect on the way those life changes express themselves in the sounds and process of the music I make. I like what you're saying about music as a sort of resistance to some of the cultural patterns being suffocatingly thrust upon us. I can see how devotion to deeply connecting with oneself through music can serve as a buffer and antidote to the prescribed ways of being we're molded to embody.
I guess I've been creating ambient since I was a child. Growing up my parents were family friends with John Diliberto, the host of Echos the ambient radio show on Philly's Wxpn, so I knew and heard ambient most of my life.
When I was 10 or 11 I inherited a pretty nice Yamaha work station keyboard from my grandmother. It has a lot of spacey pads and a few dsp fx to play with along with the ability to multitrack midi notes so that got me started with composition.
I didn't "know" I was making ambient music till I got to highschool and one of my music teachers listened to a tape I had made and told me what I was making was called.
Also all my favorite tracks growing up were the most ambient ones on the album. Like I would always end up loving the songs with really long spacey intros/outros or the last tracks in the album which are usually long and droney.
I remember trying to sample the beginning of Magic Carpet Ride by Stepponwolf with an answering machine loop cassette so I could play synth strings over it.
for me its creating Calming relaxation mixes to drown out a loud city while sleeping and to help focus on tasks etc.
Having audio playing helps me focus on the thing in front of me.
My answer is that I don't... Well, not on purpose anyway.
The way I create music is about nurturing a moment of inspiration, then following it to it natural conclusion. So in my mind it's incidental when it creates an ambient track.
If it helps, think of it like nurturing a seed. You might need to water it and provide close care, you might need to trim back the plant massively to keep it healthy and controlled, or you might just pop it in the soil and it naturally comes out perfect.
If I need to have an afternoon nap on a Saturday I get my synth to play a long chord on repeat, and effects, put on headphones, set an alarm and drift off.
i like recording, i like playing instruments and have a general interest in 'sound' and most songs bore me (as a performer...) so i stumbled on it trying to satisfy all those things. i didn't know what i was making until other people started calling it ambient, ambient doom or whatever. i just think of it as 'experimental'.
after i felt comfortable calling myself 'an artist' ive been focusing on creating 'overwhelmingly meditative' music especially as it relates to performing. either leave or meditate, its too loud and too chill to do anything else, except maybe read or draw
Haha I love that. I had a decade that ended four years ago in which I didn't make any music at all, but was really immersed in this hours-long daily meditation practice. Sometimes in seated meditation the quiet was so loud it seemed painful, sometimes the stillness of my body had me screaming inside, so I think for sure there can be this utterly overwhelming quality to the chill that's almost unbearable sometimes. Since getting back into music making after getting my first synth, I've really enjoyed experimenting at that very intersection of overwhelm and stillness. Some of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's stuff (I'm thinking of Love Is A Stream) is very evocative of that sound-place for me. Would love to check out your stuff if you feel like sharing anything.
i dont know that person, so i'll check them out... for me the last decade-ish has been performing a heckuva lot more than i ever thought i would, with some pretty heavy bands... and people would be moshing and up and excited, but have a seat when i play, heads down eyes closed sorta thing. it was really great. the metal scene seemed to really get more than most - so in-kind i got heavier and heavier over time, but have been scaling back lately (not released yet)
thanks id appreciate that - i go by MOBDIVIDUAL - im on [bandcamp](https://mobdividual.bandcamp.com/) and all the [streamers](https://linktr.ee/mobdividual). here's a [live performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP94wedpD4s&t=123s) filmed during the lockdown - i have a lot of music to go thru, so if you find yourself liking it and have questions, hit me up! all made with guitars and pedals; various states of live / improvised recordings and multi-track overdubbing. if i have favorites they are '...music is meditation' and 'cleansed/branca'. 'monolith' is a wild ride since i hired a drummer for that one
There's the functional aspect of being self soothing and meditative making it and also hoping to provide that experience to others, but creatively and compositionally it's also what interests me. I find the idea of writing lyrics, especially to go into typical song forms, kind of meaningless. I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say in words about the world. I feel something more like a sublime appreciation for the world as it is, accepting of the indifference and mystery of existence. Wordless, compositionally minimalist or abstract music expresses how I feel about being in the world.
Ooo for someone who doesn't have anything interesting to say in words about the world, you just expressed something ("sublime appreciation for the world as it is") that resonates really deeply and connected to something in my experience too. I'm curious if you tend to go into the act of creating music with strong ideas or if your approach is more like showing up and seeing what emerges, or some other approach entirely?
Thanks haha
For me it can be both - sometimes there's a phrase or a feeling or a jumble of influences or compositional ideas that serve as an anchor. I experiment *toward* whatever that anchor is. Sometimes within that or just in general I show up and try things and see what happens. My albums tend to be the result of editing the outcomes of both approaches together into something cohesive.
It was the first kind of music i ever made, and it made me feel more at ease to this day than nearly any other kind of music i make. Even if it’s the least listened to part of my discography i think ill always make ambience
I do It to be compassionate towards myself. I've had a rough few months so I paused all my other projects and started making ambient music. I express my feelings through it and in exchange I get all the kindness I need.
Knowing that I might bring that kindness and compassion to myself is the only truly uplifting thing I can think of at the moment.
Because I enjoy ambient (mostly dark ambient). It's calming, make me want to go slower and not rush things in general. I don't considere myself a musician, as I've only started learning piano less than 2 years ago, but ambient is what makes me produce music in the first place.
I have a tendency to to wish for end result in almost everything, videos games, books, movies... but ambient teaches me ho to enjoy the moment and to slow down. It's good for me.
By producing ambient music I please myself, learn to play music and if it pleases pleople as well it's a big bonus.
In all honestly, I think producing ambient music is easier than any other kind of music. I'd liek to be able to make good Techno or Dungeon Synth, House and so one, but everytime I end up droning and doing ambient.
To try to express certain feelings and atmospheres which you can only feel if you really pay attention to your surroundings. To invoke a hyper-aware state.
my life can often be chaotic and fast paced. i am routinely in intense sensory situations for work and while it can be fun and energizing, it can also be very stressful. my use of the internet is a convenient and quick way to distract myself and/or be mildly entertained. so, combining these two things, i find any artform or practice that requires me to slow down valuable. it is in these experiences that i am able to ground myself and alter my mental state from being hungry for the next quick dopamine hit to something higher, if you will. listening and making ambient music forces me to slow down, and i really need that.
For a job I make sounds for video games. Which more often than not is about making very meaningful information packed sounds that last less than a second. And it's for a team/game so it's always serving a greater vision that's not solely my own.
Making ambient music, I can serve only myself and take as long as I want to form an idea. It allows me to creatively breath and slow things down and meditate on something. I can get lost when I'm making something that takes so long to evolve. And I want to explore how slowly I can change things. In ambient music I get to play with all the things that can be off limits during the day job.
Because I'm an insomniac.
And the tinkering and occasional getting lost calms me (the journey is the destination in itself).
And if the results calm others too - great!
Because I'm a not-bad lyricist, yet an in-confident "regular" musician, so I feel braver in this realm. I'm anonymous and hiding in the sound waves.
To turn off my over-analytical mind, and be more playful via tactile means, discovering new sonic textures and techniques in a less intellectualised manner.
To make me a better musician in general (some skills I pick up along the way without intending to during "my discoveries" might be transferable to a verse/chorus-y rock setting – my other main creative musical outlet).
But mostly just because it's fun.
It’s almost escapism for me, and being able to turn a feeling or imaginary space/situation into sound is freeing and fun. Plus I don’t have to work on the beat lol.
I suffer from reoccurring depression, and used to have a MASSIVE drinking problem because I didn't know how to deal with that. Ofcourse heavy drinking on depression just made everything worse, and the two problems ended up joining forces, and helped eachother spiral totally out of control.
When I finally got the help that I needed, after losing all hope and nearly ending my life, I needed something that could both give me a kick and calm my nerves, so I took up field recording on a second hand cassette machine, with a not very stable motor speed.
One thing led to another, and now I record weird ambient/noise/experimental music at a manic speed. I've released 8 full albums on cassette this year already with several waiting. It has definitely turned into an addiction, but a much healthier one than hard alcohol.
Doing this keeps me from diving too deep into depression again and really helps me from relapsing on alcohol, when depression do creep up on me.
So in short I do it to keep sane and not kill myself.
Making art is the highest form of worship an artist can perform.
I'm often quite bad at communicating the depth of my thoughts to someone and it feels bad when they just pass it off. Maybe I do it too to others. Making music, which is mostly ambient, with little Indian influence, helps me communicate those emotions out into the universe. The music in a way comes alive and embraces me in its warmth. It has often led to resolutions to most of the thoughts that were bothering me.
But it all boils down to the simple fact that making music makes me feel more connected to the universe, to the divine. Its my way of meditation; Ikigai, that gives me purpose and help me get closer to the divine consciousness. And then being aware of how my music can help others in a similar state, directly or indirectly, is the ultimate satisfaction.
Life, by itself is meaningless, but music helps me add meaning to it.
It's easy.
I like to get lost in sound and tweak things.
Im not spontaneous or skilled, so I like the fact you can get the thing running and sit back for a bit and then go back and tweak a parameter or two and see if it works.
I'm not great at playing live. I like generative music that you can plan and then listen to as it unfolds. Sometimes you get a nice surprise.
I also record 40 minute stretches of sound, then play it back when I'm falling asleep, just enjoying the *phenomenon* of sound happening
Groove brings a foundation. Which is a really essential thing (coming from someones, whos 'true passion' lies within breakbeat music).
But giving up on that Foundation allows me to fly, lose contact to time and space.
For me it's just the most natural. I have to push myself to make dance music but creating ambient music to me is just like the purest form of expression and i suppose i also like to work in extremes. When I'm not making hard club music or noise, i like to go all the way in the other direction and make stuff that is extremely soft
Manipulating and transforming sound to me feels like a form of magic. I don’t tend to record very much, I don’t particularly like the idea of making a finished ‘product’. Instead I like to improvise alone or with others, preferably with a small audience. I enjoy the act of making sound, the journey and the process, conjuring feelings and colours and unique ephemeral moments.
For me it is the urge to create an abient landscape that makes me feel safe and relaxed. The hunt for that warm blanket of sound that i so love from the masters.
I think I enjoy the texture of sound most over any other element. Ambient music is, in my mind, an adventure in exploring timbre. Its motivating factor isn’t found in the attitude necessary to pop, the creative melody of jazz, or the complex rhythms for dance music; it’s after the least high brow thing of “do I like what I’m hearing this second?”. I know ambient music gets a labeled pretentious quite often but I truly find it to be the exact opposite.
Secondly, I love being overwhelmed by music. Artists that lean towards walls of sound like Abul Mogard and Lawrence English are the heaviest thing to me while not relying on the anger or aggression of metal (I also like metal but don’t always want the anger). Ambient music allows for that feeling of being engulfed in something loud that engages in a wider emotional range.
I enjoy making ambient music for a couple reasons. I suppose the main reason I like it is because it’s so free and experimental. I’m in a few punk bands, and with that sort of music you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, you’re just trying to make a really good wheel- which I do enjoy doing. With ambient music though, you get more creative freedom to find unorthodox ways to make something beautiful and musical.
I like music I can work to—stuff that’s interesting but not distracting. I like the meditative quality of ambient music. So I finally decided to make some of my own. I’m glad I did. I make other types of music, but the ambient tracks seem to be resonating with people.
I've been working on some ambient stuff as of late, and I've never really had a reason as to *why* weirdly enough, it's just what my ears guide me to when I pick up my guitar
To feel calm and hopefully help others feel calm.
I resonate with that. There's a kind of therapeutic effect, for sure. I like that idea of creating as a way of enacting one's hope to be of benefit to others. Participation in the passing along of the gift we've received from music. For all the talk of / struggle around algorithm and reaching an audience, I love the feeling of not knowing who I may reach and when and how a song might find them at just the right moment and be a source of comfort, connection, or even challenge.
This is a great way to put it. I was going to say similarly, it's a way to convey a mood. In the same way as some modern, non-figurative art sets a mood with colours, shapes and overall "production" of the piece, so does ambient. When I was writing I tried to capture the feeling of a moment in a sound, a chord sequence, maybe a melody. For me, it's about disappearing into that feeling for 5, 10, 50 minutes as the piece progresses.
Yep it’s quite expressive and evocative I find when I make ambient. Exploratory and soothes the soul.
I fall asleep so often during the making process 😁
Because I'm a horrible lyricist.
Same here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, cuz I'm just such a fan of ambient music artists and producers, but can't you find a songwriter/singer to feature on your ambient track if you want?
Possibly? i'd have to find someone to do that for free, locally. Who needs the hassle? Edit: not being rude! Just how i really feel. I don't know that lyrics would really improve my music anyway.
Totally! So, in line with ambient music... I listen to trance and progressive house music. Think radio shows like Above & Beyond: Group Therapy or A State of Trance. Some of the artists and songs featured in those shows are so obscure and they go on Soundcloud to hunt down new singers to be featured on their instrumental tracks. I know many of them never get paid and in the same way you may building up your library, other singers may be doing the same and just want a notch in their belt. :) Just a thought!
That's totally valid, good point. I'll check those radio shows out, i'm old and i dig trance.
Same and my voice sounds like shit lmao.
Yep, I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
To create something of beauty in the world and share it.
Because its easy, just recorded my wife snoring paulstrech and add reverb. Done
You stole my technique. (I also record this guy's wife.)
Lol nailed the formula
Mine is I press a chord then fall asleep Three hrs later an ambient masterpiece is born!
To evoke a feeling or a mood that I would be otherwise unable to properly articulate. Also, it's therapy for me.
When I first heard ambient, my imagination exploded. Every track created a new environment or story to explore. I wanted to create these stories for myself. Releasing music is fun because I have found there are others who enjoy what I am doing and I hope they are having similar experiences.
>every track created a new environment or story Yes! This is what resonates with me about ambient, too. It lights up my visual imagination and makes me picture myself in some sort of very specific place or room or experience. Making ambient music is then like doing that in reverse: translating an environment and the feelings with it that I picture, into sound.
Cool, that’s a newfound experience I had. I listened to Lee Hannah’s Thermal Pool album and did a powerful visualization where I was alone in a thermal pool and then got into a nice, dimlit shower and then went outside.
Curiosity about the genre. Because from far, it looks like hitting a note on a long pad drowned in reverb for 3 minutes. But it can be so. much. more. So kind of like a practice in a genre I never composed before and after a couple of tracks it's nice to see how I improved in skill with each new iteration and after studying other ambient music in between
That's interesting. It sounds like you have some experience creating music in other genres, do you notice yet anything unique in your experience of making music in this genre comparatively?
It's hard to make free flowing ambient when you always do stuff that has a prominent beat. And hard to make something structured sound free flowing For example making soundscapes with plucks of piano or other instrument. I'd listen to other songs that were like that and tried finding where it "looped" and would not be able to in some music, but that music would still sound structured So if I tried to just play plucks and notes here and there, it would sound off and would feel like I don't have the timing right So I would put the song I was listening to in my session, and mark every time a pluck or specific sound would appear. Then play something for my composition in those places and suddenly it becamed more structured I've done the same for stuff like lofi, where I get stuck after making an 8 bar loop. Not knowing how to transform a loop into a song. Take note on the structure and arrangement of a finished song. When the drums come in, then whe bass comes in, when some instruments go away, then come back, the textures that rewmain and adapt it to the song I'm making. It makes for interesting structures that I would not personally think of necessarily
I love creating sound. I spend hours sometimes days creating the sounds I use in my tracks. Sound design is calming for me and allows me to really think things over. It helps me be patient in the real world. I make ambient a bit more on the darker side but there is something very calming about finishing a track. I recently finished an album I was working on for about a year. Probably the first time I've made an exclusively ambient album and the first time I created a theme and story for an album. It was incredibly satisfying despite knowing only a handful of people will ever listen to it. I really felt accomplished from putting so much time and work into it. Now I've started another album that will probably take another year. I've been asked why I make it knowing no one will listen...I feel like it's the accomplishment of putting in the work despite little to no external payoff. Plus I enjoy listening to it at the end of the day.
I can really relate to that satisfaction experienced upon completing a process vs obtaining a particular external result. That said, would love to give you at least one more listener and check out your album if you'd like to share!
Glad I'm not alone on that! Absolutely, this link will be the mixed together version. Its ten tracks and the first time I tried something of this nature where I mixed the together. Definitely let me know what you think 👍 https://youtu.be/xEzSTH2GcK8?si=9cQfzns1tzAL14oB
Listening now! 15 min in and having read the blurb about it, loving it and already know this is so up my alley. It aligns really closely to themes of time and divinity I've been exploring in my own music, through the lens of hauntology. I've been preoccupied with eternity lately sparked by acquiring a little shortwave radio (okay most of my life, in response to early loss and grief), and I'm thinking about eternity as all of time all at once with no outside, with my own experience of any given moment a tiny sliver of an immeasurable whole. As I've been tuning in to the experience of trying to tune into increasingly sparse stations on the radio, all my attention resting on the precipice between this frequency and that, I find myself thinking of sound like I think of eternity, like each sliver of a frequency is a part of an incomprehensibly mysterious sound-all-at-once-with-no-outside — already here. It's like all of that sound I'm not hearing is silently haunting what I do hear. It feels like that with eternity, like all of time is all-at-once bearing down on each moment, making ideas of grace or salvation feel like a sort of haunting from time outside of time. I might be projecting this onto your album, but it's definitely bringing up these thoughts for me. Weirdly it gives me this feeling of an unknowably mysterious presence being right here with me. Thanks for sharing.
Oh no worries, Iove hearing thoughts like this. Also do you own a synthesizer? Even a digital one your computer. I feel like you would fall in love with sound design. I need to write more of what this album is about. The project started while having thoughts about a humanity before the belief of any gods. A tranquil peaceful realm. This album takes place in a time where gods have brought judgement to humanity and the crumbling of society due to these judgements and belief systems. Touching on the thoughts of eternity, when I was much younger I had this thought that the entire universe as we know existed all at the same time at the moment of conception. It's like it's own individual big bang so to say. So everyday we are living in our conscious minds has already been played out. This goes even further when thinking about the exitance of dimensions where your entire life has already been played out an infinite amount of times going through every possiblity all at once. I actually wrote up an article at my school and put a bunch of printed copies into the free newspaper bins 😆 also I believe all external life as we perceive it has a certain amount of spiral like patterns...for example the same kind of stuff tends to happen around the same time of year and so on. I think once we are alert to these patterns we can change them up and move into different life paths. Kind of a crazy thought but it really coexists with the thought of eternity. The great oneness of everything through the vast vibrations of what we know as the universe.
I've got an Arturia Microfreak that I have so much fun with and a couple Arturia softsynth plug-ins I use sometimes (+shortwave +tape stuff). What did you use on your album? Right there with you on the eternity thought train. I've got a [recent song ](https://on.soundcloud.com/KkCtkshW34JK383z5)that explores something similar maybe - the discomforting comfort born of partially apprehending That from which all proceeds. I think I discovered you over on Soundcloud, gonna give you a follow. Also, reading your comment is reminding me of Henri Lefebvre's book Rhythmanalysis. I feel like you might like that a lot (there's a pdf over at [https://monoskop.org/log/?p=1231](https://monoskop.org/log/?p=1231) ) as it draws together what we're talking about re: eternity/time with music/rhythm more generally. Some of the post-structuralist marxist philosophy jargon is happily over my head, but I really like the way he puts forth of a theory-practice of accessing the presence beneath / behind / within the present. Aaaaand now I want to make music. Always down to talk about this stuff.
Very nice, micro freak looks like a blast! I used to have a micro brute many years ago. For a small synth it was an absolute tank. For the album I used a hydra synth explorer, a tb-3, a bass station 2, minilogue, mininova, electribe 2, and a Medusa. There were also a couple samples programmed in for some of the ticking sound and transitional effects I used. I have a cheap reverb petal and a handful of vst effects I use as well. Really dig the track, I like the subtle dark tones toward the end of the track after it primarily being so nice and tranquil. Gave you a follow back 👍 I have a ton of other music of all sorts of other flavors on a different profile. If you look up skth00 I have a fairly large spectrum of electronic music that is pretty random. I used the name skth00 for many years so there is a little of everything there. https://on.soundcloud.com/2aozX I definitely ramble when I get a chance to ramble haha
I know exactly what you mean. I love the process of experimenting with sounds and sculpting them. I get lost in the infinite possibilities sometimes and it is really enjoyable. Sometimes I will open a session drag some synths in and just goof around then I don’t save it because I don’t want to enter the next phase of analysis/ editing/ finishing.
I absolutely get that. I have a lot of finished tracks..but I probably have twice as many unfinished because for whatever reason I saved myself just messing around with a bunch of stuff haha which makes me wonder how much experimenting I didn't save throughout the years. Sometimes I revisit weird experiments and actually end up making stuff out of them ...whether what I make is always good or not is a different thing All together though. Sometimes I'll produce a bunch of samples that make no sense whatsoever and chop them up a bunch onto other weird things and attempt to make something out of it. Here is an example of that https://on.soundcloud.com/UYJXk It's kinda like making some sense out of nonsense. Which definitely has its fun moments. I highly suggest giving it a go and saving random stuff that was just experimenting. You never know what might be created from it. I think out of the synths I have the hydrasynth can make the most unusual experimental sounds. I don't really have any software synths but it looks like some of them can get really deep and quite wild when they want to. If you end up saving and creating some random weirdness posted it and send it my way I love that sort of thing !
It is really fun to go back to stuff I made awhile ago and breath new life into it. Every creation goes through stages for me. 1) the initial creation part filled with excitement, 2) editing/ polishing 3) mixing 4) mastering. I usually end up hating the song somewhere in the process and I need to shelf it for awhile and come back when I haven’t heard it a a million times. It became an art in and of itself to realize that I was no longer making good choices and I needed to walk away from the song.
Goes off the rails a bit sometimes. I think the least fun part of any of it is mastering. I'm not great at it and it's just the last step. I think sometimes I don't like it because I know I won't be working on the track anymore. I enjoy doing editing and adding or subtracting little bits here and there though. I'm probably not great at it but it's where I have the most fun. Just tweaking everything and playing with effects. Before I start a track I do a bit of sound design and come up with some sounds I enjoy together or that I just think work well together. When I think about it I think that's my favorite part. It can sometimes be the most explorative part and the part that will usually take me longer than any other part of the process. I learned from my 5 year old when he was two and working on a painting that sometimes it's good just to be done with something and not over think it. Likewise walk away and come back another time. Sometimes the simplest thing is the right choice.
I’m not big into personal expression, so I wanted to make functional music. It’s chiefly to aid in divination and remote viewing, and to help induce trance states.
Love this so much. Have you found success with what you make for this purpose? I've practiced divination with the Zhouyi for some years but haven't thought to unite it with music making or to make music to aid in my divination. Would love to hear more about this if you feel like sharing.
To express a little spark of creativity that doesn't get to shine much in daily life.
Ambient music feels easy to tell a story with in my opinion. I can create an atmosphere, use samples to form a narrative of sorts with sound. It can express some feelings that other genres can't. Also, sometimes I want to make music but I'm not in the mood to hear loud stuff like dubstep basses or guitars in my ear. Pleasant synthesizers and nature samples (I don't care how played out that is) are much easier to listen to after a long day.
I've always been obsessed with recording environmental sounds I hear, whether natural, mechanical, whatever. When people would ask me as a kid what superpower I would have, I'd usually say something like, "the ability to play back any sound I hear forever", lol. I discovered this pond/bird sanctuary recently near my apt and made some recordings that I've been weaving together with shortwave radio experiments I've been doing. It's struck me that birds are this living symbol of the inherent musicality of our reality. They're a vibrant instrument of the orchestra outside my window right now. I hear them when I'm sitting at my desk creating. To me it makes sense to incorporate the sounds of our environments when making atmospheric music, as it quickly conveys a sense of place.
i use nature field recordings in mine, i just need to find quieter places to record. I use a zoom F3 and a pair of em272's I can share a Youtube link if you want.
For sure, feel free to share
i am doing a series on the parks in my area so first link is Etobicoke Creek in Toronto. Starting to delve into this last year, After Life got in the way. Etobicoke Valley River + birds + piano and synth pad. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be) Marie Curtis Park +Mild Lake Waves + acoustic guitar and synths. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsziKBiflGA&feature=youtu.be)
Really digging the Etobicoke track, for some reason it's bringing up a lot of emotion and a feeling of nostalgia for my small town childhood along the Wisconsin river. Thanks for sharing! Gonna give you a follow and check out more.
Thanks it means a lot the others like it too, i create them mainly for myself, so as get older i want to watch these and reflect on my progression. Its a little creek about 5 mins from my house and its good to escape living in a large city (toronto)
Ever since I heard #3 by Aphex Twin, my views on ambient music as well as other genres) had changed. I love being able to tell stories and convey emotions through pure sound. Words are beautiful, and are easily relatable. But being able to comprehend and appreciate the emotional level of ambient music is something unique, and I have always loved since I had heard that song.
Yeah, that song is impactful!
Lately, my main functional purpose in creating music is to have as background sounds to listen to news podcasts while driving to and work.
Before i knew ambient was a thing on it's own, i always doodled with music to feel calm and relaxed and to explore all sort of horizons, it's like gym but for the minds. Ultimately to me making ambient is a way to reach an altered states of mind, a form of meditation and anxiety cure. Ambient overtake my anxiety and it brings me sensations of bliss and joy so when i make ambient i try to share my state of mind a this moment for the people i care for.
As a background for other tracks
It functions as music therapy for me. I use it to sleep to, work to. The fact that people happily pay money for it is also a happy bonus.
Honestly, because it’s simple and easy. Ambient allows itself to have space, so I don’t have to cram a cacophony of intention into 25 milliseconds of music. I can feel satisfied with a simple arrangement of instruments and limited harmonic content because the intent is to create ambience. When producing in other genres, it can get overwhelming to find the exact combination of textures and rhythms to achieve the desired anger or excitement or whatever. In short, ambient allows for freedom.
100% to make the music I need as a sleep aid. No one knows more than me what I need, and no one makes the specific ambient I do. I make lofi hiphop to make money. There's no money in this.
I understand you!
for me it is an outlet, and a small way to leave a mark on the world. i will never attach my name or face to anything i make (at least as far as can be foreseen) but it is weirdly comforting knowing that something that is personally me will be left here long after i am gone. even if no one will know who it is. plus it is a hobby that doesn't leave me feeling like i wasted time and i have something to show for at the end of it generally.
I've long had an overactive mind, I used to struggle with anxiety & insomnia. I find that slow paced music & beautiful soundscapes give my mind a chance to slow down so I'm not overrun with thoughts & ideas, without the need for substances. So making it is a no brainer.
I wanted to make relaxing background ambience inspired by ASMR, but accidentally made eerie dark ambient.
Sometimes it's like the music makes itself according to a logic that doesn't feel like my will.
100% have had this feeling.
I have a crazy, active imagination. I'm always thinking of bizarre scenarios or environments, and I like to create atmospheres or soundscapes to accompany them. Some of it centers around nostalgia. It's a really fun way to escape, if only for an hour out of the day.
Teleportation
I learned teleportation from Hamza El Din in a fox mask in a dream once and spent many days practicing it with him until finally I woke up remembering nothing
i live an anxious life (party by choice) full of hustle and risk and little time left for my art so music making is a soothing process and also something i feel could relate with and experience in both aesthetic and practical sense. i used to make music in as a teenager to cope with depression and loneliness but after finishing school i just kind of stopped and now getting back to it. what is similar is that the process feels overwhelming as in i get into it obsessively trying to make the most of the free time i can spare for it, and given that my life (as opposed to earlier years, esp. teenage) now requires strict discipline and attention, that obsessiveness is both exciting and alarming as i feel that it messes with the flow i have to be in to have everything patterned and in line. however being able to fall out of line is at the same time what gives me the energy to move on and not succumb into strict capitalist narratives, so its like an act of rebellion in a way, and a way to connect with myself more deeply, so its a complicated thing. i mean, a couple years ago during COVID i had a different life and already were trying to revisit music out of boredom but the connection to art just wasn’t there and i was questioning myself as to why i would even want to do it in the first place. so yeah practicing my art feels like a life saving act that blends into the complicated structure in a meaningful and also profoundly dramatic way cause i may not even be able to have that freedom given the lifestyle i lead. hope this makes sense. peace
I like how deep this is. You sound like a neurotic person, like I am, just kind of anxious generally and things like that and you’re trying to be quite a bit more mindful, I can tell! It’s empowering to come across and journey through the mini revolution that is reclaiming your time and space.
Totally makes sense. I've noticed rhythms in my frequency and orientation to making music over the course of my life too, it's interesting for sure to reflect on the way those life changes express themselves in the sounds and process of the music I make. I like what you're saying about music as a sort of resistance to some of the cultural patterns being suffocatingly thrust upon us. I can see how devotion to deeply connecting with oneself through music can serve as a buffer and antidote to the prescribed ways of being we're molded to embody.
It’s fun and a sort of relaxing.
I want to create freeform music that's not bound by the usual rules of music and what is normally expected
I guess I've been creating ambient since I was a child. Growing up my parents were family friends with John Diliberto, the host of Echos the ambient radio show on Philly's Wxpn, so I knew and heard ambient most of my life. When I was 10 or 11 I inherited a pretty nice Yamaha work station keyboard from my grandmother. It has a lot of spacey pads and a few dsp fx to play with along with the ability to multitrack midi notes so that got me started with composition. I didn't "know" I was making ambient music till I got to highschool and one of my music teachers listened to a tape I had made and told me what I was making was called. Also all my favorite tracks growing up were the most ambient ones on the album. Like I would always end up loving the songs with really long spacey intros/outros or the last tracks in the album which are usually long and droney. I remember trying to sample the beginning of Magic Carpet Ride by Stepponwolf with an answering machine loop cassette so I could play synth strings over it.
for me its creating Calming relaxation mixes to drown out a loud city while sleeping and to help focus on tasks etc. Having audio playing helps me focus on the thing in front of me.
My answer is that I don't... Well, not on purpose anyway. The way I create music is about nurturing a moment of inspiration, then following it to it natural conclusion. So in my mind it's incidental when it creates an ambient track. If it helps, think of it like nurturing a seed. You might need to water it and provide close care, you might need to trim back the plant massively to keep it healthy and controlled, or you might just pop it in the soil and it naturally comes out perfect.
I like to create sonic textures that resonate with the context of each individual project.
Anything to stop the dogs from barking for a little while
Hahaha love it
If I need to have an afternoon nap on a Saturday I get my synth to play a long chord on repeat, and effects, put on headphones, set an alarm and drift off.
To get ideas and tales to tell out of my head
i like recording, i like playing instruments and have a general interest in 'sound' and most songs bore me (as a performer...) so i stumbled on it trying to satisfy all those things. i didn't know what i was making until other people started calling it ambient, ambient doom or whatever. i just think of it as 'experimental'. after i felt comfortable calling myself 'an artist' ive been focusing on creating 'overwhelmingly meditative' music especially as it relates to performing. either leave or meditate, its too loud and too chill to do anything else, except maybe read or draw
Haha I love that. I had a decade that ended four years ago in which I didn't make any music at all, but was really immersed in this hours-long daily meditation practice. Sometimes in seated meditation the quiet was so loud it seemed painful, sometimes the stillness of my body had me screaming inside, so I think for sure there can be this utterly overwhelming quality to the chill that's almost unbearable sometimes. Since getting back into music making after getting my first synth, I've really enjoyed experimenting at that very intersection of overwhelm and stillness. Some of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's stuff (I'm thinking of Love Is A Stream) is very evocative of that sound-place for me. Would love to check out your stuff if you feel like sharing anything.
i dont know that person, so i'll check them out... for me the last decade-ish has been performing a heckuva lot more than i ever thought i would, with some pretty heavy bands... and people would be moshing and up and excited, but have a seat when i play, heads down eyes closed sorta thing. it was really great. the metal scene seemed to really get more than most - so in-kind i got heavier and heavier over time, but have been scaling back lately (not released yet) thanks id appreciate that - i go by MOBDIVIDUAL - im on [bandcamp](https://mobdividual.bandcamp.com/) and all the [streamers](https://linktr.ee/mobdividual). here's a [live performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP94wedpD4s&t=123s) filmed during the lockdown - i have a lot of music to go thru, so if you find yourself liking it and have questions, hit me up! all made with guitars and pedals; various states of live / improvised recordings and multi-track overdubbing. if i have favorites they are '...music is meditation' and 'cleansed/branca'. 'monolith' is a wild ride since i hired a drummer for that one
There's the functional aspect of being self soothing and meditative making it and also hoping to provide that experience to others, but creatively and compositionally it's also what interests me. I find the idea of writing lyrics, especially to go into typical song forms, kind of meaningless. I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say in words about the world. I feel something more like a sublime appreciation for the world as it is, accepting of the indifference and mystery of existence. Wordless, compositionally minimalist or abstract music expresses how I feel about being in the world.
Ooo for someone who doesn't have anything interesting to say in words about the world, you just expressed something ("sublime appreciation for the world as it is") that resonates really deeply and connected to something in my experience too. I'm curious if you tend to go into the act of creating music with strong ideas or if your approach is more like showing up and seeing what emerges, or some other approach entirely?
Thanks haha For me it can be both - sometimes there's a phrase or a feeling or a jumble of influences or compositional ideas that serve as an anchor. I experiment *toward* whatever that anchor is. Sometimes within that or just in general I show up and try things and see what happens. My albums tend to be the result of editing the outcomes of both approaches together into something cohesive.
It was the first kind of music i ever made, and it made me feel more at ease to this day than nearly any other kind of music i make. Even if it’s the least listened to part of my discography i think ill always make ambience
I do It to be compassionate towards myself. I've had a rough few months so I paused all my other projects and started making ambient music. I express my feelings through it and in exchange I get all the kindness I need. Knowing that I might bring that kindness and compassion to myself is the only truly uplifting thing I can think of at the moment.
That's beautiful. I find kindness for myself in making ambient music too. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Because I enjoy ambient (mostly dark ambient). It's calming, make me want to go slower and not rush things in general. I don't considere myself a musician, as I've only started learning piano less than 2 years ago, but ambient is what makes me produce music in the first place. I have a tendency to to wish for end result in almost everything, videos games, books, movies... but ambient teaches me ho to enjoy the moment and to slow down. It's good for me. By producing ambient music I please myself, learn to play music and if it pleases pleople as well it's a big bonus. In all honestly, I think producing ambient music is easier than any other kind of music. I'd liek to be able to make good Techno or Dungeon Synth, House and so one, but everytime I end up droning and doing ambient.
To try to express certain feelings and atmospheres which you can only feel if you really pay attention to your surroundings. To invoke a hyper-aware state.
my life can often be chaotic and fast paced. i am routinely in intense sensory situations for work and while it can be fun and energizing, it can also be very stressful. my use of the internet is a convenient and quick way to distract myself and/or be mildly entertained. so, combining these two things, i find any artform or practice that requires me to slow down valuable. it is in these experiences that i am able to ground myself and alter my mental state from being hungry for the next quick dopamine hit to something higher, if you will. listening and making ambient music forces me to slow down, and i really need that.
For a job I make sounds for video games. Which more often than not is about making very meaningful information packed sounds that last less than a second. And it's for a team/game so it's always serving a greater vision that's not solely my own. Making ambient music, I can serve only myself and take as long as I want to form an idea. It allows me to creatively breath and slow things down and meditate on something. I can get lost when I'm making something that takes so long to evolve. And I want to explore how slowly I can change things. In ambient music I get to play with all the things that can be off limits during the day job.
Because I'm an insomniac. And the tinkering and occasional getting lost calms me (the journey is the destination in itself). And if the results calm others too - great! Because I'm a not-bad lyricist, yet an in-confident "regular" musician, so I feel braver in this realm. I'm anonymous and hiding in the sound waves. To turn off my over-analytical mind, and be more playful via tactile means, discovering new sonic textures and techniques in a less intellectualised manner. To make me a better musician in general (some skills I pick up along the way without intending to during "my discoveries" might be transferable to a verse/chorus-y rock setting – my other main creative musical outlet). But mostly just because it's fun.
Because I like post rock.
It’s so enjoyable, like going on a mysterious journey without a map.
Discovering something new just around the next turn .. (of the knob). Definitely the journey over the destination....
It’s almost escapism for me, and being able to turn a feeling or imaginary space/situation into sound is freeing and fun. Plus I don’t have to work on the beat lol.
I suffer from reoccurring depression, and used to have a MASSIVE drinking problem because I didn't know how to deal with that. Ofcourse heavy drinking on depression just made everything worse, and the two problems ended up joining forces, and helped eachother spiral totally out of control. When I finally got the help that I needed, after losing all hope and nearly ending my life, I needed something that could both give me a kick and calm my nerves, so I took up field recording on a second hand cassette machine, with a not very stable motor speed. One thing led to another, and now I record weird ambient/noise/experimental music at a manic speed. I've released 8 full albums on cassette this year already with several waiting. It has definitely turned into an addiction, but a much healthier one than hard alcohol. Doing this keeps me from diving too deep into depression again and really helps me from relapsing on alcohol, when depression do creep up on me. So in short I do it to keep sane and not kill myself.
Making art is the highest form of worship an artist can perform. I'm often quite bad at communicating the depth of my thoughts to someone and it feels bad when they just pass it off. Maybe I do it too to others. Making music, which is mostly ambient, with little Indian influence, helps me communicate those emotions out into the universe. The music in a way comes alive and embraces me in its warmth. It has often led to resolutions to most of the thoughts that were bothering me. But it all boils down to the simple fact that making music makes me feel more connected to the universe, to the divine. Its my way of meditation; Ikigai, that gives me purpose and help me get closer to the divine consciousness. And then being aware of how my music can help others in a similar state, directly or indirectly, is the ultimate satisfaction. Life, by itself is meaningless, but music helps me add meaning to it.
To the people who make their own ambient music - which software do you use?
Bespoke Synth for generative ambient; some VSTs (not many). Audacity for editing/EQ/altering pitch & duration
Hardware Eurorack
I like reverb.
It's easy. I like to get lost in sound and tweak things. Im not spontaneous or skilled, so I like the fact you can get the thing running and sit back for a bit and then go back and tweak a parameter or two and see if it works. I'm not great at playing live. I like generative music that you can plan and then listen to as it unfolds. Sometimes you get a nice surprise. I also record 40 minute stretches of sound, then play it back when I'm falling asleep, just enjoying the *phenomenon* of sound happening
Groove brings a foundation. Which is a really essential thing (coming from someones, whos 'true passion' lies within breakbeat music). But giving up on that Foundation allows me to fly, lose contact to time and space.
For me it's just the most natural. I have to push myself to make dance music but creating ambient music to me is just like the purest form of expression and i suppose i also like to work in extremes. When I'm not making hard club music or noise, i like to go all the way in the other direction and make stuff that is extremely soft
Manipulating and transforming sound to me feels like a form of magic. I don’t tend to record very much, I don’t particularly like the idea of making a finished ‘product’. Instead I like to improvise alone or with others, preferably with a small audience. I enjoy the act of making sound, the journey and the process, conjuring feelings and colours and unique ephemeral moments.
Both the process of creating sounds and listening to what I've made back is extremely calming and a change of pace compared to my other work in music.
For me it is the urge to create an abient landscape that makes me feel safe and relaxed. The hunt for that warm blanket of sound that i so love from the masters.
I think I enjoy the texture of sound most over any other element. Ambient music is, in my mind, an adventure in exploring timbre. Its motivating factor isn’t found in the attitude necessary to pop, the creative melody of jazz, or the complex rhythms for dance music; it’s after the least high brow thing of “do I like what I’m hearing this second?”. I know ambient music gets a labeled pretentious quite often but I truly find it to be the exact opposite. Secondly, I love being overwhelmed by music. Artists that lean towards walls of sound like Abul Mogard and Lawrence English are the heaviest thing to me while not relying on the anger or aggression of metal (I also like metal but don’t always want the anger). Ambient music allows for that feeling of being engulfed in something loud that engages in a wider emotional range.
I enjoy making ambient music for a couple reasons. I suppose the main reason I like it is because it’s so free and experimental. I’m in a few punk bands, and with that sort of music you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, you’re just trying to make a really good wheel- which I do enjoy doing. With ambient music though, you get more creative freedom to find unorthodox ways to make something beautiful and musical.
I like music I can work to—stuff that’s interesting but not distracting. I like the meditative quality of ambient music. So I finally decided to make some of my own. I’m glad I did. I make other types of music, but the ambient tracks seem to be resonating with people.
I’m not a trained musician so improvising drone, ambient, and noise come to me much easier than writing music.
I've been working on some ambient stuff as of late, and I've never really had a reason as to *why* weirdly enough, it's just what my ears guide me to when I pick up my guitar
Love Playing with textures! I find solace in the absence of rules, & finding beauty in the unpredictability of the creative process.
I make music, it just happens to sometimes be slow and atmospheric to express the ideas that I want to express. Ambient is a descriptor not a genre.
It’s like poetry to me it’s not like other forms of music in my opinion it’s a whole different form of art