Ambient

Ambient music is a loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including jazz, electronic m

Ambient music is a loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including jazz, electronic music, new age, rock and roll, modern classical music, reggae, traditional, world and even noise.

The earliest electronic soundscape music and theories come from the work of Pierre Schaeffer who followed the futurists in classifying music into categories such as man made, natural, short and long. He made some of the first electronic music using record players and natural sounds, and cutting up tape, making the first experimental music use of recording and magnetic tape. Even his work can be seen as preempted by Schopenhauer's ideas of 'soundworlds', literally worlds made up entirely of sounds. Karlheinz Stockhausen created pioneering electronic musical experiments later in 1955, and these two (amongst others) lay the groundwork for ambient music to appear decades later when music technology had developed.