the music (background)

A number of features recur in the studies. Some precise others vague.

Slow tempo, constant rhythms, consonant harmonies,

classical, piano only, homogeneous dynamics,

simple rhythm with a slow pulsation,

mostly piano dynamics, with gentle crescendo

Much of this is share similarities with Eno’s ambient music and

Satie’s Musique d’ameublement (furniture music).

Eno’s ambient music is simple, sparse and

dreamlike and is able to support both close and background listening.

'I was trying to make a piece that could be listened to and yet could

be ignored ... perhaps in the spirit of Satie who wanted to make

music that could “mingle with the sound of the knives and forks at dinner”.'

Eno, Brian. Sleevenotes to Discreet Music. Obscure Records. London. 1975.

Many of the qualities that are evident in the ambient works of Eno are

shared by composers working in different ways using different techniques.

Whilst the music of Morton Feldman is not ambient, his works appear motionless

and have no obvious sense of a beginning or end, whilst the music remains

a music of repetition.

'Actually now I just try to repeat the same chord. I’m

reiterating the same chord in inversions. I enjoy that very

much, to keep the inversions alive in a sense where

everything changes and nothing changes.'

Feldman, Morton. Morton Feldman Essays. Beginner Press, Kerpen. 1985. p.230.

Kenneth Martin, when speaking of his paintings, makes a point that is also applicable to music:

'it is not a reduction to a simple form of the complex scene before us,

it is the building by simple events of an expressive whole.'

Kenneth Martin. http://main.sbc.org.uk/hg/sub_hg/acc/11283583. May 2002.

This is the same for ambient music; simple musical events are built up and

layered into an ‘expressive whole’. On one level the music alters very little

and appears to drift along. On the other hand, the music requires close

listening to perceive the subtle changes of event.

In Gavin Bryars’ Jesus’ Blood Never Failed me Yet,

the orchestral accompaniment to the tramp’s

voice builds up so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. The changes in

orchestration are so slight and occur so quietly that it requires close

listening to hear these changes. A superficial listening gives the impression

that the piece is doing nothing, merely having a tramp’s voice on a tape loop

accompanied by strings. However, the linear nature of the development can

be heard by listening to the first few minutes and comparing that to the final

few; the true amount of development that has occurred in the piece then

becomes evident. In opposition to this, Feldman’s music appears to have

neither a beginning nor an end; the start and the finish of the piece appear

almost arbitrary. It is not necessary for a listener to hear what has gone

before as each chord is individual and not part of an overall pattern. Like the

music of Satie where ‘each sound event, liberated from its dramatic role in

the traditional tonal structures, is free to be itself’

Gillmor, Alan. Satie, Cage, and the new Asceticism. Contact 25. Autumn 1892. p. 15.

This style of ambient, still music, has informed the development

of music for the device. The music does not work through climaxes or conventional

structural devices but can be described as wallpaper music, based on

circular patterns that have no clear beginning or end.

'What I really wanted was music that would last until you switched it off – eight hours or forever.'

Brian Eno from Brian Eno – A Quantity of Stuff. Stuart Maconie for BBC Radio 2. 2000.

This style of music has also been classed as New Age and used in mindfulness and meditation

Pieces used in the research that has been refered to includes:

Satie - Gymnopedie No. 1

Minkus - La Bayadere, Act III- Entrance of the Shades

Sean Beeson - Morning Light

Macaroni Union - Weightless

Researchers from the British Academy of Sound Therapy collaborated

with the band Macaroni Union to create the “most relaxing song in the world”.

The song has no repeating melody and progressively slows from

60 beats per minute (BPM) to 50 BPM over its 8-minute duration.

Groarke, Jenny M. et al. Does Listening to Music Regulate Negative Affect in a Stressful Situation?
Examining the Effects of Self-Selected and Researcher-Selected Music Using Both Silent and Active Controls.
Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, 2020, 12 (2). p. 295