ambient music
Music that emphasises atmosphere, texture, and tone over traditional melody and rhythm.
In Depth
Brian Eno coined the term ambient music with his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports, describing it as music that must be as ignorable as it is interesting. Ambient music creates immersive sonic environments using sustained tones, drones, slow evolution, and spatial effects. It draws on electronic music, minimalism, and world music traditions. Ambient ranges from the barely audible to the richly textured, and has influenced film scoring, video game music, and meditation practices.
Brian Eno conceived ambient music while bedridden after a car accident, listening to harp music at a volume too low to hear properly; the half-heard quality became his aesthetic ideal.