Unsettling Ambience -- Driving an audience nuts with niceness.

[David Kirkdorffer <DKirkdorffer@exapps.com>]

        WT Hartnett writes:

        Some people are driven nuts by "waiting for 
        the real music to start", and can't listen to ambient stuff
without 
        drums, fixed chord changes, etc.


I know what you mean.  

I have a friend who once said he keeps waiting for "an event" in ambient
music.  I think one of the challenges ambient music poses to newbie
listeners is "how to listen" to something that is not fitting into a
known format.  I believe it's the same challenge classical, jazz and
folk music may pose to a typical top-40 trained ear.

So, ironically even the most soothing ambient music can have an
unsettling effect on an "uninitiated" audience.

David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: T.W. Hartnett [SMTP:hartnett.t@apple.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 1997 7:37 AM
> To:   Looper's Delight
> Subject:      Re: Music Descriptions
> 
> >> In any case, I am still faced with a problem when I try to get
> gigs. I
> >> usually play at bookstores/art shows/galleries..and while booking
> the
> >> gig, I'm faced with "What kind of music do you play" by the booking
> >> agent for the venue.
> >
> >Actually, if you look them in the eye, and say "Ambient", then when
> they
> >ask, say something short and simple as with "You know about 'Techno'
> or
> >electronic?"  [pause]  "It's like that, but softer.  You can eat to
> it."
> >
> >Restaurateurs, I suspect, would mostly hear the last sentence,
> n'est-ce
> >pas?  And it's true, too.
> >
> >I wonder if there's an ambient version of Louie Louie in our future? 
> >[shudder]  What if the club owner who demands it turns out to be the
> kind
> >of shmoe who thinks Jean Michel Jarre are three French guys? [g]  But
> I
> >digress...  
> 
> I've had mostly good results trying to be background ambience while 
> people eat, but there are some people who react quite violently to
> what 
> they regard as "droney noise", and this is in reaction to some really 
> unobstrusive sound carpets.  Some people are driven nuts by "waiting
> for 
> the real music to start", and can't listen to ambient stuff without 
> drums, fixed chord changes, etc.
> 
> Travis Hartnett