![]() ![]() ![]() One final, uncommon-yet rewarding-technique for ambient 6-string is known as glissando guitar. Can you hear how each pass lends a distinctive character to the phrase? As with many sounds and tones, I'd suggest that none is better than the others, only different. The phrase is performed five times, first with no effects, then with three different reverbs, and finally with reverb and delay. 6 is a slow, three-chord phrase that demonstrates the effect of both reverb and delay. Similar to reverb, delay enhances both space and character, with the added benefit of notes that can repeat (infinitely, if so desired), blossom, harmonize, inspire, and more, depending on your inclinations.Įx. The second effect you're going to want to experiment with is delay. Ambient music lives in a space, and whether that space is a gothic cathedral, a primeval cave, or digital cage, each serves to imbue the music with its own character based on the environment in which it's conceived. Such off-kilter equivocation is embraced in ambient music.īoth these examples include a fair amount of reverb, which is arguably the most important detail to focus on when performing ambient guitar. This gives the piece a lopsided feel, making it difficult to know exactly where the first measure is. I should also point out that my loop is only three measures long. I'm not using an EBow, but I will in a later example. For the sustained notes in my melody/solo, I'm using a distortion pedal with the gain turned all the way up. Technically that is a C Lydian (C–D–E–F#–G–A–B) sound, but I think of it as G major (G–A–B–C–D–E–F#), with the harmonic emphasis on C. It features a droning loop with a constant C bass and additional notes that imply a C to D/C chord progression. The second is Fripp's soloing style, which tends to consist of long, sustained notes that sound more like a synthesizer than a guitar.Įx. The first is to create a droning, slow-moving loop as accompaniment to solo over. (No Pussyfooting) has since become a landmark recording for ambient music fans, and it ultimately led Fripp to dub his tape-based technique "Frippertronics" and for Eno to describe what they created as "ambient music."īesides Eno's manipulation of the loops, Fripp introduced two specific concepts on (No Pussyfooting) that are now pervasive in ambient guitar. In 1973, Fripp and Eno released (No Pussyfooting), an album that was recorded using techniques akin, if not identical, to Oliveros' and Riley's experiments with tape loops at the San Francisco Tape Music Center years earlier. This section might be what some of you have been waiting for: more familiar-dare I say more popular-ambient guitar. Yes, it's finally time for Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. Due to the intricacy of the outcomes from this technique, the music generated by the delay loop is not notated. Once I recorded the original signal, I began manipulating the delay pedal's time, level, and feedback. ![]() The notation for this example only shows the original four-measure phrase I performed into the first looper. As a result, it is the first loop that is being affected by the delay. Most importantly, I'm using two loop pedals, not tape loops, the first feeding into the second, with a delay pedal in between the two. I'm also swelling into my chords with my volume knob (more on that later). First, keeping the ambient genre in mind, my original signal has substantial amounts of reverb and delay. 3 is based on Riley's original premise but with significant deviations. For ambient music, it would be best if the loop material is minimalistic. I'm simplifying here, but the basic idea behind this technique, which Riley dubbed the "Time Lag Accumulator," is to play two identical tape loops at the same time, adding delay to one of the loops, varying the delay parameters, and I believe, manipulating the tape speed.ĭepending on the music recorded on the original loop, the Time Lag Accumulator results can become chaotic. Founded in 1962 by composers Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, and Ramon Sender, the SFTMC pioneered many of today's looping practices, perhaps most notably SFTMC member Terry Riley's innovation of the delay/feedback system using two tape recorders. This was in large part thanks to the San Francisco Tape Music Center (SFTMC). Dating back to at least the 1940s with the experimentation of Pierre Schaeffer, and even Les Paul who performed live looping on television, tape loops became commonplace in the 1960s. But the birth of looping goes back much farther than the popularizing of reliable looping pedals in the 1990s or even the long delay times used in the 1970s. Loops are among the fundamental tools used in generating ambient music. ![]()
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