DOES AMBIENT MUSIC FORM A REPRODUCIBLE REPERTOIRE?

I've done a bit of music journalism over the last century (Crystal Infos, Keyboards magazine...) and I remain an attentive and passionate observer of the new and electronic music scene.

 

Basically, I wonder whether one of the characteristics of ambient music is that it doesn't constitute a repertoire that can be interpreted by musicians other than its original creators...

 

No doubt because most of this music is not "written" in the traditional sense of the term, and so its score cannot be interpreted in the same way as a Chopin Nocturne or a Bach sonata. The ambient genre also differs from jazz in that it does not give rise to a tradition of "standards" that can be reinterpreted with greater or lesser degrees of creativity by new musicians.

 

One explanation undoubtedly lies in the nature of ambient music, where sound design and production choices, even more than musical writing itself, are constitutive of the genre.

 

It is undoubtedly difficult, if not impossible, to make a new interpretation of Klaus Schulze's "Mirage" or Brian Eno's "On Land".

 

But there are, of course, counter-examples in the remix genre. Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream have offered us year after year multiple reinterpretations and remixes of some of their "classics", for better, and sometimes for worse.

 

We also remember the "Synthesizer Greatest Hits" compilations, commercial operations that invaded supermarket shelves with ad nauseam versions of "Oxygène" and others.

 

Some of Brian Eno's compositions, such as "Discreet Music", "Music for Airports" and "Thursday Afternoon", have also been reinterpreted by acoustic ensembles: I'm thinking of the Dedalus Ensemble and Bang on a Can, as well as Brian Eno's recent concerts with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic conducted by Kristjan Järvi. Piano lines and vocal parts undoubtedly lend themselves more readily to new orchestrations.

 

 

 

Are there any tribute bands in the field of electronic music, like those that exist for Pink Floyd or Genesis, proposing a musical and scenic reinterpretation of the original works?

 

In today musical scene, I can only think of Mark Jenkins, who is currently offering a reinterpretation of some Kraftwerk classics.

 

But these are exceptions which, it seems to me, confirm the rule. And beyond the technical tour de force and the fidelity of the performance, we can also wonder about the meaning of such a "close" reproduction of originals that ultimately remain irreplaceable.

 

Ambient music, especially that which relies more on sound design than on "classical" writing, remains linked to its original creator and does not become a "repertory work". Each recording remains a unique artefact, and in many cases, a unique masterpiece.

 

The most creative musicians in the genre have created musical styles and currents that give rise to innumerable creative variations: think of the "Berlin School", which still plays such a structuring role in today's electronic scene, or the Eno-Budd-style ambient movement.

 

 

Ambient music would thus be similar to classical music in that it too gives rise to different "schools", distinguished by their sound, compositional principles, degree of abstraction, rhythmic structures, and so on.