Let´s determine in what Space Ambient is different from Dark Ambient.

If you prefer watching a complete practical project of making Space Ambient you will surely like this video: 

Let´s line out the basics in this article. If you prefer watching a complete practical project of making Dark Ambient you will surely like this video:

This way you will find out in what e.g. Mickey Mouse Rock ´n´ Roll is different from Mozart´s “Kleine Nachtmusik”. You´re going to find out what makes a good piece of Mickey Mouse Rock ´n´ Roll, and what you should not do when producing Mickey Mouse Rock ´n´ Roll.

Thought on Ambient Music  part 1

Does Ambient Music even exist? Is Ambient Music real? … or is it just another of these marketing terms?

What do a 19 year old table dancer and my grandma (born long before World War I) in common? Well, they both are women.

This riddle and its solution leads us to the question: “What at all is ambient music?”.  

This workbook (e-book version) covers Dark Ambient, Space Ambient, New Age Ambient, Ambient Techno and Liminal Ambient. It´s going to be available in the week after Easter.

It has got 183 pages.

There are 11 comprehensive projects in it, each in detail and step by step explained and documented.

It has got 344 graphics and includes nearly 2 hours of video.

Does New Age Ambient even exist?

Here things become a bit tricky – and pretty much controversial.

When going through all – well, not all, but a lot – of the stuff that´s written about New Age, New Age Music and New Age Ambient two little nonsense “one-liner” from my younger days came into my mind:

“What kind of an apple is a butterfly?”

and

Some of you may have been surprised to learn that there are so many sub-genres of ambient music. Sub-genres that are actually relatively clearly distinguishable from each other and have specific characteristics.

I´ve checked and organised presets of 11 Cherry Audio Synths in order to make a sonic “canvas” to “paint” on.

I´m currently working on the chapter about the sub-genre "Dark Ambient". The projects whose making I describe in detail here cover musical styles of Dark Ambient from the late 1970s up to those of today´s. 

In the first finished chapter I set up a project - I call it a "stem cell" - from where you can develop any kind of ambient music. The musical "DNA" of the piece contains sections (sequences of musical "nucleotides"), which built the starting points from where they can be developed into each of the 14 directions, from ambient dub over dark ambient etc. to chill out and more.

I´ve started working on this new e-book, which is scheduled for being published in June (2025), Brian Eno said in an interview some time ago, that he didn´t even recognise (his) ambient music when listening to all the sub-genres of ambient that have occurred since the end of the 1970s.