Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion. Drum machines produce unique sounds. Most modern drum machines allow users to program their own rhythms. Drum machines may play prerecorded samples. Drum machines have had a lasting impact on popular music; the Roland TR-808, introduced in 1980 influenced the development of dance and hip hop music. The first drum machine to use samples of real drum kits, the Linn LM-1, was introduced in 1980 and adopted by rock and pop artists including Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Stevie Wonder. In the late 1990s, software emulations began to overtake the popularity of physical drum machines. Rhythmicon In 1930–32, the spectacularly innovative and hard-to-use Rhythmicon was developed by Léon Theremin at the request of Henry Cowell, who wanted an instrument which could play compositions with multiple rhythmic patterns, based on the overtone series, that were far too hard to perform on existing keyboard instruments.
The invention could produce sixteen different rhythms, each associated with a particular pitch, either individually or in any combination, including en masse, if desired. Received with considerable interest when it was publicly introduced in 1932, the Rhythmicon was soon set aside by Cowell and was forgotten for decades; the next generation of rhythm machines played only pre-programmed rhythms such as mambo, tango, or bossa nova Chamberlin Rhythmate In 1957, Harry Chamberlin, an engineer from Iowa, created the Chamberlin Rhythmate, which allowed users to select between 14 tape loops of drum kits and percussion instruments performing various beats. Like the Chamberlin keyboard, the Rhythmate was intended for family singalongs. Around 100 units were sold. First commercial product – Wurlitzer Sideman In 1959, Wurlitzer released the Sideman, which generates sounds mechanically by a rotating disc to a music box. A slider controls the tempo. Sounds can be triggered individually through buttons on a control panel.
The Sideman was a success and drew criticism from musicians' unions, which ruled that it could only be used in cocktail lounges if the keyboardist was paid the wages of three musicians. Wurlitzer ceased production of the Sideman in 1969. Raymond Scott In 1960, Raymond Scott constructed the Rhythm Synthesizer and, in 1963, a drum machine called Bandito the Bongo Artist. Scott's machines were used for recording his album Soothing Sounds for Baby series. First transistorized drum machines – Seeburg/Gulbransen During the 1960s, implementation of rhythm machines were evolved into solid-state from early electro-mechanical with vacuum tubes, size were reduced to desktop size from earlier floor type. In the early 1960s, a home organ manufacturer, Gulbransen cooperated with an automatic musical equipment manufacturer Seeburg Corporation, released early compact rhythm machines Rhythm Prince, although, at that time, these size were still as large as small guitar amp head, due to the use of bulky electro-mechanical pattern generators.
In 1964, Seeburg invented a compact electronic rhythm pattern generator using "diode matrix", transistorized electronic rhythm machine with pre-programmed patterns, Select-A-Rhythm, was released. As the result of its robustness and enough compact size, these rhythm machines were installed on the electronic organ as accompaniment of organists, spread widely. Keio-Giken, Nippon Columbia, Ace Tone In the early 1960s, a nightclub owner in Tokyo, Tsutomu Katoh was consulted from a notable accordion player, Tadashi Osanai, about the rhythm machine he used for accompaniment in club, Wurlitzer Side Man. Osanai, a graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Tokyo, convinced Katoh to finance his efforts to build better one. In 1963, their new company Keio-Giken released their first rhythm machine, Donca-Matic DA-20 using the vacuum tube circuits for sounds and mechanical-wheel for rhythm patterns, it was a floor-type machine with built-in speaker, featuring a keyboard for the manual play, in addition to the multiple automatic rhythm patterns.
Its price was comparable with the average annual income of Japanese at that time. Their effort was focused on the improvement of reliability and performance, along with the size reduction and the cost down. Unstable vacuum tube circuit was replaced with reliable transistor circuit on Donca-Matic DC-11 in mid-1960s, in 1966, bulky mechanical-wheel was replaced with compact transistor circuit on Donca-Matic DE-20 and DE-11. In 1967, Mini Pops MP-2 was developed as an option of Yamaha Electone, Mini Pops was established as a series of the compact desktop rhythm machine. In the United States, Mini Pops MP-3, MP-7, etc. were sold under Univox brand by the distributor at that time, Unicord Corporation. In 1965, Nippon Columbia filed a patent for an automatic rhythm instrument, it described it as an "automatic rhythm player, simple but capable of electronically producing various rhythms in the characteristic tones of a drum, a piccolo and so on." It has some similarities to Seeburg's earlier 1964 patent.
In 1967, Ace Tone founder Ikutaro Kakehashi developed the preset rhythm-pattern generator using diode matrix circuit, which has some similarities to the earlier Seeburg and Nippon Columbia patents. Kakehashi's pate
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1950s. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music, popular and includes many diverse styles. "Pop" and "rock" were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they became differentiated from each other. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, borrows elements from other styles such as urban, rock and country. Identifying factors include short to medium-length songs written in a basic format, as well as common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, hooks. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music, distinguishable from popular and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music.
The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s, most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country and hillbilly music. According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience since the late 1950s, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc." Grove Music Online states that " in the early 1960s,'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music, while in the US its coverage overlapped with that of'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term “pop music” was used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward and, in musical terms, it is conservative".
It is, "provided from on high rather than being made from below... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Music scholar Timothy Warner said it has an emphasis on recording and technology, rather than live performance; the main medium of pop music is the song between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, a chorus that contrasts melodically and harmonically with the verse; the beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on simple themes – love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, spoken passages from rap. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar and bass groups or singers
A-ha
A-ha is a Norwegian band formed in Oslo in 1982. Founded by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, Magne Furuholmen and Morten Harket, the band rose to fame during the mid-1980s and continued its global success in the 1990s and the 21st century. A-ha achieved their biggest success with their debut album Hunting High and Low in 1985; that album peaked at number one in their native Norway, number 2 in the UK, number 15 on the US Billboard album chart. In the UK, Hunting High and Low continued its chart success into the following year, becoming one of the best-selling albums of 1986; the band released studio albums in 1986, 1988, 1990. In 1994, after their fifth studio album, Memorial Beach, failed to achieve the commercial success of their previous albums, the band went on a hiatus. Following a performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, A-ha recorded their sixth album, 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, another number-one hit in Norway and resulted in a new tour; this album was followed by Lifelines. On 15 October 2009, the band announced they would split after the 2010 worldwide Ending on a High Note Tour.
Thousands of fans from at least 40 different countries on six continents congregated to see A-ha for the last leg of the tour. On 4 December 2014, A-ha announced its participation at Rock In Rio 2015, which celebrated 30 years for both the band and the event. In 2015, it was announced, their tenth studio album, Cast in Steel, was released on 4 September 2015, the band toured in support of the album. The band has released several compilations and four live albums. In less than a year, during 2010, the band earned an estimated 500 million Norwegian Kroner from concert tickets and the release of a greatest hits album, making them one of the 40–50 largest grossing bands in the world; the band were listed in the Guinness World Records book for having the biggest rock concert attendance. Another record for the band is for singer Morten Harket, listed in the Guinness World Records book in 2001 for the longest live note held. According to their label, they have sold 55 million records; the trio, composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket.
They jettisoned that idea. "It was a terrible song but a great name," says Morten. They chose the studio of musician and soon-to-be-manager John Ratcliff because it had a Space Invaders machine. John Ratcliff introduced them to his manager, Terry Slater, after a few meetings, A-ha enlisted Ratcliff as a manager as well. Slater and Ratcliff formed TJ Management. Ratcliff dealt with technical and musical aspects, Slater acted as the group's international business manager and as liaison to Warner Brothers' head office in Los Angeles. An early version of "Take On Me" was the first song that Morten Harket had heard Magne Furuholmen and Pål Waaktaar play in Asker. At that time, the song was called "The Juicy Fruit Song", the two men were still known as Bridges, it was named "Lesson One". After some re-writing, multiple re-recordings, three releases, "Take On Me" became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1985; the first version of the song, released in 1984, was promoted by a video of the band performing the song in front of a blue background.
The song was re-recorded with production by Alan Tarney, but both of these releases failed to chart. It was re-released with a new, groundbreaking video which peaked at number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart. A-ha became the first Norwegian band to have a number 1 song in the US; the video used a pencil-sketch animation/live-action combination called rotoscoping, in which individual frames of live video are drawn over or coloured. It became one of the most recognisable and most enduringly popular music videos in the US where it was nominated for eight awards at the third annual MTV Video Awards in 1986, winning six, including Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Viewer's Choice and Best Video of the Year, their six MTV Award wins for that video gave them twice as many wins as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and more than any artist in the three years of the awards combined. The band's second single was "The Sun Always Shines on TV".
In the US the song peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 17 on Radio & Records airplay chart. A remix version was a club hit; the music video for the song was another popular and critical success, nominated in three categories at the 1986
Japanese yen
The yen is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro, it is widely used as a reserve currency after the U. S. dollar, the euro, the pound sterling. The concept of the yen was a component of the Meiji government's modernization program of Japan's economy. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan's feudal fiefs all issued their own money, hansatsu, in an array of incompatible denominations; the New Currency Act of 1871 did away with these and established the yen, defined as 1.5 g of gold, or 24.26 g of silver, as the new decimal currency. The former han became prefectures and their mints private chartered banks, which retained the right to print money. To bring an end to this situation the Bank of Japan was founded in 1882 and given a monopoly on controlling the money supply. Following World War II the yen lost much of its prewar value. To stabilize the Japanese economy the exchange rate of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per $1 as part of the Bretton Woods system.
When that system was abandoned in 1971, the yen was allowed to float. The yen had appreciated to a peak of ¥271 per $1 in 1973 underwent periods of depreciation and appreciation due to the 1973 oil crisis, arriving at a value of ¥227 per $1 by 1980. Since 1973, the Japanese government has maintained a policy of currency intervention, the yen is therefore under a "dirty float" regime; this intervention continues to this day. The Japanese government focuses on a competitive export market, tries to ensure a low yen value through a trade surplus; the Plaza Accord of 1985 temporarily changed this situation from its average of ¥239 per US$1 in 1985 to ¥128 in 1988 and led to a peak value of ¥80 against the U. S. dollar in 1995 increasing the value of Japan’s GDP to that of the United States. Since that time, the yen has decreased in value; the Bank of Japan maintains a policy of zero to near-zero interest rates and the Japanese government has had a strict anti-inflation policy. Yen derives from the Japanese word 圓, which borrows its phonetic reading from Chinese yuan, similar to North Korean won and South Korean won.
The Chinese had traded silver in mass called sycees and when Spanish and Mexican silver coins arrived, the Chinese called them "silver rounds" for their circular shapes. The coins and the name appeared in Japan. While the Chinese replaced 圓 with 元, the Japanese continued to use the same word, given the shinjitai form 円 in reforms at the end of World War II; the spelling and pronunciation "yen" is standard in English. This is because when Japan was first encountered by Europeans around the 16th century, Japanese /e/ and /we/ both had been pronounced and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them "ye"; some time thereafter, by the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain the pronunciation. Walter Henry Medhurst, who had neither been to Japan nor met any Japanese, having consulted a Japanese-Dutch dictionary, spelled some "e"s as "ye" in his An English and Japanese, Japanese and English Vocabulary. In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn, following Medhurst, spelled all "e"s as "ye" in his A Japanese and English dictionary.
That was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and prompted the spelling "yen". Hepburn revised most "ye"s to "e" in the 3rd edition in order to mirror the contemporary pronunciation, except "yen"; this was already fixed and has remained so since. In the 19th century, silver Spanish dollar coins were common throughout Southeast Asia, the China coast, Japan; these coins had been introduced through Manila over a period of two hundred and fifty years, arriving on ships from Acapulco in Mexico. These ships were known as the Manila galleons; until the 19th century, these silver dollar coins were actual Spanish dollars minted in the new world at Mexico City. But from the 1840s, they were replaced by silver dollars of the new Latin American republics. In the half of the 19th century, some local coins in the region were made in the resemblance of the Mexican peso; the first of these local silver coins was the Hong Kong silver dollar coin, minted in Hong Kong between the years 1866 and 1869.
The Chinese were slow to accept unfamiliar coinage and preferred the familiar Mexican dollars, so the Hong Kong government ceased minting these coins and sold the mint machinery to Japan. The Japanese decided to adopt a silver dollar coinage under the name of'yen', meaning'a round object'; the yen was adopted by the Meiji government in an Act signed on June 27, 1871. The new currency was introduced beginning from July of that year; the yen was therefore a dollar unit, like all dollars, descended from the Spanish Pieces of eight, up until the year 1873, all the dollars in the world had more or less the same value. The yen replaced a complex monetary system of the Edo period based on the mon.. The New Currency Act of 1871, stipulated the adoption of the decimal accounting system of yen and rin, with the coins being round and manufactured using Western machinery; the yen
MIDI
MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments and related audio devices for playing and recording music. A single MIDI link through a MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of information, each of which can be routed to a separate device or instrument; this could be sixteen different digital instruments, for example. MIDI carries event messages, data that specify the instructions for music, including a note's notation, velocity, panning to the right or left of stereo, clock signals; when a musician plays a MIDI instrument, all of the key presses, button presses, knob turns and slider changes are converted into MIDI data. One common MIDI application is to play a MIDI keyboard or other controller and use it to trigger a digital sound module to generate sounds, which the audience hears produced by a keyboard amplifier. MIDI data can be recorded to a sequencer to be edited or played back.
A file format that stores and exchanges the data is defined. Advantages of MIDI include small file size, ease of modification and manipulation and a wide choice of electronic instruments and synthesizer or digitally-sampled sounds. A MIDI recording of a performance on a keyboard could sound like a piano or other keyboard instrument. A MIDI recording is not an audio signal, as with a sound recording made with a microphone. Prior to the development of MIDI, electronic musical instruments from different manufacturers could not communicate with each other; this meant that a musician could not, for example, plug a Roland keyboard into a Yamaha synthesizer module. With MIDI, any MIDI-compatible keyboard can be connected to any other MIDI-compatible sequencer, sound module, drum machine, synthesizer, or computer if they are made by different manufacturers. MIDI technology was standardized in 1983 by a panel of music industry representatives, is maintained by the MIDI Manufacturers Association. All official MIDI standards are jointly developed and published by the MMA in Los Angeles, the MIDI Committee of the Association of Musical Electronics Industry in Tokyo.
In 2016, the MMA established the MIDI Association to support a global community of people who work, play, or create with MIDI. In the early 1980s, there was no standardized means of synchronizing electronic musical instruments manufactured by different companies. Manufacturers had their own proprietary standards to synchronize instruments, such as CV/gate and Digital Control Bus. Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi felt the lack of standardization was limiting the growth of the electronic music industry. In June 1981, he proposed developing a standard to Oberheim Electronics founder Tom Oberheim, who had developed his own proprietary interface, the Oberheim System. Kakehashi felt the system was too cumbersome, spoke to Sequential Circuits president Dave Smith about creating a simpler, cheaper alternative. While Smith discussed the concept with American companies, Kakehashi discussed it with Japanese companies Yamaha and Kawai. Representatives from all companies met to discuss the idea in October.
Using Roland's DCB as a basis and Sequential Circuits engineer Chet Wood devised a universal synthesizer interface to allow communication between equipment from different manufacturers. Smith proposed this standard at the Audio Engineering Society show in November 1981; the standard was discussed and modified by representatives of Roland, Korg and Sequential Circuits. Kakehashi favored the name Universal Musical Interface, pronounced you-me, but Smith felt this was "a little corny". However, he liked the use of "instrument" instead of "synthesizer", proposed the name Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Moog Music founder Robert Moog announced MIDI in the October 1982 issue of Keyboard. At the 1983 Winter NAMM Show, Smith demonstrated a MIDI connection between Prophet 600 and Roland JP-6 synthesizers; the MIDI specification was published in August 1983. The MIDI standard was unveiled by Kakehashi and Smith, who received Technical Grammy Awards in 2013 for their work; the first MIDI synthesizers were the Roland Jupiter-6 and the Prophet 600, both released in 1982.
1983 saw the release of the first MIDI drum machine, the Roland TR-909, the first MIDI sequencer, the Roland MSQ-700. The first computers to support MIDI were the NEC PC-88 and PC-98 in 1982, the MSX released in 1983. MIDI's appeal was limited to professional musicians and record producers who wanted to use electronic instruments in the production of popular music; the standard allowed different instruments to communicate with each other and with computers, this spurred a rapid expansion of the sales and production of electronic instruments and music software. This interoperability allowed one device to be controlled from another, which reduced the amount of hardware musicians needed. MIDI's introduction coincided with the dawn of the personal computer era and the introduction of samplers and digital synthesizers; the creative possibilities brought about by MIDI technology are credited for helping revive the music industry in the 1980s. MIDI introduced capabilities. MIDI sequencing makes it possible for
Sentimental ballad
Sentimental ballads, are an emotional style of music that deal with romantic and intimate relationships, to a lesser extent, loneliness, drug abuse and religion in a poignant but solemn manner. Ballads are melodic enough to get the listener's attention. Sentimental ballads are found in most music genres, such as pop, R&B, country, folk and electronic music. Slow in tempo, ballads tend to have a lush musical arrangement which emphasize the song's melody and harmonies. Characteristically, ballads use acoustic instruments such as guitars, pianos and sometimes an orchestral set. Many modern mainstream ballads tend to feature synthesizers, drum machines and to some extent, a dance rhythm. Sentimental ballads had their origins in the early Tin Pan Alley music industry of the 19th century. Known as "tear-jerkers" or "drawing-room ballads", they were sentimental, strophic songs published separately or as part of an opera, descendants of broadside ballads; as new genres of music began to emerge in the early 20th century, their popularity faded, but the association with sentimentality led to the term ballad being used for a slow love song from the 1950s onwards.
Sentimental ballads have their roots from medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were "danced songs". Ballads were characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the medieval period until the 19th century, they were used across Europe, in the Americas and North Africa. As a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling. Musically they were influenced by the Minnesinger; the earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is "Judas" in a 13th-century manuscript. A reference in William Langland's Piers Plowman indicates that ballads about Robin Hood were being sung from at least the late 14th century and the oldest detailed material is Wynkyn de Worde's collection of Robin Hood ballads printed about 1495. Ballads at this time were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines; these refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. In the 18th century, ballad operas developed as a form of English stage entertainment in opposition to the Italian domination of the London operatic scene.
In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European British and Irish songs, and'Native American ballads', developed without reference to earlier songs. A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music. In the late 19th century, Danish folklorist Svend Grundtvig and Harvard professor Francis James Child attempted to record and classify all the known ballads and variants in their chosen regions. Since Child died before writing a commentary on his work it is uncertain how and why he differentiated the 305 ballads printed that would be published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. There have been many different and contradictory attempts to classify traditional ballads by theme, but identified types are the religious, tragic, love ballads, historic and humorous. By the Victorian era, ballad had come to mean any sentimental popular song so-called "royalty ballads"; some of Stephen Foster's songs exemplify this genre.
By the 1920s, composers of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway used ballad to signify a slow, sentimental tune or love song written in a standardized form. Jazz musicians sometimes broaden the term still further to embrace all slow-tempo pieces. Notable sentimental ballads of this period include, "Little Rosewood Casket", "After the Ball", "Danny Boy". Popular sentimental ballad vocalists in this era were Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Andy Williams, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis, Connie Francis, Nat King Cole, Liza Minnelli and Perry Como, their custom recordings were instrumental versions of current or recent rock and roll or pop hit songs. The most popular and enduring songs from this style of music are known as "pop standards" or "American standards". Many vocalists became involved in 1960s' vocal jazz and the rebirth of swing music, sometimes referred to as "easy listening" and was, in essence, a revival of popularity of the "sweet bands", popular during the swing era, but with more emphasis on the vocalist and the sentimentality.
Soft rock, a subgenre that consist of ballads, was derived from folk rock in the early 1970s, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. Major sentimental ballad artists of this decade included Barbra Streisand, Nana Mouskouri, Elton John, Engelbert Humperdinck, Carole King, Cat Stevens, James Taylor. By the early 1970s, softer ballad songs by the Carpenters, Anne Murray, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Streisand, began to be played more on "Top 40" radio. Furthermore, rock-oriented acts as Queen, Toto, England Dan & John Ford Coley, Air Supply and Crofts, the Eagles and Bread had made ballad music; when the word ballad appears in the title of a song, as for example in The Beatles' "The Ballad of John and Yoko" or Billy Joel's "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", the folk music sense is implied. The term ballad is sometimes applied to strophic story-songs more such as Don McLean's "American Pie". Prominent artists who made sentimental ballads in the 1980s were Stevie Wonder, Richard Marx, Michael Jackson, Bonnie Tyler, George Michael, Phil Collins, Sheena Easton, Amy Grant, Lionel Richie, Christopher
Ambient music
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. A form of slow instrumental music, it uses repetitive, but gentle, soothing sound patterns that can be described as sonic wallpaper to complement or alter one’s space and to generate a sense of calmness; the genre is said to evoke an "unobtrusive" quality. Ambient music focuses on creating a mood or atmosphere through synthesizers and timbral qualities lacking the presence of any net composition, beat, or structured melody, it uses textural layers of sound without prevalent musical tropes, rewarding both passive and active listening. Nature soundscapes are included, the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano and flute, among others, may be emulated through a synthesizer. According to Brian Eno, one of its pioneers, "Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular. Eno popularized ambient music in 1978 with his album Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
It saw a revival towards the late 1980s with the prominence of house and techno music, growing a cult following by the 1990s. Ambient music may have elements of new-age music and drone music, as some works may use sustained or repeated notes. Ambient music did not achieve large commercial success, being criticized as having a "boring" and "over-intellectual" sound, it has attained a certain degree of acclaim throughout the years in the Internet age. Due to its open style, ambient music takes influences from many other genres, ranging from classical, avant-garde music, folk and world music, among several others; as an early 20th-century French composer, Erik Satie used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient/background music that he labeled "furniture music". This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. In his own words, Satie sought to create "a music...which will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration.
I think of it as melodious, softening the noises of the knives and forks at dinner, not dominating them, not imposing itself. It would fill up those heavy silences, it would spare them the trouble of paying attention to their own banal remarks. And at the same time it would neutralize the street noises which so indiscreetly enter into the play of conversation. To make such music would be to respond to a need." In the 1960s, many music groups experimented with unusual methods, with some of them creating what would be called ambient music. In 1969, the group Coum Transmissions were performing sonic experiments in British art schools. Many pieces of ambient music were released in England and the United States of America between the late 1960s and the 1990s; some 1960s music with ambient elements include Music for Zen Meditation by Tony Scott, Soothing Sounds for Baby by Raymond Scott, Music for Yoga Meditation and Other Joys by Tony Scott. Developing in the 1970s, ambient stemmed from the experimental and synthesizer-oriented styles of the period.
Although Jamaican dub musicians such as King Tubby, Japanese electronic music composers such as Isao Tomita, as well as the psychoacoustic soundscapes of Irv Teibel's Environments series, German bands such as Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream, predate him in the creation of ambient music and/or were contemporaneous with him, Brian Eno played a key role in its development and popularization. The concept of background or furniture music had existed some time before, but only in the 70s was ambient music first created, which incorporated New Age ideals with the newly invented modular synthesizer. Eno went on to record 1975's Discreet Music with this in mind, suggesting that it be listened to at "comparatively low levels to the extent that it falls below the threshold of audibility", referring to Satie's quote about his musique d'ameublement; the impact the rise of the synthesizer in modern music had on ambient as a genre cannot be overstated. The only limit is with the composer"; the Yellow Magic Orchestra developed a distinct style of ambient electronic music that would be developed into ambient house music.
The English producer Brian Eno is credited with coining the term "ambient music" in the mid-1970s. He said that "I just gave it a name. Which is what it needed... By naming something you create a difference. You say. Names are important." He used the term to describe music that can be "actively listened to with attention or as ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", which exists on the "cusp between melody and texture". In the liner notes for his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Eno wrote:Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularizing environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies, Ambient Music is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty from the music, Ambient Music retain
