The Importance of Ambiance

A lot can be conveyed in a story or a poem with imagery yes? Often times we've talked about the "symbolism of the blue curtains" and whether they symbolize the character's depression, or they were just blue. Imagery is obviously extremely important because it gives us context to the situation. If two character's are having a romantic conversation it can be a very different scenario if it were in a city street as opposed to a dimly lit bedroom yes?

In music and film the same scenario applies, the difference being the ambiance and mood are shown through picture set and sound as opposed to printed words. If a character is running through the woods and it's twilight with the blue hue of dusk and the shadows creeping in we have a different feeling as opposed to if the character was running at high noon in the bright sun. So where am I going with this post?

In the music I listen to I am a huge fan of ambiance, but how do we have ambiance in music?
Dynamics, dynamics, sound effects, harmony, chord structure, tempo, and more dynamics!
I like music that really sets a mood when you listen to it, but how can such a thing be described?
I guess the best way is to post a few examples.




For me, this song takes me to a beach in early morning. This is an example of ambiance. There are no words therefore the entire "story" or "meaning" is conveyed with pure ambiance.



This song has lyrics, but the way the music fits around it creates a fitting mood that also takes you somewhere.

So what exactly is the point of this post? What is the importance of ambiance? Doesn't all music have ambiance?

Ambiance is the difference between music taking you on a journey and making you participate and music that just sits in your ears. Here is an example of a song that I personally feel lacks the ambient element.



This is not to say that music that lacks ambiance isn't successful music it's just not the same thing. Ambiance is an art in and of itself, an art that I particularly enjoy. I tend to enjoy music with ambiance, I enjoy ambient movies, ambient rooms, some people like a lot of imagery in books others enjoy dialogue. There's no wrong way to tell  a story, that's why there are so many literary devices and different genres of music. I just hope I helped you understand ambiance a little bit, and if you like ambiance in your music I'll leave you with a list of the most ambient bands I know of

Radiohead
Ott
Shpongle
STS9
Portishead
Fever Ray
Pink Floyd

^^that should be a good start.