An Ambient Exploration

Where is all the accordion ambient music?

The sky.

This little improvised piece is my first experiment using my accordion for ambient music. There are three different tracks here. One is a drone that sustains throughout the whole piece. The second track is some chordal harmony and the third is the melody. I went a little heavy with the reverb on the drone and harmony to give them a pad like feel.

I’m surprised at the lack of accordion used in ambient music. Actually, I’m not surprised. But it seems to be a natural fit for ambient music. It has that great saw wave sound to it and it’s also really versatile, being able to drone, accompany with sustained or staccato chords, and play melodies. Some accordions have buttons that produce effects like octave doubling. In this piece you can hear clicks and clacks throughout, which is me pressing those buttons. I liked how they sounded with the delay so I left them in. You can also hear the change in the sound of the accordion when I press the buttons in the melody.

The only other truly ambient accordion record I’ve come across is the wonderful Genius Loci by

Brian d'Souza

, which you can listen to below.

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Sharing

A Song

A Book

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

A Quote

“If you listen to really deep ambient records that don’t move too much, very still records, long after those records are finished, you might find yourself listening for hours to the sound of the room.” - Bill Laswell

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