Classical is non-ambient in structure

[aquarius]

Ambient structure is more about building energy out of a consistent/repetitious sequence of patterns, if done correctly I can feel the cycles of life, the seasons, the moon and a variable chaos oscillating throughout existence itself. It's has a meditative quality and it triggers an ancient part of the mind. for a clinical example: suuri shamaani

Classical is based in melody/harmony/rhythm and shapes emotion out of a mastery of these elements. Not to say it wouldn't have used ambience where necessary, but I tend to think pure ambient is a more modern invention which appeals to the mind more than the heart.

Interestingly metal has kind of gone in both directions. The recent article about composing metal without drumming is fascinating as it would eventually bring it closer to classical where melody rules over rhythm.

[DeathDealer]

Ambient and classical did meet, for several centuries, in western sacred music, especially the early stuff (12th-15th centuries). Ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vADjiznPm0

I also believe this is where metal would be headed should the ideas in that article be implemented. On a practical level, the primary consonances of early music (fourths and fifths) are the ones that sound good under distortion (ex: power chords). And on the philosophical level, the best of metal is mystical in essence, in that it seeks to grasp the ultimate reality of things.

[Conservationist]

Ambient structure is more about building energy out of a consistent/repetitious sequence of patterns, if done correctly I can feel the cycles of life, the seasons, the moon and a variable chaos oscillating throughout existence itself. It's has a meditative quality and it triggers an ancient part of the mind. for a clinical example: suuri shamaani

There are classical tunes that experiment with this structural principle however. Ravel's Bolero and at times Vivaldi's The Four Seasons are this way. But otherwise, I think you're right: classical music works on a prismatic structure, while dub/ambient is a primitive version of the same based in layers, not motifs. Baroque is the most structured, like a dialogue; the classical period is almost mechanical; the Romantic period is like the poetry of the time, discursive around a clear spiritual but physical element; modernism is prismatic but also, like the ancient Greeks, ties its motifs to symbolism in a storyline or concept.

[Dead_Soul]

Ambient structure is more about building energy out of a consistent/repetitious sequence of patterns, if done correctly I can feel the cycles of life, the seasons, the moon and a variable chaos oscillating throughout existence itself. It's has a meditative quality and it triggers an ancient part of the mind. for a clinical example: suuri shamaani

Classical is based in melody/harmony/rhythm and shapes emotion out of a mastery of these elements. Not to say it wouldn't have used ambience where necessary, but I tend to think pure ambient is a more modern invention which appeals to the mind more than the heart.

Interestingly metal has kind of gone in both directions. The recent article about composing metal without drumming is fascinating as it would eventually bring it closer to classical where melody rules over rhythm.

Beethoven's Sixth Symphony is undeniably ambient(some would say fractal) in nature:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gV7t9XmQn8

[DeathDealer]

Beethoven's Sixth Symphony is undeniably ambient(some would say fractal) in nature:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gV7t9XmQn8

I agree on the "mood" part of ambient: the sixth is entirely programmatic. However, the "fractal" part eludes me; do you mean the repetition of motifs? If I remember correctly, the themes stay confined to their individual movements, and besides the 4th, each movement follows an established classical structure (sonata, rondo, etc.).

[aquarius]

classical music works on a prismatic structure, while dub/ambient is a primitive version of the same based in layers, not motifs.

Good way of putting it. This is a concise form of what I've always felt: the ambient structure conveys something akin to a blueprint of patterns found in nature, the classical/prismatic stucture is a human's interpretation in the mode of emotions. The thing is ambience has only more recently been explored in modern music, which is partly why it lacks the complexities found in the classical which was studied for centuries.

[Dedrater]

Dividing classical into programme and absolute music is slightly problematic, and I don't think that either half of the divide explicitly refers to ambiance. A third category was proposed by Franz Liszt:

Liszt's own point of view regarding programme music can for the time of his youth be taken from the preface of the Album d'un voyageur (1837). According to this, a landscape could evoke a certain kind of mood. Since a piece of music could also evoke a mood, a mysterious resemblance with the landscape could be imagined. In this sense the music would not paint the landscape, but it would match the landscape in a third category, the mood.

Ambient music!

Also, how about musical Impressionism? Debussy can be ambient, though I'm not so sure about Ravel. Is there anyone else from that period who seemed to compose ambient music? There's Satie -- a direct influence on Budd and Eno -- but until the early Eno albums, there doesn't seem to be much else. During the 20th century, art music fractured into dozens of frivolous experimental movements, all seemingly dead ends, so how a "popular" music artist involved in glam, of all things, managed to pick up where Satie and Debussy left off fascinates me. It seems like there should be a missing link somewhere along the way.

[metal on metal]

The missing link is in avantgarde aspirations of some glam artists, like Bowie and Roxy Music who nod plenty towards Futurism, dada and Burroughs. Also, young Eno had a career in avantgarde music circles way before his "rock" stardom, both solo and contributing to Maxwell Daemon "band".

[Dylar]

Much (perhaps most) vocal (especially choral) music in the classical tradition makes use of at least some ambient technique.  There's certainly more than a touch of an "ambient" sensibility to many of the more intimate "chamber" pieces, as well as in a lot of solo instrumental music.  I think it's a mistake to try and glean hard and fast "classical" practices just from large scale orchestral works and operas, which make up only a relatively small percentage of total classical output.

Brahms pretty effectively mixes both "classical" and "ambient" structure and technique here, no?

[lifeless]

i have get good info but i have little bit confusion