Drone music, also called drone-based music or simply drone, is a simple type of music that uses long-lasting sounds, notes, or groups of tones called drones. It is usually made up of long musical pieces with only small changes in harmony. La Monte Young, one of its creators in the 1960s, described it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism." Music with drones appears in many traditions from Asia, Australia, and Europe. However, the term "drone music" is most often used for music from the Western classical tradition. Parts of drone music have been used in other types of music, such as rock, ambient, and electronic music.
Overview
Drone music is a type of music that uses long, repeated sounds and has little or no strong rhythm. It is found in many cultures around the world, such as in Scottish bagpipe traditions like pibroch piping, Australian didgeridoo music, South Indian classical Carnatic music, and Hindustani classical music. These styles often use a Tanpura, a four-stringed plucked instrument that only plays drone sounds. Drone-like tones also appear in Japanese gagaku classical music. Some sources suggest that drone-like sounds might have been used in medieval European vocal music called organum, though this is debated. In Byzantine chant, a practice called ison (or drone-singing) was used after the 15th century. Repeating tones, similar to those in bagpipes, can be found in many musical styles.
Modern drone music, sometimes called "dronology" by some books and labels, is often linked to underground music, post-rock, and experimental genres. It is part of a musical movement known as minimal music. According to Pitchfork Media and Allmusic journalist Mark Richardson, drone music is defined by its use of sustained, repeated sounds and minimal rhythmic patterns.
History
In 1949, Nouveau Réalisme artist Yves Klein created The Monotone Symphony (also called The Monotone-Silence Symphony), which he began planning between 1947 and 1948. This 40-minute musical piece included a single 20-minute sustained chord, followed by 20 minutes of silence. It demonstrated how a single long, unchanging note could be used to create music.
Composer La Monte Young was an early pioneer of drone music. He said he was interested in sounds that lasted a long time, such as "the sound of wind blowing," the "60-cycle-per-second drone" from telephone pole transformers, the tanpura drone, the alap of Indian classical music, "certain parts of serialism" like the slow movement in Webern's Symphony Opus 21, and Japanese gagaku music, which includes long tones from instruments like the Sho. Young began using sustained tones in his music in 1957 with the middle section of For Brass. In 1958, he composed Trio for Strings, which he called "the first work in music history made entirely of long sustained tones and silences." He later explored this style further through the group he founded in 1962, called the Theatre of Eternal Music.
The Theatre of Eternal Music was a group that performed music, art, and other media together. During the 1960s and 1970s, the group included members such as La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise, Terry Jennings, John Cale, Billy Name, Jon Hassell, and Alex Dea. These individuals came from diverse backgrounds, including classical music, painting, mathematics, poetry, and jazz. Based in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s, the group was connected to the Fluxus movement and the artistic ideas that followed John Cage. Their performances took place on the East Coast of the United States and in Western Europe. These events featured long periods of sound and music that changed slowly, following rules set by Young. The group did not release any recordings during their time together, though Young and Zazeela made a collaborative album in 1969, and Young contributed a recording to a magazine in 1970. Their performances influenced many artists, including Karlheinz Stockhausen and other composers who created minimalist music based on drones.
In 2000, La Monte Young wrote: "I believe that the sustained tone branch of minimalism, also known as 'drone music,' is a fertile area for exploration."
Rock music
In the mid-1960s, the Beatles started using Indian-inspired drone sounds in their psychedelic rock songs, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966). At the same time, John Cale, a member of the group Theatre of Eternal Music, introduced drone techniques to his new band, the Velvet Underground, along with songwriter Lou Reed. The Velvet Underground's first EP in 1966, called Loop, was an experimental drone piece created by Cale. Their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), helped popularize the use of drones in rock music. After leaving the Velvet Underground, John Cale worked on the Stooges' 1969 debut album, which included his viola drone on the track "We Will Fall." Later, in 1975, Lou Reed released a double LP called Metal Machine Music, which featured a note about "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" (including a spelling error).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, German rock bands like Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Cluster, and Faust were influenced by earlier rock groups that used repetition and long musical phrases, such as the Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd, as well as composers like Stockhausen and Young. These groups, known as krautrock, inspired other rock musicians of their time and later influenced punk and post-punk artists. Tony Conrad, from Theatre of Eternal Music, collaborated with Faust on a 1973 album that contained only complex violin drones, a single bass note, and some percussion. Simple, repeating bass lines also appeared in Can's song "Mother Sky" (from the 1970 album Soundtracks) and on the entire first album by Die Krupps (1979).
Drone metal began with the band Earth, formed in 1989 in Olympia, Washington, by musician Dylan Carlson. Earth was inspired by the heavy, slow style of Melvins and the minimalist music of composers like Young, Riley, and Conrad. Stephen O'Malley's band Sunn O))), originally created as a tribute to Earth, became well-known for bringing drone metal into the modern music scene. In Tokyo, the band Boris developed a similar style of drone metal, as did Corrupted from Osaka.
In 1990, the British band Spacemen 3 recorded a 45-minute live drone album called Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music, which included liner notes by La Monte Young. More recently, bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor have included drone music in their albums, such as Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress and Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!. Other modern artists who use drone sounds almost entirely in their music include Tim Hecker, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Stars of the Lid, Celer, Oren Ambarchi, William Basinski, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Nurse with Wound, and Grouper.
Ambient music
In North America and Europe, some musicians tried to combine Asian classical music, simple, minimal styles, and harmonious parts of folk music to support spiritual ideas. One of these musicians was Terry Riley, a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music, who created his 1964 piece In C. Riley, along with La Monte Young and Zazeela, became followers of Pandit Pran Nath, a famous Hindustani classical singer. At the same time, the Krautrock band Tangerine Dream and its former member Klaus Schulze began making more reflective and harmonious music. Both released drone music albums—Zeit by Tangerine Dream and Irrlicht by Klaus Schulze—on the Ohr label in August 1972. During the 1970s, Irv Teibel produced the Environments series, a collection of 30-minute recordings featuring uninterrupted natural sounds and synthesized music, such as "Om Chant" and "Tintinnabulation."
At the same time, as studio technology became more advanced in the 1970s, Brian Eno, a former member of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music, suggested that ambient music could be listened to in many ways without forcing the listener to focus on one. He based this idea partly on John Cage and Erik Satie’s earlier concept of "furniture music," which was meant to be background music, and partly on minimalists like La Monte Young. Although Eno’s ambient recordings from the late 1970s were not drone music, his respect for Young and his influence on later drone music made him an important connection in the development of this style.
The 1971 album Tibetan Bells by Henry Wolff and Nancy Hennings introduced singing bowls to a Western audience. Klaus Wiese was an expert in using Tibetan singing bowls and created many albums featuring their deep, sustained sounds.