Furniture Music
Musique d'ameublement (furniture music) is a term coined by French composer Erik Satie in 1917 for music composed to be actively ignored.
Heard, not listened to.
“Furniture Music is fundamentally industrial. […] A form of music designed to satisfy ‘utility’ requirements. […] Furniture Music creates vibration; it has no other purpose; it fills the same role as light, warmth, and comfort in all its forms.” — Erik Satie, letter to Jean Cocteau, March 1920
Satie imagined music that could blend into the room, soften the sounds of knives and forks, fill awkward silences, and neutralize street noise.
- Satie’s best-known pieces: Gymnopédies & Gnossiennes (1888)
- Furniture music pieces: Satie Furniture Music (~1917)
Furniture music is the ancestor of most background music we live with now. Muzak. Ambient. The playlist in the café.
Muzak
Muzak, a brand founded in 1934, produced music designed to shape behavior in workplaces, shops, and lifts. Usually called “Elevator Music”.
Ambient Music
Brian Eno coined the term Ambient Music in 1978 with Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
“Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” — Brian Eno, liner notes, Ambient 1: Music for Airports, 1978