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easy listening

Easy Listening

United States ¡ 1950s
ChillRomanticSentimentalDreamyHappy
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Description

Easy listening is a lush, melodic, and unobtrusive style of popular orchestral music designed to be pleasant in the foreground and effortless in the background. It favors smooth textures, lyrical melodies, and gentle rhythms over virtuosic display or dense complexity.

Typical arrangements feature string sections, woodwinds, soft brass, vibraphone, harp, piano, subtle Latin or light swing percussion, and sometimes wordless choirs. Repertoire often consists of standards, film and television themes, and instrumental covers of contemporary hits, presented with polished studio production and wide stereo imaging.

The mood ranges from romantic and sentimental to breezy and exotic, prioritizing warmth, clarity, and relaxed pacing. Improvisation, if present, is restrained, with harmony that leans on jazzy extensions while staying consonant and approachable.

History
Origins (1940s–1950s)

Light orchestral "mood music" associated with radio and film studios laid the groundwork for easy listening. Postwar high‑fidelity culture and the growth of domestic stereo systems encouraged labels to produce spacious, finely engineered records aimed at relaxed, stylish home listening. American traditional pop, big band ballads, and swing slowed down and softened, while British "light music" and Hollywood scoring practices contributed orchestration and polish.

Golden Era and Codification (late 1950s–1960s)

By the late 1950s, bandleaders and arrangers such as Mantovani, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Henry Mancini, and Bert Kaempfert defined the sound: lush strings, choral "ooh‑ahh" pads, gentle rhythms, and elegant countermelodies. Billboard launched the Easy Listening chart in 1961 (later renamed Adult Contemporary), formalizing the category on American radio. The repertoire blended standards, film/TV themes, and instrumental versions of current pop tunes, while bossa nova, exotica, and breezy Latin patterns flavored many arrangements.

Diversification and Transition (1970s)

Through the 1970s the style absorbed soft-rock songwriting and smooth soul/jazz colors, helping to shape what would become the Adult Contemporary radio format. Orchestral pop units, studio orchestras, and branded ensembles (e.g., 101 Strings) continued to record covers alongside original themes, while library and production music repurposed the idiom for television, advertising, and retail environments.

Legacy, Decline, and Revival (1980s–present)

Although synthesizers and changing pop tastes reduced mainstream prominence in the 1980s, easy listening’s aesthetics—polished arrangements, mellow tempos, refined harmonies—fed into smooth jazz, soft rock, and later "yacht rock". The 1990s–2000s saw a lounge/easy listening revival among crate‑diggers, cocktail culture, and soundtrack curators, while digital playlists and sample‑based producers rediscovered the genre’s plush textures and stereo spectacle.

How to make a track in this genre
Core Sound and Instrumentation
•   Build arrangements around a string section (violins/violas/cellos), with woodwinds (flute/clarinet/oboe), soft brass (flugelhorn/trombone horns), harp, vibraphone, piano, and light percussion (brush kit, shakers, triangle, congas/bongos used sparingly). •   Consider a small wordless choir for pads ("ooh/ahh") to add warmth without lyrical content.
Harmony and Melody
•   Favor consonant, jazz‑tinged harmony: major 7ths, 6/9 chords, gentle secondary dominants, and soft modal inflections. •   Keep melodies singable and lyrical; use stepwise motion and tasteful ornamentation. Countermelodies in woodwinds or muted brass can "answer" the lead line. •   Employ classic song forms (AABA, 32‑bar standard), with brief, restrained interludes or modulations for variety.
Rhythm and Groove
•   Use relaxed tempos (typically 60–110 BPM). Common grooves include gentle swing, foxtrot, light bossa/cha‑cha, and slow ballad feels. •   Drums should be subtle: brushes, soft ride cymbal, side‑stick. Latin percussion can add movement but should never dominate.
Arrangement and Production
•   Orchestrate in wide stereo: strings spread across the field, featured melody centered, countermelodies panned tastefully. Leave ample headroom and avoid harsh transients. •   Emphasize legato phrasing, warm reverbs, and smooth EQ. Dynamics should be controlled, with swells that support—never overwhelm—the melody. •   If covering pop songs, reharmonize lightly (add 6ths/maj7s, substitute tritone resolutions discreetly) and write a memorable intro/outro vamp.
Repertoire and Performance Practice
•   Choose standards, film themes, and contemporary hits with clear melodic profiles. Tailor key centers to comfortable string resonance (often flat keys) and vocalist range if using occasional lyrics. •   Keep improvisation brief and melodic. The aim is elegance and ease, not virtuosity.
Practical Tips
•   Write a clear two‑to‑four‑bar hook motif and restate it with varied orchestration. •   Use thematic development via texture changes rather than complex reharmonization. •   Test mixes at low volume; the arrangement should remain intelligible and pleasant as background listening.
Main artists
Influenced by
Traditional Pop
Traditional pop is the pre–rock and roll mainstream of American popular song, centered on the Great American Songbook and the crooner/orchestral style that dominated radio, records, and film musicals from the 1930s through the 1950s. It favors memorable melodies, elegant lyrics (often about romance), and lush arrangements for strings, woodwinds, and big band rhythm sections. Singers use close‑mic "crooning" to deliver expressive, legato phrasing over jazz‑tinged harmonies and steady, unhurried grooves. Typical forms include the 32‑bar AABA standard, with sophisticated but accessible harmony (secondary dominants, ii–V–I cycles, tasteful modulations) and an emphasis on interpretation—how the vocalist shades timing, dynamics, and diction to make a familiar song feel personal.
Big Band
Big band is a large-ensemble style of jazz and popular dance music built around brass, reed, and rhythm sections playing arranged parts. Typical instrumentation includes five saxophones (often doubling clarinet/flute), four trombones, four trumpets, and a rhythm section of piano, guitar, upright bass, and drum set. The music emphasizes swing rhythms, call-and-response between sections, riff-based writing, and dramatic shout choruses, while leaving space for improvised solos. Born in American ballrooms and theaters, big band became the sound of the Swing Era, providing both music for dancing and a platform for sophisticated arranging and orchestration that shaped much of 20th‑century jazz and popular music.
Swing
Swing is a jazz style centered on a buoyant, danceable groove created by a walking bass, four-to-the-bar rhythm guitar, a backbeat emphasis on 2 and 4, and a lilted “swung” eighth-note feel. Typically performed by big bands (saxes, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section) as well as small combos, it balances written arrangements with improvised solos. Hallmarks include call-and-response between horn sections, riff-based melodies, shout choruses that build intensity near the end of an arrangement, and rich sectional voicings grounded in blues language and ii–V–I harmonic motion. Tempos range from medium to brisk, serving social dances like the Lindy Hop and Jitterbug. Swing’s expressive phrasing, dance-floor focus, and sophisticated arranging made it the dominant popular music of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Jazz
Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.
Orchestral
Orchestral music refers to compositions written for an orchestra—a large ensemble typically built around a string section (violins, violas, cellos, double basses), complemented by woodwinds, brass, percussion, and often harp, keyboard, or other auxiliary instruments. A conductor coordinates the ensemble, shaping balance, phrasing, and expression. The style emphasizes coloristic timbre combinations, dynamic range from the softest pianissimo to explosive tuttis, and textures that can shift seamlessly between transparent chamber-like writing and monumental masses of sound. Orchestral writing underpins concert genres such as symphonies, overtures, and tone poems, as well as opera, ballet, and modern film and game scores. While orchestral writing evolved across centuries, its core craft centers on melody, counterpoint, harmony, register, and orchestration—the art of assigning musical ideas to instruments to achieve clarity, contrast, and narrative impact.
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley refers to the late‑19th- and early‑20th‑century New York music‑publishing hub that industrialized the creation and promotion of American popular song. Centered around West 28th Street in Manhattan, publishers and song pluggers churned out catchy tunes for mass sheet‑music sales and vaudeville performance. Musically, Tin Pan Alley songs favored memorable melodies, clear hooks, and singable ranges, often set in 3/4 waltz time or 4/4 with light syncopation picked up from ragtime. The prevailing 32‑bar AABA form became a defining template, with diatonic harmony enriched by secondary dominants, circle‑of‑fifths motion, and occasional modulations. Culturally, Tin Pan Alley fed Broadway revues, vaudeville circuits, and later radio and film, laying the foundation of the Great American Songbook. Its output ranges from romantic ballads to novelty numbers and uptempo dance songs, shaping the language of American popular music for decades.
Exotica
Exotica is a mid‑century style of mood music that blends jazz harmony, easy‑listening orchestration, and a collage of global percussion and timbral signifiers meant to evoke imaginary tropical, Polynesian, Asian, African, and Latin locales. Characterized by vibraphone and marimba leads, lush strings, woodwinds, wordless vocals, bird calls, gongs, and abundant reverberation, it creates a cinematic “armchair travel” experience. Rather than documenting specific traditions, exotica assembles stylized sound cues—Afro‑Cuban grooves, Polynesian drum patterns, pentatonic and whole‑tone colors—into atmospheric mini‑dramas. The genre flourished alongside postwar tiki culture and hi‑fi/stereo demonstrations, prioritizing vivid spatial staging and evocative orchestration over virtuoso soloing.
Bossa Nova
Bossa nova is a Brazilian popular music style that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, blending samba’s syncopated pulse with the harmonic sophistication and understated cool of jazz. It is characterized by intimate, almost whispered vocals; a nylon‑string guitar playing the distinctive batida (a gently syncopated, two-beat accompaniment); subtle, brushed percussion; and lush, extended jazz harmonies. The mood is relaxed, refined, and full of saudade—a bittersweet sense of longing—often evoking images of Rio’s beaches, nightclubs, and urban modernity.
Cinematic Classical
Cinematic classical is a contemporary stream of concert and media-oriented composition that merges classical orchestration with the pacing, narrative arcs, and textural sound design of film music. Typically centered on piano and strings, it favors slow-moving harmonies, ostinatos, spacious reverb, and emotive, diatonic melodies that build in dynamic intensity. Many works adopt a minimalist or post-minimalist vocabulary—repetition, gradual change, and clear tonal centers—while incorporating modern production techniques (felt piano, tape saturation, synth pads, subtle pulses) to achieve a widescreen, evocative sound. The style thrives both in standalone albums and in sync contexts (film, TV, trailers), where self-contained “cues” develop clear arcs—intro, build, climax, release—designed to support visual storytelling without sacrificing musical integrity.
Orchestral Jazz
Orchestral jazz blends the improvisational spirit, swing feel, and extended harmony of jazz with the instrumentation, color, and large-scale forms of the orchestra. Typically built on a big-band core of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and rhythm section, it augments the palette with strings, French horns, tuba, harp, and expanded percussion to achieve symphonic weight and timbral variety. Arrangers use techniques from classical orchestration—counterpoint, sectional scoring, motivic development—while preserving room for jazz solos and groove. The style took shape in the 1920s as “symphonic jazz” in the United States (e.g., Paul Whiteman’s commissions of George Gershwin), matured through Duke Ellington’s extended suites, and evolved post‑war via Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill, and Gil Evans. Today, contemporary composers such as Maria Schneider continue the lineage with modern harmony, subtle textures, and long-form works.
Novelty Piano
Novelty piano is a virtuosic, light‑hearted style of solo piano that blossomed in the late ragtime and early jazz era. It emphasizes sparkling right‑hand figurations, crisp staccato articulation, clever rhythmic twists, and showy special effects intended to charm and amuse listeners. Often called "novelty ragtime" by contemporaries, the style carries ragtime’s sectional forms and stride‑like left‑hand patterns into a more chromatic, ornamental, and studio‑friendly idiom. Pieces were typically crafted for 78‑rpm records and piano rolls, resulting in compact, three‑minute showpieces that highlighted fleet fingerwork, whimsical motives, and witty musical "gags." While rooted in American ragtime and Tin Pan Alley songcraft, novelty piano also absorbed light classical touches and vaudeville theatricality, making it a bridge between ragtime, early jazz, and later lounge/easy‑listening aesthetics.
Vocal Jazz
Vocal jazz is the art of singing within the jazz idiom, emphasizing improvisation, rhythmic nuance, and personal interpretation of songs—often drawn from the Great American Songbook. Singers use jazz phrasing, swing feel, and timbral control to reshape melodies, bend pitches, and tell stories through the lyric. The style ranges from swinging uptempo numbers with scat improvisation to intimate ballads colored by subtle rubato and behind-the-beat delivery. While many vocal jazz performances feature small combos, the genre has also flourished with big band arrangements and sophisticated orchestrations.
Slow Waltz
Slow waltz is the International Standard ballroom form of the waltz, danced and played in a graceful 3/4 meter at a relatively unhurried tempo. It emphasizes long, legato melodic lines, rich orchestration, and a characteristic rise-and-fall that mirrors the dancers’ sweeping movement across the floor. Unlike the faster Viennese waltz, slow waltz is intimate and lyrical, typically around 84–90 BPM (about 28–30 bars per minute). The musical texture often features a strong bass on beat one followed by light chordal accompaniment on beats two and three (the classic “oom–pah–pah”), supporting melodies that lean romantic, sentimental, and elegant.
Whistling
Whistling is a vocal-centric genre where the human whistle is treated as the lead melodic instrument. It emphasizes pure tone, pitch control, vibrato, trills, and bird-call imitation, often presented as instrumental melodies or as featured solos within popular songs. Arrangements typically pair the whistler with light orchestra, guitar, piano, jazz combos, or easy-listening ensembles, though contemporary productions also use minimal electronic backdrops. While whistling appears across many styles (pop, jazz, film music, folk, and classical), as a genre it foregrounds the whistle itself—turning it into a featured timbre with a distinctive lyrical, clean, and ultra-portable sound.
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