Sound

Field recording is the practice and genre of capturing sounds in situ—outside the studio—using portable recording equipment. It centers on documenting environments, human activities, wildlife, weather, machinery, rituals, and music as they actually occur, often with minimal intervention. As a listening genre, field recording foregrounds place and presence. Releases may present unprocessed, extended takes (e.g., a shoreline at dawn), or carefully edited sequences that map a soundwalk, a village festival, or a factory floor. The results range from documentary-style fidelity to abstract, immersive soundscapes that emphasize texture, spatiality, and the ecology of sound.

Nature recordings are unaccompanied, minimally edited captures of natural soundscapes such as birdsong, wind, rain, surf, rivers, amphibians, insects, and other environmental ambiences. The emphasis is on documentary fidelity, long-form listening, and preserving dynamic range rather than musical composition in the traditional sense. Releases often present extended, uninterrupted tracks from a single habitat or time window (e.g., dawn chorus, coastal storm, tropical rainforest at night), inviting listeners to experience place through sound. While closely related to field recording and soundscape composition, nature recordings typically avoid added instruments or overt sound design, privileging biophony and geophony with as little anthrophony (human-made noise) as possible.

White noise (as a listening genre) consists of broadband, non-periodic sound with equal energy per frequency, presented as long-form recordings or streams for masking, sleep, focus, and relaxation. While the signal-processing concept dates to early 20th‑century acoustics and radio, the musical/consumer genre emerged with dedicated LPs and tape releases that marketed neutral, steady noise as a functional audio environment. In modern platforms it spans continuous single-tone textures (true white), filtered variants (pink, brown, blue), and blended layers (HVAC hum, fan, airliner cabin), typically delivered as hours-long tracks without discernable musical form. Listeners use it to mask environmental sound, aid sleep hygiene, increase concentration, or create an anonymous, calming sonic bed that doesn’t demand attention.

Sound effects is a non-music audio category focused on recorded or designed sounds created to represent actions, environments, and phenomena. Rather than songs or compositions, it consists of single events (one-shots), short sequences, or loops used to support storytelling, worldbuilding, and user feedback in media. Its practice spans on-location recording, foley performance, and studio sound design using synthesis and processing. Typical subjects include footsteps, doors, vehicles, weather, animals, impacts, whooshes, and abstract textures. Sound effects function as building blocks for radio, film, television, games, theater, podcasts, immersive installations, and UI/UX audio.

Environmental music is a genre that blends field recordings of natural soundscapes with subtle musical elements, or sometimes consists entirely of unaltered nature sounds intended to function as a psychological aid. Unlike standard musical compositions that demand active listening, environmental music is designed to enhance a space, mask unwanted noise, and induce states of relaxation, focus, or sleep. It bridges the gap between the avant-garde concepts of 'furniture music' and the commercial 'New Age' movement, often utilizing psychoacoustic principles to create a soothing sonic atmosphere that integrates seamlessly with the listener's immediate surroundings.

Ambient is a form of electronic and electroacoustic music that prioritizes tone, atmosphere, and texture over conventional song structures and rhythmic drive. It typically features slow-moving harmonies, sustained drones, gentle timbral shifts, and extensive use of space and silence. Rather than drawing attention to itself through hooks or beats, ambient is designed to be as ignorable as it is interesting, rewarding both background listening and focused immersion. Artists often employ synthesizers, samplers, tape loops, field recordings, and subtle acoustic instruments, with reverb and delay creating a sense of place. Substyles range from luminous, consonant soundscapes to darker, more dissonant atmospheres.

Binaural beats is a functional, minimalist audio style built around the psychoacoustic phenomenon that occurs when two pure tones of slightly different frequencies are presented separately to each ear through headphones. The brain perceives a third rhythmic pulse at the difference between the two tones (e.g., 440 Hz in the left ear and 446 Hz in the right ear produces a 6 Hz beat), which listeners often report as a steady, internal throbbing. Producers use this technique to nudge brain activity toward target ranges associated with sleep, relaxation, meditation, focus, or alertness (delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands). The musical backdrop is usually sparse—soft drones, pink/brown noise, gentle pads, and nature recordings—so the entrainment tones remain unobtrusive yet effective. The style is closely tied to wellness and New Age listening contexts and is intended for headphone playback; over speakers, the effect largely collapses into conventional amplitude beating. While widely used for relaxation and meditation, scientific consensus on therapeutic claims remains mixed, and binaural beat audio should not be treated as medical intervention.

New age is a largely instrumental, mood-driven genre that emphasizes calm, spacious textures and a sense of spiritual or contemplative uplift. It blends gentle electronic timbres, acoustic instruments, and global/folk influences to create immersive soundscapes intended for relaxation, meditation, and introspection. Hallmarks include slow tempos or free time, long sustaining pads, modal and consonant harmonies, nature field recordings, and unobtrusive rhythms. The music often avoids dramatic tension in favor of openness and continuity, conveying themes of inner peace, nature, and the transcendent.

Drone is a minimalist music genre defined by sustained tones, long durations, and extremely gradual change. Harmony is often static or centered on a single fundamental with subtle overtone shifts, while rhythm tends toward stasis or very slow pulses. Sound sources range from acoustic instruments (e.g., strings, organ, bagpipes, shruti box, tambura) to electronics (sine waves, oscillators, feedback, tape loops, and later digital synthesis and processing). Many composers favor just intonation or other alternative tuning systems to emphasize beating patterns, psychoacoustic effects, and the internal life of sound. Although drone as a sonic principle is ancient and global, the modern experimental genre cohered in the 1960s through the New York minimalists and related avant‑garde circles, then spread into ambient, experimental, and heavy music scenes. The focus is less on melody and more on timbre, resonance, and the phenomenology of listening.

ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) as a music/audio genre focuses on close‑miked, low‑intensity sounds designed to induce relaxation, tingling sensations, and sleep. It typically features whispered speech, soft tapping, brushing, fabric rustling, paper crinkles, page turning, and gentle environmental ambiences arranged with extreme intimacy and spatial detail. Production emphasizes very low noise floors, high gain, slow pacing, and extensive stereo or binaural imaging so that sounds feel physically "near" the listener. Unlike song‑based genres, ASMR is usually non‑metrical, largely aperiodic, and minimally harmonic, prioritizing texture, dynamics, and psychoacoustic immersion over melody and rhythm.

Pet calming is a functional micro‑genre designed to reduce stress and arousal in companion animals—primarily dogs and cats—during triggering situations such as owner absence, fireworks, vet visits, thunderstorms, or travel. Musically it favors very slow tempos, sparse arrangements, soft timbres (piano, pads, gentle strings, warm guitars), long sustains, smooth envelopes, and stable, consonant harmonies. Dynamics are kept narrow and transients are tamed to avoid startle responses. Many releases add gentle environmental ambiences (rain, ocean, rustling leaves) or unobtrusive pink/white‑noise beds to mask external sounds. Structures are highly repetitive with gradual variation so the soundscape feels predictable and safe. While aimed at non‑human listeners, the genre is informed by animal‑behavior findings (e.g., predictable low‑arousal sound reduces stress) and by human relaxation idioms (ambient, new age, lullaby). It is commonly delivered as long‑form, streaming‑friendly content that owners can loop for hours.

Focus beats is an instrumental, low-distraction branch of beat-driven chill music made to support concentration, studying, and deep work. It typically features mellow drum grooves at moderate-to-slow tempos (often 70–90 BPM or 80–100 BPM double-time), soft-textured samples or synth pads, gentle chord voicings borrowed from jazz and soul, and clean, unobtrusive arrangements with very little (or no) vocal content. The production favors warm saturation, tape or vinyl aesthetics, and carefully controlled dynamics to avoid harsh transients that might break concentration. While closely related to lo‑fi hip hop and downtempo, focus beats is more utilitarian by design: it reduces arrangement density, melodic foregrounding, and frequency clutter so the music sits comfortably in the background, promoting a steady cognitive flow.