I'm using the word ambient loosely here, but I've been on a bit of a journey with YouTube here recently. It began with what I think might be the most wonderful video I ever found. . .
It has everything: a Tesla, a stunning scenic road, a perfect musical soundtrack. I don't think we even have any roads in the USA like this, but if we do I hope to someday find and drive them. However. . . It was the music that led me to Chillhop Music channel, which I found pretty relaxing, especially when I leave it running on my main stereo/theater system in the living room.
After I'd listened to a lot of this music, next I stumbled onto the ambient sounds videos — not music (for the most part), but just hours of rain, or maybe rain with some thunder, and in one case a coffee shop scene with soft rain and muted jazz piano.
That was good for a while, but then I found the WALKING videos. These are ones where somebody puts on a high-quality video camera and just goes for a long walk around some interesting area. I soon found that the best of these are almost all from cities in Japan. Channels like Nippon Wandering TV seem to have mastered the art. What I find brilliant is that the cameraman, the walker, never speaks, and there is no music dubbed in. It's just the natural ambient background sounds wherever they go.
I've looked for walking tour videos from other parts of the world, but almost all of them I find are marred by either the cameraman blabbing a loud, annoying narration, or by dubbed in new age music that also gets old pretty soon. It seems like only the Japanese understand the value of being quiet and letting the natural sounds carry the experience.
It has everything: a Tesla, a stunning scenic road, a perfect musical soundtrack. I don't think we even have any roads in the USA like this, but if we do I hope to someday find and drive them. However. . . It was the music that led me to Chillhop Music channel, which I found pretty relaxing, especially when I leave it running on my main stereo/theater system in the living room.
After I'd listened to a lot of this music, next I stumbled onto the ambient sounds videos — not music (for the most part), but just hours of rain, or maybe rain with some thunder, and in one case a coffee shop scene with soft rain and muted jazz piano.
That was good for a while, but then I found the WALKING videos. These are ones where somebody puts on a high-quality video camera and just goes for a long walk around some interesting area. I soon found that the best of these are almost all from cities in Japan. Channels like Nippon Wandering TV seem to have mastered the art. What I find brilliant is that the cameraman, the walker, never speaks, and there is no music dubbed in. It's just the natural ambient background sounds wherever they go.
I've looked for walking tour videos from other parts of the world, but almost all of them I find are marred by either the cameraman blabbing a loud, annoying narration, or by dubbed in new age music that also gets old pretty soon. It seems like only the Japanese understand the value of being quiet and letting the natural sounds carry the experience.
