Robert Rich (musician)

Robert Rich
Origin	Mountain View, California, U.S.
Genres	Ambient, dark ambient, drone, electronic, new-age, experimental
Labels	Soundscape, Fathom/Hearts of Space, Hypnos, Relapse/Release, Extreme, DiN, Unsung, Soleilmoon, Projekt, Sombient/Asphodel, Crowd Control Activities
Website	RobertRich.com
Notable instruments
Synthesizer Sequencer End-blown flute Lap steel guitar

Robert Rich (born August 23, 1963) is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, new-age, and even IDM music.

At an early age he thought he disliked music. However, at age 11 or 12, he began growing succulent plants as a hobby. He would leave a radio tuned to classical music for his plants. This experience influenced his interest in avant-garde and minimal composition.

In the 5th grade, he began studying viola and voice. He never completed his formal training, though, since he never became comfortable with reading musical notation. He began looking for ways to generate sounds similar to those he heard in his mind. He started improvising on his parent's piano to hear the sound of the sustained strings droning in tonal combinations, à la Charlemagne Palestine. He began building his own synthesizer in 1976, when he was 13 years old. In the years that followed, he adopted several musical influences ranging from John Cage and Terry Riley to Cluster and Klaus Schulze.

In 1979, he began working with a musician named Rick Davies [1], creating experimental music inspired by a wide range of avant-garde and art rock influences. This was the beginning of a long-term working relationship between these two artists.

In 1980, he bought a lap steel guitar from a pawn shop. With it, he began experimenting with alternate tunings and developed a fluid and almost vocal tone that he continues to use. Around that time he had also learned to overcome the limitations of his synthesizer rig with spring reverb, tape delays and custom made feedback systems that he created himself.

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Wikipedia