Drone On: A short History of Sustained Sound

From left to right. La Monte Young, The Theatre of Eternal Music, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, John Cale, Velvet Underground, The Beatles, Pauline Oliveros, Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno, Metal Machine Music, Earth, Sun0))).

A Personal Reflection on Sustained Sound

I often find myself humming a single note and marveling at how such a simple, continuous tone can be so powerful. That drone, a sustained pitch has been with us since ancient times, rooting music in a kind of sonic bedrock. A lot of traditional and spiritual music around the world uses drones. From the didgeridoo in Australia to the sacred “Om” chant in Buddhism and the low hum of Gregorian chant, cultures have long centered the drone as a “sonic enabler of meditative transcendence”. In these contexts, a steady tone underpins rituals, creating a sense of calm and focus that feels almost primal. It’s amazing to think that the same droning sound of a bagpipe or an Indian tanpura has been heard for centuries, carrying a mystical, hypnotic mood across time.

My first encounter with drone music dates back to the late 1960s, when I was living in Blackheath, South London. I was in my late teens then, and along with a group of mates, I used to frequent a pub not far from where we lived. Through that scene, we became friendly with a group of slightly older art teachers bohemian types who shared a house just a short walk away. They were ten, maybe fifteen years older than us, and had that unmistakable air of suburban beatniks, into jazz (as we were), dabbling in all things avant-garde, and living the kind of relaxed, unconventional life that fascinated us.

One of them, Mike, had what was then considered a seriously advanced hi-fi setup. He owned a Grundig reel-to-reel tape deck, wired through a Pioneer amplifier and connected to an old stereogram. This was long before the age of plug-and-play or sleek home sound systems everything was clunky, cobbled together, and charmingly Heath Robinson.

One bright afternoon, Mike pulled a reel of tape from a box and said he’d borrowed it for a few days from a friend. He threaded it into the deck and pressed play. At first, I thought the machine had broken. A single, sustained chord poured out of the speakers, filling the room like a long breath. We all glanced at one another, unsure whether to laugh or just go with it.

I picked up the tape box and read the label. The name that was on the label who I assumed to be the composer was La Monte Young.

As the minutes passed, the chord slowly, almost imperceptibly shifted and shimmered. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, catching dust motes in its glow, and the sound somehow synced with the warmth and stillness of the room. It wasn’t just music it was atmosphere, presence and time stretched thin. That afternoon marked my first introduction to minimalist music.

Of course, today we take the internet for granted. A few keystrokes can summon the most obscure artist’s entire catalogue and biography. Back then, though, finding out anything about experimental composers was nearly impossible. The local library was our best hope. I eventually managed to book out a John Cage record (no one had heard of La Monte Young) and brought it home much to the complete confusion of my parents. 🤣

Later I was fascinated to learn about La Monte Young, often credited as one of the originators of modern drone music. Young famously described his style as “the sustained tone branch of minimalism”  essentially music stripped down to pure sound. He had been interested by drones early on (the story goes that he loved the hum of power transformers and the resonance of Indian classical music). In the early 60s, Young gathered a group of like minded artists in New York and formed the Theatre of Eternal Music, also known as The Dream Syndicate. This collective including visual artist Marian Zazeela, violinist Tony Conrad, and a young Welsh musician named John Cale, among others and they would stage marathon performances of immersive drones. They’d play for hours, filling spaces with sustained harmonies that shifted imperceptibly. I can only imagine what it felt like to sit in those performances, bathed in sound, by all accounts it was intense and otherworldly.

Even without many recordings, the Dream Syndicate’s influence quietly spread especially through John Cale, who carried drone ideas into  The Velvet Underground. Their 1967 debut, with Cale’s electric viola droning on “Heroin,” fused avant garde minimalism with rock. Meanwhile,The Beatles introduced drones to mainstream pop with Indian-inspired sounds like “Tomorrow Never Knows” What had began as a radical, esoteric idea sustaining a single note was seeping into mass culture.

Drone aesthetics expanded through the ’70s. Tony Conrad’s collaboration with German kosmische Musik band Faust was pure sustained tone, while Pauline Oliveros and Éliane Radigue explored slow sonic shifts via accordion and electronics. Drone also shaped classical minimalism Young’s influence veered toward pure tone, in contrast to Steve Reich and Phillip Glass’s rhythmic repetition.

Brian Eno, citing Young as a major influence, embedded drone into ambient music. Albums like 'Music for Airports' embody drone’s mood-sustaining quality. At the other extreme, Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music took drone into abrasive noise.Earth and Sunn O))) brought it into metal vibrating, immersive, physical.

Drone is less a genre than a listening mode: it invites immersion, slowness, attentiveness. From spiritual chants to amp feedback, it strips music to essence. Just one note but it holds a whole world, if you’re willing to listen.

“Tomorrow Never Knows” – The Beatles (1966)

“Tomorrow Never Knows” is a groundbreaking track from the album Revolver, notable for its radical studio techniques and psychedelic sound design. Built on a static C major drone, the song eschews traditional chord progressions, creating a hypnotic, mantra like effect. Ringo Starr’s looping, tom heavy drum pattern anchors the track with a steady, tribal pulse, while John Lennon’s vocals processed through a Leslie speaker float with a swirling, disembodied quality.

The production, led by George Martin, introduced tape loops, reverse guitar, and varispeed manipulation into mainstream pop. Five tape loops (featuring seagull like sounds, sitaresque guitar, and orchestral snippets) were manually mixed in and out live during the final mixdown, a technique borrowed from musique concrète. Paul McCartney’s interest in avant-garde and Stockhausen is evident here.

With its single chord structure, Eastern influence, and studio as instrument approach, “Tomorrow Never Knows” marked a turning point in psychedelic and experimental rock anticipating ambient, drone, and electronic genres. It’s not just a song; it’s a controlled sonic hallucination.

If you are interested in reading further I recommend the following informative and entertaining book by Harry Sword 'Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion' is a genre-blurring, deeply immersive exploration of drone music and its spiritual, cultural, and sonic significance. From ancient rituals to contemporary noise and metal, Harry traces the hypnotic power of the sustained tone across history. The book weaves personal reflection with music history, profiling artists like La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Sunn O))), and Ravi Shankar, while making a compelling case that the drone is not just a sound but a portal to altered consciousness. Bold, poetic, and often wry, it’s both a love letter and a cultural excavation of music’s most primal vibration.

If anyone would like to checkout my Droning Endeavours they can be found here

Sources:

1. Young, La Monte (2000). Interview and Writings on the Sustained Tone Branch of Minimalism 
2. Drone music Wikipedia: Overview of drone music’s origins and its development through the 1960s to contemporary genres 
3. Sword, Harry (2021). No drone unturned: tracing the sound that unites ancient and modern – The Guardian 
4. Rock music ande drone Influence of drone on The Velvet Underground.
5. Drone metal Wikipedia: How late-80s bands like Earth (and later Sunn O)))) fused heavy metal with minimalist drones 
6. Ambient music– Wikipedia: Brian Eno’s take on ambient music and acknowledgment of drone pioneer La Monte Young 

©️2025 Graeme Webb 

Spotify Playlist based on the Harry Sword Book 'Monolithic Undertow' Below.