furniture music en · NOUN
Etymology
Calque of French musique d'ameublement (literally “furnishing music”), coined by Erik Satie in 1917.
Meanings
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(uncountable) Background music originally played by live performers.
Furniture music is thus more like a chair than a painting in a gallery. One sits in rather than contemplates the chair. So too furniture music: “it creates vibration; it has no other purpose; it fills the same role as light, warmth and comfort in all its forms.”
2018, John T. Lysaker, Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 84: