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30-447: Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music . It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson (née McGilvray) in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The label was purchased by BMG through a series of buyouts from 1992 through 1996. It is now a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment , following Sony's acquisition of BMG Music in 2007. Private Music , also

60-564: A better definition." Some music interest groups in the United States use the term "acoustic music" alongside the genres of folk and Americana music, like the Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music. The International Acoustic Music Awards hosts an annual competition for original songs. Their rules state that a song can be considered acoustic as long as an acoustic instrument, including voices, can be clearly heard. Acoustic music

90-516: A distribution partner until the label was closed in 2007. BMG negotiated a distribution arrangement with Dancing Cat and Winston moved to RCA Victor until 2009, Sony Classical until 2015, and then moved back to RCA Records . Until his death in June 2023, Winston was the only original Windham Hill artist actively working as an artist under Windham Hill's parent company. Today a majority of Windham's releases are distributed through Legacy Recordings ,

120-772: A division of Sony Music Entertainment . For Windham Hill's 30th Anniversary in 2006, Sony BMG released a special collection kit, with an article from Will Ackerman. For the first time in over 15 years, many of the early Windham Hill artists who recorded under Ackerman performed together on August 27, 2006 at the Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, California near San Jose . Artists included: Barbara Higbie , Jim Brickman, Tuck & Patti , Andrew Robert Nelson, Alex de Grassi, Liz Story , Philip Aaberg , Michael Manring , Samite , David Cullen, Tracy Silverman , Lisa Lynne , George Tortorelli, Sean Harkness (who also planned and invited

150-584: A large area, usually white, with the artist and album name in Avant Garde Gothic . The albums were packaged in loose plastic rather than tight cellophane, and distributed in health-food stores and book stores. Robinson later brought in Candace Upman to act as Chief Album Designer, supervising all of the album cover art through 1996. Windham Hill's music was distributed by A&M Records until PolyGram purchased A&M in 1989. When A&M

180-405: A single venue at one time. Avant Garde Gothic The condensed fonts were drawn by Ed Benguiat in 1974, and the obliques were designed by André Gürtler  [ de ] , Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt  [ de ] in 1977. The original designs include one version for setting headlines and one for text copy. However, in the initial digitization, only the text design

210-702: A subsidiary of BMG, has issued some back-catalog releases under the Windham Hill Records imprint. Since the Sony merger in 2007, Windham Hill has released no new material but reissues albums and compilations as part of Sony's Legacy Recordings brand. In 1975, William Ackerman was a college dropout who played acoustic guitar on the Stanford University campus. Friends asked him to record his instrumental music for them on cassette. They chipped in so that he could make an album titled The Search for

240-570: Is believed to have originated in Central Europe . By 1800, the most popular acoustic plucked-string instruments closely resembled the modern-day guitar, but with a smaller body. As the century continued, Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado took these smaller instruments and expanded the bodies to create guitars. Guitar use and popularity grew in Europe throughout the late 18th century and more acoustic instruments were crafted, such as

270-461: Is often easier for business owners to host because there is less need for amplification and the level of volume is less intrusive. In June 2021, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts , allowed small businesses to host acoustic concerts without applying for a live entertainment permit. Cambridge defined an acoustic performance as having no amplification of sound except for one microphone , and having no more than five acoustic performers or musicians at

300-422: The double bass . Its popularity later spread to cities and towns in the new United States. In the 19th century, the guitar became a recognized instrument played in grand galas and concerts. As electric instruments took hold during the 20th century, many stringed instruments were redefined as acoustic. Instruments that involve striking or vibrating the strings, such as the violin , viola and cello , fall under

330-430: The electric guitar , electric violin , electric organ and synthesizer . Acoustic string instrumentations had long been a subset of popular music , particularly in folk . It stood in contrast to various other types of music in various eras, including big band music in the pre-rock era, and electric music in the rock era. Music reviewer Craig Conley suggests, "When music is labeled acoustic, unplugged, or unwired,

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360-444: The 2000s, popular indie musicians began to identify their genre as "contemporary acoustic", in opposition to being classified as "folk music". Daniel Trilling wrote, "Folk is a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many aspiring pop musicians. Not only does it conjure up images of the terminally naff — woolly jumpers, beards, and so on — but it is also the journalist's catch-all term for legions of singer-songwriters too bland to merit

390-563: The Recording Industry Association of America ( RIAA ). By 1982, the label had grown over 300% and was bringing in revenues in the millions. Ackerman and Robinson expanded Windham Hill's presence from Palo Alto, opening offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, and later New York City. They hired a staff of talented friends who they respected in the music industry, including Jeff Heiman, Steve Backer, and Sam Sutherland to run

420-588: The Turtle's Navel (later renamed In Search of the Turtle's Navel ). He gave copies to radio stations, which attracted an audience as well as California record store owners, and his albums began to sell. He founded the label with his girlfriend Anne Robinson in 1976. Ackerman invited like-minded musicians to the label, including Alex De Grassi , his cousin and an acoustic guitarist who became one of Windham Hill's best sellers. Ackerman began recording friends and fellow Bay Area musicians, and Robinson would market and design

450-490: The Windham Hill Group. In doing so, artists such as Yanni and Vangelis joined the label, though they were not original Windham Hill artists. Jim Brickman was the last major artist signed to the label pre-buyout and he was the last artist to leave Windham Hill in 2006, joining Savoy Records . George Winston , who founded his own Dancing Cat Records in the early 1980s, continued working with Windham Hill as

480-504: The Windham Hill Winter Solstice series of albums, a multi-platinum selling series of Holiday-themed music that ran from 1985 to 2007, and featured tracks composed and performed by the label's then-current roster of artists. Anne Robinson, a student of design, was the primary designer of the majority of the albums' cover art. She produced covers that were minimal, with a centered photograph of nature surrounded by

510-607: The acoustic category. The violin became popular during the 16th and 17th centuries, due to technological advancements in building them, brought on by luthiers such as Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Amati . The modern version of the instrument developed gradually from older European acoustic stringed instruments such as the lira . Following the birth of rock in the 1960s, some rock bands began to experiment with acoustic songs. This would be known as acoustic rock , and many well-known artists such as Eric Clapton and Nirvana performed acoustic versions of their well-known songs in

540-553: The albums. Ackerman and co-founder Robinson started selling the label's albums themselves, loading their Volvo station wagon with the label's catalog and selling to bookstores and health food stores across the California coast. Windham Hill produced music that was difficult to define, with elements of classical, folk , and jazz , nearly all of it instrumental, acoustic, and mellow. California-based Tower Records stores gave Windham Hill its own section. Billboard magazine called

570-487: The assumption seems to be that other types of music are cluttered by technology and overproduction and therefore aren't as pure ." Acoustic instruments can be split into six groups: string instruments , wind instruments , percussion , other instruments, ensemble instruments, and unclassified instruments. String instruments have a tightly stretched string that, when set in motion, creates energy at (almost) harmonically related frequencies. Wind instruments are in

600-415: The cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 , as well as its spiritual successor RiffTrax . Acoustic music Acoustic music is music that solely or primarily uses instruments that produce sound through acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means. While all music was once acoustic, the retronym "acoustic music" appeared after the advent of electric instruments, such as

630-483: The early 1990s, which were collected on the MTV Unplugged series. Pop music artists have also experimented with acoustic music as well, with this variant sometimes being called acoustic pop . Like acoustic rock, some acoustic pop songs have also made their way to MTV Unplugged as well. Some notable acoustic pop songs include " True " by Ryan Cabrera and " Exile " by Taylor Swift featuring Bon Iver . By

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660-455: The label's artists and albums. He also championed utilizing catalog "Samplers" which featured his personal favorite tracks on recently-released albums of the label's artists. These proved to be the most successful-selling albums on the label and inspired a multitude of themed compilation albums for the record label. Partially inspired by his love of Gregorian Chant , and the success of December , Ackerman asked music producer Dawn Atkinson to start

690-580: The music soft jazz in 1983, but later listed the label as new age . The roster included acoustic guitarists Michael Hedges , David Cullen , John Doan , and Andrew York . The label's albums topped the New Age and Contemporary Jazz charts in Billboard magazine. Albums of solo piano by George Winston crossed over into the Pop and Folk charts. Seven albums by Winston have been certified Gold and Platinum by

720-512: The musicians), and Will Ackerman. In 2008 Sony absorbed all of the BMG assets including Windham Hill. The next year, Valley Entertainment began reissuing titles from the Windham Hill catalog. Other acoustic music record labels have also signed licensing deals with Legacy Recordings, including Adventure Music, Gnome Life Records, Grass-Tops Recording and Dancing Cat. The label was mentioned on

750-468: The obliques are altered from the original, where optical corrections are no longer used. It is a monospaced version designed by Ned Bunnel in 1983. Digital version was produced by Elsner+Flake. The family consists of 4 fonts in 2 weights (bold and light) in 1 width, with complementary italics. William Sans LET is a very similar font, but the "regular" typeface is known as "Plain 1.0". ITC Lubalin Graph

780-528: The other offices. Thanks in large part to the success of George Winston's albums Autumn and later December , Jerry Moss offered to Windham Hill a lucrative distribution arrangement with A&M Records to partially finance and distribute all of Windham Hill's record, cassette and newly-created Compact Disc catalog. Ackerman booked music studios primarily in the Bay Area that prioritized high fidelity and later digital audio recording and mastering to record

810-425: The shape of a pipe and energy is supplied as an air stream into the pipe. Percussion instruments make sound when they are struck, as with a hand or a stick. The original acoustic instrument was the human voice , which produces sound by funneling air across the vocal cords . The first constructed acoustic instrument is believed to be the flute . The oldest surviving flute is as much as 43,000 years old. The flute

840-520: Was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not included. The font family consists of five weights (four for condensed), with complementary obliques for widest width fonts. When ITC released the OpenType version of the font, the original 33 alternate characters and ligatures, plus extra characters were included. Elsner+Flake also issued the ligatures and alternate characters separately as Avant Garde Gothic Alternate. ITC Avant Garde

870-614: Was never cast into actual foundry type, appearing first only in cold type . Alphatype, Autologic , Berthold , Compugraphic , Dymo , Star/Photon, Harris , Mergenthaler , MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper all sold the face under the name Avant Garde, while Graphic Systems Inc. offered the face as Suave. It is an OpenType variant of the original ITC Avant Garde Gothic, plus a suite of additional cap and lowercase alternates, new ligatures, unicase glyphs. It supports ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended character sets. In addition,

900-569: Was purchased, Ackerman and Robinson began considering selling Windham Hill to a media conglomerate. When BMG took over distribution from A&M in 1989, they began negotiations to purchase Windham Hill from its two principal shareholders. Ackerman sold his half of the company to BMG in 1992 and Anne Robinson sold her half in 1996. BMG relocated the Windham Hill office to Los Angeles and began distributing Windham Hill through RCA Records . BMG merged other music labels that they purchased (such as Peter Baumann 's Private Music ) into Windham Hill, forming

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