From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| New age music |
| Stylistic origins |
|
| Cultural origins |
|
| Typical instruments |
piano, synthesizer, sampler, sequencer, computer, strings, found sounds (often bird song or whalesong, waterfalls, etc), folk and ethnic instruments, acoustic guitar, flutes, harp, sitar, tamboura, tabla, organ
|
| Mainstream popularity |
worldwide, often connected to the new age movement. |
| Fusion genres |
| celtic fusion, tone poems, biomusic |
New Age music is peaceful music of various styles that is
intended to create relaxation and positive feelings. Some but not all
new age music is associated with New Age beliefs. New Age music is typically relaxing and inspiring, and is often used by listeners for such activities as yoga, massage, meditation, reading, as a method of stress management[1] or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments.
The harmonies in new age music are generally modal, consonant, or include a drone
bass. The melodies are often repetitive, to create a hypnotic feeling,
and sometimes recordings of nature sounds are used as an introduction
to a track or throughout the piece. Songs of up to 30 minutes duration
are not uncommon.
New Age music includes both electronic forms, frequently relying on sustained pads or long sequencer-based runs, and acoustic
forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and
a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. In many cases,
high-quality digitally sampled instruments
are used instead of natural acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements
were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have
become more common, especially vocals featuring Sanskrit, Tibetan or Native American-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends or the realm of Faerie.
History
New Age music has its basis in the work of 1960s European and
American electronic and acoustic musicians exploring music for creating
expanded consciousness. In the late 1970s, music began to be recorded
specifically for the purposes of meditation and relaxation. During the
early 1980s, the term "New Age music" was introduced more widely to the
public by radio stations and then by music retailers and some record
companies, as a marketing tag applied to a variety of non-mainstream
instrumental music styles. Radio stations in major markets (such as
"the Wave" in Los Angeles) defined themselves as "New Age", while
playing some New Age music and using nature sounds in their
station-id's, yet those stations also heavily featured styles musically
and philosophically unrelated to New Age music, for example, Smooth Jazz.
The first true New Age radio station is the U.S. was KLRS (Colours) in
Santa Cruz, CA with a non-stop playlist of New Age music and is
considered the first New Age station in the world. Most major cable television
networks have channels that play music without visuals, including
channels for New Age music, such as for example, the "Soundscapes"
channel on Music Choice.
Definitions
New Age music is defined more by the feeling it produces rather than
the devices used in its creation; it may be electronic or acoustic, or
a mixture of both. New Age artists range from solo or ensemble
performances using Western instruments such as piano, acoustic guitar, flutes, harps and many others, to electronic musical instruments, and Eastern instruments
such as sitar, tamboura, tabla; and instruments from all other parts of
the world, the human voice singing in languages from all around the
world.
Some New Age music artists openly embrace New Age beliefs, while other artists and bands have specifically stated that they do not consider their own music to be New Age, even when their work has been labeled as such by record labels, music retailers, or radio broadcasters.
There is a significant overlap of sectors of New Age music, Ambient music, electronica, World music, Chillout, spacemusic and others. The two definitions typically used for New Age are:
- New age music with an ambient sound that has the explicit purpose
of aiding meditation and relaxation, or aiding and enabling various
alternative spiritual practices, such as meditative healing, chakra
auditing, and so on. The proponents of this definition are almost
always musicians who create their music expressly for these purposes.[2] Prominent artists who create New Age music expressly for healing or meditation include Aeoliah, Deuter, Deepak Chopra, and Steven Halpern.
- Music which is found in the New Age section of the record store.[2]
This is largely a definition of practicality, given the breadth of
music that is classified as "new age" by retailers who are often less
interested in finely-grained distinctions between musical styles than
are fans of those styles. Music which falls into this definition is
usually music which cannot be easily classified into other, more common
definitions, but often includes well-defined music such as Worldbeat and Flamenco guitar. Musicians as varied as George Winston, Dean Evenson, Will Ackerman, Ray Lynch, Suzanne Ciani, Jim Brickman, Enya, B-Tribe, GregZ, Deep Forest, Jean Michel Jarre, Enigma, Kitaro, Yanni, Oscar Lopez, Mike Oldfield and Steve Roach
are typically classified as New Age despite their wildly divergent
musical styles. It also includes expressly spiritual New Age music as a
subset.
Influences and themes
From 1968 to 1973, German musicians such as Holger Czukay (a former student of Karlheinz Stockhausen), Popol Vuh and Ashra released a number of works featuring experimental sounds and textures build with "electronics", synthesizers, acoustic and electric instruments; their music, referred to as Cosmic music can be regarded as Ambient or New Age, depending on point of view. Later Brian Eno
defined the styles and patterns of Ambient in a way that easily merged
and co-developed with the styles of many musicians such as Robert Fripp, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Harold Budd, Cluster, Jah Wobble from late 1970s to today.
Other influences are early electronic music, classical music, ethnic music and world music. The minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich (Indian influenced in the former case) can also be cited as an influence, along with artists like Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young who utilized drones since the early 1960s. Connected to the creation of New Age music is the resurgence of interest in Gregorian Chant
during the second half of the 20th century. Now, New Age music has
branched out and also includes chanting of "spiritual" or ancient
languages, and includes, but is not limited to Sanskrit, Latin, Gaelic
and Hebrew. Popular artists in this genre include: Krishna Das, Deva Premal, and Bhagavan Das.
The solo ECM performances by artists like Keith Jarrett (especially his record The Köln Concert), Ralph Towner (especially his records Blue Sun and Solo Concert) and Lyle Mays's first eponymous album, are usually thought to be an influence on Ambient/New Age music.
The acoustic solo and group performances by the early Windham Hill artists such as Andy Summers, William Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, George Winston, and Michael Hedges were called New Age for much of the last 30 years.
Popular themes in New Age music include space and the cosmos,
environment and nature, wellness in being, harmony with one's self and
the world, dreams or dreaming and journeys of the mind or spirit. Titles of New Age songs are frequently descriptive: examples include Shepherd Moons (Enya), Straight' a Way To Orion (Kitaro), and One Deep Breath (Bradley Joseph).
Alternative terms to "New Age"
As described in this article, the borders of this genre are not well
defined; however music retail stores will include artists in the "New
Age" category even if the artists themselves use different names for
their style of music. Here are some other terms used for "New Age".
- Contemporary Instrumental
- This is a term that may be used most often, and can include artists
that do not use electronic instruments in their music, such as solo
pianist David Lanz.[3] Similarly, pianists such as Yanni [4] and Bradley Joseph [5] both use this term as well, although they use keyboards to incorporate layered orchestral textures into their compositions.
- Adult Contemporary
- This term, used by Jim Brickman[6]; it is a type of radio format that plays mainstream contemporary pop music, excluding hip hop and hard rock; this music is intended more for adults than teens.
- Contemporary Adult Instrumental
- This term was suggested by Steven Halpern in the June 1999 issue of New Age Voice
as an alternative catch-all label for music which is classified by
retailers as "New Age", but which is not expressly spiritual in nature.
References
See also
External links
- GregZ New Age Music
has been featured in such movies as Jersey Guy, and music videos such
as Lonely Ballerina and Feelings Are. Both Appeared in the New York
Film Festival and Feelings are took Best Music Video in the Garden Sate
Film Festival.
- New Age Reporter
comprehensive online resource of music reviews and radio play rankings
of New Age, Contemporary Instrumental, Acoustic, Electronic, Celtic,
Ambient, Meditative, Native American, World CD releases that fall
outside the coverage of areas of Billboard.
Classical
from 
