new age music

The tradition & historical record

New age is a genre of music intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management to bring about a state of ecstasy rather than trance, or to create a peaceful atmosphere in homes or other environments. It is sometimes associated with environmentalism and New Age spirituality; however, most of its artists have nothing to do with "New Age spirituality", and some even reject the term. New-age music includes both acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar, non-Western acoustic instruments, while also engaging with electronic forms, frequently relying on sustained synth pads or long sequencer-based runs. New-age artists often combine these approaches to create electroacoustic music. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in the genre, but as it has evolved, vocals have become more common, especially those featuring Native American-, Sanskrit-, or Tibetan-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends. There is no exact definition of new-age music. However, it is often judged by its intent according to the Grammy screening committee in that category. An article in Billboard magazine in 1987 commented that "New Age music may be the most startling successful non-defined music ever to hit the public consciousness". ¹

New-age music is defined more by the use and effect or feeling it produces rather than the instruments and genre used in its creation; it may be acoustic, electronic, or a mixture of both. New-age artists range from solo or ensemble performances using classical-music instruments ranging from the piano, acoustic guitar, flute, or harp to electronic musical instruments, or from Eastern instruments such as the sitar, tabla and tamboura. There is also a significant overlap of sectors of new-age music with ambient, classical, jazz, electronica, world, chillout, pop, and space music, among others. The two definitions typically associated with the new-age genre are: ¹

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 alternative healing, yoga practice, guided meditation, or chakra auditing. The proponents of this definition are almost always musicians who create their music expressly for these purposes. To be useful for meditation, music must have repetitive dynamic and texture without sudden loud chords or improvisation, which could disturb the meditator. It is minimalist in conception, and musicians in the genre are mostly instrumentalists rather than vocalists. Subliminal messages are also used in new-age music, and the use of instruments along with sounds of animals (like whales, wolves and eagles) and nature (waterfalls, ocean waves, rain) is also popular. Flautist Dean Evenson was one of the first musicians to combine peaceful music with the sounds of nature, launching a genre that became popular for massage and yoga. ¹

Stephen Hill, founder of Hearts of Space, considers that "many of the artists are very sincerely and fully committed to New Age ideas and ways of life". Some composers like Kitarō consider their music to be part of their spiritual growth, as well as expressing values and shaping the culture. Douglas Groothuis stated that from a Christian perspective, rejection of all music labeled as "new age" would be to fall prey to a taboo mentality, as most of the music belongs to the "progressive" side of new-age music, where composers necessarily do not always have a New Age worldview. However, it is often noted that "new-age music" is a mere popular designation that successfully sells records. J. Gordon Melton argued that it does not refer to a specific genre of music, but to music used for therapeutic or other new-age purposes. Kay Gardner considered the label "new age" an inauthentic commercial intention of so-called new-age music, saying, "a lot of new age music is schlock", and how due to record sales, everyone with a home studio put in sounds of crickets, oceans or rivers as a guarantee of sales. What started as ambient mood music related with new-age activity became a term for a musical conglomeration of jazz, folk, rock, ethnic, classical, and electronica, among other styles, with the former, markedly different musical and theoretical movement. ¹

Under the umbrella term, some consider Mike Oldfield's 1973 progressive rock album Tubular Bells one of the first albums to be referred to under the genre description of new-age. Others consider music by Greek composer Vangelis and general modern jazz-rock fusion as exemplifing the progressive side of new-age music. ¹

The borders of this umbrella genre are not well-defined, but music retail stores will include artists in the "new-age" category even if they belong to different genre, and those artists themselves use different names for their style of music. Kay Gardner called the original new-age music "healing music" or "women's spirituality". Paul Winter, considered a new-age music pioneer, also dismissed the term, preferring "earth music". The term "instrumental music" or "contemporary instrumental" can include artists who do not use electronic instruments, such as solo pianist David Lanz. Similarly, pianists such as Yanni and Bradley Joseph use this term as well, although they use keyboards to incorporate layered orchestral textures into their compositions. Yanni has distinguished the music genre from the spiritual movement bearing the same name. The term "contemporary instrumental music" was also suggested by Andreas Vollenweider, while "adult alternative" by Gary L. Chappell, which was the term by which Billboard called the new-age and world-music album charts. ¹

The concept arose with the involvement of professional musicians in the New-Age movement. Initially, it was of no interest to the musical industry, so the musicians and related staff founded their own small independent recording businesses. Sales reached significant numbers in unusual outlets such as bookstores, gift stores, health-food stores and boutiques, as well as by direct mail. ¹

Nu-new age (also known as New Wave of New Age or New Millennium Exotica) is a style of music that emerged in the 2000s to describe a revival of new age music. It originated through "converts of the post-noise scene" with artists such as Emeralds, Stellar Om Source and Oneohtrix Point Never. Other artists who have been associated with the style include James Ferraro and Dolphins Into the Future. Independent record label Leaving Records was labelled a "bastion" of the movement. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “New-age music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

new age music is genre of popular music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 24 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²