quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Trance is not, and has never been, complex music. And dozens of channels on the sequencer do not make a track more complex.

If you do not consider trance complex, then what do you consider complex music? IDM? Orchestral music? (And fuck, I think we've had this exact conversation before?)

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June 2018 mix

We did indeed have this conversation before. I started a thread like this almost a year ago, bragging about how Trance was created by the Lord's divinity and all hail the mighty Trance music.


. . . . well, not literally like that, it was similar to that. Boy, I got flamed the hell out of from that at the time

I believe some members on TA, when they got into Trance, they never had much difficulty listening to the music. Some members on TA are people who might've been born into the music, or their taste for music is naturally on a higher or sophisticated level. For some reason most of the TA members never had much difficulty listening to this wicked sub-genre of music, despite 90% of the masses not able to grasp the music.

I, on the other hand, had a few challenges trying to comprehend the music when I was in high school. I just couldn't picture in my mind why anyone would play these squishy acid samples, or those funky space tunes, or even those ugly vocals in Tiesto's ISOS remix of "Silence."

Now it was never mentally challenging or anything, but it did in fact, take a very long time for the music to catch onto me. My patience and attention span was equivalent to just about anybody elses.... matter of fact, I would've hated anything after 4-5 minutes and couldn't understand why people enjoyed 10 minute tracks. I thought listening to mixes was even more absurd.

Then came the Trance breakdowns. I hated breakdowns. I didn't get it. Why did the music stop for crying out loud? Is this supposed to be emotional or something? This soon after changed though, I fell in love with breakdowns only, but I hated the intro, buildup, and drop of the track. This changed way later too, when I learned how to love the entire track, from intro to end.

From my conclusion, my incompetence of fully comprehending this kind of music to a certain level was due to the complexity and vagueness of the music. It certainly took years for me to personally understand it. Along my close friends and family also, it was hard for them to grasp it as well.

So that's my story. Kudos and props to all other TA members who never had trouble listening to it. I respect you. You just got straight into it, haha. I had lots of trouble in the beginning.

What you don't seem to get back then and now is that your experiences can apply to any form of music. It's the natural progression of a music listener and has nothing to do with trance.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Trance is not, and has never been, complex music. And dozens of channels on the sequencer do not make a track more complex.

On a musical level, you're right. On a technical level, it's not as easy as it sounds. If you randomly throw together a bunch of sequences without any pre-consideration, the mix is going to sound shit. You gotta for example think about all the basslines working together, how the lead synth is working together with the kick, etcetera.

And, I think that's what have happened; producers spend so much effort on the mix and production, that they can easily forgive the fact that without the smoke and mirrors, it's quite a primitive song. Quite a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine, it goes through a long sequence of all these different functions, but its main goal is quite arbitrary.

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An ideadump

quote:

Originally posted by Woony What you don't seem to get back then and now is that your experiences can apply to any form of music. It's the natural progression of a music listener and has nothing to do with trance.

Of course it can applied to any form of music. After I got over Trance (got kinda bored of it) I started branching off or getting back into Rock, Rap (old school), 90s K-Pop, Alternative, and Indie, Oldies, Symphony, Orchestra, Underground HipHop, and etc...

And I did reach an even more heightened listening experience with those respective genres soon after. However, nothing was ever emotionally or epically impacting as EDM for me. Nothing even close. That's just me though. So maybe the timing in my life, perhaps EDM just shined through at the right time..... I dunno.

Anyways back on topic, both early and late 90s Trance was fabulous. And following that with 2000-2003 had some great tracks as well, although during those years it was also the decline of quality production.

I still enjoy newer songs though, they come in rarities, and they still sound great and very comparatively nice with the oldies.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony If you do not consider trance complex, then what do you consider complex music? IDM? Orchestral music? (And fuck, I think we've had this exact conversation before?)

Before I do that, it would help if we came up with any kind of standardised and applicable definition of what "complexity" means in terms of music. Currently this is a typical TA discussion where a bunch of people are arguing about an ambiguous term and none of them will bother finding out what anyone else actually means when they use it, meaning the debate will probably go on for 6 pages without any kind of genuine discourse.

Going by the dictionary definition, there are two subtly different salient applications of "complex":

characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc.

Or...

so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with

Now, it's pretty easy to see how two different people could use the same word to describe two very different movements in trance, and consequently have a never-ending circular argument about whether "Classic" or "Now" trance are more complex. You can easily say that the dense production of contemporary trance, involving dozens of channels and sounds, constitutes production complexity. But then another listener will say that modern trance, for all its production intricacy, is less complex than "Classic" trance, the latter being "harder to understand" because its form is often less conventional and more reliant on the subtle interaction of less melodic elements to create hypnotic arrangements.

For me, trance doesn't really fit either definition of complex. Classic trance is, for the most part, quite uncomplicated music, with a few key musical elements that repeat endlessly. And modern trance, while it may have vastly upped the number of sounds in play, doesn't really expand on that because I would argue that most of the channels in the sequencer are redundant, and are there merely to make the track sound "fuller" and prettier. The amount of actual musical content in play isn't really any different to previous eras of trance, and modern trance is much less adventurous in the formal presentation of that content. The core issue is that trance, for the most part, was never intended to be listening music, and functional dance music has a practical limit on complexity because it's intended for fairly narrow musical effect in a listening environment not particularly conducive to close attention.

What I want to do is try and remove this idea that complexity is inherently desirable, and that it necessarily makes music superior. A big part of what makes dance music (and electronic music in general) interesting is its de-emphasis on conventional musical values and use of avant garde techniques to create a populist and visceral effect. Trance music can certainly be "hard to understand or deal with" for uninitiated listener, not because it's complex but because it's bloody weird.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

I am in fact guilty of finding this damn genre weird when I first started really listening to it. Really, pathetically, apathetically weird. What was weird initially started to open itself up in communication as "fucking creative" way later on though.

So I guess complex is kind of a loose based term, perhaps we can just call it "weird to listen to at first, and may take time for more sophisticated listening"

The trouble is you keep using these words like "sophisticated" and "complex" which just seem pretentious when used to describe music that's basically designed to trigger your E-rush. You may be some young guy who only has mainstream music as a point of comparison and a social circle without particularly knowledgeable tastes, but in the broader world of music, in an era where experimental, genre-blurring music is increasingly popular, it's just silly talking about trance in this way. Yes it requires a certain amount of acclimatisation, but that doesn't make it sophisticated, it merely makes it niche.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Looking at the opposite of complex, simple, I would say something is easy to reproduce.
If it's very hard to reproduce you maybe could call that complex.

With adding more channels tracks get fuller, but at the same time it's also more difficult to put all sounds at the right spot so they sound like they supposed to. Of course practice and experience makes it easier, but could you also call it complex?

Just some thoughts I had.

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Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

I'm in some ways, with System-J on the issue of complexity = better. Now while I wouldn't say that overly simplistic is necessarily good, getting too complex and inside its own head makes the music almost unlistenable. My brother is going to school for music composition... and everyone there is OBSESSED with making really heady, "smart" music. It's not very enjoyable to listen to though.

I like trance because in a lot of ways, it strikes a healthy balance (when made right) between smart, and enjoyable. It can be multi-layered, and have subtleties you can discover new after years of listening to a song, but it's easy to dance and hike and bike to, because the rhythms aren't overly complex, and the melodies are catchy and can give you strength.

Music that's too complex (at least as far as I'm concerned) requires too much effort to enjoy, and while that's fine for sitting down and listening to, I like to be active when I listen to music - Trance is always going to be cycling & mountaineering music for me. It feels emotionally, the most epic and adventurous of all genres, and because the rhythms are fairly simple, and the melodies are exciting and dramatic, it's easy to listen to when pounding up a mountain highway, or crossing a glacier.

That said, really complex music is fun to listen to while tripping. Psytrance and psybient is pretty awesome in that regard. Soo much going on! :P

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J The trouble is you keep using these words like "sophisticated" and "complex" which just seem pretentious when used to describe music that's basically designed to trigger your E-rush. You may be some young guy who only has mainstream music as a point of comparison and a social circle without particularly knowledgeable tastes, but in the broader world of music, in an era where experimental, genre-blurring music is increasingly popular, it's just silly talking about trance in this way. Yes it requires a certain amount of acclimatisation, but that doesn't make it sophisticated, it merely makes it niche.

Man, you're right actually. When I'm with friends and family I feel like sometimes they kind of shy away sometimes when I used to boast about this music. Yeah, matter of fact, you're right. The more I consider it to be sophisticated, complex, better, deeper, or in any description that implies superiority than other genres, it just makes me look bad, and that alone will make people get kind of or

I won't lie about that, and you've helped me notice that by mentioning. I'll stop correlating this damn music with the description above and put an end to the oblivious musical elitism I had. Thanks for mentioning it to me.

Complexity, for the starters, is a relative term: for if there existed only one music record in the world it would of course be the most complex record (but at the same time the simplest). So whenever someone says something like "trance music is/not complex" they are either leaving out music they are comparing it to or, like System-J, they are being a retard talking about the SIGN-VALUE of the music (i.e. whether trance music should be described as complex so as to signify sophistication in the eyes of the others lol).

But who the fuck cares what the sign-value of trance music is? Who the fuck cares what the word "trance" signifies in the eyes of the retards? Who the fuck cares whether the word "trance" and its associated rituals can be used to signify sophistication lol? Of course, it's the hipsters, but remember, hipsters aren't genuinely passionate music listeners -- they are, first and foremost, people who are interested in the SIGN-VALUE of arts, who are interested in what such rituals could make them look like to others! So answering their questions is of zero interest to someone like me, to someone, to say, who's genuinely passionate about music. (though, the sign economy of the modern day (the way we can manipulate the sign values of things) is an interesting topic)

The genre comparison is a nobler question but ultimately irrelevant. For, you see, trance music is INDEED simpler than some other music genres e.g. rock music, but then so is music itself simpler than films, and films themselves simpler than videogames, and porn itself simpler than anything fucking ever created and yet there is at least one forum member jacking off to some random porn as I write this. As you can see, humans seem capable of appreciating simpler artforms, which is to say, THE POINT WAS NEVER WHETHER SIMPLICITY CAN BE ENJOYABLE OR NOT. It obviously is, for if it was the other way around we'd be all playing videogames instead of listening to music (and we wouldn't keep pets either but instead many cute girlfriends we can actually fuck).

The question therefore was: is the complex version of the same thing better than the simpler version of the same thing? As far as artforms are concerned (and pets aren't an artform, I'm sorry, but they aren't, unless we talk about digital pets that is to say..) this is a question of progress -- what would you like to see in the future? What is MORE EXCITING to see in the future? Would you like to see another unexplored possibility within the same level of complexity? Or would you rather prefer a higher complexity, a wider realm of possibilities, possibilities that reside beyond what can currently be easily imagined/predicted?

To say that complexity is not good is to admit that the genre is dead, to admit that it cannot progress anymore.