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"Trance isn't just music to me it's my life" (pg. 5)
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
I didn't say that Trance is mainstream music like Britney Spears. I said Britney Spears is. I guess that "looking at something for what it really is" has a subjective component to it. Because IMO, trance (epic/melodic trance i guess), structurally speaking, is no different then the most underground type of techno or obscure minimal or whatever. It is another EDM genre which is made by similar tools, in similar ways, has a similar 4/4 structure and has the potential to make people dance and trip such as any other EDM genre. As a result i don't see it as "Superior/inferior" to any other EDM genre. This is what looking at "Trance for what really is" means to me. |
Yes, maybe structurally speaking it is, but IMO, and I can't stress that enough, it is too often trying to over-inflate weak ideas. If a minimal/techno/tech track has boring sounds and re-hashed ideas, you usually hear it right away. I don't need melodies reverbed to kingdom come, or andy moor style echoed all over the place to make them seem much more complex than they actually are. I don't need snare rolls or a kick roll or whatever to announce that the breakdown is coming to an end, or excessive drama where it is un-needed. I like subtle music. I always have, I just never knew where to look for it, and that is what I'm trying to explain to you. Some of my favorite trance tracks are the ones that are simple and focus on simplicity in structure and good, interesting noises and tones, without all the riff-raff that i hear so often today. Also, I will not call it neo-trance because I think its a stupid term, but theres a lot of melodic techno coming out that is almost taking trance back to its roots.
And once again, where did I say one is superior to the other? I said I think one is better music, but thats my right and opinion. Just as that dude in the Danny Howells thread is free to hate all sax in tracks and think Danny is boring as piss. Imo, his loss, but I'm not losing any sleep over it.
If I may put it in a few words describing a personal example, here is something I have noticed when I listen to the music I like today vs. the trance I used to love so much. Trance gave me that euphoric rush Spirit5 is talking about, often, especially when I was new to it. When builds explode, melodies come back, basslines drop, you get that wonderful tingle all over, that which music triggers in the brain and makes you feel good. But after a while, it constantly felt like I was being told over and over "HERE IT COMES HERE IT COMES HERE IT COMES!!!!" The magic was lost, the anticipation and surprise muted. Now...I'll be sitting there listening to a tune/set and it will happen without me noticing, just all of a sudden, and that is what I love. |
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| Cobalt |
| quote: | Originally posted by weymouth
What you all think? I honestly thought this type of thinking about dance music died out around 2002 but lately it seems to be coming back. |
Well, until 2002 there was substance to meet the words. Until actual production talent returns to trance again, I admit this kind of thinking is sort of an old joke. |
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| jupiterone |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
To me, a part of trance is the euphoric and emotional edge that it has. At one moment, it will make you feel energized with a pulsating, bass filled, heavy hitting tech track, and the next it will be really melodic, emotional, almost makes you want to cry (haha) and then it will send you on a trip through outerspace or through some desolate void, or through a portal filled with colors. It does things to you that I feel not many other forms of EDM do (or as well). Except progressive house, but that's so close to trance... |
See to me, that all sounds extremely gay.
I don't mean to be an ass. |
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| noikeee |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
And once again, where did I say one is superior to the other? I said I think one is better music |
....
:p |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by noikeee
....
:p |
Not as fact, as opinion!
:p
I knew someone was gonna cut that out in the same way... lol |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Cobalt
It saddens me that today's fashionable attitudes reject or deny emotional content. Feeling seems almost entirely absent from the present dance music vocabulary. It's all about what's trendy, or different, or interesting, or whatever. Whether something establishes an emotional connection with the listener is of very little concern to the current scene. Feeling forms the backbone of art, particularly music. What's popular now seems abstract, disconnected from immediate sensation, wrapped up in sophistication. Emotion is so uncool.
Trance and progressive were precisely about taking the listener on a journey. One can trot out the same tired excesses that finally killed the scene, but that isn't a criticism of the genres themselves. Those that ridicule trance and progressive for emotion seems to do so more as a symbolic break from old values than as real criticism of those genres. Emotion in art! What vulgar nonsense! Such are the values of today. |
I agree 100% with you sir. Some new fad comes such as "the minimal explosion of Berlin" which is associated with some new culture and the rise of a new scene and everyone blindly jumps on the bondwagon. Now, "Jumping in the bondwagon" is especially stronger in EDM, because nowadays, EDM is associated with DJs that play a specific sound and have a specific attitude associated witrh that sound. So, minimal techno is the cool new sound played in underground clubs whereas epic trance is the stupid mainstream sound played in massive stadiums by big mainstream sold-out djs. I tend to believe that "Following a scene" and the beliefs associated with it (such as minimal cool, trance-uncool), is in itself a very strong determinant in making one to like the music associated with that specific scene, despite the fact that the music in itself is "poor". "Poor" now ofcourse has a subjective component, but even if we like it even if we don't, many modern minimal sets are stripped-down to the point that there is no substance to them. You just hear a metallic thing and a farty bass-line for 8 hours, you move to it and thats it. As you said there is no emotion, some melody or anything which could evoke an emotional response from someone. I don't say that all minimal is bad and that all trance is better. I myself loved The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" (a minimal album) because i personally found that it was EDM with some substance. I just thing that people tend to jump on bondwagons and end-up liking and desliking whole genres whereas, they should be free from prejudice and be eclectic to tracks (despite the genre they belong) not to genres. |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by jupiterone
See to me, that all sounds extremely gay.
I don't mean to be an ass. |
How does describing the different types of trance tracks and their feeling sound gay? And how does music being visceral (putting images in your head) sound gay? That was the point and is the point in a lot of music. That's the beauty of instrumental music versus lyrical, which can do it, but more so gives you the story about what the track is about (esp folk music). Melodies convey themes, themes convey emotions...I guess some people associate emotionality with "being gay". The point in building a good set IMO is one that conveys various emotions. Light tracks and dark tracks, funky tracks and deep tracks...aggressive and non-aggressive. |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
If I may put it in a few words describing a personal example, here is something I have noticed when I listen to the music I like today vs. the trance I used to love so much. Trance gave me that euphoric rush Spirit5 is talking about, often, especially when I was new to it. When builds explode, melodies come back, basslines drop, you get that wonderful tingle all over, that which music triggers in the brain and makes you feel good. But after a while, it constantly felt like I was being told over and over "HERE IT COMES HERE IT COMES HERE IT COMES!!!!" The magic was lost, the anticipation and surprise muted. Now...I'll be sitting there listening to a tune/set and it will happen without me noticing, just all of a sudden, and that is what I love. |
That's why it's important to build a set with various other genres/sub-genres of music. A non-predictable trance set can be created maybe starting with ambient or minimal, then deep progressive trance/prog-psy/prog house, building to slower epic tunes, then building to say tech trance or full on epic, and then even adding some psy. J00F does this quite well, so does Gareth Emery, Christopher Lawrence (though he does have a tendency to play full on), Nicolas Bennison, and even gasp..Tiesto! he can play a set (although it's all over the place) with various genres and not get boring by playing anthem after anthem at the same BPM. There is a way to make it interesting.... |
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| Cobalt |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
I agree 100% with you sir. Some new fad comes such as "the minimal explosion of Berlin" which is associated with some new culture and the rise of a new scene and everyone blindly jumps on the bondwagon. Now, "Jumping in the bondwagon" is especially stronger in EDM, because nowadays, EDM is associated with DJs that play a specific sound and have a specific attitude associated witrh that sound. So, minimal techno is the cool new sound played in underground clubs whereas epic trance is the stupid mainstream sound played in massive stadiums by big mainstream sold-out djs. I tend to believe that "Following a scene" and the beliefs associated with it (such as minimal cool, trance-uncool), is in itself a very strong determinant in making one to like the music associated with that specific scene, despite the fact that the music in itself is "poor". "Poor" now ofcourse has a subjective component, but even if we like it even if we don't, many modern minimal sets are stripped-down to the point that there is no substance to them. You just hear a metallic thing and a farty bass-line for 8 hours, you move to it and thats it. As you said there is no emotion, some melody or anything which could evoke an emotional response from someone. I don't say that all minimal is bad and that all trance is better. I myself loved The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" (a minimal album) because i personally found that it was EDM with some substance. I just thing that people tend to jump on bondwagons and end-up liking and desliking whole genres whereas, they should be free from prejudice and be eclectic to tracks (despite the genre they belong) not to genres. |
Yes and no. I'm not quite that relative. It's pretty close to fact that quality trance production went into freefall after 2002 (except perhaps for progressive psy, which I seem not to like for reasons of taste). Even without the trendy scene goggles, trance has no real reason to earn respect these days.
What I have more of a problem with are those who reject the entire pedigree of trance from top to bottom in order to burnish in-group credentials. I'm not blaming anyone in this thread, but it's certainly a common theme that wafts from Berlin, and an unstated argument of the current incrowd.
Historically speaking, the values of art wax and wane. Emotional, as I said, is uncool. It won't stay that way, and people shouldn't recognize its current absence as some sort of universal statement about the value of trance and progressive for all time. |
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| noikeee |
| quote: | Originally posted by Cobalt
It saddens me that today's fashionable attitudes reject or deny emotional content. Feeling seems almost entirely absent from the present dance music vocabulary. It's all about what's trendy, or different, or interesting, or whatever. Whether something establishes an emotional connection with the listener is of very little concern to the current scene. Feeling forms the backbone of art, particularly music. What's currently popular seems abstract, disconnected from immediate sensation, and wrapped up in sophistication. Emotion is so uncool.
Trance and progressive were precisely about taking the listener on a journey. One can trot out the same tired excesses that finally killed the scene, but that isn't a criticism of the genres themselves. Those that ridicule trance and progressive for emotion seem to do so more as a symbolic break from old values than as real criticism of those genres. Emotion in art! What vulgar nonsense! Such are the values of today. |
I guess the blame falls partially on emos there.
Personally, one of the things that made me move away from trance music and later away from progressive is that they were too damn "emotional" (and some trance was so over the top with the emotional content that it started to sound fake and really forced to me - most of you understand this anyway).
The music you listen to affects the mood you get into, and listening to music that is very emotional makes you a whiney emo idiot. Well, at least it had that sort of effect on me. Listening to fun music is simply more fun and will make you more cheerful, while it might not evoke certain feelings which can be appreciated with emotional music.
On the other hand I really like deep house nowadays, which is pretty emotional, so you might just disregard everything I just said. :wtf: |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
I agree 100% with you sir. Some new fad comes such as "the minimal explosion of Berlin" which is associated with some new culture and the rise of a new scene and everyone blindly jumps on the bondwagon. Now, "Jumping in the bondwagon" is especially stronger in EDM, because nowadays, EDM is associated with DJs that play a specific sound and have a specific attitude associated witrh that sound. So, minimal techno is the cool new sound played in underground clubs whereas epic trance is the stupid mainstream sound played in massive stadiums by big mainstream sold-out djs. I tend to believe that "Following a scene" and the beliefs associated with it (such as minimal cool, trance-uncool), is in itself a very strong determinant in making one to like the music associated with that specific scene, despite the fact that the music in itself is "poor". "Poor" now ofcourse has a subjective component, but even if we like it even if we don't, many modern minimal sets are stripped-down to the point that there is no substance to them. You just hear a metallic thing and a farty bass-line for 8 hours, you move to it and thats it. As you said there is no emotion, some melody or anything which could evoke an emotional response from someone. I don't say that all minimal is bad and that all trance is better. I myself loved The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" (a minimal album) because i personally found that it was EDM with some substance. I just thing that people tend to jump on bondwagons and end-up liking and desliking whole genres whereas, they should be free from prejudice and be eclectic to tracks (despite the genre they belong) not to genres. |
It's really funny to see someone bash another for disliking trance, being a "bondwagon" jumper, and accuse them of not being eclectic, and then turn around and say pretty much all minimal has no emotion and nothing worth a damn in it. I could find tons of examples from the "minimal" section on beatport or tech house areas that I think are full of emotion, melody, and interesting construction/substance, and not just The Field tunes. But keep on thinking you're the big bad mature guy on here who is leagues ahead of everyone else and immune to "bondwagon" jumping... :stongue: |
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| jupiterone |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
How does describing the different types of trance tracks and their feeling sound gay? And how does music being visceral (putting images in your head) sound gay? That was the point and is the point in a lot of music. That's the beauty of instrumental music versus lyrical, which can do it, but more so gives you the story about what the track is about (esp folk music). Melodies convey themes, themes convey emotions...I guess some people associate emotionality with "being gay". The point in building a good set IMO is one that conveys various emotions. Light tracks and dark tracks, funky tracks and deep tracks...aggressive and non-aggressive. |
It just did. Maybe because I grew out of the whole 'whiny' emotional attitude associated with trance. Sorry. |
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