New Age

When browsing this forum a notice that a lot of people here generally dislike or hate New Age music, such as Yanni, David Arkenstone and others. I personally enjoy some of their pieces of music as they are very soothing and describe places to me. I think New Age music can be quite good at times and quite bad at times. To me all genres of music express a unique feeling and I think it is wrong to say that all New Age music is bad. I was wondering why many people dislike New Age. Is it because it is not complex enough?

Probably because of its slow, calm nature, it literally lulls people to sleep. I don't know for sure, but I'm actually a big fan of this type of music, and try to do a lot of music in this particular style.

Hello ascendance01!

In my opinion most of the music categorised as "New Age" tends to be pleasant to the ear, but really shallow. The compositional skills required to write such pieces are minimum at best and I personally find listening to such music quite annoying and at times unbearable. There are, however, many examples of New Age that I find beautiful. Miriam Stockley's "A Perfect Day" from BBC's "The Tales of Peter Rabbit" is one example.

I'd say that it's not an apparent lack of complexity that turns people away from this kind of music, but the shallowness of it.

Alexandros

Yanni gives musicians a bad name

Not as much as Milton Babbitt though

"New Age" music is just fine.

The only reason I'd hate Yanni is because he came to Athens to give a concert a few years ago, and he made an introduction in english, and then he said at one point "and I'd like to thank my mother, Filitsa, of course", and then he said "Thank you mother" in Greek with a perfectly fine Greek accent and pronunciation.

Other than that, some (or rather, most) of his music is quite boring.

But anyway, there is no point in saying "lots of people dislike New Age music", since there will always be people who like specific genres of music and people who don't. I can find an equal amount of people disliking new age music to the amount of people who dislike pop/jazz/hiphop/classical music.

Personally, I love Loreena McKennitt :)

I love Loreena too! :)

Dude, you don't compose the music... the music composes you.

You see, with New Age music, the theory is as follows: each consonant chord releases positive energy from laylines - areas of positive energy around the world - which enter your ear and therefore your ectostream.

Dissonance is bad vibes, and causes blackness.

We need more consonance music if we want more UFOs to share their wisdom with us.

And synths are sweet. Free love!

Not all of New Age music is shallow; there are exceptions. I've heard one called "Devotion," piano solo, written by a lady whose name I forgot. >_< It threw in some uncommon meters and was pretty cool. Idk, you just have to hear it.

I like a fair bit of Enya's stuff... although at times some of her tunes are a bit "popularist". Have also listened to David Arkenstone's stuff over the net and it doesn't sound too bad. I also have David Bowie's album called "Low", which has the 2nd half done by Brian Eno which is one of the earlier "new age" or ambient releases. But there is a lot of quite terrible new age music out there too which is just amateurs experimenting with synthesizers and samplers, and these people tend to go overboard in their arrangements, rather than aiming for the subtle variations which IMO make a nice tune. I myself have been tempted to make this kind of music, but I often get discouraged because I think my music sounds as bad as every other new age amatuer. It is not really easy to write good music in this genre.

Not all of New Age music is shallow; there are exceptions. I've heard one called "Devotion," piano solo, written by a lady whose name I forgot. >_< It threw in some uncommon meters and was pretty cool. Idk, you just have to hear it.

Yes, I agree with that! That's why I, myself, didn't include all New Age music as shallow.

I personally also like Adiemus (the song) among others by Karl Jenkins sung by Miriam Stockley. It's the only song, however, that I like from his whole collection of albums which tend to be rather repetitive...

Adiemus

Concerning ambient music my favourite is Steve Roach who I think does a fantastic job. Light Fantastic was the first album I bought and I instantly liked it. It's still one of my favourites. It's interesting the way he uses acoustic instruments along with his soundscapes like fujara, tabura and didgeridoo among others in some of his albums.

Alexandros

Sometimes I just wanna tell new age pianists that they are allowed to hit notes below that middle C...then again maybe their synth doesn't have the full 88 keys..?

I also want to tell them it's ok to hit notes that aren't in the scale sometimes.

George Winston is often cited as a new age pianist. And sometimes, Keith Jarrett is blamed for starting the whole new age piano craze---yet if you listen to his music it is WAY more creative than george winston and new age in general---the melodies say so much more. he uses notes below middle C....he makes the piano scream with passion and whisper secrets.

That's really it isn't it. New Age composers can write gorgeous melodies---Yanni definitely has...but it just seems like they don't STRIVE as much for depth and breadth of expression. Nothing wrong with that---they have a specific purpose in mind and some of them do it very well. I wouldn't say it takes minimal talent to write ANY kind of music---writing a simple melody takes talent. Writing a simple melody that is really really good takes even more.

So its all about what you want. Do you want music to tell stories and have a huge range of colors and dynamics and rhythms like you're exploring all the exotic lands of the world? Or do you just want green meadows and fluffy bunnies?

Generally, I like new age and ambient. Ambient music is among my favourites. When it comes to new age, Vangelis and Kitaro are among my favorite composers.

Yanni is little boring to me. Enya bores me even more.

And sometimes, Keith Jarrett is blamed for starting the whole new age piano craze

are you serious? that's a really bad generalization (not aimed at you Derek, but those who claim that)...Keith Jarrett is the man, genius on a whole other level

Enya bores me even more.

I almost think that Enya engineers her music that way. Well, maybe not to be soporific; but anyway, it's almost the only music I can turn on specifically to make me sleep. Ordinarily, music cannot be passive for me - it can't be in the background - I'm always actively listening, so music distracts me from whatever I may be doing, except maybe driving. But I can put on Enya's "Shepherd Moons" CD and fall asleep happily.

Strangely, some Ars Nova has the same effect on me. Go figure.