New to Trance?
Check out a couple of my recs below to grow acquainted with the genre:
(All links keep you within this webpage)
---------------------------------
1. Beautiful, Energizing, & Repetitive: • Angel (Eteson&Nicky Dub)
---------------------------------
2. Uplifting Symphonic Trance (Hard, Repetitive-yet-Beautiful) • Everlasting (Original Mix) [Skips intro (Skips first 2:32)] • Everlasting (Original
Mix) [Don't Skip Intro (long version)]
---------------------------------
3. Uplifting Symphonic: • Amnesia (SoundLift Remix)
---------------------------------
4. Video of a Concert (Song is an Electro-y Hard Electronica Anthem): • Elements of Life
---------------------------------
5. Yet More Anthem Trance:
5a. Old-School Soothing-yet -Energizing Anthem: • Airwave
5b. Frenzied Euphoric Fast Old-School (1990s) Intense Uplifting Anthem: • Walhalla
---------------------------------
6. Uplifting Vocal Trance: • Just Be (Antillas Mix)
---------------------------------
7. Balearic Vocal Trance (Sad/Reaffirming) • Lost (Original Chill Mix)
---------------------------------
8. Progressive Trance (Harder, Multi-tempo Chill-Out): • Fake Awake (Blizzard Remix)
---------------------------------
9. Uplifting Trance (Electro-y & Latin-y): • Sounds Rushing (David West Remix)
---------------------------------
10. Vocal Progressive Trance (Laid-Back): • Punta Del Este (Beach Mix)
---------------------------------
11. Vocal Trance (Midtempo Melancholy): • Miracle
---------------------------------
12. Vocal Trance (Harder):
• Falling • Everything (Cosmic Gate Remix) Concert Video
---------------------------------
13. Progressive (fast & uplifting) :
(Wonderful Video of Penguins) • Make This Your Day (Gareth Emery Dub Rmx)
---------------------------------
14. Vocal Anthem: • Nothing But You
---------------------------------
15. Brief Transitions:
• Blossom (Lounge Mix) • In the Past
---------------------------------
16. Chill-Out Balearic Trance:
• Sunny Tales (Original)
---------------------------------
17. Trance Downtempo • God Surrounds Us
Welcome to the Intro to Trance Webpage by Ori Uplift
Trance is one
of the most popular and beloved forms of music around the world, but it is not well known in the US.
How popular?
One weekly trance radio show has 30 million listeners a week (making it the most listened-to radio show in the world), and
another I listen to has 21 million listeners a week. It's that popular! Despite the genre's relative obscurity in the US,
one originally&still-partly-trance DJ (Tiesto) has over 4.2 million fans on Facebook & there an internet radio station that
plays his music 24 hours a day 7 days a week. DJs have had over a million people in attendance at single concerts in such
places as Brazil, and the Olympic Committee chose a Tiesto (who then did only trance) to do all the music for the opening
ceremonies for the Olympics marking the 100-year anniversary of the Olympics.
To quote a website that's very critical of trance in general, "Trance is the most emotional genre.
It can make you cry, make you shout, make you cheer, and make you celebrate absolutely nothing of substance
except pure ecstatic bliss."
Here is what others say about trance (of course, there are many
exceptions, for since 2007, trance has been expanding into a very broad range of subgenres): (sources given in
the "What is trance music?" link)
"you feel the energy and at the same time the peace"
"Trance Music is uplifting, inspiring, happy sort of audological anti-depressant."
"Beauty, sweetness, & serenity surround... & generate a blissful sense of well-being.... there's no
other genre other than trance music that could make you feel like that!"
"Trance (trans) n. The most sublime, divine, advanced music genre known to man, representing a quantum leap
in artistic creativity analogous to the development of the frontal lobe in the human brain."
"Trance music has a special kind of beauty, a wonderful and incredible sensation... We can't define it with
words, just with sound"
"Trance isn't just a kind of music, like too many others. It's a style of life too. A wonderful, peaceful life.
Discovering how our lives can be so beautiful... Understanding that we are just little things in this universe, but
big enough to be happy"
Trance music is made to Elevate your Mind Automatically, you do not Need drugs to Enjoy!" -UltraTranceParadise
"Pulsing beats & euphoric melodies"
"Mesmerized by this unique sound which merged beautiful melodies & rhythmic patterns so beautifully" - a top DJ
"it's not just 'club music' anymore, it's the soundtrack to many people's lives"
"The New Classical Music"
"This sound is made by God himself"
"Trance is Love & Peace" [actually someone's iTunes username}
"trance music is a life style , a passion & an antidote to any bad feeling in the world."
[About a song:] "I want this played at my funeral. This song just reminds people of how great our
world is, its a song of pure beauty and brilliance"
"trance make me feel as though i can do anything if i set my mind to it"
"contrast of beauty & emotion"
"i believe you can have the most *!?+ up life, but if you listen to pieces like this it makes everything
seem O.K. ...rush of energy through body and the HIGH without the drugs"
"Trance ... touches you and fills your heart with love and brings tears to your eyes...beautiful"
Most songs linked here are shortened or radio versions, but unlike other genres of music, full-length trance
songs (6-9 min), especially in the progressive genre, usually have this structure:
- 0:00-1:00 - Just a basic beat to be mixed w/ end of the previous song to transition
into this one
- Next couple of minutes - Buildup, usually with a beat
- Next minute or two - Slow, soft breakdown, at least partly without any beat
- Next 2 or 3 min - Climax
- Last minute or two - Just a basic beat to be mixed with the start of the next song to transition.
But many songs here don't follow this structure.
Trance, by definition, is built around melodies, ones that are usually beautiful & almost always emotional;
in dance versions of pieces, these melodies usually but not always float over much faster & harder other
musical elements for the first and lasts parts of songs &, in softer & gentler interludes called breakdowns, play
without a beat or harder elements but usually with other beautiful gentler harmonies. (It's called a breakdown
because the percussion and other elements of the piece are "broken down" and removed, leaving only softer
elements, like the melody.)
Much trance has the above buildup-breakdown-climax structure, but many pieces lack a breakdown
or
buildup, or have
no
audible beat and feel extremly slow, or break all sorts of other conventions, as artists are always
experimenting. For example, although
almost all trance has at least one electronic instrument (usually ~a dozen), there are songs made by top DJs/producers with
only
traditional non-electronic instruments like piano, voice, guitar, etc.
The definition of trance requires only
that it be built around 1 or more melodies and have a 125-145 bpm, although these two often lead to other characteristics;
eg, one reason why any vocals are usual slow & calm, usually soothing, & float over underlying faster music may
be that
it's
quite difficult to
sing
words
in synch with a audible or implicit beat of 135 bpm, so the remaining option is to go much slower.
About a third of trance has vocals. Vocal trance, however, differs from other genres such as rock, pop, hip-hop, country,
alt, & others, especially in two ways: 1. When there are words, they are usually not tightly knit, so can be slow, calm,
sparse, soothing, or interjectory. 2. In
trance, vocals usually
are not responsible for carrying the melody; often,
little snippets of vocals are used sparingly here and there to enhance the instrumental melody or otherwise enhance the
piece. This means there is unlimited freedom to do anything one wants with as much or little vocals as a producer can
imagine. This extreme flexibility leads to vocal song structures one won't find in other popular music.
There are many misconceptions about trance inherited from misconceptions about dance music. One singer says, "The past
two
years have really changed my perspective on dance music because I used to think it was robotic and monotonous,
but now I feel like my listening is a method to relaxation and happiness."
In addition, there are a lot of misconceptions about trance in particular. Trance is not the same as techno, and it is not
the
same as
house (although the deep end of progressive trance does merge towards some progressive house). It's not the same
as the dark genre of psy-trance that Israel is so prolific at producing. As above, trance has been called "the new
classical", but that description applies to only some kinds of trance. For more info, click on the "What is
Trance?" section above.
I welcome you to check out my site and try a couple of my recommendations at left. Enjoy!
The left & below links show 4 trance genres:
- Uplifting/Anthem Tr.
- Progressive Trance - Vocal Trance - Balearic Trance
(Within these, trance producers
often merge trance with house,
jazz, ambient, classical, indie,
electro, psy-trance, pop, hip-
hop, techno, alt., Euro/HiNRG,
Latin, chill-out, or downtempo.)
----------------------------
In case you like a couple of my recommendations at left, below (random order), are
more of
my all-time favorites:
----------------------------
Concert Video: Classical-Based Distorted-Sounds Anthem:
• Adagio For Strings
