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New Age music is a style of music originally associated with some New Age beliefs. It has its basis in the work of various 1960s European and American electronic and acoustic musicians, and is generally characterized as being primarily instrumental and repetitively melodic in nature. Recordings of nature sounds are sometimes used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. New Age music is typically relaxing and inspiring, and is often used by listeners for such activities as yoga, massage, meditation, reading, as a method of stress management^[1] or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments.

New Age music is largely typified by modal and consonant harmonies, often in conjunction with sound effects or nature samples. New Age music includes both electronic and instrumental forms, frequently relying on sustained pads or long sequencer-based runs; and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. In many cases, high-quality samples are used instead of natural acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Sanskrit, Tibetan or Native American-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends or the realm of Faerie. Songs of up to 20 minutes duration are not uncommon. Some of these characteristics could equally be said to describe ambient music. The genre is also closely associated with space music, which many commentators and retailers clasify as one of its sub-sets, or apply as a descriptive term to some music by some New Age artists.

During the 1980s, the term "New Age music" was introduced more widely to the public by radio stations and then by music retailers and some record companies, as a marketing tag applied to a variety of non-mainstream instrumental music styles. Radio stations in major markets (such as "the Wave" in Los Angeles) defined themselves as "New Age", while playing some New Age music and using nature sounds in their station-id's, yet those stations also heavily featured styles musically and philosophically unrelated to New Age music, for example, Smooth Jazz. The first true New Age radio station is the U.S. was KLRS (Colors) in Santa Cruz, CA with a non-stop playlist of New Age music and is considered the first New Age station in the world. Most major cable television networks have channels that play music without visuals, including channels for New Age music, such as for example, the "Soundscapes" channel on Music Choice.

Contents 1 Definitions 2 Influences and themes 3 Alternative terms to "New Age" 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Some listeners consider New Age music to be a branch of electronic music. Others consider New Age music to be defined more by the feeling it produces rather than the devices used in its creation. This is a subtle distinction but needs to be mentioned since while much of the equipment used to produce New Age music is electronic, or computer-based, much New Age music is also produced using purely acoustic instruments. For example notable New Age artists George Winston, Will Ackerman, Suzanne Ciani and many others specialize in both solo and ensemble performances using "western" instruments such as piano, acoustic guitar, flutes, harps and many others, "eastern" instruments such as sitar, tamboura, tabla; and instruments from all other parts of the world, and of course, the human voice singing in languages from all around the world as well.

Partly due to some artists' open affiliation with various New Age beliefs, other artists and bands have specifically stated that they do not consider their own music to be New Age - although their work may be labeled that way by record labels, music retailers, or radio broadcasters.

There is a significant overlap of sectors of New Age music, Ambient music, electronica, World music, Chillout, and others. There are various ways of describing what New Age music is and which artists should be classified as New Age artists. Among those, three main points of view can be seen as follows:

• that New Age music is a branch of electronic music that includes melodic, non-dance pieces with miscellaneous kinds of arrangements (as opposed to typical dance styles such as techno and its sub-genres, experimental electronic music that can be non-melodic, noise music, several sub-genres of ambient music, etc). According to this point of view, artists and bands like Michael Cretu's Enigma, Aeoliah, Enya, Deep Forest, Clannad, Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre, Kitaro, Popol Vuh, Steve Roach, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and Yanni all belong to the New Age category. This is somewhat problematic for two reasons: first, artists like Enya, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream's Edgar Froese stated that they do not consider their music to be New Age, some of them perceiving "New Age music" as a genre necessarily connected with the religious movement. Second, music by artists like Tangerine Dream and Vangelis is stylistically very varied, with many albums that cannot be classified as New Age (for instance, Vangelis' output includes musical collages and experimental electronic music), and so it is unclear whether it would be fair to label the artists New Age. Also, this definition doesn't work well because lots of New Age music is acoustic, like George Winston or William Ackerman, and lots of New Age music has vocals, like Enya, who won the New Age Grammy a couple times, and artists who do Sanskrit chants, like Krishna Das and Bhagavan Das.
• that New Age music appears mostly on meditation or relaxation CDs, frequently found in New Age bookshops and music stores. Artists include Anugama, Cusco, David Arkenstone, Deuter, Gandalf, Karunesh, Kitaro, David and Steve Gordon, Software and Space. This definition's accuracy can be questioned, since virtually all the artists mentioned above have numerous pieces that are stylistically reminiscent of meditation CDs.
• that New Age music is electronic music that is melodic, soothing and relatively simple sound-wise, with wide pads, gentle melodies and long tracks. Sometimes this kind of new age music is called spacemusic, but it's only one kind of New Age music and there is lots of other kinds of New Age music that is different and uses instruments from around the world, not just synthesizers . However, since many artists confine themselves to creating only this specific kind of music, it is widely used. According to it, some Vangelis and Tangerine Dream albums can be called New Age music, but their output as a whole cannot be called New Age since it is varied. Similarly, Suzanne Ciani's music is New Age, but Klaus Schulze's and Enya's is probably not, because both have a very distinct style, different from generic melodic, soothing electronic music. "

From 1968 to 1973, German musicians such as Holger Czukay (a former student of Karlheinz Stockhausen), Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream released a number of works featuring experimental sounds and textures build with "electronics", synthesizers, acoustic and electric instruments; their music, referred to as Cosmic music can be regarded as Ambient or New Age, depending on point of view. Later Brian Eno defined the styles and patterns of Ambient in a way that easily merged and co-developed with the styles of many musicians such as Robert Fripp, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Harold Budd, Cluster, Jah Wobble from late 1970s to today.

Other influences are early electronic music, classical music, ethnic music and world music. The minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich (Indian influenced in the former case) can also be cited as an influence, along with artists like Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young who used drones since the early 1960s. Connected to the creation of New Age music is the resurgence of interest in Gregorian Chant during the second half of the 20th century.

The solo ECM performances by artists like Keith Jarrett (especially his record The Köln Concert), Ralph Towner (especially his records Blue Sun and Solo Concert) and Lyle Mays's first eponymous album, are usually thought to be an influence on Ambient/New Age music.

The acoustic solo and group performances by the early Windham Hill artists such as Andy Summers, William Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, George Winston, and Michael Hedges were called New Age for much of the last 30 years.

Popular themes in New Age music include space and the cosmos, environment and nature, wellness in being, harmony with one's self and the world, dreams or dreaming and journeys of the mind or spirit. G.E.N.E. produced a string of albums that described, musically, places like Pacific and Mediterranean islands, and a special CD with recordings of sounds of different oceans. The band Software has several albums that specifically state the electronic aspect of music, such as Chip Meditation, Electronic Universe (both in two parts) and Digital Dance. Titles of New Age songs are frequently descriptive: examples include Principles of Lust (Enigma), Purple Dawn (Anugama), Shepherd Moons (Enya), Straight' a Way To Orion (Kitaro), The Quiet Self (Gregorian), and One Deep Breath (Bradley Joseph).

As described in this article, the borders of this genre are not well defined; however music retail stores will include artists in the "New Age" category even if the artists themselves use different names for their style of music. Here are some other terms used for "New Age".

Contemporary Instrumental

This is a term that may be used most often, and can include artists that do not use electronic instruments in their music, such as solo pianist David Lanz.^[2] Similarly, pianists such as Yanni ^[3] and Bradley Joseph ^[4] both use this term as well, although they use keyboards to incorporate layered orchestral textures into their compositions.

Adult Contemporary

This term, used by Jim Brickman^[5]; it is a type of radio format that plays mainstream contemporary pop music, excluding hip hop and hard rock; this music is intended more for adults than teens.

• List of new age and new instrumental musicians
• Ambient music
• World music
• Celtic music
• Space music
• Biomusic

• rec.music.newage resource Vast Newage resource site.
• New Age Music? What is it? Paul Adams' New Age Music article.
• Discography of New Age, Electronic, and Ambient Music
• New Age Music explanation
• New Age Music Collection - World of Instrumental Music

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