The International Farmer: Peter Broggs


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Trance Music

Trance Music, which is a form of electronic dance music, came to the fore during the 1990's. This is bit different from other genres of music because it is distinguished by a tempo found between 124 and 148. This tempo is followed to produce one hundred to one fifty beats every second. In spite of being a separate genre, trance music also includes different other forms of electronic music such as the house, the pop, the techno, the classical music, the chill-out and the film music as well.

The common feature of a majority of trance songs is the breakdown in the middle. It begins when orchestration is broken and the rhythm track fade out, while leaving the atmospherics, the music that get detached anywhere between one second to one minute. Another common characteristic of trance songs is that only female vocals are used to sing the songs. Trance music lovers are generally fond of trance that combines psychedelic and Guinea's trance.

The Origin of Trance Music

Trance music was first introduced in Germany and gradually it became popular in other European and Asian countries. One particular track, "Papua -the New Guinea" influenced the development of this dance music. This track was released in 1991 and was considered as a break beat track. This was different from other dance music forms because it featured a few tribal vocals and made use of instruments like melodic pads, instead of searing stabs or riff cords of piano. Before trance music, techno was the most preferred dance music in Germany, but some musicians' tried to do something new with techno they started using pads to create a different tune. Some of the early popular trance music tracks are:

  • Age of Love (Sung By Age of Love)
  • Dreams (Sung by the Quench)
  • Stella ( By Spoon and Jam)

Sub-Genres of the Trance Music

Trance music has its sub-genres which are Tech-Trance, Vocal-Trance, Uplifting or Anthem Trance and Hard trance.

Progressive trance The rise of commercial trance actually influenced the growth of progressive trance. It reduces the speed of traditional trance and it produces more subtle music, if compared to its commercial variations. Progressive trance is a fusion of the deep house trance and traditional trance instruments like the gated synths, the arpeggios, heavy reverbs and delays are used to produce the music.

During 2003 and 2004, progressive trance music was combined with break beat and funky house trance to create a very different type of dance music and this is evident from the music composed by DJs like Hernan Cattaneo.

Anthem or Uplifting Trance

Uplifting or anthem trance is mostly known as "hand in air" trance. Here, the composers mainly focus in strong melodies and maintain the build ups and the breakdowns that leave us to feel the trance. While listening to anthem trance, one gets charged up with energy and is bound to throw his hand in air when the melodic drop takes place just after a breakdown. A few similarities are there between the characteristics of the uplifting trance and the anthem trance, but anthem trance is bit louder than the other one.

Hard Trance

Hard trance is a completely new form of trance which has been developed combining the traditional trance music with the hard-house trance. In 2000, hard trance became quite popular in the UK. When the other trance was featuring the same old school samples like piano riffs and bass, hard trance DJs were then coming out with more influential and soothing sounds. Guyver, Stimulant DJs, Lee Haslam are known as the pioneers of hard trance.

Other Uses of Trance Music

Trance music is although known as dance- music but many people listen to this type of music to reach an ecstatic world. They believe that trance music has some meditative value and if one listens to the music for sometimes, he or she can escape reality. Trance music takes our mind and body to a different state as we surrender to the captivating music of the bass and the synthesizer. People who trust the meditative value of trance music actually believe that it cleans our body and mind from daily stress and thus when the trance is over we feel relaxed, fresh and rejuvenated.

One can visit the clubs that employ trance music based DJs every weekend to enjoy the meditative value of the music. Else, one can download the tracks in our phones, PCs to listen to them at his/her convenient time. Several sites are there that allow free download. However, you don't need to pay much to download the tracks even from those paid-sites.

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