What Is Trance Music?
Trance music, or simply trance, is a type of electronic dance music invented in the early 1990s. It shares many of its qualities with house, techno and industrial music, and can typically be found at dance clubs and rave parties. It has various subgenres of its own, such as psytrance, Goa trance, Eurotrance and acid trance.
Other People Are Reading
-
Characteristics
-
Trance music is generally upbeat and danceable, with tempos between 130 and 160 beats per minute (BPM). The intensity of the music typically builds up and slows down once or multiple times within a single track. Melodies are typically simple and short, and are played with synthesizer sounds. The goal of the music is generally to put the listener into a "trance," whether real or imaginary, or to simply make people dance as if they were in a trance.
Specifics
-
Trance music typically uses a basic 4-by-4 time signature and 32 beat phrases. The tempo of the music is slower than rave music, but faster than house. Modern trance is usually faster than older trance. The music is highly danceable, with a bass drum sound on every downbeat and an open hi-hat, or crash cymbal, on most of the upbeats. Sawtooth waves are the keyboard patches of choice for most trance melodies.
-
Origins
-
Trance can be traced back to Klaus Schulze, a German composer who made sequencer-driven experimental music in the 1980s. British groups such as the KLF and the Future Sound of London expanded on Schulze's ideas in the late '80s and early '90s as part of the acid house scene, while German artists Dance 2 Trance bridged the gap between traditional German techno and modern trance music.
Instruments
-
Trance music is largely composed and performed with electronic instruments such as synthesizers and drum machines. Popular synthesizers include the Roland TR-303, TR-909 and TR-80, as well as the JP-8000, Korg MS2000 and Novation Supernova. Occasionally, vintage synthesizers from brands such as Moog and Oberheim are also used. Special effects are also used, including reverb, flanger, and phaser units.
Festivals
-
Trance is a wildly popular electronic music genre around the globe. Many festivals are held annually, mainly in the U.K., Netherlands and North America. For example, the Electric Daisy Carnival is held each year in Los Angeles, and in 2009 was attended by more than 90,000 people per day. Trance festivals usually feature a plethora of trance artists, as well as fantastic laser light shows and stage performances.
-
