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New Age

In the 70's, I enjoyed aspects of the subculture that was called the New Age. I embraced concerns, values, art and ideas that seemed to promise the emergence of a a new world order. Someone called the eclectic music of the time New Age music. New Age music was often peaceful, dreamy and unstructured sounds played on synthesizers and quiet instruments. The idea was to feel calm if not blissful. Chanting merged with synthesizer pads and flute obligatos.  

I especially recall Paul Winter's Missa Gaia, a world mass the celebrated the wolf and whale.  I heard this new mass performed in one of Vancouver's large churches and was thrilled by the performance. Winter wrote real music with complex, sophisticated arrangements and a deep feeling for the animal nature in humans.

Some New Age music albums come with liner notes encouraging the music's use in meditation, and many albums were deigned and recorded  for this purpose. Some pundits suggested that New Age music was relaxing, calming and supported healthy living. Health food stores, new age book stores, spas, and specialized radio stations played this music. 

New age music became fusion music combining world sounds and instruments with an odd mix of activities - mediation, yoga, trance dancing and drug parties that features, LSD, grass and later ecstasy. The contrast between calming music and frantic rock and roll sometimes separated groups with divergent values and sometimes restless youth would alternate between calm and frantic, pot and speed.

If you tune into Sirius satellite radio, the Spa and Chill channels offer some music from the new age era. The new new age music of 2010 and beyond remains to be defined. I was surprised that iTunes categorized one of my albums, Going Beyond as "new age." The compositions were composed as 21st century music  with jazz energy, rhythms and dense improvisations -- no resemblance to the new age music of the 70's. Maybe the iTunes pundits are right identifying interesting, energetic, innovative music as the new new age.

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Many of the topics presented online are from the Sound of Music by Stephen Gislason.
During September 2010 you can  Download a Free Copy. Your comments are welcome.

Persona Digital Studio is located on the Sunshine Coast, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. www.personadigitalstudio.com  email  music@personadigitalstudio.com. Our Music catalogue includes recorded performances by the P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort. Music downloads are available from iTunes, Napster, AmazonMP3 and from our companion website: Persona Digital Online.  We enjoy association with Reverb Nation who provides an online service for musicians to present and market their music.