Where is "New Age" music going today?

[John Watt]

I'm still having problems with New Age and New Wave as categories.
I would'ha called it New Age if it was one musician with a keyboard synth doing it all, back then,
but then that overall weaker approach to musicianship did lead to a style genre.
Some jazzers got a little too mellow, and got sounding New Age too.
Is mixing traditional instruments from around the world New Wave?
How come no-one's getting into Old Age music? Oooops!

[Corno Dolce]

Old-Age music???????? Why then does Bach's music continue to draw people from so many disparate nations, cultures, lifestyles, and income groups, especially since he lived from 1685-1750???????? His music is Timeless........

[teddy]

I sat and banged two bones together the other day. Is that old enough?

teddy

[John Watt]

I don't know. If it was my bones they'd be old enough.
And please, I'm not equating classic music with Old Age music.
If the sound of the equipment for self-recording and producing product can create new style genres,
older musicians should be able to use many more styling cues, creating an Old Age genre, maybe.
Either that, or just by thinking and typing this, I'm having my first middle aged moment.

[GoneBaroque]

Would the music which followed the original New Age be New New Age? Personally I have never understood the term. Most of what I have heard, which is not much sounded like music looking for a place to go.

[John Watt]

Hey, GoneBaroque! I'm a graphic and sign artist, sometimes, but I never thought of what comes after New Age.
Jimi Hendrix always talked about naming something "the first rays of the new rising sun", but he never did, while he was alive.
Somehow that seems relevant to me.
New Age? New New Age, nu-New Age? post-New age? Newage? Richest New? (Bitches Brew) Uh-oh, I'm recycling.
No, that was an in-the-moment New Age homage, a self-contained musical reference.

I saw New Wave as bands using synthesizers onstage, instead of traditional instruments, even rock guitars,
and I saw New Age as one person using a synth to produce product, maybe getting a drummer to help.
A lot of people saw big hair as part of New Wave, and nature sound effects as part of New Age,
actually, big differences.

I'm what happens after New Age. I'm a symphonic-electric instrumentalist and vocalist.
Too bad there isn't a symphonic-electric stage out there I can plug into.

[GoneBaroque]

symphonic-electric instrumentalist and vocalist -verrry interesting.

[Corno Dolce]

Duckmeister,

Yeah - Thats ancient enough - Btw, whose old bones???

For me, new age means getting reacquainted with instrumental ensembles from the Middle Ages and ending with JSBach. I recently heard a concert with 16 Viols used in a performance of The Art of Fugue. The instruments were gut-strung and each had seven strings - from Violino to Violone, the Violone could sound a Contrabass C @ 16' - Wow, what a sweetly smooth sound and it filled the room very nicely during the performance.

[John Watt]

I know what you're typing about, Corno Dolce, when you mention Violino and Violone, but they're not new age, and definitely not new new age, no matter who is playing them and when. Those musicians are cat killers, the demonic, heavy mental, stick you in the gut players. Even Paganini stood on street corners by himself, airing out his new gut strings, getting into the raunchy, violin-slinger public. Don't forget, the Italian audience thought they saw the devil appear beside him to guide his hands. That wasn't a retro-blues crossroads, just cat-gut demonic hell on stage, expensive at the time. No-one is now sure who snubbed who first, Paganini not liking royal attitudes about his street-corner riffage, snubbing them, or royals snubbing him first after finding out he challenged other violinists in public and played for free.

Yeah, imagine your whole musical career wearing itself down to the snub.

[teddy]

Sounds like quite an event CD

teddy

[Corno Dolce]

Hi John Watt,

Ah, ummm, cat killers? Methinks not........Its the intestinal material of Sheep. You can't use cat-gut strings very successfully in very hot and/or humid weather - The strings begin fraying very quickly. Besides, its a whole other playing style. My experience with cat-gut strings on my Double Bass is that the sound is much mellower and softer. I'll gladly play Bach's music with cat-gut strings.

Also, I don't equate Viols with New Age. I do notice that musicians who want another sound for contemporary music for classical instruments will gladly associate it with New Age.

[John Watt]

I simply don't know how to start, your admission of using cat-gut, something I'm surprised this domain allows. I always read that Paganini was known for prowling alleys looking for cats to make his own, uh, fresh strings, so fresh, his higher harmonic playing created a red stain on his considerable chin. And you're using even bigger ones on bass, probably fantasizing about your next Canadian vacation, hoping to find some beluga whale intenstines. I'm still trying to get a piece of wire from that decommissioned submarine being scrapped within easy bike-hiking distance, thinking it moved with the whales underwater and reflected actual marine mammal frequencies, like my new "accelerated acoustics" guitar does. Yeah, what's nickel-plated round-wound, with considerations of silver, copper, lead and not gold, compared to getting mellower and softer? Maybe you can humpback me up on bass.
Uh, and I'm not sayin', whale intestines are better, lots left over, not needing your own application of a sea salt flavour and tang, easy to curl into a frying pan, and if you like to sit on arctic ice, sauteeing or using an abandoned American military battery for a slow cooker, you've also got some nice whale-tooth to carve. The next white men who land in a helicopter to shoot a polar bear will shoot you a few bucks for sure, another nice bonus.
And a sincere thanks for expanding my strung-up string theory.