Bend Your Ear 👂 [Trance Write-up + New Music Recommendation]
I enjoy all kinds of music and dabble in pretty much everything depending on my mood. From 80s synth-wave to classic rock, to 90s alternative to pop, and lots of metal sprinkled in there for good measure. Pretty much whatever mood I’m in, I have a certain genre of music that fits it.
I love Trance for when I need inspiration. When I want to enjoy something emotional and beautiful. When I need that extra boost during a workout. When I want to go for a long drive. When I want… I think you get the picture.
Trance is a subgenre of electronic music, or as some have recently dubbed it--EDM. There are tons of genres in this space that can fit almost any mood and most have a steady rhythm that you can dance to. I find electronic/EDM excellent for writing or really doing any kind of work as a lot of the music has no singing/lyrics, though there are some excellent vocal Trance songs out there.
Trance’s particularly strong flavor usually brings about visions of pulsating lights, silly neon getups, and long drug-fueled raves. But, I would strongly encourage all to sample it. A very in-your-face, bold and emotional journey packed into every tune. The songs are longer than your usual three-minute radio fare but you will be richly rewarded if you get into it.
Like all genres of electronic and dance music, there is a formula.
Some of the best Trance plays around this formula. It sets up and then dashes our expectations. Just like in different writing genres such as horror or romance, there are certain clichés the author usually must adhere to (lest he loses his audience), but some of the best writing takes those ideas/formulas and turns them on their head. Trance is no different.
Trance’s formula, at its very core, is:
Intro > Breakdown > Buildup > Drop > The Melody > Outro
Intro & Outro
This is usually a steady and somewhat simple beat particularly useful for DJs to be able to seamlessly mix and beat-match songs together of similar BPM(Beats Per Minute). Trance is usually pretty fast landing at anywhere from 128ish-150BPM and beyond. The intro can also include the main melody or at least tease it.
Breakdown
This is where everything stops and then… Heaven. This is usually where the main melody (or sometimes main vocal) is played along with beautiful soundscapes and effects and even orchestral music. Some would say this is what makes Trance, Trance. These elements build into a crescendo as we go onto:
Buildup & Drop
The melody, drums, everything, builds and builds into a feverish pace, and then... The Drop. Everything hits you at once and we have:
The Melody
Sheer Bliss. The payoff. The melody and beat merge into one ecstatic expression of life and all its beauty (I swear I didn’t take any drugs, okay?).
Music Recommendation
Arctic Moon’s newest release, Dragonborn, officially released May 4th:
A rough breakdown of the formula in this track:
Intro: 0:00
Breakdown: 2:33 (wowzers, this is a long breakdown but well worth the listen)
Buildup: 4:00
Drop: 4:13
The Melody: 4:14 & 4:42(supber layered melodies)
Outro: 5:37
This write-up is about Trance in general but even within it, there are many sub-genres. On one end of the spectrum is tech-trance which forgoes a lot of the melodic aspects for more aggressive effects and on the other end is euphoric trance which mainly focuses on the melody. I might go into these in other installments of Bend Your Ear.
If you enjoyed this write-up and/or new tune please let me know in the comments!
And a bonus trance song with some amazing vocals:
You are the Man! Great approach to be open to various music styles - totally like myself. I am also trying to prepare some initiatives to bring together our music community. Resteemed and followed.
Thank you! @uwelang
I wanted to introduce trance in a way that people who might regularly not give this type of music a chance a listen, and I was inspired by Arctic Moon's latest offering.
I'll be following you closely for the other initiatives and I was glad I saw the #mondaytrance tag you mentioned in your weekly-tag post.
You are welcome - sounds awesome - the tag has been created by @andyjaypowell a marvellous DJ and producer - we had some discussions here on our tags from people that wanted to tell other what genre is what and that we should not post shit and learn before - i really try to bring different styles together - music should not have frontiers but bridging gaps. Glad to meet you!
Uwe is modest. Basically we inspired each other and started the tag together! Is it true @uwelang??
https://steemit.com/dtube/@andyjaypowell/pmimms8x
it was YOUR idea @andyjaypowell - I simply enjoy being a part and using it - thanks for this!
I definitely agree, and I recently started following @andyjaypowell and listening to his great work and I like how he blends styles.
I am a big trance fan but even within trance you have stuff like tech-trance (also love more classic techno as well) and other flavors that only add to it. Purists and people who want to argue about genres, well, I'll leave them to do that and I'll focus on all the awesome music coming out these days :)
Thx 4 joining #mondaytrance! :-)
Glad to be on-board @andyjaypowell, and thank you for heading it up :)
Uwe is modest. Basically we inspired each other and started the tag together... ;-)
Thanks for the recommendations! Really enjoying the Arctic Moon track. I've always been into deep house but never really made the leap to trance - always makes me feel like I should be out somewhere instead of sat at home, nodding along, haha. The aggressive stuff at least, which I guess is more tech-trance, as you say. This is much easier to just jam to :)
I'm amped you enjoy the track @lazarus-wist and that it's getting you to look at trance more - that was one of the main reasons I wanted to put this article out to get people to listen to some quality stuff.
I'm a fan of house and deep house as well. Trance has so many different flavors similar to house. The more "rave" stuff isn't my go to, but even that can be great for a workout or a long drive :)
Thanks for writing about trance structure. I used to make psy-trance back in the day with a friend but haven't attempted to do it lately as I've been focusing on EDM / electro-hiphop. Here's the psytrance we made years ago: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=797803
I will work on a trance track today.
I'm glad that the article might give you some inspiration to produce trance again @djleo
Some cool acid lines in these older tracks. I'll be watching out for that new trance track :)
Hey I finished my trance track: https://steemit.com/music/@djleo/musicians-get-onto-choon-co
It's a bit angry the synth but at least I can use it as a structure for my future tracks.