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New Age Music: What Makes it different.

By: Tymon Hytem We all can agree that different styles of music have different sounds. For example, with Jazz music you can not argue the fact that Jazz music uses seventh chords almost exclusively. Because of its chord progressions this makes Jazz a different and unique sound. It is this uniqueness that gives Jazz its own specialness. It is the distinctiveness of sound that makes every music genre out there special. So just what makes New Age music so different? In this article, we will compare and contrast New Age music to Jazz, as they are on the opposite ends of the spectrum and most musicians and Jazz enthusiasts will tell you that they could not be further away from each other.
For the most part new age music is a consonant music. For one thing you do not hear Saxes in this type of music. So you won't hear any of the tense jazz chords and their voicing in this type of music. What you are left with is chords based on the regular scales and the modes. The chord progressions are much simpler and for the most part they all start on the I chord.
So we know that new age music is a consonant music. Now we need to consider the melody. In Jazz there is usually a soloist who usually plays a lot of chromatic notes. You will not find this often in new age music because it would create conflict. New age music melodies tend to be softer more in sync with what you hear on the spiritual side. Solos, on the other hand are not so much concerned with letting the music express itself.
A distinction that Jazz players must have is an ego especially when performing. What new age music musicians do is let the music play them. Basically, the musician acts the part of a speaker where the music speaks through them. You really will be hard pressed to find this in a jazz musician and if you ever watched a Jazz performance you will know that for yourself.
So now that we have talked about the type of music and melody we need to consider rhythm of the new age music. You also have to talk about the situation concerning rhythm between the two musics. If you do a contrast between Jazz music and new age music, you will find that Jazz music has a discernible rhythm more so then new age music. This is really what makes Jazz what it is. With New age music you will find a pattern or rhythm to the music. It is this rhythm that is used to create trance like states in the listener. In Jazz music it is the drums that help to maintain the rhythm of the music. You will not find Percussion in New age sound because it simply does not add to the atmosphere that new age musicians want to try to create.
The old saying that goes "timing is everything" applies here for Jazz musicians. The soloist has the freedom to play whatever he/she wants as long as he/she maintains the meter and stays in time. New age music is more flexible because timing is there, but is not what the musician is concerned with.

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Tymon Hytem has been a writer in the field of music and electronic for the past 15 years. He has researched and written articles about everything from Background Music to how the Electronic advances in the recent years.

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