trance

A form of electronic music that has spiralled out from other forms such as techno and house. Essentially, trance combines a powerful "4-to-the-floor" (or occasionally breakbeat) drumtrack with a strong melodic hookline. Trance is indisputably one of the most emotional genres that actually exists, because it is all self-interpretation. There are no instrumental or musical limits to trance, and rather than listening to some random guy screaming about his life, associating with a trance progression or hookline is much more deep, and much more personal. Like other genres, trance has many subgenres, some of which have become very commercialised to the extent where the musical merit of some tracks must be questioned (eg. Flip'n'Fill, Scooter etc.) At the higher end of the more uplifting, melodic (and relatively popular) styles of trance are DJs such as Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, and Ferry Corsten. These DJs in particular can make beautifully structured mixes their own music, and the music of others, building it into a euphoric collage which spans multiple energy levels, in order to provide the listener with peak/trough feelings, and carry them through numerous emotions and mental states. The creation and spread of trance music is mainly down to machinery such as the Roland JP-8000 (providing the prominently manipulated supersaw wave), and experimental DJs such as Sasha & John Digweed.