john937 -- massage music

[decibel]

sorry, i forgot to answer your question.

you definitely don't want to play dance music when you give massages. the type of music that you need to get a hold of is categorized under the broad term "ambient". i really suggest that you spend some time researching this and finding what you like the best since ambient artists vary drastically in style. if it will help your profession, i think it should be very important. forget about new age music (although i am a HUGE fan of tangerine dream and they are categorized as new age) -- most of it is cheesey and has breaks that disrupt the "trance". also, forget about shopping at blockbuster, they never have shit and the employees won't be able to help you. find a store that sells electronic music (alien records is in austin, they should have ambient, i know tower records has a big selection, and there are a bunch of others). a good way to find out about this kind of music is to listen to "musical starstreams" and "hearts of space". these shows are always accessible through net radio.

ambient can be dark, deep and psychedelic (my favorite kind!!), it can be dancy, it can be noisy and experimental, very textural and without any beats, and it can be pot-smokin', chillout, reggae-ish like ambient dub.

i once got a deep-tissue massage while listening to plastikman's "consumed" and candyflipping. wow! that was intense.

so, like i said, you're really going to have to experiement to see which kind works the best. i, personally, am really into psychedelics, so i like the trippier kind of ambient, but that might be too weird for most of your clients.

compilations that i highly recommend are:: slumberland 1 and 2 (very textural, very floaty and very sexy!!), one, two and three a.d. (they are classics) -- as a matter of fact, pretty much anything you get from "waveform records" is going to be good, i have the entire collection.
plastikman is awesome, so is higher intelligence agency, pete namlook, children of the bong, and kruder and dorfmeister (although i don't know if that could be considered ambient).

another branch of ambient you might like is what they call "aesthetic" music. it's very mellow, textural and usually has guitars and incoherent vocals. try "love spirals downwards" (see what the initials of their name spell out?).

anyway, i have i huge collection, so if i can help, let me know -- but you need to give me a massage when i go to austin, my back is one big knot.

 

[john937]

Hey, thanks a lot. I know Alien records, and just picked up some of the goa trance they had but haven't had a chance to really listen to it in depth. My experience with ambient in the past is it's either zither strings over cracked glass (trying to make music out of distortion) or the "chill" music that puts people to sleep.
I think my ideal massage music is a bit more high energy than what you have in mind. The problem with most "new age" music is it's so mellow the client goes to sleep.
I'm trying to give them more of an out of body experience
but definitly not put them to sleep!
There's two other problems with a lot of selections.
The music will get in a rut, same pattern over and over for two long without variation (creates a bored massage client)
or it's got the dance percussion base THUD THUD THUD....(no go, doesn't work).
I'll listen to the goa selections I bought tonight and report back in this thread, and thanks for the other suggestions, I'll look for those.

 

[decibel]

well, unfortunately, the whole purpose if this gengre of music is to put listeners in a trance (which is good) and in order to do that, you need repetition, there's no way around it. there has to be enough variation to keep you interested, but there has to be what's called a "trance generating loop". good ambient music shouldn't put you to sleep. it's a very engaging experience, almost like watching a movie.

if you want high energy, then children of the bong and higher intelligence agency would be good.

and, really, if you want some ultra-powerful music, try the album "consumed" by plastikman -- it is monumental. but i'm warning you, it IS very repetitive.
enjoy with flavored water and two hits of acid...