Does a country/culture affect the music?

[Ormion]

One thing that I have noticed all these years is that certain countries have certain 'sounds'. For example Israeli scene has a much more focus in melody both then and now. Scandinavian countries have a darker sound either is dark psytrance, goa or progressive. UK was highly psychedelic back then. Germany has a more dry sound and USA more freeform. South Africa and Finland have their own unique sounds. Of course there are exceptions to the rule. For example there are artists from Germany that are highly melodic, but the majority follows the rule IMO.

 

The question is if you believe that a certain country or culture affects the music or it's just a trend that everybody follows? For example why Sweden has a darker approach? Is it because of the climate or the psychology of Swedish people or did they follow the scene?

Why South African psytrance is powerful? Does it related to the people that live there or artists are just inspired by some pioneers?

[K-BAN]

good question and I wondered that before too. The two big examples for me is Russia and the darkpsy but also the South Africans with their dirty powerful sound, ahah! I think S.African is more.. I dont want to say random but different with their psy sound. Distortion scatchy effects. The Israeli's defiantely are more melodic when the music is good and not cheesey. Swedish psychedelics tend to be clear and overall good production with melodies and really enjoyable sound. For that I think of Tellus 2, S>Range, Logic Bomb and Miraculix. The Portuguese would be hardest to describe but to me I've felt a distinct sound comes from there as well. More so a combination of the others. Edgy effects, frenetic speed, clear enjoyable leads with maybe a touch of dark (which gives the twilight appeal).

 

all in all, it fascinates me. 8)

[technosomy]

nice topic

i am from Australia/NZ and you on the money squidy, few years ago at least

we kinda kooky down here, but no longer have much of a psyscene.

all about progressive and dubstep these days, so to answer your question yesteryear..... big time

now

i believe to a point, we have lost our identity in lot's of ways, and maybe that's also showing in the music

[Guest]

I'm sure that correlation between music and mentality exists

[IronSun]

Exactly, there can be no doubt about that. The more interesting question, and also a lot harder to answer, is how a countries/culture's mentality affects different ways of expression. I've always found that even though there are a lot of country-specific manifestations of psytrance, as Ormion put it very well, the overal psytrance sound is a lot more homogenic than for example various kinds of folk-music of different countries.

 

Is this because of the hardware/software?

[Guest]

Probably one of the factors is musical environment, which consists in typical music for the country where the musician was born. I suppose, a human since early childhood accumulates musical information (from TV, radio, etc) and then produces some kind of synergetical fusion of that data. The mechanism is similar to cognition of native language

[IronSun]

Probably one of the factors is musical environment, which consists in typical music for the country where the musician was born. I suppose, a human since early childhood accumulates musical information (from TV, radio, etc) and then produces some kind of synergetical fusion of that data. The mechanism is similar to cognition of native language

 

That sounds logical, given music's very close relationship to language. But for example traditional instruments may differ from country to country while for psytrance, synthesizer stays THE 'instrument' used. I think that this then is one of the groundreasons why the genre in itself has a very homogenic sound. I guess you can call this the 'formula'.

[Veracohr]

Not to mention that psytrance has grown up in the internet age, when we can easily share things across international boundaries, whereas folk music generally grew up in isolation.

[Rotwang]

Probably one of the factors is musical environment, which consists in typical music for the country where the musician was born. I suppose, a human since early childhood accumulates musical information (from TV, radio, etc) and then produces some kind of synergetical fusion of that data. The mechanism is similar to cognition of native language

+1

[Shpongled247]

It definitely does... Australia's descent into some kind of mish mash progressive/diversified psy culture is a huge reason I'm glad I've escaped overseas for now.

 

I can't really speak to what cultural or environmental factors have caused the change but its a bit about the younger guys making the music and how they were bought up... Australia's NNSW "chunk" scene is an absolute travesty to psychedelic culture... Hopefully things change by the time I go back! Heh..

[GagaISM]

It used to be like that, but the internet is slowly erasing the cultural borders.

[radi6404]

I think it is the cluture and country itself. but mostly the country and geographical position of it. The climate has big effect on people and is a very serious factor. Cold climate with dark days, a faded atmosphere and a low horizon make some people produce darker and more mealnchoic sounds, because that is just how they feel, what is in the brain. Germany and Sweden are northern countries, the sun is not very strong and colorful there and it surely has an effect on people and how they feel. I know many Bulgarians that are in UK and they constantly complain about the weather, the darkness and the faded atmosphere, so it has an eeffect on the emotions on them not only musicwise, but lifestyle- wise aswell. Just like people in Greece or Serbia are outisde a lot in general, laugh a lot and have a diffeent lifestyle to people in Germany or Sweden. That affects the scne and even UK as a more northern country has many artisits with darker sound, even Simon Posford with hallucinogen was drier and more melanchoic than Israel or Greek trance in my opinion.

 

The vegetation of a country also has a big effect on the feelings on the people, seeing drier grass with warmer colours in the summer, desert like bushes and mediterranian vegetation emidiatelly has effect on many people, including me. The deeply green grass and colder olours in northern countries have an effect aswell.

 

Another factor is the infrastructure and organisation of a country, that could affect the imagination of the artists. Germany has many big cities and crowed areas so people maybe want to represent it in electronic music, music that reminds of modern cities, skylines, sciense fiction. Germa music has an idustrial impact on me, as the highly industrialized country has aswell.

 

And the third, least affective factor is looking at big masters of the country. Each country has some masters to look up so they want to sound similar to some extent, but that is not so important, yet it has some effect on the artists.

 

I think Israel and Greek trance sounds warm and positive, most of it. UK trance is highly psychedelic and intelligent in use of synths and freaky sounds, some tunes are darker.

 

Germany has a simplistic and basic style with hard percussion usually and harder sounds.

 

Sweden sounds cold as the country but psychedelic.

[Ormion]

That's a great post! I agree fully.

[radi6404]

Thank you. Great you don`t disagree that climate, landscape and cities don`t have an impact on artists.

[Ormion]

No I fully agree. I believe that artists from sunny countries produce more melodic tracks than countries with cold climate. Personally I find that the sunny weather creates an euphoric melodic feeling while the cold seasons a more dark approach. Since Greece is sunny most of the time I have a soft spot for melodies like most Greek I believe.

Vegetation also plays a part. When I'm in holidays I always create music in my mind that goes with the enviroment, either is a beach or a forest.

[radi6404]

You are so right man. The sun does make you want to hear euphoric and deep melodies. That is the reason why Greece has melodies not only in trance but all kinds of music. The folk and Pop music has big melodies and emotions.

[ritual om]

+1000 to radi!!!!!

 

music is an expression. whether you follow some widespread formulas, in a track must be added the producer's own touch. and this touch has to do with what the producer is feeling, with his tamperament, with his interpretation of the mental musical landscape. and all of the above, definitely are connected with the culture, the environment, the education, the flowing mentality.

 

this link can't be measured, can't be strictly defined, but certainly exists!!!

 

it is clear in the extremes: listen to battle of future buddha, it is raw, twisted, quite dark. listen to jaia or bpc, it is more smiley, sunny and beachy

[Procyon]

I disagree about the climate influencing the music the way it was described, for I have lived in two countries with completely opposite cultures and climates: Japan and Brazil. And I don't see how cold Japan had such marvellous acts such as Matsuri Productions, the refined melodies of tech-trance, goa and psy, while 300-sunny days Brazil had such bad taste music, Wrecked Machines one of them I mentioned recently. And Brazilian artists seem they can't build a true good melody sequence, they're only mediocre, in the electronic field, let me make it clear. I dare you point a single psy/goa Brazilian song with an awesome melody. IMO, what Radi said is quite the opposite: the colder the country the more instrospect the people, and their music tend to be richer, to express their hidden emotions. And vice-versa.

 

I think you are all a little bit confused about "being in a festival during summer in a hot country" while "dancing to goa/psy written in cold countries".

[radi6404]

That is so typica. A typical absolute opinion that does not allow for anything different than your opinion itself. You can not imagine that it is different for everyone and that if people agree to my opinion it is also how they feel. I have spoekn to mroe than enough people who had to move to a colder country and they all complain about the darkness, the faded atmosphere, low horizon and temperatures while they are feeling better in hot countries.

 

Also your opinion does not make any sence at all because of the examples Orion has given. Israel and Greek have warm melodic music, not only the trance music, but all music produced by them. UK and Germany and also Sweden have cold and dark electronic music, some of it has deep melancholy in it.

 

 

 

I don`t want o say your opinion is totally wrong, but it is wrong for many people. Another bad thing about your opinion is that you diss all Brazil artists, I am not that absolute and diss all artists of one country, that would not come into my mind. And excuse me, Japan is on the 37 degree up to the 42nd, that is a lot in the south, similar to Greece, the sky and sun intensity in summer will be higher than in Sweden for sure, also no polar nights, so your example looses weight.

[Procyon]

Radi: where exactly have you lived to express your opinions, other than Northern Europe? Where, by the way, you are not at all living in, in your own words. What I see is that you don't have enough knowledge and on THIS topic your opinion is biased. While mine is based on solid experience and it's not biased. Also, you need to study latitudes and climates more, it's clear you don't understand a thing about that.

 

Edit "where, by the way, you are not happy at all living in..."

[radi6404]

I know a lot of lattitutes and climate, I deal with it every day, it seems you are just ignorant and arrogant and very unfriendly aswell. I have lived at the 48th degree and 42 degree, the climate is different at those lattitutes, I have been to Greece which is Northern Europe aswell to your unbiased and basing on facts opinion, is it, is Greek in Northern europe, you are just hilarious man.

 

you show here an absolute opinion basing on a few examples like Japan and Brazil, disregarding all of the thigns other users have told here and yet you deny to answer my question why Swedish and Uk aswell as German music are colder than Israelic and Greek, also Italian music. But with your arrogance you will not even find it important to answer those things, because they do not support your based on facts theory about it, do they?

 

Another thing that does nto support your theory is taht Japan aktually is not a very Northern country, while Germany goes up to the high 50, Japan is on the 30s, where at other places of the earth you can find countries like Greece and Turkey and Iran. So your argument is aktually not based on many facts.

 

Anyway, I have big respect for your travel along the world, the big globetrotter with huge experience and knowledge giving an absolute opinion that applies for all artist, yet you are prooven wrong allready in the first post.

 

OK, I am sorry for the unfriendly words, but you just can`t give an absolute opinion that defines it for any artist without saying that some artists might be differently.

[Procyon]

Man, in your own words: you haven't been outside Europe, which by any comparison is cold. Your latitudes "study" is a bullet in the water, as usual. Greece and Israel may be considered "warm" in comparison to Europe, but they're "cold" in comparison to Ecuatorian countries. As for your understanding of Japan weather, it's so wrong I don't even want to replicate that. A suggestion: take Brazil, South Africa and India and do study a little just the three of them to understand what I am saying. Also, Escandinavia, the Low Countries and Germany all have this dark side of harmonics, WHICH combined with their style of melody produced many many early goa classics, from X-Dream, SYB Nettwerk to more recently S-Range, to name a few. While these three warm countries have not produced goa/psy in the same scale of quality as Europe.

 

A sincere advice Radi: my opinion was solely towards music and its influence. I didn't step in the personal territory, as you did. You better step back and calm down.

[radi6404]

But you can not take the climate only as a factor. It depents of technical developemt and economics of a country aswell. Also the mentallity of people is different and the atmosphere is different in the west and east aswell, same as the people. Anyway, why do I bother at all. Israel is a hot desert country, look where it is, 29th degree, almost in the tropical zone.

 

Even on this last post you write an opinion that should apply for anyone and is absolute. The early goa scene has been influenced by western european countries aswell as Israel with Astral Projection, MFG and more. the Israel artists have always been more important than those countries at the very beginning except Halluciinogen maybe, X-Dream? X-Dream are not the biggest and most important in the goa scene at all. But if they are your personal favourites I respect that.

 

After all you should not forget that quality of music is subjective and not objective. Only if you go by production quality and complexity you can measure it, but X-Dream is not very complex by that matter and the complexity of the music does not neccesarily make it loved by everyone and standing out.

[GagaISM]

Culture plays just a big a role. Just compare Sweden and Italy as an example. You'll find tons of melodic acts coming from both countries, but the Swedes tend to base their melodies on minor keys while the italians do the opposite. This is why I often tend to find southern european music super cheesy.

 

Procyon's opinion on the scene in Brazil doesn't surprise me at all. Most brazilians are of African descent, and thus have no tradition for elaborate melodies. They should be capable of programming some killer drums though...

[Procyon]

I bother because I have discussed this at least twice in other forums, how weather, the quantity of sunlight in different regions of the earth affects artists. And I see it differently from you, and as this is a forum, I have a saying about that. Instead of writing papal bulas on this and that based on what you read and heard, you should travel and experience your "bulas".