Space music

Space music, also called spacemusic or space ambient, is a subgenre of new-age music and is described as "tranquil, hypnotic and moving". It is derived from ambient music and is associated with lounge music, easy listening, and elevator music.[3]

Not to be confused with Kosmische Musik, Space age pop, or Spatial music.
Space music
Space music typically evokes a sense of spatial imagery and emotion or sensations of floating, cruising, flying and other transportative sensations.
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsEarly 1970s, Germany and Japan[1][2]
Fusion genres
Other topics

According to Stephen Hill, co-founder of a radio show called Hearts of Space, the term is used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness.[4][5][6] Hill states that space music can range in character, the sonic texture of the music can be simple or complex, it can be instrumental or electronic, it may lack conventional melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic features, and may be less concerned with the formal compositional schemes associated with other styles of music.[7][8] Hill proposes that space music can be found within a wide range of genres.[7][9] Space music may have influences from western classical, world, Celtic, traditional and experimental music.[10][11][12]

Hill believes that space music can evoke a "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion",[13] which can be beneficial for introspection, and for developing, through a practice of deep listening, an awareness of the spatiality of sound phenomenon.[14] This type of psychonautic listening can produce a subtle trance-like state in certain individuals[15][16][17] which can in turn lead to sensations of flying, floating, cruising, gliding, or hovering.[18][19]

Hill states that space music is used by some individuals for both background enhancement and foreground listening, often with headphones, to enable states of relaxation, contemplation, inspiration, and generally peaceful expansive moods; it may promote health through relaxation, atmospherics for bodywork therapies, and effectiveness of meditation.[20] Space music appears in many film soundtracks and is commonly played in planetariums.[21]

According to Hill space music is an eclectic music produced almost exclusively by independent labels and it occupies a small niche in the marketplace, supported and enjoyed by a relatively small audience of loyal enthusiastic listeners.[22]

Definitions

AllMusic defines space music as a subgenre of New Age music.[23] Similarly, mainstream retailer Barnes & Noble, independent online music retailer CD Baby, and RealNetwork's music download service Rhapsody all classify space music as a subgenre of new-age music.[24][25][26] Rhapsody's editorial staff writes in their music genre description for space music (listed as a subgenre of new-age music) that "New Age composers have looked upward for inspiration, creating an abstract notion of the sounds of interstellar music."[27]

Stephen Hill, co-founder of the radio show Music from the Hearts of Space (syndicated nationally in the United States on National Public Radio) uses the phrase "contemplative music, broadly defined" as an overview to describe the music played on his station, along with the term "spacemusic".[10] He states that the "genre spans historical, ethnic, and contemporary styles",[5] and that it combines elements from many cultures and genres, blended with varieties of acoustic and electronic ambient music, "woven into a seamless sequence unified by sound, emotion, and spatial imagery."[10] In his essay "New Age Music Made Simple", and in introducing the 200th broadcast of the Hearts of Space radio program, Hill has referred to space music as a sub-category of New Age.[19]

Hill's partner Anna Turner (co-host and original co-producer of Music from the Hearts of Space) wrote in her 1989 essay entitled "Space Music" that "New Age Space music carries visions in its notes; it is transcendent inner and outer space music that opens, allows and creates space... this music speaks to our present moment, to the great allegory of moving out beyond our boundaries into space, and reflexively, to the unprecedented adventures of the psyche that await within."[28]

Gerardo "Pkx" Martinez-Casas, original host, producer and creator of KUSF's 90.3 FM, University of San Francisco in California, "Moondance (The Beyond Within)" 1981– 198?, described space music as electronic, environmental and spiritual fine art fashion cosmic sounds as an aid and tool for cultural, contemplative, meditative, social and spiritual awareness.[29]

In her book The New Age Music Guide, author, editor and music critic P. J. Birosik classifies space music as a subgenre of new-age music,[30] as does Dallas Smith, writer, teacher and recording artist in his essay New Age Jazz/Fusion.[31] Steven Halpern, noted recording artist and workshop leader writes that space music has been considered a synonym for new-age music: " 'Space' is a vital dimension of new-age music; so much so that one of the early appellations for the genre was simply 'space music', referring both to its texture and to the state that it tended to evoke in the listener."[32]

John Diliberto, the host of the radio show, Echoes, and creator of WXPN's Star's End, has stated that space music is related to electronic music,[8] as has Bay Area musician, composer and sound designer Robert Rich, who considers space music to be a combination of Electronic music influences from the 1970s with world music and "modern compositional methods".[33] Forest, host of Musical Starstreams refers to space music as a separate genre along with Ambient music, and others including dub, downtempo, trip hop, and acid jazz in the list of genres he calls "exotic electronica".[34] Similarly, WXPN Radio's Star's End, programming ambient music since 1976, on its website lists space music as a separate genre, along with Ambient, new-age, and others.

Steve Sande, freelance writer for the San Francisco Chronicle considers space music to be "Anything but New Age," and writes that "spacemusic [is] also known as ambient, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo."[35] In the same article, he describes Stephen Hill's "Hearts of Space" spacemusic program as streaming ambient, electronic, world, new-age and classical music.[11] In contrast to this, according to author and National Endowment for the Arts researcher Judith H. Balfe, Billboard editor Jerry Wood describes space music as one of several "genres within the genre" of new-age music.[36]

Variety
See also: ambient music, Krautrock, meditation music, new-age music, space disco, and space rock

As described by Stephen Hill, the predominant defining element of spacemusic is its contemplative nature.[5][10] Within that overview, Hill's definition of space music includes a wide variety of styles, instrumentation and influences – both acoustic or electronic.[7][9]

Many space music recording artists specialize in electronic forms, evolving out of the traditional Kosmische musik of the Berlin School (also known as Krautrock).[37]

Author and classical music critic David Hurwitz describes Joseph Haydn's choral and chamber orchestra piece, The Creation, composed in 1798, as space music, both in the sense of the sound of the music, ("a genuine piece of 'space music' featuring softly pulsating high violins and winds above low cellos and basses, with nothing at all in the middle ... The space music gradually drifts towards a return to the movement's opening gesture ... "); and in the manner of its composition, relating that Haydn conceived The Creation after discussing music and astronomy with William Herschel, oboist and astronomer (discoverer of the planet Uranus).[12]

Historical usage of the term
Jean Michel Jarre, a space music artist, performing with a laser harp

In 1928, the German composer Robert Beyer published a paper about "Raummusik" (spatial music),[38] which is an entirely different sense of the term. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who became a colleague of Beyer in Cologne in 1953, used the expression "space music" in this sense when describing his early development as a composer: "The first revolution occurred from 1952/53 as musique concrète, electronic tape music, and space music, entailing composition with transformers, generators, modulators, magnetophones, etc., the integration of all concrete and abstract (synthetic) possibilities within sound (also all noises) and the controlled projection of sound in space."[39] In the sense meant here, he stated in 1967, "Several have commented that my electronic music sounds 'like on a different star', or 'like in outer space.' Many have said that when hearing this music, they have sensations as if flying at an infinitely high speed, and then again, as if immobile in an immense space."[40] A number of Stockhausen's later compositions (not all of them electronic music) take outer space as their theme: Sternklang (Star Sound, 1971), Ylem (1972), Sirius (1975–77), several components of the opera-cycle Licht (Weltraum (Outer Space, 1991–92/1994), Michaelion (1997), Komet (Comet, 1994/1999), Lichter—Wasser (Lights—Waters, 1998–99)), and the so-called "Urantia" subcycle of Klang (Sound, 2006–2007), extending from its thirteenth "hour", Cosmic Pulses to its twenty-first "hour" Paradies.

Music historian Joseph Lanza described the emerging light music style during the early 1950s as a precursor to modern space music. He wrote that orchestra conductor Mantovani used new studio technologies to "create sound tapestries with innumerable strings" and in particular, "the sustained hum of Mantovani's reverberated violins produced a sonic vaporizor foreshadowing the synthesizer harmonics of space music."[41]

Jazz artist Sun Ra used the term to describe his music in 1956, when he stated that the music allowed him to translate his experience of the void of space into a language people could enjoy and understand.[42]

Physicist Werner Meyer-Eppler had been inspired by Homer Dudley's 1948 invention of the Vocoder and began in 1951 to work with a device known as a Melochord, in conjunction with magnetic tape recorders, leading to a decade of working at the Studio for Electronic Music (WDR) specializing in "elektronische Musik" using magnetic tape recorders, sine wave generators and serial composition techniques.[43]

In 1969, Miles Davis was introduced to the music of Stockhausen by young arranger and cellist, and later Grammy award winner, Paul Buckmaster, leading to a period of new creative exploration for Davis. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote that "The effect of Davis's study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long. ... Davis's own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally."[44] His recordings and performances during this period were described as "space music" by fans, by music critic Leonard Feather, and by Buckmaster who stated: "a lot of mood changes – heavy, dark, intense – definitely space music."[45]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Grateful Dead developed a new form of improvisational space music in their extended formless jam sessions during live concerts (which their fans referred to as "Space" though the band did not formally assign that title), and their experimental space music albums such as Aoxomoxoa, and later in the 1980s, Infrared Roses, and Grayfolded.[46][47] Band member Phil Lesh released experimental space music recording Seastones with computer music pioneer Ned Lagin in 1975, one of the first albums to be issued in the innovative but commercially unsuccessful format SQ-Quadwith. Lagin used in real-time stage and studio performance of minicomputers driving real-time digital to analog converters, prior to the commercial availability of digital synthesizers in the early 1980s.

The Czech-American composer Václav Nelhýbel, released in 1974 a record named Outer Space: Music by Vaclav Nelybel. From the liner notes: "Ingenious use of echo, artificial reverberation and electronic alterations gives the music in this category a weird, spooky futuristic, 'out of this world' quality, well-suited to super-natural happenings of any kind. Piano, drums and electronic instruments are used to achieve the strange atmosphere and spatial sounds." Vaclav Nelhybel crafts a supernatural world, describing nebulae, meteors, star clusters and craters on Mars with sounds natural and manipulated to tell the story of cosmic space.

Beginning in the early 1970s, the term "space music" was applied to some of the output of such artists as Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream,[37] due to the transcendent cosmic feelings of space evoked by the sound of the music and enhanced by the use of the emerging new instrument, the synthesizer,[48][49][50][51] and also in part to the "outer space" themes that are apparent in some of their works. These space music explorations diverged from traditional pop-song formats into longer less structured compositions.[52] Following their early influence on the development of space music, Tangerine Dream later produced increasingly rock-influenced works that are not generally described as space music.[53]

In 1971–72, Sun Ra brought his "space music" philosophy to UC Berkeley where he taught as artist-in-residence for the school year, creating notoriety among the students by devoting the second half-hour of each class to solo or band performances. In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce a 30-minute documentary film, expanded into a feature film released in 1974, entitled Space Is the Place, featuring Sun Ra's Arkestra and filmed in Golden Gate Park.[54]

In 1973, Berkeley radio producers Anna Turner and Stephen Hill used the phrase in the title of their local public radio show Music from the Hearts of Space. They developed an innovative segue music assembly technique, cross-mixing "spacey" instrumental pieces to create a sustained mood. The term began to be used more widely when the show was syndicated nationally in 1983.[55] Other U.S.-based radio programmers adopted the term as well, among them, John Diliberto, Steve Pross, and Gino Wong with Star's End, launched in 1976, Frank J. Forest (a.k.a. "Forest") with Musical Starstreams, launched in 1981 and nationally syndicated in 1983, and John Diliberto again with Echoes, launched in 1989.[56]

In film and television soundtracks

Examples of space music in film soundtracks include the Vangelis score to Blade Runner,[57] [58] Tangerine Dream's moody soundtracks for Legend, Sorcerer and Risky Business, [59][60] Jonn Serrie's surround-sound score for the IMAX short film, Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time,[61] Brian Eno's score for the 1989 film For All Mankind,[62] and Michael Stearns' soundtrack for the 1985 IMAX film, Chronos, broadcast on Stephen Hill's Hearts of Space radio, on the film's opening night [63]

Television science-fiction series Babylon 5 was scored by former Tangerine Dream member Christopher Franke, released on compact disc in 1996 on Franke's independent label Sonic Images. The scores for many of the Babylon 5 TV movies and numerous Babylon 5 episodes[64] were also released by Sonic Images.[65] In 1994, the German TV station Bayerischer Rundfunk launched the television program Space Night,[66] featuring a constant flow of satellite and space images accompanied by space music programmed by European chill-out-DJ Alex Azary.

See also

Footnotes
  1. Holmes, Thom (2008). "Live Electronic Music and Ambient Music". Electronic and experimental music: technology, music, and culture (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 403. ISBN 978-0-415-95781-6. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
  2. Thom Holmes (2015), Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture, page 453, Routledge
  3. Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 185. ISBN 0-472-08942-0.
  4. "In fact, almost any music with a slow pace and space-creating sound images could be called spacemusic." Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, What is spacemusic?
  5. "When you listen to space and ambient music you are connecting with a tradition of contemplative sound experience whose roots are ancient and diverse. The genre spans historical, ethnic, and contemporary styles. In fact, almost any music with a slow pace and space-creating sound images could be called spacemusic." Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, What is spacemusic?
  6. Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 184. ISBN 0-472-08942-0. space music evokes vague images of regal landscapes perhaps encountered in past lives or the tones of a harmonic convergence between earth and other celestial bodies...
  7. "A timeless experience...as ancient as the echoes of a simple bamboo flute or as contemporary as the latest ambient electronica. Any music with a generally slow pace and space-creating sound image can be called spacemusic. Generally quiet, consonant, ethereal, often without conventional rhythmic and dynamic contrasts, spacemusic is found within many historical, ethnic, and contemporary genres."Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, sidebar "What is Spacemusic?" in essay Contemplative Music, Broadly Defined
  8. "The early innovators in electronic "space music" were mostly located around Berlin. The term has come to refer to music in the style of the early and mid-1970s works of Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh and others in that scene. The music is characterized by long compositions, looping sequencer patterns, and improvised lead melody lines." – John Diliberto, Berlin School, Echoes Radio on-line music glossary Archived 2007-06-14 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Herberlein, L. A. (2002). The Rough Guide to Internet Radio. Rough Guides. p. 95. ISBN 1-85828-961-0.
  10. "The program has defined its own niche – a mix of ambient, electronic, world, new-age, classical and experimental music...Slow-paced, space-creating music from many cultures – ancient bell meditations, classical adagios, creative space jazz, and the latest electronic and acoustic ambient music are woven into a seamless sequence unified by sound, emotion, and spatial imagery." Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, essay titled Contemplative Music, Broadly Defined
  11. "Hill's Hearts of Space Web site provides streaming access to an archive of hundreds of hours of spacemusic artfully blended into one-hour programs combining ambient, electronic, world, New Age and classical music." Steve Sande, The Sky's the Limit with Ambient Music, San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, January 11, 2004).
  12. Hurwitz, David (2005). Exploring Haydn: A Listener's Guide to Music's Boldest Innovator. Amadeus Press Unlocking the Masters Series. Hal Leonard. pp. 78–81. ISBN 1-57467-116-2.
  13. "This music is experienced primarily as a continuum of spatial imagery and emotion, rather than as thematic musical relationships, compositional ideas, or performance values." Essay by Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, New Age Music Made Simple
  14. "Innerspace, Meditative, and Transcendental... This music promotes a psychological movement inward." Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, essay titled New Age Music Made Simple
  15. Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 184. ISBN 0-472-08942-0. Space music is just as important for its ability to confound our spoon-fed sense of time and place. Its mercurial stirrings create openings between worlds: inner and outer space; ancestral rhythms and ultra-civilized electronics, the clock on the wall and the hallucinatory "psyhonaut" time that drifts in and out of waking life.
  16. Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 185. ISBN 0-472-08942-0. The mystique of communing with some larger, transpersonal, extraterretrial Gaia is commonly included as part of space music's packaging. Explaining compositions such as 'The Galactic Chalice' and 'Celestial Communion', Constance Demby refers to the 'transformative journey' with 'sounds to awaken and activate soul memory of our true origin.'
  17. Lancaster, Kurt; Brooks McNamara (1999). Warlocks and Warpdrive: Contemporary Fantasy Entertainments With Interactive and Virtual Environments. McFarland & Company. p. 29. ISBN 0-7864-0634-8. Space music presents a virtual fantasy of traveling in outer space.
  18. "...Spacemusic ... conjures up either outer "space" or "inner space" " – Lloyd Barde, founder of Backroads Music Notes on Ambient Music, Hyperreal Music Archive
  19. "Space And Travel Music: Celestial, Cosmic, & Terrestrial... This New Age sub-category has the effect of outward psychological expansion. Celestial or cosmic music removes listeners from their ordinary acoustical surroundings by creating stereo sound images of vast, virtually dimensionless spatial environments. In a word – spacey. Rhythmic or tonal movements animate the experience of flying, floating, cruising, gliding, or hovering within the auditory space."Stephen Hill, co-founder, Hearts of Space, in an essay titled New Age Music Made Simple
  20. "Restorative powers are often claimed for it, and at its best it can create an effective environment to balance some of the stress, noise, and complexity of everyday life." – Stephen Hill, Founder, Music from the Hearts of Space What is Spacemusic?
  21. "This was the soundtrack for countless planetarium shows, on massage tables, and as soundtracks to many videos and movies."- Lloyd Barde Notes on Ambient Music, Hyperreal Music Archive
  22. "Like most people in the independent side of the music business, we inhabited what are called the niche genres... All niche music regardless of style or content has one thing in common: it's all something that relatively small numbers of people really, truly, love." Stephen Hill, "Powered By Love: Niche Music in the New Millennium", feature article in Ambient Visions Magazine, 2002
  23. Allmusic New Age music page – includes space music as subgenre of New Age music.; Allmusic Space music page – subgenre of New Age music; Allmusic Electronica music page – does not list space music as a subgenre; Allmusic Ambient music page – does not list space music as a subgenre.
  24. Barnes & Noble website – Space music is not listed on the main music genres page. Space music is listed as a subgenre of New Age music on the New Age music genre page Archived 2007-08-09 at the Wayback Machine, as is Ambient music. Ambient also appears as a subgenre on the Dance & DJ genre page Archived 2007-08-09 at the Wayback Machine, along with Electronic music.
  25. Space music is listed on the Rhapsody Music Service New Age music genre page as a subgenre of New Age. Space music is not listed on Rhapsody electronica/dance genre page or Rhapsody Ambient music subgenre page.
  26. CD Baby – Space music is listed as a subgenre of New Age music. Both Electronic music and New Age music list Ambient as a subgenre. Electronic genre page, New Age genre page.
  27. "Although there is no sound in the vacuum of space, many New Age composers have looked upward for inspiration, creating an abstract notion of the sounds of interstellar music. Space indicates not only a style of composition, but also a certain cosmic consciousness... Artists like...Space music pioneer Michael Stearns try to evoke peace and unity with their spacescapes, creating compositions that are tranquil, hypnotic and moving." Rhapsody online music service – definition of Space Music on New Age music subgenre page
  28. "New Age Space music carries visions in its notes; it is transcendent inner and outer space music that opens, allows and creates space... Space music moves; the balance between the rhythm track and melody line determines a great deal of the imagery, altitude, and impact of a particular piece... At its best and most essential, this music speaks to our present moment, to the great allegory of moving out beyond our boundaries into space, and reflexively, to the unprecedented adventures of the psyche that await within." Anna Turner, "Space Music", in The New Age Music Guide: Profiles and Recordings of 500 Top New Age Musicians, edited by Patti Jean Birosik, p. 134 (New York: Collier Books; London: Collier MacMillan Publishing Company, 1989).
  29. "In the archives of KUSF 90.3 FM http://www.kusf.org/ University of San Francisco, California" "Archives meaning that if you email them with the name of the person, show and date they will confirm"
  30. "Currently no less than fourteen separate subgenres are being called New Age music. These include New Age East/West, Electronic/Computer, Environmental/Nature, Folk, Jazz/Fusion, Meditation, Native American/Indigenous, New Age Pop, New Age Progressive, Solo Instrumental, Sound Health, Space Music, Traditional. New Age, Vocal, and World Music." P. J. Birosik, "Preface", in The New Age Music Guide, edited by P. J. Birosik, p. vii (New York: Collier Books; London: Collier Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989).
  31. "New Age Jazz/Fusion is distinguished from other New Age subgenres, especially space music, by its rhythm and identifiable melodies." Dallas Smith, New Age Jazz/Fusion, p. 46, The New Age Music Guide: Profiles and Recordings of 500 Top New Age Musicians, edited by Patti Jean Birosik, p. 46 (New York: Collier Books; London: Collier MacMillan Publishing Company, 1989).
  32. " 'Space' is a vital dimension of New Age music; so much so that one of the early appellations for the genre was simply "space music," referring both to its texture and to the state that it tended to evoke in the listener. By "Space" we mean the electro-acoustic enhancement of instrumental tones, through reverb and echo; in New Age music such enhancement is not simply a "special effect", but rather an integral part of the music itself." Steven Halpern, "Notes on New Age Music", in The New Age Music Guide: Profiles and Recordings of 500 Top New Age Musicians, edited by Patti Jean Birosik, p. xix (New York: Collier Books; London: Collier MacMillan Publishing Company, 1989).
  33. "I got into space music in the '70s as a teenager and I wanted to play with those clichés again—the cyclic, repetitive structures of '70s electronic music—but steer away from the formula by using some of the compositional methods of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, for example. It's a combination of world music, modern compositional methods and '70s schlock." Robert Rich, quoted in Plugged in to the Joy of Ambient Music, by j. poet, San Francisco Chronicle (May 28, 2006).
  34. "Ambient, spacemusic, dub, downtempo, trip hop, acid jazz...artists from all these categories." "Waveform...Starstreams and beyond: Ambient Visions Talks with...Forest", listing styles of music played on Musical Starstreams, from interview in Ambient Visions Magazine, 2003
  35. "spacemusic, also known as ambient, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo ...Anything but New Age." Steve Sande, The sky's the Limit with Ambient Music, San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, January 11, 2004).
  36. Balfe, Judith H. (1993). Paying the Piper: Causes and Consequences of Art Patronage. University of Illinois Press. p. 280. ISBN 0-252-06310-4.
  37. Ulrich D. Einbrodt (2001). "Space, Mysticism, Romantic Music, Sequencing, and the Widening of Form in German Krautrock during the 70's" (PDF). Justus Liebig University, Giessener Electronic Library.
  38. Beyer, Robert, "Das Problem der 'kommenden Musik' ", Die Musik 20, no. 12 (1928): 861–866. See also p. 36 in Lowell Cross, "Electronic Music, 1948–1953", Perspectives of New Music (Autumn–Winter 1968): 32–65, and p. 7 of David Dunn, "A History of Electronic Music Pioneers" Archived 2015-01-28 at the Wayback Machine, from the catalog of the exhibition Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt: Pioneers of Electronic Art, presented as part of Ars Electronica 1992 in Linz, Austria.
  39. Schwartz, Elliott; Barney Childs (1998). Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. Da Capo Press. p. 380. ISBN 0-306-80819-6.
  40. "In 1967, just following the world premier of Hymnen, Stockhausen said this about the electronic music experience: '... Many listeners have projected that strange new music which they experienced—especially in the realm of electronic music—into extraterrestrial space. Even though they are not familiar with it through human experience, they identify it with the fantastic dream world. Several have commented that my electronic music sounds "like on a different star," or "like in outer space". Many have said that when hearing this music, they have sensations as if flying at an infinitely high speed, and then again, as if immobile in an immense space. Thus, extreme words are employed to describe such experience, which are not "objectively" communicable in the sense of an object description, but rather which exist in the subjective fantasy and which are projected into the extraterrestrial space.' " Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition, p. 145, Thomas B. Holmes, Routledge Music/Songbooks, 2002, ISBN 0-415-93643-8
  41. Lanza, Joseph (2004). Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-listening, and Other Moodsong. University of Michigan Press. p. 80. ISBN 0-472-08942-0.
  42. According to Author Norman Mailer in 1956, quoted on p. 154: "a friend took me to hear a jazz musician named Sun Ra who played 'space music.' " and according to Sun Ra himself, also in 1956, quoted on p. 384: "When I say space music, I'm dealing with the void, because that is of space too... So I leave the word space open, like space is supposed to be." and on p. 247, in an interview, Sun Ra states: "sometimes when I'm playing for a band, playing space music... I'm using ordinary instruments, but actually I'm using them in a manner... transforming certain ideas over into a language which the world can understand." – Space is the Place by John F. Szwed, 1998, Da Capo Press
  43. A History of Electronic Music Pioneers by David Dunn, in the catalog of the exhibition: Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt: Pioneers of Electronic Art, presented as part of Ars Electronica 1992, in Linz, Austria.
  44. Chambers, J. K. (1998). Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis. Da Capo Press. p. 246. ISBN 0-306-80849-8.
  45. Carr, Ian (1998). Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography. Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. 284, 303, 304, 306. ISBN 1-56025-241-3.
  46. "purveyors of freely improvised space music," – Blender Magazine, May 2003 Archived 2007-06-08 at the Wayback Machine
  47. ""Dark Star," both in its title and in its structure (designed to incorporate improvisational exploration), is the perfect example of the kind of "space music" that the Dead are famous for. Oswald's titular pun "Grayfolded" adds the concept of folding to the idea of space, and rightly so when considering the way he uses sampling to fold the Dead's musical evolution in on itself." – "Islands of Order, part 2", by Randolph Jordan, in Offscreen Journal, edited by Donato Totaro
  48. "a quartet of albums, Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet and Stratosfear, established the Dream's modus operandi with throbbing, cosmic rubber band rhythms thrumming like galactic space basses through floating mellotron pads, ghost flutes and electronic effects whirling by at hyperspeed. This was the soundtrack for countless planetarium shows... the first electronic music to shed the synthesizers reputation as cold and unfeeling... beyond emotion, into the sensual and the transcendent. It was as if the universe were wrapping you up in a warm velvet glove and showing you the wonders of existence." Time Warped in Space by Echoes Radio producer and host, John Diliberto Archived 2007-04-07 at the Wayback Machine.
  49. Listed in "A Classic Space Music Countdown to Liftoff: 10 Essential classic space music albums, counting down from 10 to 1" Time Warped in Space by Echoes Radio producer and host, John Diliberto Archived 2007-04-07 at the Wayback Machine.
  50. "At its most abstract – solo albums by Klaus Schulze and by Tangerine Dream's leader Edgar Froese – these were clouds of sounds to lose yourself in, a Rorschach mindscreen for projecting fantasies onto." Simon Reynolds, "Kings of the cosmos", The Guardian, April 22, 2007, retrieved May 13, 2007
  51. Jack Chambers (2004). The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990: A Handbook. Cambridge University Press. p. 342. ISBN 0-306-80849-8.
  52. Junker, Detlef; Philipp Gassert; Wilfried Mausbach; David Brian Morris (2004). The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990: A Handbook. Cambridge University Press. p. 342. ISBN 0-521-83420-1.
  53. "The Dream's sound started getting a lot more rock 'n' roll in the 1980s, especially once the dreaded Private Music years set in. They'd record good music after that, but it never had the impact, cultural resonance or lasting import of their 1970s output." Time Warped in Space by Echoes Radio producer and host, John Diliberto Archived 2007-04-07 at the Wayback Machine.
  54. official website for "Space is the Place", documentary film about Sun Ra's Arkestra, filmed in 1972
  55. "Hill began the program as a volunteer at KPFA-FM, Berkeley, in 1973, and worked with Anna Turner as co-producer. Ten years later—January 8, 1983—the program went national." Hearts of Space: a mellow carriage leader after a decade on the public radio satellite. Published February 1, 1993, in Current, "the newspaper about public television and radio in the United States" Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  56. "Hearts of Space News". Hearts of Space News. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  57. "...includes music in his 'classic' style, ethnically influenced e-music, deep sequences, symphonic synths, and sci-fi space music." Blade Runner soundtrack album review (Multi-CD extended version), Jim Brenholts, Windows Media Guide, from Allmusic
  58. "Vangelis...composes and performs mainly instrumental music and film scores. ...he has flirted with many genres and has proved to be very hard to categorize. His music has been filed as 'synthesizer music', 'new age', 'progressive rock', 'Symphonic rock', 'Space music', 'electronic music', etc." Vangelis Papathanassiou Biography, Newsfinder, A literary favour to world culture Archived 2016-03-10 at the Wayback Machine, Gus Leous, July 2003
  59. "The terms New Age and Space Music have been aptly applied to the ethereal improvisational electronic work of Tangerine Dream... Tangerine Dream lends itself to movie soundtracks; their music graces dozens of popular motion pictures." Tangerine Dream Biography Contemporary Musicians, Ed. Suzanne M. Bourgoin. Vol. 12. Archived 2006-11-15 at the Wayback Machine Thomson Gale, 1994. eNotes.com. 2006
  60. " In 1983 the group made a substantial contribution to the soundtrack for the film Risky Business, ... the title piece, also known as Love On A Real Train involved repetitive elements that were close to the minimalism of Steve Reich... 'we stumbled upon a minimal kind of thing, like Steve Reich or Philip Glass. It was a new way of drawing a romantic theme, which we still get credit for today.' " Tangerine Dream – Their Changing Use Of Technology Part 2: 1977–1994, Sound on Sound Magazine, January 1995
  61. "the award-winning IMAX short film, Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time, ... transforms images and data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope into a voyage that sweeps viewers across the cosmos. ... space music composer Jonn Serrie wrote the surround-sound score." Hubble IMAX Film Takes Viewers on Ride Through Space and Time Hubble Telescope News Release, June 24, 2004
  62. Harpole, Charles; Charles Musser; Eileen Bowser; Richard Koszarski; Donald Crafton; Tino Balio; Thomas Schatz; Stephen Prince; David A. Cook; Paul Monaco; Peter Lev (2004). History of the American Cinema. Simon and Schuster. p. 385. ISBN 0-684-80493-X.
  63. "[Michael Stearns] scored the IMAX film Chronos for Ron Fricke... Chronos opened in May of 1985 and on opening night the soundtrack was beamed via satellite to over 200 radio stations nationwide on Stephen Hill's program Music From the Hearts of Space." from Stearns's bio on the Michael Sterns official website
  64. "Christopher Franke - Albums".
  65. "don't get confused and start thinking that classically crafted space music is a thing of the past. We recently received several releases from Sonic Images, an independent Los Angeles label operated by synthesist Christopher Franke, who played with Tangerine Dream for 17 years during the apex of the German group's popularity. Franke, who now resides in L.A., is represented on the label by two recent albums: a compilation of soundtrack music for the sci-fi TV series Babylon 5 and Klemania, "Declarations of Independents", Billboard, January 27, 1996 Archived September 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  66. Space night official website Archived 2012-07-01 at the Wayback Machine

Further reading
  • Prendergast, Mark. Eno, Brian (Foreword) (2001). The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 1-58234-134-6.
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