The Pulse of Trance

The main act appeared at 2:00 a.m. The sound of electronic drum beats pummeled an audience’s eardrums as they stood inside Crowbar in New York City on a Sunday morning, October 8th.

Armin van Buuren, trance music extraordinaire, stood on stage. His upper body kept beat as his hands adjusted mixing equipment on his CD tables. This Holland-born[1] DJ looked like any other thirty-year-old you might see on the street: he had short, blondish hair and he wore a t-shirt that read, “Road Kings” and a smile that made the crowd feel like he was one of the fans.

Born around 1990[2], trance music was the love child of dance and techno music. Armin nurtured his own trance style and currently holds Number #3 on the DJ Top 100[3]. On Saturday night, his music was a stream of electronic base drum beats layered with electronic violins, which he interlaced with ambient synths. Pulsive, rhythmic. The climax of some songs began with a high-pitched rattle, which piqued into an explosion of bass beats that surpassed anything a human could ever accomplish with a professional drum set.

The audience moved their arms and legs while a disco ball sprinkled them with white dots. The men wore Armani shirts with the sleeves rolled to their elbows and the women wore tank-tops, jean shorts, and skirts. The fans moved their arms and legs like they were trying to swim in an invisible pool. Nozzles on the ceiling randomly spewed them with fog, making it impossible to see. And if you thought the fog machines were cheesy, a razor-thin laser light beamed a ceiling over the entire room like something out of a George Lucas film.

Even though the special effects cried to be thrown in a box marked “1980,” the master of trance made his transitions from song to song seamless while constantly changing rhythms. But there were times when he turned the volume knob low so he could hear the crowd screaming, “Armin, Armin,” then cranked it up to keep the crowd’s chests pounding with even pulses Boom-kch Boom Boom-kch.

Armin continued smiling throughout the morning. Even when the music was still playing, he turned around, flipped the pages of his CD case, chose a disc, turned back, and loaded it onto his table. Fans reached over the corner of the stage and waved record jackets and sheets of paper. Every so often van Buuren walked to the stage edge and signed every one of them.

At one moment, the drums ceased, followed by an echo synth (which gave the feeling of relaxing on a beach) as a piano whispered in the background. Armin poked the green-laser-ceiling as though he were tapping the keys. The audience put their hands in the air and reached out for their morning-DJ.

Despite the effects that were better left in the eighties, Armin’s music was a new breed of trance that is likely to continue adapting in the world of dance and techno music.



[1] “Shivers.” Armin van Burren. Evibe. 24 Oct. 2006. par. 2 http://stage.arminvanbuuren.com/?id=7

[2] “Trance Music.” Synthtopia. SynthTopia. 2006. 24 Oct. 2006. par. 2 http://www.synthtopia.com/Articles/ElectronicMusicStylesTran.html

[3] Learmouth, Sally. “Armin van Buuren: Biography.” Armin van Buuren. Evibe. 24 Oct. 2006. par. 1 http://stage.arminvanbuuren.com/?id=9