Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Good Instrumental Music
- Thread starter TSE
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Corelli's La Folia
I whole heartedly agree and would highly recommend the Philip Glass String Quartets album. But in lieu of that, please accept this: Lux Aeterna
Those are some of my favorite finds. I think I picked up a three disc recording of the Tibilisi Symphony for $5 once... and it had an excellent, if broad collection of classical.
Other Favorite things to blast through very nice speakers:
Handel-Halverson Passacaglia (Performed by Perlman and Zukerman)
Karajan's recording of Dvorak's 9th
Giovanni Sollima (with a music video created by the same guy who brought you the "Amature" video)
Maybe a little New-Agey, but almost anything on the old Windham Hill label is worthwhile. In particular, founder Will Ackerman is an acoustic guitar god.
Would also give a +1 for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones...amazing musicians!
Lastly, I've long been a sucka for David Sanborn, too.
Would also give a +1 for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones...amazing musicians!
Lastly, I've long been a sucka for David Sanborn, too.
most definitely. on a side note, i think two of the guys are in ISIS which have some vocals but are kick ass
intrumental
Ahleuchatistas
don caballero
some king crimson (older stuff!)
conifer
some soft machine is intrumental (a lot of third)
some storm and stress
Red Sparowes change their line up a lot due to touring commitments of the members other bands. It'll be interesting to see if they become more stable now ISIS have split.
I didn't include ISIS in my list because of the vocals. It's a shame their bassist has turned into a Justin Chancellor clone, not that Justin is a bad bassist, it just Wavering Radiant sounded more like TOOL than ISIS.
ISIS have split? wow! I'm glad i saw them live when i did then. the most phenominal gig i have ever been to. i wouldn't say it sounded more like tool, certainly more than previous albums. they had the whole metal with non metal sounding chords thing going on which was pretty unique. in my opinion they were a far more visceral band than tool. I still like tool though
Another Windham Hill favorite is George Winston, a pianist whose platinum-selling December album is worth a listen or two.
Truth. But I was acutally searching for a good high-def version of any kronos quartet on youtube... particularly philip glass works, and failing to find any I gave a high def recording of kronos quartet.
I would also offer: Beethoven's Symphony 7 by the Philadelphia Orchestra is particularly good when blasted through nice speakers.
If you're still looking...
If you're still looking for instrumental music, Geoff Downes from ASIA has a series of excellent instrumental albums under the name New Dance Orchestra. One of them called Vox Human, is not instrumental.
Tangerine Dream has some good music, but a lot of it is very repetitive. The least boring album is Optical Race.
Mannheim Steamroller's Fresh Aire II, Fresh Aire V and Fresh Aire VI and their Christmas albums are all excellent.
Also, here's a shameless plug; please give my site a try
www.michaelkbain.com
It's melody-centric instrumental pop. Try the music spotlight; it's a pretty mainly piano piece called "Sorrow's Tide".
No album yet, but one coming soon. 4 songs and 2 videos are on the site.
Thanks!
If you're still looking for instrumental music, Geoff Downes from ASIA has a series of excellent instrumental albums under the name New Dance Orchestra. One of them called Vox Human, is not instrumental.
Tangerine Dream has some good music, but a lot of it is very repetitive. The least boring album is Optical Race.
Mannheim Steamroller's Fresh Aire II, Fresh Aire V and Fresh Aire VI and their Christmas albums are all excellent.
Also, here's a shameless plug; please give my site a try
www.michaelkbain.com
It's melody-centric instrumental pop. Try the music spotlight; it's a pretty mainly piano piece called "Sorrow's Tide".
No album yet, but one coming soon. 4 songs and 2 videos are on the site.
Thanks!
Last edited:
I can't believe nobody has mentioned Brian Eno yet!
Music for Airports is good introduction to instrumental/slightly electronic-ish stuff.
Apollo is another good one — the perfect backdrop to For All Mankind. There is or was a large box entirely his instrumentals compiled on 3 CDs, complete with coffee rings and cigarette burns.
I sure did have fun with Audacity creating "Floating Bridges" — 3 long tracks composed of classic and obscure bridges grafted into (more or less) coherent pieces.
I actually stumbled across a couple of great instruments projects over the last few days.
Cloudkicker
Merrow
If you are interested in technical/progressive metal, I can't recommend Cloudkicker's "Beacons" enough (although all of his albums are awesome). It's been taking over my speakers for the last week or so.
Edit:
Oh, and Metroid Metal. Metal covers of the Metroid game soundtracks.
Cloudkicker
Merrow
If you are interested in technical/progressive metal, I can't recommend Cloudkicker's "Beacons" enough (although all of his albums are awesome). It's been taking over my speakers for the last week or so.
Edit:
Oh, and Metroid Metal. Metal covers of the Metroid game soundtracks.
Last edited:
