Stephen Hill has spent more than 50 years highlighting what he broadly refers to as “contemplative music.” The 81-year-old DJ first broadcast his syndicated radio station, “Hearts of Space,” from Berkeley, has been based in Marin County since 1996, and now records from an idyllic hilltop in San Rafael: an ideal location for a show that eschews pop in favor of music that offers a visionary or spiritual perspective or a slowed-down sense of time.

This music often overlaps with New Age, a term that was assigned to atmospheric music after artists and labels began marketing it in connection with esoteric healing practices. Although Hill has been broadcasting since 1973, the New Age boom of the 1980s made “Hearts of Space” popular when it was picked up for syndication by NPR in 1983.

Over the years, Hearts of Space has exposed thousands of listeners to music’s more ethereal possibilities for the first time, including Daryl Groetsch, the Portland, Oregon, artist who records ambient synthesizer music under the name Pulse Emitter.

“I don’t know where I would be without ‘Hearts of Space,'” says the 48-year-old, who first heard it late one night in his parents’ garage.

And while beatless, instrumental, electronic and synthesizer-based music make up a large portion of the music Hill has broadcast over the years, he also places emphasis on classical music, folk styles from around the world, and any other music that can transport the listener to a sufficiently transcendent space.

Marin IJ met with the experienced broadcaster to chat about “Hearts of Space” and the past, present and future of “contemplative music”.

Q Most music fans think that ambient and new age music was a development of the mid to late 70s, but you have been broadcasting “Hearts of Space” since 1973. What did you play back then, when the show had just started?

A At that point we were playing contemplative classical music, European experimental music and electronic music. Wendy Carlos’s “Switched-On Bach” was a very enlightening album for me and many others, but there was also (Isao) Tomita in Japan playing electronic versions of Debussy, so there was a lot to draw from. I was interested in the whole contemplative music experience in the broadest sense, not just electronic music or healing music or whatever the New Age people were saying. I think if that had been the case we would never have lived as long as we did. Having a broader format helped.

Q Which artists sparked your interest in this music?

A I discovered Bach when I was 16 and that completely overwhelmed my thinking about music at that point because I only knew the Top 40 on the radio. I would say Indian music, definitely, especially alaps, which are the slow movements of the raga. Steve Reich and other unconventional academic composers also interested me. Within the broadly defined New Age category there were some artists who were really good musicians – Iasos, Constance Demby and people like that.

Q Was there a nickname “Ambient” or “New Age” back then?

A We didn’t call it ambient. Ambient didn’t come into being until the late ’70s when Brian Eno planted his flag there. Even then, people were using the term “new age” to describe this kind of grassroots, quiet, thoughtful music. It wasn’t the official name of the genre until the early ’80s when the record industry decided it wanted to get in on the act.

We were going through a revolution in production at that time. Instead of having to be signed to a label, you could build a studio with inexpensive mass-market recording equipment and synthesizers and make your own music. Within a very short period of time, maybe from 1968 to 1978, we were going through a total revolution in music production in home studios. And when there were enough of them, the new-age bookstores started selling music until there was a market for it.

Q The genre’s commercial breakthrough was based in large part on the idea that this music has spiritual or healing powers. Do you believe this music has these abilities?

A That’s a tricky question. Let’s put it this way: on the one hand, it’s obvious that music can do these psychological things, but to claim that it can “heal” is to go a little beyond the normal understanding of what music does to people. The first person I knew to claim that music was therapeutic was Steven Halpern. He and the genre believed it, but from a music criticism perspective, that’s a stretch. I haven’t found it necessary to make that claim in 50 years of Hearts of Space. I prefer to create experiences by putting music together and letting the audience decide what to do with it and how to receive it.

Q What’s next for “Hearts of Space”?

A Well, we’ve been doing this for a long time and the message we get from our audience is, “Please keep doing it.” But our radio program was never sustainable. You just can’t make that kind of money in public broadcasting. Even when 300 stations were broadcasting the program, it still wasn’t profitable. So we had to build a business to finance it and for 17 years, between 1983 and 2001, we had a label.

Unfortunately, the record business has a history of eating its offspring, so in 2001 we launched one of the first specialized streaming subscription services, putting 700 programs online that we charged money for. From a user’s perspective, streaming is almost unbelievable. The fact that you have access to almost all of history’s recorded music is remarkable. It should have a huge impact on music appreciation and education.