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, as does Dallas Smith, writer, teacher and recording artist in his essay "New Age Jazz/Fusion". 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."