Snoman R. Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

PART 1

Technology and Theory

224

■ Another technique that can produce usable results is what’s often called,

the ‘two-ﬁ ngered ’ approach. This involves tapping out a riff using two

keys an octave apart on the keyboard. By alternating between these two

keys, keeping the lower key the same and continually moving higher

or lower in scale on the second key, you can develop the beginnings of

interesting rhythmic movements. If the rhythm is recorded as MIDI, it

can be edited further by lengthening notes to overlap each other or by

adding further notes in between the two octaves to construct motifs.

■ The third and most commonly used method is to continually loop the

bass and drums and experiment on the keyboard until you come up

with something that compliments the rhythm section. Once the ﬁ rst

bar(s) of the phrase – the ‘question’ – have been fashioned, they can be

pasted into the subsequent bar(s) and edited to create the ‘answer ’.

Above all, it’s best to avoid getting carried away with any of these techniques.

It’s vital that they are kept simple. Many dance tracks use a single pitch of notes

played every eighth, sixteenth, or quarter, or are constructed to interweave with

the bass to produce a complex groove. Indeed, simple motifs have a much

more dramatic effect on the music than complex arpeggios, so it’s important

that they capture the listener’s interest.

Because the sound used for any motif should stand out, it’s important to con-

sider the frequencies that are to be, or are used in the mix thus far. In many

dance tracks where three or four simple motifs play simultaneously, the com-

bined frequencies can take up a proportionate amount of the available space

within the mix. To prevent clogging up the mix, motifs are usually worked with

as MIDI rather than transformed to audio, as this can be used with ﬁ lter cut-off

to reduce the frequencies. This method also allows you to utilize a low-pass

ﬁ lter cut-off and control the sound’s sonic content while the other motifs are

playing. When working with the optimum frequencies of a motif, you must

carefully choose its rhythmical pitch.

Any motif that uses notes above C4 will contain many higher frequencies and

few lower ones, so using a low-pass ﬁ lter that is almost closed will reduce the

frequencies to nothing. Careful use of the ﬁ lters will create the ﬁ nal result and

often you will need to compromise by cutting the frequencies of some motifs

while opening them up for others. Manipulating the frequencies in this way

creates the impression that the sounds are interweaving, which creates more

movement and the ‘energy’ that is characteristic of most club tracks.

CREATING PROGRESSION

Although dance music is heavily based on repetition, it retains interest build-

ing and releasing the groove. This is achieved by adding and removing sonic

elements throughout and by gratuitous use of ﬁ lters. To fully understand how

a groove is built and released we need to look at sections of the whole track,

counting what has gone before, how the next event is prepared, what comes

Music Theory

CHAPTER 10

225

after it and how it ends. For example, when you hear the typical dance snare

crescendo building, you automatically know that the main part of the groove

will follow. The longer this is reasonably postponed the bigger the impact is

expected to be. The best way to learn about this is to listen to and dissect pop-

ular dance tracks and then create a song map charting where the builds and

drops occur, essentially charting the emotion that it creates.

There are various methods of song mapping and each is as valid as the next,

but a large number of psychologists believe that we are naturally disposed to

think in pictorial form. It can often prove beneﬁ cial to draw the general idea

of the arrangement onto paper. How this is depicted is entirely up to the indi-

vidual and can consist of simple lines to more complex drawings even involv-

ing colours to depict each instrument and the parts of the original recording.

Because club mixes can be quite long, often averaging around 6 –8 min, these

types of maps can be a blessing. Paul Van Dyk and BT, for instance, are well

known for creating a song map before beginning to build any type of track.

A song map not only helps you to envisage the ﬁ nal product but it also helps

you plot out the track in terms of crucial builds and drops. The basic principle

behind using this strategy is that we can visually see where the different emo-

tional states occur, helping you to envisage where the track will bring listeners

up on a ‘high’ 1 min and then drop them down again the next ( Figure 10.5 ).

It’s evident from the song map shown in Figure 10.5 that the dance music dif-

fers from the usual musical structure of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge and

outro. Instead it derives its own set of rules based around mathematical rep-

etition taken to extremes, usually broken into sections of 4 bars. This formal

structure may seem overtly technical for what is otherwise a creative art, but try

writing a 16-bar loop and introducing an instrument at bar 5, 13 or 15 and it

will no doubt sound erroneous.

We can also determine that the typical arrangement consists of an intro, ﬁ rst

body, drop, second body, second drop, reprise, main body and ﬁ nally an outro.

Emotion level

0 16 32 48 64 72 88 104 116 148 180 196 202

Bar number

FIGURE 10.5

Example of a song map

PART 1

Technology and Theory

226

Each of these changes relates to the emotional states that, ideally, you need to

generate for the listeners. Using a map like that shown in Figure 10.5 , we can

see how this might be transferred and used in an imaginary club track.

The Intro

BARS 1 – 16

This introduces the track and consists of nothing more than a 4/4 drum loop.

This is kept simple at the beginning of the track and continues unchanged for

the ﬁ rst 16 bars. This standard introduction gives the DJ playing the music a

4/4 beat with no other instrumentation so that he can mix it in with the previ-

ous track, keeping the beat going on from one record to the next to keep every-

one up on the ﬂ oor. ‘Dropping a beat ’ will easily disorientate the clubbers who

are dancing; we all need a basis on which to keep time.

BARS 16 – 32

At this point, a new instrument is introduced. In order not to give the game

away too soon, a new percussive element comes in. This could consist of

another closed or open hi-hat pattern, snares or claps. This completes the drum

loop that will play throughout the rest of the mix.

First Body

BARS 32 – 48

After the initial 32 bars, the main groove is introduced. Now both the bass and

drums are playing together, laying the foundations of the groove. This plays

unaltered to allow the clubbers to become ‘comfortable’ with the general

groove of the record.

BAR 48 – 64

At bar 48, a motif is introduced. This interweaves with the bass and drums

using slow ﬁ lter cut-off movements. Applying a low-pass ﬁ lter to the motif

and slowly opening it introduces higher frequencies giving the effect that the

song is building up towards something special. Listen to any popular record

and you’ll notice this effect. As the song progresses more instruments are intro-

duced, usually at the chorus stage, which ‘ﬁ lls out ’ the mixes frequency range

bringing the song towards a climax. It is these ﬁ lter movements that are typi-

cally used to create tension and movement in all forms of dance music and

have formed the basis of the most well-respected dance records.

The Drop

BARS 64 – 72

At this point, all the percussive elements, bar the kick drum, have been dropped

from the mix while the motif continuously plays along. The ﬁ lter is closed to

help give the impression that the song is dropping emotionally. However, by

Music Theory

CHAPTER 10

227

the middle 4th bar, the drum rhythm picks up again, starting with the open

hi-hats followed by the snares, signifying that the track is about to come back.

As the rhythm picks up, motif’s ﬁ lter opens up again and is followed by a short

snare roll, where the second body of the track is re-introduced.

The Second Body

BARS 72 – 88

At the ﬁ nal beat of the preceding bar’s drop section, a crash cymbal starts a

new passage of music and a new motif is introduced. The ﬁ lter on both motifs

is now contorted, resulting in the motifs ’ frequencies moving in and out of one

another, which creates a ﬂ owing movement that helps the track groove along.

BARS 88 – 104

Again, a crash cymbal, snare roll, skip or sound effect is employed to denote

the next 16 bars of the second body and some chorded strings are introduced.

Low-pass ﬁ lter movements are employed on these strings to prevent them from

appearing too static. As before, these ﬁ lter movements open giving the impres-

sion that the song is building up again, while in the ﬁ nal 4 bars of this section

a snare roll signiﬁ es that the song is building further.

The Drop

BARS 104 – 108

A sudden crash cymbal at the end of the preceding bar echoes across the mix

while the song drops to just the strings and the motif that was introduced in

the second body. Again the ﬁ lter cut-off closes to denote a break to the 2nd bar

of this drop, whereby they begin to open again giving the impression that the

song is once again building.

The Reprise

BARS 108 – 116

At the end of the drop a snare roll is introduced, slowly gaining in volume

as the cut-off frequencies of both the motif and chords are opened further.

This snare roll lasts the entire length of the 8 bars with the snares becoming

progressively closer together (the snares being placed closer together as they

grow closer to the main body). The principle aim in this section is to build

emotion to a maximum, so that when the main body is reached the track is

at its apex. Ideally, this is a culmination of all the instruments that have previ-

ously been introduced throughout the mix and a new motif.

The Main Body

BARS 116 – 148

The main body is used to drive the message of the track home and is signi-

ﬁ ed by all of the previous instruments playing together, creating a crescendo

PART 1

Technology and Theory

228

of emotion. The drums, bass, previous motifs and a new motif are introduced

ﬁ lling up the entire frequency spectrum of the mix. Again ﬁ lter cut-offs play a

role here to prevent boredom, and each instrument interacts with one another

by closing the ﬁ lter of one motif while opening it on the other.

BAR 148 – 180

At this point, additional snares are introduced to add a skip to the rhythm, and

a few sweeping effects are introduced that pan across the mix.

The Outro

BAR 180 – 196

One of the motifs is dropped from the mix after a cymbal crash and the ﬁ lters

on the other motifs and chords are beginning to close, bringing the track back

down in emotion. Finally all the motifs and chords are removed, leaving just

the drums and bass playing.

BAR 196 – 212

The bass is dropped from the mix, leaving the full drum rhythm playing solo for the

ﬁ nal 16 bars, allowing the DJ to mix in the next record. The track draws to a close.

Of course, this imaginary track is quite simple; in reality building a track is

much more complex. Nevertheless, this is a good example of typical dance

club structure. As with all music this is open to an individual’s interpretation,

but bear in mind that dance music is an exact science and the audience likes to

know what to expect. Building a snare crescendo and then dropping it back to

how it was before this crescendo would not be greeted with smiling faces.

Also in many cases the arrangement will be different depending on the genre of

music being written. While this type of arrangement may work for trance, it won’t

work too well for hip-hop and trip-hop, these require a more gentle approach.

P P ARTART 2 2

Dance Genres

This page intentionally left blank

House

CHAPTER 11

231

Although some house aﬁ cionados will refuse to admit it, the development of

house music has much of its success accredited to the rise and fall of disco. As

a result, to appreciate the history of house music, we need to look further back

than the 1980s and the development of the TR909 and TR808 drum machines;

we also need to examine the growth of disco during the 1970s. This is because

disco still forms a fundamental part of some of today’s house music and in

many instances older disco records have been scrupulously sampled to produce

the latest house tracks.

Pinning down an exact point in time where disco ﬁ rst appeared is difﬁ cult

since a majority of the elements that make disco appeared in earlier records.

Nonetheless, arguably it is said to have ﬁ rst originated in the early 1970s and

was derived from the funk music that was popular with black audiences at

that time. Some big name producers such as Nile Rodgers, Quincy Jones, Tom

Moulton, Giorgio Moroder and Vincent Montana began to move away from

recording the self-composed music and started to hire session musicians and

produce hits for artists whose only purpose was to supply vocals and become a

marketable commodity.

Donna Summer became one of the ﬁ rst disco-manufactured success stories

with the release of Love to Love You Baby in 1975 and is believed by many to

be the ﬁ rst disco record to hit and be accepted by the mainstream public. This

‘ new’ form of music was still in its infancy, however, and it took the release of

the motion picture Saturday Night Fever in 1977 before it eventually became a

widespread phenomenon. Indeed, by the late 1970s, over 200 000 people were

House

CHAPTER 11

’ By 1981 they declared that Disco was dead and there

were no more up-tempo dance records. That’s when I

realised I had to start changing things to keep feeding

my dance ﬂ

oor. … ’

… Frankie Knuckles

PART 2

Dance Genres

232

attending discotheques in the UK alone and disco records contributed to over

60% of the UK charts.

As with most genres of music that become popular, many artists and record

labels jumped on the wave of this new happening vibe and it was soon del-

uged with countless disco versions of original songs and other pointless and

poorly produced disco records as the genre became commercially bastardized.

As a result, disco fell victim to its own success in the late 1970s and early 1980s

with the campaign of ‘disco sucks ’ growing ever more popular. In fact, in one

extreme incident Steve Vahl, a rock DJ who had been against disco from the

start, encouraged people to bring their disco collections to a baseball game on

the 12th July 1979 for a ritual burning. After the game, a huge bonﬁ re was lit

and the fans were asked to throw all their disco vinyl onto the ﬁ re.

By 1981, disco was dead but not without ﬁ rst changing the entire face of club

culture, changing the balance of power between smaller and major labels and

preparing the way for a new wave of music. Out of these ashes rose the phoenix

that is house, but it had been a large underground movement before this and

contrary to the misconceptions that are spread around, it had actually been in

very early stages of evolution before disco hit the mainstream.

Although to many Frankie Knuckles is seen as the ‘godfather’ of house, it’s

true foundations lie well before and can be traced back to as early as 1970.

At this time, Francis Grosso, a resident DJ at a converted church known as the

Sanctuary was the ﬁ rst ever DJ to mix two early disco records together to pro-

duce a continual groove to keep the party goers on the dance ﬂ oor. What’s

more, he is also believed to be the ﬁ rst DJ to mix one record over the top of

another, a technique that was to form the very basis of dance music culture.

Drawing inspiration from this new form of mixing, DJ Nicky Siano set up

a New York club known as The Gallery and hired Frankie Knuckles and Larry

Levan to prepare the club for the night by spiking the drinks with lysergic acid

diethylamide (LSD/acid/trips). In return he taught both all about the basics of

this new form of mixing records and soon after they moved on to become resi-

dent DJs in other clubs. Levan began residency at The Continental Baths while

Knuckles began at Better Days, to soon rejoin Levan at The Continental Baths

6 months down the line. The two worked together until 1977 when Levan left the

club to start his own and was asked to DJ at a new club named the Warehouse

in Chicago. Since Levan was now running his own club, he refused but recom-

mended Knuckles who accepted the offer and promptly moved to Chicago.

Since this new club had no music policy, Knuckles was free to experiment and

show off the techniques he had been taught by Nicky Siano. Word quickly

spread about this new form of disco and The Warehouse quickly became the

place to be for the predominantly gay crowd. Since no ‘house’ records actu-

ally existed at this time, the term house did not refer to any particular music

but simply referred to the Warehouse and the style of continual mixing it had

adopted. In fact, at this time the word house was used to speak about music,

House

CHAPTER 11

233

attitude and clothing. If a track was house, it was from a cool club and some-

thing that you would never hear on a commercial radio station, whereas if you

were house it meant you attended all the cool clubs, wore the ‘right’ clothing

and listened to ‘cool’ music.

By late 1982 and early 1983, the popularity of the Warehouse began to fall

rapidly as the owners began to double the admission price; as it became more

commercial, Knuckles decided to leave and start his own club known as the

Powerhouse. His devoted followers went with him, but in retaliation the

Warehouse was renamed the Music Box and the owners hired a new DJ named

Ron Hardy. Although Hardy wasn’t a doctor, he dabbled in numerous pharma-

ceuticals and in turn was addicted to most of them but was nevertheless a very

talented DJ. While Knuckles kept a fairly clean sound, Hardy pounded out an

eclectic mix of beats and grooves mixing euro disco, funk and soul to produce

an endless onslaught to keep the crowd up on the ﬂ oor. Even to this day, Ron

Hardy is viewed by many as the greatest ever DJ.

Simultaneously, WBMX, a local radio station also broadcast late-night mixes

made by the Hot Mix Five. The team consisted of Ralphi Rossario, Kenny ‘Jammin’

Jason, Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley, Mickey ‘Mixin’ Oliver and Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk.

These DJs played a non-stop mixture of British new romantic music ranging from

Depeche Mode to Yazoo and Gary Numan, along with the latest music from

Kraftwerk, Yello and George Clinton. In fact, so popular was the UK new roman-

tic’s scene that a third of the American charts consisted of UK music.

However, it wasn’t just the music that the people tuned in for it was the mixing

styles of the ﬁ ve DJs. Using techniques that have never been heard of before,

they would simultaneously play two of the same records to produce phas-

ing effects, perform scratches and back spins and generally produce a perfect

mix from a number of different records. Due to the show’s popularity it was

soon moved to a daytime slot and kids would skip school just to listen to the

latest mixes. In fact, it was so popular that Chicago’s only dance music store,

Imports Etc, began to put a notice board up on the window, documenting all

the records that had been played the previous day to prevent them from being

overwhelmed with enquiries.

Meanwhile, Frankie Knuckles was suffering from a lack of new material. The

‘ disco sucks ’ campaign had destroyed the industry and all the labels were no

longer producing disco. As a result, he had to turn to playing imports from

Italy (the only country left that was still producing disco) alongside more

dub-inﬂ uenced music. More importantly, for the history of house, though,

he also turned to long-time friend Erasmo Rivieria, who was currently study-

ing sound engineering, to help him create reworks of the earlier disco records

in an attempt to keep his set alive. Using reel-to-reel tape recorders, the duo

would record and cut up records, extending the intros and breakbeats and lay-

ering new sounds on top of them to create more complex mixes. This was soon

pushed further as he began to experiment by placing entirely new rhythms and

bass lines underneath familiar tracks. While this undeniably began to form the