Disco, House, and Everything In Between

After spending the first weeks of class exploring the history behind Electronic Music, the class has steered more towards the direction of contemporary music and how the electronic music world has developed more recently. More specifically, the emergence of Disco as a precursor to house and techno inspired many musicians to create more propulsive types of beats to their music.

With beats largely following 4-4 Time, disco bands consisted primarily of: drums, keyboards, and guitars. Lots of hi hats came on the off beats, while the bass drums came on the on beats, creating a consistently energetic rhythmic structure. This newfound type of music spurred a sporadic growth within the dance club communities, with clubs such as Studio 54 and Galaxy 21 rapidly growing in popularity.

This type of growth in dance club popularity was perpetuated even more with the growth of house and techno music thereafter. Following the decline of disco as a popular form of music, the house “culture” soon took over. The quick growth in technology of important musical instruments such as drum machines paired with the emergence of the DJ culture defined the house culture. These developments allowed for even more heart-pounding beats and thereby fostered an energized dance environment.

Paradise Garage was one of the prime examples of the house culture at its finest. Led by legendary DJ Larry Levan, Paradise Garage was a haven for music junkies and those next-generation disco club aficionados. And more than anything, it set a defining precedent for other clubs and dance houses to follow.

But the evolution of electronic music didn’t just stop at house. A website titled “A Diversification of Genres” illustrates how each genre of music connected to other forms of music. Music genre titles are all over the place: house, trance, techno, breakbeat, jungle, hardcore, downtempo, europop, jpop, and even “stupid hard dance.”

One of the more popular electronic music artists now is Daft Punk, and Juraj spent the majority of one of our classes dissecting the song “Around the World.” More specifically, the sounds used in the song are: drum machine, bass guitar, synth, “wah wah sound” and vocoder voice. By rearranging these sounds in different ways, then modifying those sounds by adjusting volume and sound quality, Daft Punk achieves a relaxed, yet energized song that is easy to listen to. The cool part about the lecture was the fact that Juraj single-handedly re-created the song on Reason using the sounds themselves, and actually managed to create a successful reproduction of the piece.

In labs, we are using Reason now, after spending a few weeks on radial. The thing that makes Reason so special is the fact that it has so many versatile “instruments” (i.e. software synthesizers) and has so many abilities that seemingly combine the abilities of all the other sequencers together. Whether it be looping tracks, creating more digitized sounds, or just making simple drum machine beats, Reason has it all.

Disco, House, and Everything In Between

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3 20-second Loops

So, using a simple sample of a sequence of 4 simple "click" noises, I constructed 3 20-second loops, by modifying those samples with radiaL.  

Here they are.

-MK

Mics and Programs - what else?

Intro to Electronic Music is finally gaining some steam, in terms of how the programs are used and how the music today connects with the music from the past.  

Specifically, interactive music programs such as Reason, Logic, and RadiaL were used to manipulate specific sound files, compiling them, and then producing specific beats.  For our first project, especially, we were to manipulate completely randomized sound samples, and then use those sound clips to create some sort of rhythm.  Professor Juraj emphasized the importance of this style of Musique Concrete and how the pioneers of electronic music utilized these randomized sound samples to create some of the most fundamentally classic pieces of music.

During lab, all of the students began learning how to use the program "RadiaL," a program that simulates the disk jockeying that a DJ would do during a live performance.  Sound samples are dragged from specific folders onto the program "discs".  From here, the sound samples can be looped over and over to a unifying tempo, so that the sound samples not only match up tempo-wise, but also sound more in unison.  Additionally, the RadiaL software can be used to alter the pitches of various sound samples, and also filtering out certain frequency ranges so that only high or low values are heard.  More rudimentary sound editing techniques, such as "reverse" and "invert," can also be applied and these techniques, combined with the aforementioned editing techniques, can create great sounding samples.

In class, we are exploring the very nature of sound recording and with that, the history of sound recording and how this has affected music artists all over the world.  Juraj mentioned that there are specific types of mics that serve specific purposes.  Some mics purposefully filter out low or high frequencies, the purpose being for live performers to filter out all the ambient sound coming from the audience.  Other mics, such as professional studio mics are used to capture high-quality sound and all audible frequencies - this is possible because the environment for studio recordings is especially quiet, thus allowing the mic to capture all frequencies.

More to come soon...

Assignment #1

Check it out.

The first taste of MK's beats.

Link

-MK

Intro to Electronic Music

We've had 2 weeks of classes for Intro to Electronic Music w/ Professor Juraj Kojs, so far.  With nearly 150 kids vying for one of the elusive 40 spots in the class, the shopping period was a bit rough and the kids in the class had to write a 250-word essay comparing/contrasting two pieces of music: "Concret PH" by Iannis Xenakis and "Kitchen Sink" by Amon Tobin.  

Those pieces can be listened to here:

Concret PH

Kitchen Sink

What was interesting, though, was the fact that there was no basic melody accompanying the songs, so the only things that the listener could discern between the two was the fact that there were different beats being employed and the different forms of sound density that allowed for a variety of sounds.

The programs that we will be using this semester are as follows:  Frequency, SPEAR, Recycle, Radial, Reason, and Logic. Each has its own distinct purpose.  For example, Professor Kojs illustrated to us how certain programs are used to create basic beats and rhythms, while other programs are used to modify the sounds within a certain song to create a perfectly fleshed out song that matches the composer's liking.

After giving us a brief introduction of the course, Kojs began his lectures discussing the intricacies of sound and acoustics and how certain sounds can be artificially constructed by layering simple sounds on top of other simple sounds to create more complex sounds.  Additionally, Acoustics can be measured in four separate categories: 

1) frequency

2) amplitude

3) time

4) frequency spectrum

Frequency spectrum relates to the timbre of the sound, or it can be interpreted as the "fullness" of the sound.  This spectrum is directly connected to which frequencies are being generated at any given moment.

On a different note, Professor Kojs discussed the intricacies of the beat of a certain piece of music and how this can affect the feel of any given piece.  Specifically, Kojs cited the Mission Impossible theme song (5/4 time) and Pink Floyd's Money (7/4 time) as examples of irregular beats that work because of this tense irregularity:

Mission Impossible

Pink Floyd's Money

After delving into the specifics of what a sound consists of, Professor Kojs led his next discussion to talk about the different instruments that began the cultural phenomenon of electronic music.  Following a brief discussion about the history of basic instruments such as the piano and the violin, Kojs introduced the more bizarre, yet seemingly genius forms of music synthesis.  One example, in particular, stood out in my mind: the "Theremin"

The Theremin

The Theremin is a type of instrument, as you'll see, that generates sound based off the mere positioning of one's hands within an electric field.  Rather than being a traditional instrument where sounds are generated by tangible vibrations, the Theremin creates its sound based on the relative positioning of one's hands and thereby creates a very electronic-sounding sound that can't really be replicated anyway else.

So that's what's happened in the first couple of weeks.  The rest of the semester should be fantastic.

-MK