http://www.zshare.net/audio/527524270f1c5cff/
This is my final project. The song is a concept piece. The basic premise is that the song speeds up in tempo as it progresses, changing genre, instrumentation, and even my compositional techniques that are usually associated with that tempo. I begin with an ambient intro, that leads to a trip hop section, then a sort of big beat/break groove, next house, followed by a acid techno, and lastly a jungle finally that dissolves into breakcore.
I used two samples in this song. First, during the trip hop section, I used Curtis Mayfield's "Little Child Runnin' Wild, and then during the Jungle section I used a cover of Radiohead's Airbay by the Easy Star All-Stars. These samples were prepared by wave editor, then edited with recycle and placed in reason. Several of my synths were also made in reason. The bass is the second, third and forth sections of my song were played live by me and edited with logic effects. The drums were all programmed out, somewhat painstakingly.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
For my 4th blog assignment I am reviewing Danny Hakim's drum and bass track. Over all this piece did an excellent job of emulating the sound of an old-school drum and bass tune, and the structure was well designed. First and foremost, Danny gave heavy emphasis on the sampling in the piece, seeing as the entire piece was sample based. The drum break takes focus instantaneously, as it often does in a good drum and bass track. The sweeping filter in the introduction draws the listener in with apprehensive curiosity, and quickly rewards this curiosity by kicking in the bass drum and first sample.
One of the best parts of this piece is the fact that Danny made use of speed manipulation in his sampling. Old-school jungle/drum and bass tunes were often characterized by the upper frequencies of a sped up soul record sample and Danny's first sample is reminiscent of this. Conversely, Danny's Hendrix sample is slowed down for the original recording, providing a richer, denser spectrum of frequencies in his piece. This sample and the last one, the Bear vs. Shark, were made further captivating by use of gradual sound manipulation through distortion. Lastly, the samples are well placed in order to create further syncopation and polyrhythms in the song than that which the break beat provides.
One of the best parts of this piece is the fact that Danny made use of speed manipulation in his sampling. Old-school jungle/drum and bass tunes were often characterized by the upper frequencies of a sped up soul record sample and Danny's first sample is reminiscent of this. Conversely, Danny's Hendrix sample is slowed down for the original recording, providing a richer, denser spectrum of frequencies in his piece. This sample and the last one, the Bear vs. Shark, were made further captivating by use of gradual sound manipulation through distortion. Lastly, the samples are well placed in order to create further syncopation and polyrhythms in the song than that which the break beat provides.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Two Short Documentaries
These two documentaries explain the origins and uses of two of the most famous components in electronic music history. They are worth the time and the audio examples are great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2874082422033984340
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2874082422033984340
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
What is Jungle?
I thought I would use this post to explain the reason for my url. The musi295 is a no brainer, but it occurred to me that some people in the class may or may not know what the junglist part is about.
A junglist is the term used to describe a listener of the style of music known as 'ragga jungle' or just 'jungle' for short. The history of Jungle music is similar to that of many forms of electronic music in that its roots come from a preexisting genre of music but used emerging technologies to further and reinvent that music genre. However, where as house music had its roots in disco as implied by our lecture last week, jungle came from the music movement of Jamaica, mainly that of dub music.
Jamaica has a rich and vibrant music history of which I am a great fan of. In the fifties there was a movement in Jamaica to reproduce the sound of American jazz music. This movement became known as ska. Ska is characterized by several elements that are identical to American jazz such as being small ensemble consisting of both rhythm instruments (drums, bass and piano) and a horn section for melodies, compositions consisting of generally a main part and a bridge, and an improvised solo section for each of the lead instruments. However, some small differences existed in the music as the complex chords and resulting progressions in jazz were generally simplified. The one key difference that eventually characterized the genre was that of the rhythmic focus on the off beat, that is the chordal rhythmic instruments such as piano or guitar would play the chords on the eighth notes between the main 1-2-3-4 beats we generally count. This gave the music a more light-hearted and upbeat feel to it, a sound that would be revitalized by English bands such as The Specials in the 80s.
From ska, Jamaica moved forward into Reggae music. Reggae contained many of the same elements as ska music, but gave greater focus to rhythmic aspects of the music and lyrical content which was mostly religious and of the Rastafarian movement. The tempo was generally slower that ska music and techniques such as the 'one drop' of the drums (literally dropping the first of a measure beat on the drums, removing the bass drum hit that is generally there) made this genre extremely relaxed and deep sounding. If you haven't heard of Bob Marley than you have led an incomplete life, enough said.
The third development in Jamaican music and arguably the culmination of a musical progression now over fifty years old was Dub music. Dub music introduced audio manipulation techniques into a form of instrument remixing of classic ska and reggae tunes, such as heavy use of echo and reverb on everything from drums to trumpets. Arguably the main focus of this manipulation was to boost the frequencies of the bass and drum tracks of these songs, turning them into the focus and making the style more danceable than its predecessors. Lee "Scratch" Perry was one of the pioneers of this style and his name is practically synonymous with the genre.
It is in the spirit of Dub that Jungle came into being. Jungle was pioneered in the U.K. by house djs. These djs would sample these dub songs in their tracks but would expand on the sound manipulation and rhythmic concentration by adding basslines that were below the normal bassline range or subbass and making use of breakbeat rhythms. I will interject here to give a quick description of break beats. In some songs, especially classic soul tunes, there is a part of the song known as the break, where all the instruments drop out suddenly, leaving the drums solely remaining. Hip hop artist and all forms of electronic musicians frequently sampled these breaks and composed over them. In time sampling techniques became so sophisticated that samples could be as short as individual drum hits, that could be rearranged to form any kind of drum beat at any speed. So jungle artists used this technology to make heavily syncopated and subdivided beats that had a frantic sound to them. This combination of spastic drums and heavy, low, steady bass is a sound that I adore. Drum and bass, a very popular form of electronic music, is the offspring of this genre which focused even more so on the compositional elements of jungle and moved away from the sampling of the Jamaican music the style was originally inspired by. This gave birth to a plethora of genres and sub genres to the point where drum and bass now barely resembles its roots.
Lastly, Jungle is amazingly fun to dance to.
Videos for reference:
A recent performance by some original ska legends: The Skatalites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHxEijSG7fg
A Bob Marley Reggae classic (notice the one drop):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uteBX4_wxXk
Lee "Scratch" Parry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PcNQxM_cQ
"Origianl Nuttah" one of the most famous jungle tunes ever made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR1osj6JL9E
"Come on My Selector" by Squarepusher shows how far drum and bass has come from where the style stared (for the record, the slap bass that kicks in at the second half, Squarepusher plays that live on a bass guitar):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQq0zVIF6SQ
A junglist is the term used to describe a listener of the style of music known as 'ragga jungle' or just 'jungle' for short. The history of Jungle music is similar to that of many forms of electronic music in that its roots come from a preexisting genre of music but used emerging technologies to further and reinvent that music genre. However, where as house music had its roots in disco as implied by our lecture last week, jungle came from the music movement of Jamaica, mainly that of dub music.
Jamaica has a rich and vibrant music history of which I am a great fan of. In the fifties there was a movement in Jamaica to reproduce the sound of American jazz music. This movement became known as ska. Ska is characterized by several elements that are identical to American jazz such as being small ensemble consisting of both rhythm instruments (drums, bass and piano) and a horn section for melodies, compositions consisting of generally a main part and a bridge, and an improvised solo section for each of the lead instruments. However, some small differences existed in the music as the complex chords and resulting progressions in jazz were generally simplified. The one key difference that eventually characterized the genre was that of the rhythmic focus on the off beat, that is the chordal rhythmic instruments such as piano or guitar would play the chords on the eighth notes between the main 1-2-3-4 beats we generally count. This gave the music a more light-hearted and upbeat feel to it, a sound that would be revitalized by English bands such as The Specials in the 80s.
From ska, Jamaica moved forward into Reggae music. Reggae contained many of the same elements as ska music, but gave greater focus to rhythmic aspects of the music and lyrical content which was mostly religious and of the Rastafarian movement. The tempo was generally slower that ska music and techniques such as the 'one drop' of the drums (literally dropping the first of a measure beat on the drums, removing the bass drum hit that is generally there) made this genre extremely relaxed and deep sounding. If you haven't heard of Bob Marley than you have led an incomplete life, enough said.
The third development in Jamaican music and arguably the culmination of a musical progression now over fifty years old was Dub music. Dub music introduced audio manipulation techniques into a form of instrument remixing of classic ska and reggae tunes, such as heavy use of echo and reverb on everything from drums to trumpets. Arguably the main focus of this manipulation was to boost the frequencies of the bass and drum tracks of these songs, turning them into the focus and making the style more danceable than its predecessors. Lee "Scratch" Perry was one of the pioneers of this style and his name is practically synonymous with the genre.
It is in the spirit of Dub that Jungle came into being. Jungle was pioneered in the U.K. by house djs. These djs would sample these dub songs in their tracks but would expand on the sound manipulation and rhythmic concentration by adding basslines that were below the normal bassline range or subbass and making use of breakbeat rhythms. I will interject here to give a quick description of break beats. In some songs, especially classic soul tunes, there is a part of the song known as the break, where all the instruments drop out suddenly, leaving the drums solely remaining. Hip hop artist and all forms of electronic musicians frequently sampled these breaks and composed over them. In time sampling techniques became so sophisticated that samples could be as short as individual drum hits, that could be rearranged to form any kind of drum beat at any speed. So jungle artists used this technology to make heavily syncopated and subdivided beats that had a frantic sound to them. This combination of spastic drums and heavy, low, steady bass is a sound that I adore. Drum and bass, a very popular form of electronic music, is the offspring of this genre which focused even more so on the compositional elements of jungle and moved away from the sampling of the Jamaican music the style was originally inspired by. This gave birth to a plethora of genres and sub genres to the point where drum and bass now barely resembles its roots.
Lastly, Jungle is amazingly fun to dance to.
Videos for reference:
A recent performance by some original ska legends: The Skatalites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHxEijSG7fg
A Bob Marley Reggae classic (notice the one drop):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uteBX4_wxXk
Lee "Scratch" Parry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PcNQxM_cQ
"Origianl Nuttah" one of the most famous jungle tunes ever made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR1osj6JL9E
"Come on My Selector" by Squarepusher shows how far drum and bass has come from where the style stared (for the record, the slap bass that kicks in at the second half, Squarepusher plays that live on a bass guitar):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQq0zVIF6SQ
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis
This piece has always blown me away. When I first heard it, it was like nothing I had ever listened to. I found it so absurdly wonderful that someone had turned an orchestra into the most foreboding and dark cluster of noise I had ever experienced. The rhythmic complexities make one feel that there is no real composition, but rather totally random notes chosen by the instrumentalist, that somehow agree with each other. I just showed this video to my suite mate and it took him almost two thirds of the piece to realize he was listening to an orchestra playing.
This video is in spectral view, so its just like working with Frequency. In a way, it's is as though we can see a painting he created with his sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2O8bMlEijg
If you thought that was cool then check out this video of Aphex Twin's
"ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fij[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]." Be sure to watch the last 2 minutes of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-KMFxzA_Lk
This video is in spectral view, so its just like working with Frequency. In a way, it's is as though we can see a painting he created with his sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2O8bMlEijg
If you thought that was cool then check out this video of Aphex Twin's
"ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fij[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]." Be sure to watch the last 2 minutes of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-KMFxzA_Lk
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Theremin Kicks Ass
Check out this video of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. He has a crazy theremin solo in the middle of it. Also, this is probably one of the most astounding live performances I've ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwxLGohUM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwxLGohUM0
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