Monday, October 1, 2007

one two pause one two pause

Sometimes learning new genres of music can be a major pain in the ass.

Recently I've attempted to assimilate a new style and update myself on another.

The new one is Samba band. Organic bands are always a pain in the ass to pull off, because the timings of each beat always seem to be together yet they are not. I have to bunch up a whole bunch of snares together to try to emulate the mid tone drums of the band.

The style I'm updating myself on is trance/techno/hip hop. Yeah, they may be very different in terms of timing and progressions, like for instance techno runs on a 1-2 rhythm, hip hop on a slow 1-4 rhythm and trance on a fast 1-4 rhythm till it seems like a 1-2 rhythm. But the beats used are essentially the same modules and instruments most of the time.

The pain in the ass for these beats is that although the melodies and harmonies are numbskullingly simple and brainless, there's a whole lot of work that goes into the beats.

There are really simple loops all over commercially, used by songs on the radio, or in clubs, but beat pattern variations can get really complex. So complex that a programmer or engineer would be able to catch on faster than a musician who usually relies on feeling rather than logic. The beatsmith requires visualization and execution.

So yeah, its a huge challenge, but a damn fun one. Cause this is the style we decided to do the soundtrack of battle stations to.

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