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2 questions on electro composition
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boony



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PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:26 am    Post subject: 2 questions on electro composition
Subject description: needing help
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hey guys.

i would love it if someone could answer these questions for me

1. what is the basic structure of an electro song, like should the intro be a drum beat, or the bassline, or both or a melody, etc etc.

and also

2. how do i compose a buildup to a breakdown, i know it has something to do with fading out the bass, the when the build up finished blasting it. or something like that:(
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I guess electro isn´t what it used to be, but then it never was.

OK, lets take a look at some various strains of what is called electro.

Musically it is a convergence and fusion of several styles. Some are obvious and some are rather whimsical.

One major ingredient is early 70s funk.
http://www.funkville.net/workshops.htm
Quote:
Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony, and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Unlike R&B and soul songs, which had many chord changes, funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord.Funk music was a major influence on the development of 1970s disco music and funk samples are used in most styles of hip hop music, and it's also the main influence of Go-Go and new wave. Funk utilized the same extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. However, unlike bebop jazz, with its dizzying and complex rapid-fire chord changes, funk virtually abandoned chord changes, creating static single modal chord vamps with little harmonic movement, but with a complex and driving rhythmic feel. The chords used in funk songs typically imply a dorian or mixolydian mode as opposed to the major or natural minor tonalities of most popular music. Melodic content was derived by mixing these modes with the blues scale


Pretty much at the same time the static single modal chord thingie happened in funk, exactly the same thing happened in the european avant psychedelia rock scene. bands like Can, Hawkwind and others explored this terrain. In the mainstream guys like Marc Bolan explored the boogie, and the more spaced out euro-boogie would soon tend to go resemble US funk.

Many of the european electronic acts would do the same as well. Vangelis would suddenly kick into some kind of vegetable mode and produce several pretty static tracks built up around classically sounding short musical phrases. Klaus Schulze and TD soon created their own signature methods. European music magazines at the time would call this elektro boogie, electronic boogie / boogie electronique. Kraftwerk would soon catch up. What they did was adding humour and rock´n roll ( mixed with some schall und rauch attitude). Their Man Machine concept LP and tour is basically all rock but with the blues completely eradicated and substituted with euro modernist ideas.


What happened next is history. The New York psycho-funk scene picked up all of this and the US electro movement was born.

In the UK one more thing had to happen though. Rock, prog and punk converged to create dark prog and the early goth styles and some of these strains turned up in the new romantics movement. The brit electro sound is something like Gary Numan .. and whatever..

There is a lot more to say about this, but the bottom line is that as long as you consider what went into the classic elektro sound then you either go for funk, the classic rock song or some sort of hybrid boogie with major chords and simply dress the song using the elements you want to use.


How to write the songs? Study the classic funk songs and styles! Then add some Kraftwerk and brit goth to it and you should be fine.

One point to make is that if you want to keep the spirit of the "style" alive then you should experiment rather than copy.

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boony



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PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

hey thanks heaps for the reply.

im not sure if it was the answer i needed/was looking for.

but you deffinatly bought up something i had never thought about before, and its something that would most likely be essential to do if i want to go anywhere in the music industrie im guessing?

so thank you for that.

im satisified with that as an answer to my first question.

but if someone has an answer to my second. dont be shy to post:)
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I´m moving this to the Composition forum.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I did not know that at all. Thanks for the lesson, Stein. My 70's Funk Collection:


Funk_Collection.jpg
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My Itunes Funk Playlist. PTFMWB!
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Funk_Collection.jpg



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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Very Happy
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Shocked

No Parliament Funkadelic?

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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

You know, I'm in an iTunes sort of mood. Like a kid with a quarter for a Ms Pac game, I've got a buck to spend on Funk tonight. What song would you recommend?
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Rykhaard



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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

"Bounce To This" - Parliament Funkadelic. Very Happy

(February this year - had wanted to see them for almost 30 years and finally got to. Very Happy A show, I'll never forget. Wink )
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Ohh, yeah, slow Funk in a class by itself! Nice suggestion, thanks.
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LandOfDoAsYouPlease



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I know this is stupid to ask,

But I'm having trouble understanding what electro-acoustic is. Is it sort of like the sound the band Mum has? Or is it playing the in the style of electronic music with acoustic sounds?

Also:

Is this forum dedicated just to that genre of music or is it dedicated to all electronic based music in general like industrial, experimental, techno, drum and bass, IDM, and such?

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Everybody always talks about various ways of creating music electronically, to answer your second question. For the first, electro-acoustic guitars are acoustic guitars that have been fitted with electronics. But the term electro-acoustic may have a different meaning in the context of what the forum is about, I dunno.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Previously I've though of electro-acoustic music as high-brow esoteric electronic music that they study at the university, but I think that some of that has started to blend in with more popular stuff - I think that acts like Murcof and even the occasional Radiohead track can qualify here nowadays. As with most things like this it's a bit hard to define. Try the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-acoustic_music

If you check out the various subforums here you'll find a great mass of different dicussions in many different fields, from recreating that synth sound from that Yes album to atonal, arhythmical things. You'll see the crowd change between the forums.

/Stefan

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

As far as I'm concerned,
go down to your local train subway tunnel. You'll see a few people standing there busking. One is playing an upright double bass, another is playing a flute, and the third is singing just loud enough that she doesn't drown out the other two. This piece isn't being recorded, and the way it echos up and down the tunnel probably won't be heard exactly the same ever again.
At this point,...... this band is not a part of electro-music. Virtually all other music on the planet is!! Very Happy
Uh oh!......... The bass player's mobile phone just started to ring!! Now their performance has entered electro-music territory!!!! Laughing Wink

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroacoustic_music

Way before "electro" or "elektro" became a pop genre, this term was used as a term for electronic and electro-acoustic music. In that sense, this is reflected in electro-music.com .

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boony



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

thanks for all the replies guys.

and to that dude who showed his funk list on itunes....thanks...i now have most of those songs:D
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Related would be some of the weird european stuff.

The german group Can is important. Get the documentary DVD thingie.
And say.. Ultravox! The album Systems of Romance is important. This is basically where stylistically the brit electro pop song shows up first.

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 5:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

boony wrote:
thanks for all the replies guys.

and to that dude who showed his funk list on itunes....thanks...i now have most of those songs:D


You're very welcome, may you get your funk on all the time!

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 5:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
This is basically where stylistically the brit electro pop song shows up first.


Well, not quite.. but it will do for now.

What I have been trying to say here is that the near one chord groove seen in funk also happened, and perhaps a bit earlier, in european avantgarde/experimental/prog/psychedelic rock. Several of the european styles were almost flat and freeflowing but when funk started sliding into the NYC electro styles, then the traditional song structures mixed with heavy electronics had already happened and it seems that these days the "electro song" is rather closer to these european breeds than the US "electro" genre.

Right, and then there is german electronic disco.

The main lesson is to listen to what is going on and try to understand the big picture. That makes it easier to learn to copy and then learn to write music.
I will add that writing/ making music is rather about composition ( and that includes improvisation as well ) rather than production/mixing. That us why I moved this topic.

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

A snippet from Manuel´s website from his 1978 LP Blackouts
A good example of euro prog/ electronic boogie/shuffle with a new age meditation flair.

http://www.ashra.com/mp3/1771bl03.mp3



Ultravox - Slow Motion

Everything Ultravox before Midge Ure is of interest in this context.


[url=]Can - Moonshake[/url] - freeflowing avantgarde krautrock


A brilliant performance! Can is good!


George Clinton:



Classic US electro - africa bambaataa and soul sonic force
( complete with a riff from Kraftwerk )


Gary Numan - Cars - classic brit electronic pop which is basically Kraftwerk with no humour.


If you check out what was actually released by these and basically all related artists from say 1970 to 1985 some patterns will emerge. One truth is that the electro genre is pretty much a mix of other stuff and the only music that can be truly called electro is what was marketed as such from say 1998 to present day. Shocked Rolling Eyes
However, funk and electronics is always nice no matter what.

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for the videos, gave me something to do while vegitating after a few days of intense programming. kool
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hey, iTunes doesn't have "We want the funk" by George Clinton. What gives? I gotta have it for my funk list.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Buy the goddamn CD? Very Happy
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

My CD player is broken, but soon I will have a Linux laptop set up for music and I can buy CDs then. c'est la vie!
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
Related would be some of the weird european stuff.

The german group Can is important. Get the documentary DVD thingie.
And say.. Ultravox! The album Systems of Romance is important. This is basically where stylistically the brit electro pop song shows up first.


I've heard OF Can, for years and years and years but never have heard anything from. Quite curious. Smile

IIRC - Neu were partially related band member wise to Can, weren't they?

Definitely credit Systems of Romance - to me, just as with the birth of the punk period (Stooges up to The Sex Pistols / Ramones), Ultravox should receive credit for bringing that angle of music out to our ears. Bold and almost in your face, at that time.

The 12" of Slow Motion and Dislocation from Systems of Romance! Smile Slow Motion to this day is still, one of my most favourite electronic tunes ever. Shocked Very Happy

Side note: still trying to find a pair of pointed toe shoes that are sky blue, like so'n'so's, from their 1st album cover. Smile Been looking for 30 years, now. (sigh) Laughing
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