Unit 02 Creating Music Learners must select and create key musical elements and organise them into a complete original musical piece in their chosen style using a DAW. The piece must use a minimum of 4 audio and MIDI tracks. The length of the completed piece must be relevant to the chosen style. It is suggested that the piece should be between 2-3 minutes in length in order to show musical development. Learners must produce original audio and MIDI material. Imported material such as loops could be used alongside the learners original material where stylistically appropriate. The final piece must be mixed to an appropriate stereo audio format. Composing EDM Music Rhythm Kick Drum In many well-known styles of dance music, such as house, trance and techno it is typical to use the kick drum on all 4 beats. This four on the floor comes from Disco music and is generally required to be the most dominant sound in the music, and musicians can go to great lengths to ensure that no other sounds exceed the level of the kick drum. This is why when you come close to dance music being played, the first thing that you hear is the boom-boom-boom of the kick drum. There are variations of the four on the floor pattern where extra kicks are included, secondary ones if you like, which have a lesser velocity. These can be placed anywhere between the four main beats. Snare Drum The function normally performed by the snare is the backbeat. In dance the back beat is just as important as in other styles of music, however, sometimes this is played by a hand clap or even both; snare and hand clap. The snare/hand clap normally doubles the kick on beats 2 and 4. Ride Dance music commonly uses a ride on both eighth notes or sixteenths. Again these patterns arise from disco music and help to drive the music forward. 16 th notes give a greater sense of speed than 8 th notes. Also the offbeat 8 th notes are often open high-hat sounds, this again comes from the disco style and gives a great syncopated feel. Some of the characteristic beats to the different dance styles are shown below.
Hardcore 150-170 BPM Common use of a clap in place of the snare on beats 2 and 4 Closed Hi-Hat is normally on the beat to reinforce the kick drum and create a crispness and open Hi- Hat off beat. Other percussive sounds can be laid over this core. Beat 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + Hi-hat C * * * * Hi-hat O * * * * Hard Dance and Trance The difference between the two is in the quality of the kick drum hard dance has a hard kick while trance a softer sound. Use of reverse cymbals and snare rolls at the end of a section. Kicks normally have a great deal of reverb added. Crash * Ride * * * * * * * * Hi-Hat C * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hi-Hat O * * * * Techno Major difference is the use of auxiliary percussion samples to the electronic side with beeps, buzzes and other sounds. The futuristic age and technology has heavily influenced the sound here. TR505, 606, 707, 808 and 909 are common drum machines for the style. Hi-Hat C * * * * * * * * Snare * * Roll Filtered * * * * * * Snare Distorted * * * * Kick 1 Distorted Kick 2 * * * * * *
House Like techno, house refers to a large number of styles ranging from slower styles of ambient and deep house (110 t0 125BPM) to harder and faster styles of Chicago and New York (up to 140 BPM). House drums use 4 on the floor, a clap on best 2 and 4, ride on the hi-hats with open hi-hats on the off beats. Hi-Hat C * * * * * * * Hi-Hat O * * * * Bass This can either be quite a simple rhythm, reinforcing the kick drum four on the floor or much more syncopated. The amount of syncopation will vary in dance tracks but serves to emphasise the offbeat. Again 16 th note patterns will add to the pace, whereas 8 th beat patterns will provide a more basic dance beat. Rhythmic patterns can be the same for a 4 bar phrase or there may be a slight variation to add interest. Synth Chords These can either be as pads, providing no real rhythm and adding contrast to the bass and drum patterns or again in a 16 th or 8 th beat pattern, supporting the pace of the track. Lead or Melody This is often the hook part, the short melodic pattern. This is syncopated to hook in the listener and provide a real catchy feel to the dance track to get the audience moving. The lead or melody line is based around the scale notes e.g. A B C D E F# G A. This can be a narrow range of notes to create a memorable lead part. Using syncopation is vital to also ensure a strong memorable lead track. Praise You, though originally a song uses such syncopation and narrow range. It also uses a form of blues scale from the G major scale by using Bb G A Bb C D E F G. The melody also starts at the end of the 2 bar riff to create a lead in. This is quite common for melody writing. The melody is divided in to question answer phrases with each phrase being 2 bars long. Melody G G G G G G Bb A Melody A D D D D C Bb G In terms of the melody phrases shown above the scale notes used are root, 3 rd (Bb) 2 nd, 5 th and 4 th in the order these notes appear in the melody. There is quite a good deal of note repetition and also step movement; step movement being the most common movement in a strong melody.
Harmony Harmony for Dance pieces is often based around a minor scale for example A minor A B C D E F# G A. The harmony can be used to create a riff style pattern of chords where the chords follow a particular rhythm and repeat in the same order. Often club dance music uses a repeating 2 or 4 chord pattern. The pattern may change for particular sections to create more musical interest. 1969 by Boards of Canada only actually uses one chord sequence throughout, based around the C minor scale C D Eb F G A Bb and C the chord sequence being G minor, Eb minor, F minor and C minor or chords I, III, IV and V or the order the chords are used in V, III, IV and I. Praise You, by Fat Boy Slim, actually uses a sample for the chord sequence and chord groove from Camille Yarborough s 1975 song Take Yo Praise. It is based around a G major scale that does not use an F# - G A B C D E F G. The chord sequence used mostly is F, C, G or VII, IV, I. This song has a middle 8 section which adds contrast with a different chord sequence D7, G and C or V7, I and VI. The chords here have a different rhythmic groove to the sampled one from Take Yo Praise. In a dance piece the bass can follow the chord sequence using root notes or play some of the chord riff and then fill out the gaps. Notice the 16 th note before beat 3 to create extra energy. The extra notes are either chord notes or in the case of the 16 th note B a passing note to provide some contrast to the repeated note C. Chords F F C C G Bass F F C B C C G G G G G Structure With dance music, the structural elements are largely determined by the purpose of the music itself: to make people want to dance. There is also an additional factor from the way the music is played it is mixed by a DJ. For this reason, most dance tracks tend to have a drum led intro and outro-called a mix zone, which gives the DJ the opportunity to mix the track in and out. Also during the intro, a good kick drum beat is helpful for the DJ to beat-match. The existence of a mix zone encourages the earlier phases of dance tracks to involve build up elements the drums, then maybe the bass etc. After the initial build there often comes a break down, where the drums tend to be less prominent or even disappear altogether creating an ambient sound. This is also a common place for SFX or spoken samples etc. The length of the breakdown can vary from style to style. Coming out of the break is an exciting moment as the drums come back in again, often together with some main lead material. This is called the drop. There may be a further build, second break down and drop. This final drop often represents the highest energy part of the song for dancing to, when all the parts come back everyone rushes back to dance or increases the intensity of their dance movements. e.g. Intro Build 1 Breakdown Drop 1 Breakdown 2 Drop 2 Outro
Sections are in multiples of 4, consistent with other dance music and allowing for an even number of dance steps to take place Instruments When you listen to EDM tracks you will notice the same timbres are used in many songs. Dance artists have their favourite sound modules (devices that can be linked to a sequencer to produce a sound) and synthesisers. Often the synths will include at least one analogue synth. The drum track itself is either produced electronically from the likes of a Roland TR909 or from a selection of electronically manipulated samples. The analogue synth is almost always the source of the next most important timbre in dance music. In addition, many Dance artists will have edited the sounds to colour of sound wanted for the song. This will be primarily through changing sound using the synthesiser or actually constructing the sound from scratch. Such editing would include changing the ADSR settings, frequency cut off, resonance and using the LFO to create oscillations and also reassign a different wave form. In addition to using the synthesiser, dance artists would, also use samples, creating these themselves or talking samples from other songs. Again editing would be used to create the desired affect needed from the sample. To start writing your EDM piece. 1. Decide on a Dance style (use the above to guide you and the drum grids) 2. Programme in an 8 bar drum pattern you may wish to include a drum fill in the 4 th or 8 th bars to create some interest. 3. Decide on a scale (A minor or G major for example) and work out all the chords 4. Decide on a chord sequence (two to three different chords) to create a 4 bar pattern 5. Create a bass part (this maybe based around 8 th notes) ensure you use root notes initially and follow the chord sequence you have decided on Writing Step Bass Lines Step bass lines are common to most EDM styles. They are based on the root notes of the chords and in hard core, hard dance, hard trance and other kinds of upbeat dance styles use 8 th beat rhythms. Often due to side chaining a compressor the 1 st, 3 rd, 5 th, and 7 th notes are missed due to ducking. This gives a pumping effect characteristic of the bass. Using the velocity tool is important to emphasise certain notes in a bass pattern emphasising the stronger parts of the bass line. Also changes in sound can be achieved by using a filter frequency cut-off, a common effect used with acid basslines. 6. Create a chord part (use a synth these could be sustained or played rhythmically) 7. Create a melodic hook 8. Repeat the above steps to create a second contrasting section a second drop section 9. Now start to arrange your dance composition thinking about a typical structure (below) Intro/fill-build-drop/fill-breakdown-build/fill-drop (2)-breakdown/fill (2)-build-drop (1)-outro 10. Remember to include some audio samples you have recorded yourself. Edit these for further effect. 11. Listen to dance songs which are in the style you are composing for ideas use of samples, riff ideas or melody ideas.