Personality. Having your own sound. How do you achieve those in such an old and well-defined genre like house?
Even if I might come through as someone who just wants to be a Kerri copycat, that's not my intention. My plan has many phases. The first phase involves learning the necessary production tricks to be able to make release quality house tracks and as I'm not a genius who can just invent everything on my own I have to study the masters, learn to copy them as well as I can. Kinda like the painters of yore who spent years and years copying paintings before finding their own artistic vision. That's what I'm currently doing. I study Kerri, MAW, Mood II Swing, Chez Damier, Larry Heard, Theo Parrish, Moodymann and so on. That's phase one. Phase two, if I ever reach that far, is to find my own inner voice and vision. I want it to be recognizable as house, but with a little Barfunkel twist. Only time will tell what that twist could be. Maybe something a bit humorous or tongue in cheek, as I'm a big fan of absurd, borderline random humour. But, for the time being, I would be extremely satisfied to reach even the minimum standards, both musically and production-wise, so that I could get my music out there. Even that is a dream far away, as I do realize I'm not much of a musician or a producer.
How does one find his own voice then? Unless you're a singer who writes his own lyrics it isn't going to be easy, particularly if you want to work within the framework of a relatively restricted genre. While production skills are important, it would be extremely difficult (but not entirely impossible) to be so good that your music would be instantly recognizable because of the production. If your music is up to it, good enough production skills are, well, good enough. Many house classics aren't that great technically. There might not be amateurish mistakes in them as such, but they often aren't polished to perfection (in a pop music sense) either. They have what it takes, the magic lies in the music.
While I've made some fairly unique music in the past, I think I'm struggling a bit in this project. Trying to keep it housey while making something that stands out is a daunting task. House has been around a few decades now and many ideas have been used, re-used and recycled several times already. I also don't want to make a novelty song, something that's different just for the sake of it. Sure, I could make a house track with scatting, yodling, bagpipes and panflutes. Then again, there's a good reason no one has ever tried such a combination as far as I know. Genre conventions are there for a reason, they are things that have been tried and tested again and again on the dancefloors over the years. They work, that's why they are used.
To be honest, I'm a bit torn here. As I have only about a month left and time is thus limited (especially now, with the slave labour thing I talked about in the previous post), should I aim for uniqueness at the expense of making something that is more likely to work on the dancefloor? Or should I aim for a banger and forget about finding my own voice in house music? I don't have the time for both.
While I haven't made up my mind quite yet, I did make this track:
Definitely not a very original track. More like a cheesy disco house banger. It's even called the Cheesy Disco House Banger! Yeah I know, naming tracks ain't an easy job. To my defense, I made the whole thing in about 3,5 hours, of which naming it took about 3 seconds.
Oh, and the track I made a remix of a few posts back is finally online in all it's original glory! Comparing the two, you'll probably notice that my remix doesn't bear much resemblance to the original. I didn't want to make a remix where you just change a few drum hits, maybe write a new bassline and that's it. It's a bona fide Barfunkel remix treatment!
And to refresh your memory, here's my remix:
And that's it for now. See you next time!
Monday, May 23, 2016
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Work that mutha fucker
Sad news, unfortunately.
Haven't updated the blog in a week because my unemployment ended this week and I've been busy with work. Now, before you congratulate me or think that I'll be able to buy all kinds of funky plugins or gear now I'll have to explain my situation a bit. I've been almost completely unemployed for two years now. The Finnish government doesn't like that, so they've crafted these laws which state that unemployed people must accept any job they're offered. Even jobs that don't pay anything. Which is exactly what happened to me this week. They offered me a non-paying job which I had to take or I'd lose my (very small) unemployment benefits. Yes, it's more or less slave labour or at the very least a law loophole which the companies take advantage of.
Thankfully it's only 3 months and there's a very, very slim chance that they'll offer me a real job after that period. Still, it couldn't had happened at a worse time as it means my former 8 hours a day of music making just shrunk to an hour or two, assuming I'm not dead tired after a full day of slave labour.
What does it mean to the blog and the project then? I'm not calling it quits quite yet but naturally the likelihood of completing my noble quest is now even smaller than before. To have any kind of a chance I must really focus my mind now because I simply don't have the time for sidesteps or just lounging about aimlessly.
I would've liked to include a new track but I've been really tired this week. I have some unfinished tracks but I don't want to put them on the blog. If you're really interested, they can be found on my Soundcloud site, some almost finished, some just rough ideas.
Haven't updated the blog in a week because my unemployment ended this week and I've been busy with work. Now, before you congratulate me or think that I'll be able to buy all kinds of funky plugins or gear now I'll have to explain my situation a bit. I've been almost completely unemployed for two years now. The Finnish government doesn't like that, so they've crafted these laws which state that unemployed people must accept any job they're offered. Even jobs that don't pay anything. Which is exactly what happened to me this week. They offered me a non-paying job which I had to take or I'd lose my (very small) unemployment benefits. Yes, it's more or less slave labour or at the very least a law loophole which the companies take advantage of.
Thankfully it's only 3 months and there's a very, very slim chance that they'll offer me a real job after that period. Still, it couldn't had happened at a worse time as it means my former 8 hours a day of music making just shrunk to an hour or two, assuming I'm not dead tired after a full day of slave labour.
What does it mean to the blog and the project then? I'm not calling it quits quite yet but naturally the likelihood of completing my noble quest is now even smaller than before. To have any kind of a chance I must really focus my mind now because I simply don't have the time for sidesteps or just lounging about aimlessly.
I would've liked to include a new track but I've been really tired this week. I have some unfinished tracks but I don't want to put them on the blog. If you're really interested, they can be found on my Soundcloud site, some almost finished, some just rough ideas.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Get down saturday night
I know know, it's a house staple, but I don't usually like to make those disco cut up kind of tracks. You know the type, a few disco loops, drums + some filtering, call it your own track, profit. It's been done to death by producers much better than me. Don't take me wrong, I love that stuff. I just don't want to be known as a disco editor, I prefer to write my own harmonies and melodies. I might use little snippets of samples here and there, but almost never as the main body of the track. Partly because of some kind of a principle, partly because I love and respect quality disco almost as much as I do house and I don't want to ruin good disco songs with unnecessary edits that add nothing of value to the original.
However, since it's such a common way to make house I decided to give it a shot anyway. I have a bunch of nice disco samples on my hard drive, sampled from my personal vinyl collection. I occasionally go through them, trying to find inspiration. Usually I don't find it, but this time seemed to be different. One of those disco samples (I won't be naming any names, I'll just say it's a very well known disco group, not something particularly obscure) had a little something that caught my ear. I thought what the heck, let's cut up the sample to shorter loops, apply some filtering, add some drums, call it a track and profit. 2 hours later, I had something nice cooking and not that many hours after that I had this finished track:
I rather like it, even if I'm the first to admit that it's just a disco edit, not an original composition. Maybe I'll try to use disco loops in a subtler way in the future, this one is quite extravagant. This seems to be a common occurrence for me, the first time I try something new the results are quite blatant, only later I learn to use the new producing methods and techniques in subtler ways.
Anyways, cheesy and cheeky or not, I learned some new tricks once again, tricks that will surely be very useful in the future.
However, since it's such a common way to make house I decided to give it a shot anyway. I have a bunch of nice disco samples on my hard drive, sampled from my personal vinyl collection. I occasionally go through them, trying to find inspiration. Usually I don't find it, but this time seemed to be different. One of those disco samples (I won't be naming any names, I'll just say it's a very well known disco group, not something particularly obscure) had a little something that caught my ear. I thought what the heck, let's cut up the sample to shorter loops, apply some filtering, add some drums, call it a track and profit. 2 hours later, I had something nice cooking and not that many hours after that I had this finished track:
I rather like it, even if I'm the first to admit that it's just a disco edit, not an original composition. Maybe I'll try to use disco loops in a subtler way in the future, this one is quite extravagant. This seems to be a common occurrence for me, the first time I try something new the results are quite blatant, only later I learn to use the new producing methods and techniques in subtler ways.
Anyways, cheesy and cheeky or not, I learned some new tricks once again, tricks that will surely be very useful in the future.
Friday, May 6, 2016
It's it's remix time time
I was recently contacted by someone from the Gearslutz forum about a remix. He had this rather chill out vocal house track that he wanted me to remix into something a bit more dancefloor friendly. I decided to grab the offer as I've never made a remix before and it might prove out to be a good learning exprience. I had a pretty good vision from early on of what I wanted to do with the remix. The original had some good bits I could easily use in my remix and since I liked the vocals, it sounded like quite an easy, quick job. Just use those good bits as a basis, then add some bits that sound more like Barfunkel music, mess around with stuff for a while and hopefully something nice will emerge.
Even though I made the core of the remix in like 4-5 hours, it took me 5 days to complete it. As I wanted as good results as I possibly could I had to up my quality control and simply not put out any half-baked ideas. Remixing stuff is in some way easier and in some ways more difficult than writing your own material. When you just make your own stuff you can do whatever you want, with a remix you're working with something someone else made, which can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you don't necessarily have to write the hardest bit, ie. the main hook of the track because it's already there, a curse because your hands are tied to an extent. Now, I do know some remixes are so far removed from the original that you can barely recognize it. Sometimes you can't at all. I didn't want that but at the same time I wanted it to sound like a Barfunkel track and not just like the original with a few different drum sounds or such.
The elements of the original that ended up in my remix were obviously the vocals (well bits of them at least), the pad sound you hear in the beginning of the track and the e-piano, which was just a short snippet of a longer, more evolving piece. The rest of the elements come from my imagination. I also upped the tempo a little bit, to make it a bit less chilled out. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with this remix, especially considering it's the first remix I've ever made.
You can listen to it here:
Due to a delay in the mastering process, the original is not yet online so I can't post it for comparison. I'll add it to this blog post when I can, which will hopefully be very soon.
Even though I made the core of the remix in like 4-5 hours, it took me 5 days to complete it. As I wanted as good results as I possibly could I had to up my quality control and simply not put out any half-baked ideas. Remixing stuff is in some way easier and in some ways more difficult than writing your own material. When you just make your own stuff you can do whatever you want, with a remix you're working with something someone else made, which can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you don't necessarily have to write the hardest bit, ie. the main hook of the track because it's already there, a curse because your hands are tied to an extent. Now, I do know some remixes are so far removed from the original that you can barely recognize it. Sometimes you can't at all. I didn't want that but at the same time I wanted it to sound like a Barfunkel track and not just like the original with a few different drum sounds or such.
The elements of the original that ended up in my remix were obviously the vocals (well bits of them at least), the pad sound you hear in the beginning of the track and the e-piano, which was just a short snippet of a longer, more evolving piece. The rest of the elements come from my imagination. I also upped the tempo a little bit, to make it a bit less chilled out. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with this remix, especially considering it's the first remix I've ever made.
You can listen to it here:
Due to a delay in the mastering process, the original is not yet online so I can't post it for comparison. I'll add it to this blog post when I can, which will hopefully be very soon.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Jazz is the teacher
Topic of today is what, if anything, can be learned from other genres, particularly genres that aren't that close to house music. Of especial interest are genres that aren't either direct predecessors such as disco and funk or otherwise very close to house, such as techno. What can be learned from jazz, from rock, from dub or reggae, from metal, from classical, from EDM?
Quick and simple answer: A lot. Even though house is a well-defined genre that has remained pretty close to it's roots for 30 years now that doesn't mean that listening to and drawing influence from other genres is wrong, quite the contrary in fact. While house is my number one love of all the music genres that doesn't mean that I'm some sort of a starry-eyed dreamer who thinks all house is great or that house is in some way a superior genre compared to others. It's just personal taste, house gives me the strongest positive emotions and I enjoy listening to it more often than other genres.
Trying to write a meaningful post about this subject isn't easy. I'm no music theory expert who can just sit down and analyse everything down to the smallest of details. I know very little about music theory and I don't have the sharpest set of ears, so my analysis is often very superficial.
I think the easiest way to approach this subject is simply by listing some genres, listening to some examples, thinking about it and writing down my thoughts. I'm in no way trying to include every single genre out there, it'd take me a month and a bookworth of text to do so.
Jazz: As I love jazz, especially the free kind of jazz, this should be an easy target. However, it's not. It definitely is not. I love jazz but I don't really understand jazz. I just listen to jazz because it sounds nice to my ears. I can listen to house, techno, drum&bass, ambient, all kinds of genres and often hear how they were made, at least on a superficial level. With jazz, all I hear is some cool cats playing great music, but I got no idea how they do it. More specifically, I don't hear what makes jazz jazzy. As if there's some sort of a magic trick or a combination of tricks I simply ain't aware of. Magic jazz scales, magic jazz chords, magic jazz magic? I simply don't know. What can I learn from jazz then, if I can't analyse it musically? Technically, quite a bit actually. If you look at some sort of a greatest jazz albums of all time you'll probably notice how old most of them are. They are from an era when modern studio technology was at it's infancy, many of the studio tricks that are standard practice in 2016 were either nonexistent or very expensive. Still, many of those old jazz albums sound absolutely amazing. Why? It all boils down to arrangement and sound selection. In other words, tricks that aren't just useful but of paramount importance. While I'm a half-decent synthesist and sample mangler, arranging is one of my many Achille's heels. I really have to learn how to make a coherent whole out of decent enough elements.
Rock: What can an aspiring house producer learn from good old rock'n'roll then? A guitar solo perhaps? How to write lyrics with sexual innuendo? How to throw a television set out of a hotel room window? While those are of course very useful skills to possess, the best thing to learn from rock music from a house music perspective is energy. At least before Nirvana killed rock music it was all about the raw, sexual energy of the music. From the openly homosexual lyrics of Tutti Frutti to W.A.S.P.'s Animal, rock music has often been about doin' it. Sometimes quite subtly, sometimes blatantly. It's not that uncommon to hear house music with the same kind of raw, unrefined sexual energy as rock used to have. The infamous Dance Mania records and the artists associated with them are a typical example. Their take of the subject was often quite direct, with lots of swearing and using deragotary terms of females and their body parts. While I've done my fair share of swearing I nowadays favour a more subtle approach. I want to have that energy but get rid of all the sexual references, direct or not. That said, it's only a question of time before in a moment of insanity I grab the mic and make a song where I try to find a word that perfectly rhymes with the word bitch.
Metal: How about the bastard son of rock then? What possibly could a house producer learn from metal? Especially since the only form of metal I know anything about is of the black kind. Sure, I could burn a few churches for inspiration, but that's not exactly #1 on my to-do list. Answering that question properly needs some careful thinking about what metal is about. Like house music, metal is about the expression of emotions. Maybe a different set of emotions than house, but emotions nonetheless. In that regard, listening to metal for inspiration and to learn something from is not as far out an idea as it might sound like. I often do it actually, when I'm stuck in a musical rut. It gives you a different perspective and forces your mind on a different path.
Dub and reggae: This one is actually quite easy to answer, particularly when speaking about dub and not it's poppier cousin reggae. Sense of space, creative use of effects and using a mixer as an instrument on it's own are what make dub. It's often not about what you play but what you don't play, and filling that space with all kinds of strange, yet fitting effects. Echo or delay is of course the effect most commonly associated with dub, but it doesn't end there and neither does the use of an echo unit make you a dub record. I've actually tried to make dub music a few times, but let's just say that it's not exactly my forte. I do, however, occasionally try to imitate the methods of dub, even when the output sounds nothing like it. This was particularly true when I was strictly a hardware user, I always recorded my tracks straight to 2-track, using the mixer and effects creatively while recording. It's a bit harder to imitate with just a laptop, but all the tricks I learned back then are extremely valuable now.
Classical: The hardest of them all, considering my disdain towards classical music. It's way too pompous and opulent for my small mind to handle. I admit, I just don't get it. I do like some of the music created with the same instruments in the 20th century, Steve Reich particularly, but classical or anything resembling it is simply not for me. Still, I have an open mind and there's always a trick or two to be learned from any and every kind of music. However, it's very, very difficult to think about anything worthwhile to be learned from classical music. It's so far detached from modern music, from club music even more so. Steve Reich is easy in comparison, it's basically just techno performed with different instruments. Perhaps looking at it from a different angle might be more fruitful? The thing I dislike about classical the most is the lack of concentration. The central motif is either nonexistent or it's so vague that casual listening doesn't reveal it. I like loops. Either actual, repeated loops or just the same thing played over and over again with real instruments, like in rock music. I see no point in writing a great melody, rhythm or chord progression and then only using it once. It seems like wasting something valuable. I've been listening to classical music for a few hours now nonstop and I really have to stop as I feel a bit nauseous. I didn't find an illumination, it only made me more certain about my own personal taste.
EDM: Why include EDM, isn't it basically just a poppified versio of house? To an extent, that's true. It's dance music, it's four on the floor, it uses the same kind of elements as house does. However, the similarities are quite superficial. They are about as close as Blink 182 and GG Allin are to each other. Since I consider EDM as just a commercial ripoff of house, what possibly could I learn from it? Musically, not much to be honest. It uses all the cheap tricks in the book to create music that might sound interesting to a 15-year old but doesn't offer much of long-term value. Not that far away from the stuff that 2 Unlimited and such did in the 90's. However, what I can learn is marketing. By nature I'm quite shy, quiet, reserved type of character. It's not easy for me to contact an unknown person and tell him that I'm really great and that my music is super awesome. But that's exactly what I have to learn to do. Maybe not in those exact words, but I have to learn to market myself and my music if I want my music to ever leave my bedroom and a handful of Soundcloud listens. This blog has been a great first step, it being public and somewhat popular. It wasn't an easy decision, making it public, possibly facing humiliation and ridicule. That's not enough however. As my tracks (hopefully) get better and better, I need to find some kind of an outlet for them, which means I have to contact unknown people and convince them that my music is worth their attention. I won't be throwing cakes at people's faces, neither do I believe in fireworks (literal or not). First, I have to write a track that I really believe in and then I have to market it properly. Try to be my humble self, yet confident. Not the easiest of combinations to achieve.
As usual, I could go on forever but I decided to stop here. I have a bad habit of babbling about given the chance, but I'll try to control myself and keep these blog posts compact.
As with most of these posts, I made a track to go with it too . Originally, I wanted to make a jazzy house track but I'm not so sure of the outcome. It samples a well-known free jazz record (if a free jazz record can be said to be well-known that is), so most of the musical ideas don't originate from my mind. I don't usually like to sample stuff with melodic or harmonic content, due to my inability to recognize notes and chords by ear. I got basically no idea if this track contains off-scale notes, as I simply don't hear them that easily. I went with a feeling, instead of building something theoretically correct. It is what it is. 20% wonky, 30% jazzy, 50% housey, 110% barfunkely.
Note: As this blog is a real-life document, not a way for me to glorify or put myself on a pedestal, I must admit that I was quite drunk when I wrote all this and I also made the final mix of the accompanying track while drunk. Typos, grammatical erros as well as errors in the track are a result of a few pints of Finnish Karhu beer. It is what it is.
Quick and simple answer: A lot. Even though house is a well-defined genre that has remained pretty close to it's roots for 30 years now that doesn't mean that listening to and drawing influence from other genres is wrong, quite the contrary in fact. While house is my number one love of all the music genres that doesn't mean that I'm some sort of a starry-eyed dreamer who thinks all house is great or that house is in some way a superior genre compared to others. It's just personal taste, house gives me the strongest positive emotions and I enjoy listening to it more often than other genres.
Trying to write a meaningful post about this subject isn't easy. I'm no music theory expert who can just sit down and analyse everything down to the smallest of details. I know very little about music theory and I don't have the sharpest set of ears, so my analysis is often very superficial.
I think the easiest way to approach this subject is simply by listing some genres, listening to some examples, thinking about it and writing down my thoughts. I'm in no way trying to include every single genre out there, it'd take me a month and a bookworth of text to do so.
Jazz: As I love jazz, especially the free kind of jazz, this should be an easy target. However, it's not. It definitely is not. I love jazz but I don't really understand jazz. I just listen to jazz because it sounds nice to my ears. I can listen to house, techno, drum&bass, ambient, all kinds of genres and often hear how they were made, at least on a superficial level. With jazz, all I hear is some cool cats playing great music, but I got no idea how they do it. More specifically, I don't hear what makes jazz jazzy. As if there's some sort of a magic trick or a combination of tricks I simply ain't aware of. Magic jazz scales, magic jazz chords, magic jazz magic? I simply don't know. What can I learn from jazz then, if I can't analyse it musically? Technically, quite a bit actually. If you look at some sort of a greatest jazz albums of all time you'll probably notice how old most of them are. They are from an era when modern studio technology was at it's infancy, many of the studio tricks that are standard practice in 2016 were either nonexistent or very expensive. Still, many of those old jazz albums sound absolutely amazing. Why? It all boils down to arrangement and sound selection. In other words, tricks that aren't just useful but of paramount importance. While I'm a half-decent synthesist and sample mangler, arranging is one of my many Achille's heels. I really have to learn how to make a coherent whole out of decent enough elements.
Rock: What can an aspiring house producer learn from good old rock'n'roll then? A guitar solo perhaps? How to write lyrics with sexual innuendo? How to throw a television set out of a hotel room window? While those are of course very useful skills to possess, the best thing to learn from rock music from a house music perspective is energy. At least before Nirvana killed rock music it was all about the raw, sexual energy of the music. From the openly homosexual lyrics of Tutti Frutti to W.A.S.P.'s Animal, rock music has often been about doin' it. Sometimes quite subtly, sometimes blatantly. It's not that uncommon to hear house music with the same kind of raw, unrefined sexual energy as rock used to have. The infamous Dance Mania records and the artists associated with them are a typical example. Their take of the subject was often quite direct, with lots of swearing and using deragotary terms of females and their body parts. While I've done my fair share of swearing I nowadays favour a more subtle approach. I want to have that energy but get rid of all the sexual references, direct or not. That said, it's only a question of time before in a moment of insanity I grab the mic and make a song where I try to find a word that perfectly rhymes with the word bitch.
Metal: How about the bastard son of rock then? What possibly could a house producer learn from metal? Especially since the only form of metal I know anything about is of the black kind. Sure, I could burn a few churches for inspiration, but that's not exactly #1 on my to-do list. Answering that question properly needs some careful thinking about what metal is about. Like house music, metal is about the expression of emotions. Maybe a different set of emotions than house, but emotions nonetheless. In that regard, listening to metal for inspiration and to learn something from is not as far out an idea as it might sound like. I often do it actually, when I'm stuck in a musical rut. It gives you a different perspective and forces your mind on a different path.
Dub and reggae: This one is actually quite easy to answer, particularly when speaking about dub and not it's poppier cousin reggae. Sense of space, creative use of effects and using a mixer as an instrument on it's own are what make dub. It's often not about what you play but what you don't play, and filling that space with all kinds of strange, yet fitting effects. Echo or delay is of course the effect most commonly associated with dub, but it doesn't end there and neither does the use of an echo unit make you a dub record. I've actually tried to make dub music a few times, but let's just say that it's not exactly my forte. I do, however, occasionally try to imitate the methods of dub, even when the output sounds nothing like it. This was particularly true when I was strictly a hardware user, I always recorded my tracks straight to 2-track, using the mixer and effects creatively while recording. It's a bit harder to imitate with just a laptop, but all the tricks I learned back then are extremely valuable now.
Classical: The hardest of them all, considering my disdain towards classical music. It's way too pompous and opulent for my small mind to handle. I admit, I just don't get it. I do like some of the music created with the same instruments in the 20th century, Steve Reich particularly, but classical or anything resembling it is simply not for me. Still, I have an open mind and there's always a trick or two to be learned from any and every kind of music. However, it's very, very difficult to think about anything worthwhile to be learned from classical music. It's so far detached from modern music, from club music even more so. Steve Reich is easy in comparison, it's basically just techno performed with different instruments. Perhaps looking at it from a different angle might be more fruitful? The thing I dislike about classical the most is the lack of concentration. The central motif is either nonexistent or it's so vague that casual listening doesn't reveal it. I like loops. Either actual, repeated loops or just the same thing played over and over again with real instruments, like in rock music. I see no point in writing a great melody, rhythm or chord progression and then only using it once. It seems like wasting something valuable. I've been listening to classical music for a few hours now nonstop and I really have to stop as I feel a bit nauseous. I didn't find an illumination, it only made me more certain about my own personal taste.
EDM: Why include EDM, isn't it basically just a poppified versio of house? To an extent, that's true. It's dance music, it's four on the floor, it uses the same kind of elements as house does. However, the similarities are quite superficial. They are about as close as Blink 182 and GG Allin are to each other. Since I consider EDM as just a commercial ripoff of house, what possibly could I learn from it? Musically, not much to be honest. It uses all the cheap tricks in the book to create music that might sound interesting to a 15-year old but doesn't offer much of long-term value. Not that far away from the stuff that 2 Unlimited and such did in the 90's. However, what I can learn is marketing. By nature I'm quite shy, quiet, reserved type of character. It's not easy for me to contact an unknown person and tell him that I'm really great and that my music is super awesome. But that's exactly what I have to learn to do. Maybe not in those exact words, but I have to learn to market myself and my music if I want my music to ever leave my bedroom and a handful of Soundcloud listens. This blog has been a great first step, it being public and somewhat popular. It wasn't an easy decision, making it public, possibly facing humiliation and ridicule. That's not enough however. As my tracks (hopefully) get better and better, I need to find some kind of an outlet for them, which means I have to contact unknown people and convince them that my music is worth their attention. I won't be throwing cakes at people's faces, neither do I believe in fireworks (literal or not). First, I have to write a track that I really believe in and then I have to market it properly. Try to be my humble self, yet confident. Not the easiest of combinations to achieve.
As usual, I could go on forever but I decided to stop here. I have a bad habit of babbling about given the chance, but I'll try to control myself and keep these blog posts compact.
As with most of these posts, I made a track to go with it too . Originally, I wanted to make a jazzy house track but I'm not so sure of the outcome. It samples a well-known free jazz record (if a free jazz record can be said to be well-known that is), so most of the musical ideas don't originate from my mind. I don't usually like to sample stuff with melodic or harmonic content, due to my inability to recognize notes and chords by ear. I got basically no idea if this track contains off-scale notes, as I simply don't hear them that easily. I went with a feeling, instead of building something theoretically correct. It is what it is. 20% wonky, 30% jazzy, 50% housey, 110% barfunkely.
Note: As this blog is a real-life document, not a way for me to glorify or put myself on a pedestal, I must admit that I was quite drunk when I wrote all this and I also made the final mix of the accompanying track while drunk. Typos, grammatical erros as well as errors in the track are a result of a few pints of Finnish Karhu beer. It is what it is.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Hypno dance
So, what's that picture about then? What does a cartoon character wearing a cape and a top hat has to do with the production of house music? Well, that character is no other than my favorite comic book superhero Mandrake the Magician! He had the ability to hypnotize people (and other creatures as well) by simple gestures. And that's what good house music often does, it hypnotizes people with very simple ingredients, often with nothing more than a simple loop that changes in minor ways for the whole duration of the track.
The question is, what makes something hypnotic and alluring while something else that's superficially similar bores you to death after 3 seconds? What's the secret trick? The answer is, sadly, that there is no secret trick. Knowing how to make something simple, yet interesting is what separates the men from the boys, the Kerris from the amateurs like me. It takes lots of practice, good taste and a deeper level of understanding of what works in the context of house music. Ie. things I don't really possess.
Which makes this particular post rather hard to write. I don't feel I'm qualified to say anything meaningful about the subject but it's an important subject so I must at least think about it, even if I don't manage to say anything of worth in the end.
What I do know is that music I consider hypnotic is often very loopy and subtle, as drastic changes break off the hypnosis. There's also almost always some sort of a catchy, yet simple riff and the drums advance the track in a subtle way instead of banging in your face. Chords are often involved in the equation as well, in one way or another. Naturally, these qualities are not unique to hypnotic music, they pretty much cover most music in the deeper end of house, at least on a superficial level.
What separates a basic, half-decent loop from a stroke of genius is in the details. The riff works on a musical level as well as on a rhythmical level. The chords accompany that riff well in a kind of a dreamy, ethereal way and of course, sometimes the chords are the riff. The drumming is simple and rolling, but every drum sound and beat is well thought of. There's nothing extra that the ear and the mind would find distracting. Everything just works. Every note and drum hit brings you closer and closer towards a dream-like state, that special vibe that allows you to dance for hours without even noticing how much time has passed. The hypnosis only breaks off when the lights come on at the end of the night. And of course, when a bad DJ plays something that doesn't work but that's an entirely different subject.
Dance music is rarely musically very complex. There isn't that many notes and at least in house and techno, the drums are usually fairly basic four on the floor type of rhythms. Getting down a basic idea of a track is thus often quite a quick process. If a melody consists of just three notes repeating, it doesn't take that long to find a good combination of them. But and this is quite a big but, the job doesn't end there. Because it's so simple, every note must count. Every note must be just perfect. The perfect sound, the perfect notes, the perfect combination of all the variables that affect how that simple melody is perceived by the listener. It can take quite a bit of time to get those three notes working together just right. While I usually work quite fast, I typically spend the longest time on getting those tiny details of the main loop the way I want them to be. After that process, the track more or less just writes itself. If the main loop doesn't work, it can actually take more time to sort out the mess later, that's why I spend a considerable percentage of my music making time on those little details that make a boring little loop into something that can, at least in theory, be listened to for a very long time.
What kind of details are important then when you want to write a track that allures the listener? That one is impossible to answer without the context of an actual track. Sometimes stuff just happens almost automatically, all the pieces of the puzzle fall right in their places in a very short amount of time. Sometimes you spend 2 hours on editing just one tiny thing. You also got to learn out of the habit of over-editing things. When they sound right they are right, even if spending just 30 seconds on something important may seem like a mistake of some kind. Learn to trust your ears! Making music has no rules, the only thing that counts is you.
And that's it. More or less, just another episode of Seinfeld (ie. a show about nothing). I've been busy making tracks so this blog has slightly suffered as a result. I'll try to write something a bit more meaningful in the future.
I also made a track, where I tried to emphasize the hypnotic effect. With or without success, how the heck should I know? The track also turned out almost techno-like. It's a constant issue I have to deal with, as I used to make techno for a long time and the things I learned during those years can easily overcome my housier side. Anyways, it is what it is. House, techno, something in between, I have no idea.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Groove is in the heart
Groove. What the heck is that then? Sure, it makes you wanna dance and shake your rump but what exactly is groove and more specifically, how do you achieve groove?
Some people say you are just born with it and that it's impossible to learn. What a load of bollocks! At least according to my knowledge, Bootsy Collins wasn't born with a bass guitar. He might be extremely gifted in the sense that it was easier for him to learn to play that instrument than it would be for someone else. Still, most people with a working brain and a pair of working hands can learn to play it funky. It just takes dedication, motivation and understanding the building blocks of what groove consists of, either intuitively or via careful analysis.
In house music it's even easier. You can manage with just one hand and at a pinch, with a set of very nimble toes. In house music you can even cheat. You can sample a funky drummer (quite literally) and use that sampled loop in it's entirety or if you think that's lame or too old school, you can always use some fancy piece of software that extracts just the groove out of that funky drum loop. You don't have to know how to play an instrument, you can just program stuff until it sounds funky enough for you.
It's never THAT easy though. Even when you use every cheap trick in the book, you still gotta understand how groove works and learn to recognize when your loop grooves and when does it need extra work. As I often do, I try to chop a big problem into smaller, more manageable pieces.
According to my research, there are four major factors that contribute to groove. Timing, the sound itself, the shape of the sound and interaction of the elements.
Timing. The most obvious one but also the hardest one. For the groove to be, well, groovy, there's no room for mistakes. One drum hit or a bassline note slightly in the wrong place and the groove falls apart. This doesn't mean that everything should be tightly quantized or otherwise in a robotic order, quite the contrary. Slight, controlled timing fluctuations create the groove, particularly if we're talking about playing instruments and not just programming them. I won't touch the subject of playing here, simply because I'm not that much of a player and I don't have anything of note to say about it. The easiest way to create those slight, controller timing fluctuations is by using the swing function of your sequencer. Most sequencers and drum machines have some sort of a swing parameter to work with. Not all swings are equal however. Some sequencers create beautiful swing while some have swing that sounds like a drunken robot was playing it. Swing is only one way to do it though, often you simply want to manually move notes around until a groove shows up. Though, I must admit that I'm a bit lazy at this part, I often use quite rigid quantization and choose to create the groove by moulding the sounds to my liking and sometimes messing with channel midi timing offset values.
Related to timing is the length of the notes. Might sound trivial, but is actually quite important. Da da da da doesn't sound rhythmically very interesting. Da daa daa da is a bit better. In real life situations, you might want to spend a quite a bit of time on getting the note lenghths just right. Often a simple riff can be quite boring with equal length notes, but if you play with the lengths, all kinds of interesting rhythms start to show up. I don't think there's a formula to this either, just play around with the values until you like the results.
The sound. What does the sound have to do with groove you might ask? A lot, actually. While a skilled programmer or player might be able to make everything sound really funky, in reality some instruments just sound funkier than others. A bass guitar is much funkier than something that creates long, sustained tones for starters. Even in relatively similar sounds the differences in the funk factor can be tremendous. Many people, me included, like to sample old dusty breakbeats, chop them up and re-arrange the pieces. If you're not even using the same rhythm as the original sample, only the sounds the sample contains why do this? Why not just use something that's less immoral and illegal, like one shots from drum machines or acoustic drums from a sample pack? The answer is that those old, crackly, dusty drum sounds simply contain something that is either impossible or at the very least very difficult to create with anything else. They contain the essence of funk, which you can use to your advantage. Usually, when I make or audition sounds, playing just one note or a drum hit is enough to tell me whether it has the funk or not. A good sound inspires me to make something funky as well. Using bad or unsuitable sounds might not get me the kind of results I want, simply because it doesn't inspire me at all. Some people can make complete compositions on one instrument and only later transfer that composition to the instruments that end up in the final recording. I'm definitely not like that, I need to have the right sounds or at the very least, sounds that are in the ballpark from almost the very beginning.
The shape of the sound. What does that mean then and why is it important? It's actually of utmost importance. Unless you take your sounds from some sort of a premade kit, it's unlikely that they play well together and especially groove well together. You usually pick or make sounds that kinda sound nice together, but don't fit perfectly. That's where the tools that mould the shape of the sounds come into play. In practice, if you want perfect results, you got to spend quite a bit of time with envelopes, compressors, transient designers and such until the whole ensemble plays and grooves together as one. It's of course possible to just get lucky and simply stumble upon sounds that sound groove well together, but most of the time you have to do some pretty heavy-handed production work. Especially important is working on the attack phase of the sounds. Sometimes all a sound needs is a small tweak of the attack stage of an envelope. Sometimes you it needs a series of tools, all doing relatively minor things which then add up to create a sound that works in the context of your track. It's very situation dependent and you need to really know your tools as there's simply too many variable for random knob twiddling to work.
Interaction of the elements. Unless you're using some sort of a premade construction kit, it's unlikely that a hodge podge collection of random sounds works together as a whole. You must pick, make or edit sounds so that they make musical sense together. Even though it sounds easy, it's a difficult thing to pull off without resorting to cliches. Something like 909 + 101 + Juno is a formula that works, but it's also a formula that's been used on thousands of records already. Not saying that it's impossible to write a good house track with just those instruments, but it'd be very difficult to make something that really stands out and has it's own personality. It's difficult enough with other tools already, no need to make things even harder.
How do the elements interact then? What causes it? Unfortunately, it's something that's very difficult to explain, especially by an amateur. My best advice and the one that I've given myself is simply learning to listen properly. Try different things, learn to recognize when the elements are in the pocket. Listen to other people's music in a similar vein, try to hear why they work and your music doesn't.
And that's it for now. I would've liked to write more about the subject, but most of my free time is spent on actually making music, this blog is just a documentary side project of it. Most of the advice is more or less just about using your ears. Then again, that's very important and something I occasionally forget to do too.
Oh, and I made a new track too. I tried to focus on the groove, but not so sure it turned out the way I wanted to.
Some people say you are just born with it and that it's impossible to learn. What a load of bollocks! At least according to my knowledge, Bootsy Collins wasn't born with a bass guitar. He might be extremely gifted in the sense that it was easier for him to learn to play that instrument than it would be for someone else. Still, most people with a working brain and a pair of working hands can learn to play it funky. It just takes dedication, motivation and understanding the building blocks of what groove consists of, either intuitively or via careful analysis.
In house music it's even easier. You can manage with just one hand and at a pinch, with a set of very nimble toes. In house music you can even cheat. You can sample a funky drummer (quite literally) and use that sampled loop in it's entirety or if you think that's lame or too old school, you can always use some fancy piece of software that extracts just the groove out of that funky drum loop. You don't have to know how to play an instrument, you can just program stuff until it sounds funky enough for you.
It's never THAT easy though. Even when you use every cheap trick in the book, you still gotta understand how groove works and learn to recognize when your loop grooves and when does it need extra work. As I often do, I try to chop a big problem into smaller, more manageable pieces.
According to my research, there are four major factors that contribute to groove. Timing, the sound itself, the shape of the sound and interaction of the elements.
Timing. The most obvious one but also the hardest one. For the groove to be, well, groovy, there's no room for mistakes. One drum hit or a bassline note slightly in the wrong place and the groove falls apart. This doesn't mean that everything should be tightly quantized or otherwise in a robotic order, quite the contrary. Slight, controlled timing fluctuations create the groove, particularly if we're talking about playing instruments and not just programming them. I won't touch the subject of playing here, simply because I'm not that much of a player and I don't have anything of note to say about it. The easiest way to create those slight, controller timing fluctuations is by using the swing function of your sequencer. Most sequencers and drum machines have some sort of a swing parameter to work with. Not all swings are equal however. Some sequencers create beautiful swing while some have swing that sounds like a drunken robot was playing it. Swing is only one way to do it though, often you simply want to manually move notes around until a groove shows up. Though, I must admit that I'm a bit lazy at this part, I often use quite rigid quantization and choose to create the groove by moulding the sounds to my liking and sometimes messing with channel midi timing offset values.
Related to timing is the length of the notes. Might sound trivial, but is actually quite important. Da da da da doesn't sound rhythmically very interesting. Da daa daa da is a bit better. In real life situations, you might want to spend a quite a bit of time on getting the note lenghths just right. Often a simple riff can be quite boring with equal length notes, but if you play with the lengths, all kinds of interesting rhythms start to show up. I don't think there's a formula to this either, just play around with the values until you like the results.
The sound. What does the sound have to do with groove you might ask? A lot, actually. While a skilled programmer or player might be able to make everything sound really funky, in reality some instruments just sound funkier than others. A bass guitar is much funkier than something that creates long, sustained tones for starters. Even in relatively similar sounds the differences in the funk factor can be tremendous. Many people, me included, like to sample old dusty breakbeats, chop them up and re-arrange the pieces. If you're not even using the same rhythm as the original sample, only the sounds the sample contains why do this? Why not just use something that's less immoral and illegal, like one shots from drum machines or acoustic drums from a sample pack? The answer is that those old, crackly, dusty drum sounds simply contain something that is either impossible or at the very least very difficult to create with anything else. They contain the essence of funk, which you can use to your advantage. Usually, when I make or audition sounds, playing just one note or a drum hit is enough to tell me whether it has the funk or not. A good sound inspires me to make something funky as well. Using bad or unsuitable sounds might not get me the kind of results I want, simply because it doesn't inspire me at all. Some people can make complete compositions on one instrument and only later transfer that composition to the instruments that end up in the final recording. I'm definitely not like that, I need to have the right sounds or at the very least, sounds that are in the ballpark from almost the very beginning.
The shape of the sound. What does that mean then and why is it important? It's actually of utmost importance. Unless you take your sounds from some sort of a premade kit, it's unlikely that they play well together and especially groove well together. You usually pick or make sounds that kinda sound nice together, but don't fit perfectly. That's where the tools that mould the shape of the sounds come into play. In practice, if you want perfect results, you got to spend quite a bit of time with envelopes, compressors, transient designers and such until the whole ensemble plays and grooves together as one. It's of course possible to just get lucky and simply stumble upon sounds that sound groove well together, but most of the time you have to do some pretty heavy-handed production work. Especially important is working on the attack phase of the sounds. Sometimes all a sound needs is a small tweak of the attack stage of an envelope. Sometimes you it needs a series of tools, all doing relatively minor things which then add up to create a sound that works in the context of your track. It's very situation dependent and you need to really know your tools as there's simply too many variable for random knob twiddling to work.
Interaction of the elements. Unless you're using some sort of a premade construction kit, it's unlikely that a hodge podge collection of random sounds works together as a whole. You must pick, make or edit sounds so that they make musical sense together. Even though it sounds easy, it's a difficult thing to pull off without resorting to cliches. Something like 909 + 101 + Juno is a formula that works, but it's also a formula that's been used on thousands of records already. Not saying that it's impossible to write a good house track with just those instruments, but it'd be very difficult to make something that really stands out and has it's own personality. It's difficult enough with other tools already, no need to make things even harder.
How do the elements interact then? What causes it? Unfortunately, it's something that's very difficult to explain, especially by an amateur. My best advice and the one that I've given myself is simply learning to listen properly. Try different things, learn to recognize when the elements are in the pocket. Listen to other people's music in a similar vein, try to hear why they work and your music doesn't.
And that's it for now. I would've liked to write more about the subject, but most of my free time is spent on actually making music, this blog is just a documentary side project of it. Most of the advice is more or less just about using your ears. Then again, that's very important and something I occasionally forget to do too.
Oh, and I made a new track too. I tried to focus on the groove, but not so sure it turned out the way I wanted to.
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