track structure and "dj tools"

[Jay Pace]

I'm bored of tracks with generic structure. But the term "dj tool" seems to be a derogatory label.

For me its one of the things that marked techno out from other styles of dance music. A disregard for traditional structure, being bold and brave enough not to bother with the intro breakdown buildup breakdown buildup outro "listener friendly" formats.

For me thats what killed trance and D&B - every ****ing track doing the exact same thing.

And its also what stood techno djs apart from their jukebox colleagues representing the other styles. They did the work. They build up crowds, they knocked them down, just to build them up again. They did the work, not the tracks.

And now... a minimal movement that seems to have fallen into a clicky, fussy rut no sooner than its got started and plenty of techno thats sounding cliched already. Minimal djs with no technical ability and boxes of identical sounding records on a handful of labels. No variety in track selection, formulaic track structure.

More dj tools. Bring it on.

Paying £7 a record I can understand why people might feel the need to be user friendly for the lowerst common denominator. But with digital distribution and £1 a pop do you really need a hackneyed structure to every track? Can we not just have some good ideas please, and leave a bit of room for creativity in the peformance?

To me this is one of the key things that techno great. Experimental convention defying future music. Rob Hood - 'Minus' had two sounds. A synth and a kick drum, and no structure to it. An organic ebb and flow to the track that was mesmerising. Theo parrish "synthetic flemm" follows a similar pattern - structurally the track doesn't do anything. And it absolutely kills.

More boldness, less blandness.
Leave formula to the pop charts and 3 minute radio edits....

[DannyBlack]

i hear you. im no expert but what i doing for the experiment side of things is making tracks that build up and up with a small break nearer the end and the WHACK!! they kick back into madness.


probably doesnt make sense now that i read back on it...

[massplanck]

To me this is one of the key things that techno great. Experimental convention defying future music. Rob Hood - 'Minus' had two sounds. A synth and a kick drum, and no structure to it.

Minus most definitely has structure to it. How did you come to that conclusion?
The best music usually has some underlying mathematical beauty underneath. Minus has it. It all about tension & resolution. Its definitely ALL about structure. Its just the way that he goes about implementing it is a whole lot cleverer than dropping the kick for 8 bars and lamping it in again after a reverse loop or something.

[Numeric]

been listening to the Rilis 10 double pack from a few years ago recently, all the tracks are tools in structure, but what tools they are...

[Jay Pace]

Minus most definitely has structure to it. How did you come to that conclusion?

Its miles apart from the structure of most tracks you hear. Fair enough it has its own structure, or path, or progression or whatever you want to call it but it doesn't have defined sections or identifiable segments like most other tracks do, which follow each other in a predictable sequence.

Just my 2 cents steve, I'd like to hear more stuff which broke away from conventional structure, especially seeing as how with digital you don't need to play it quite so safe.

Its that type of sound that hooked me in and its stil the sound that lets enables techno djs to shine in ways other djs can't.

[dirty_bass]

Don`t you go asking for experimentation and originality in techn now johnny.
Last time I did that there was a flame war telling me that it`s "just" dance music, not art.

Just wanna bosh it up, get off me head, and `ave a larf mate innit!!! don`t complicate things.
All it needs to be is
`avin it!

[Jay Pace]

I love techno as dance music, but I'm sure there's room to push things by doing a little less in a track, and doing more as a dj.

Mills has always been brilliant at creating atmosphere and tension. Dave clarke is great at this as well - bangs in 40 seconds of a track to achieve an effect then he's out of there and into something new.

Went to a kompakt party a while back, and whilst a lot of it was not my cup of tea at all some of it was incredible, and it was all structural stuff that got me. Some of the music played seemed to evolve and change throughout the course of the track, finishing in a completely different place with different rhythmic patterns, different sounds - it was brilliant. I'd not heard anything like it before. Didn't last long though, and everyone else who played that night went down the chug whistle pop fart tunka tunka route.

I like the tension resolution desription, its spot on but there seem to be a lot of ways to explore that without just taking everything out of a track just to bang it all back in again...

[massplanck]

I know what you mean jay. No offense!!

I dunno... lets say you have 5 individual tracks making up your song... just loop them over different lengths.. 4 bar/7 bars/ 9 bars/18 bars/56bars whatever and let them do the work for you. Morphing in & out. Sounds simple. It actually is simple. The music just evolves. Its repeats itself but never the same way twce. You just plant the seed and watch it grow. Its what actual musicians (ie classical) do subconsciously. You give the listener a hint of what to expect ( ie predict) but you always surprise him/her with the expectedly unexpected. Now they expect something else... and you resolve it but at the same time deviate from it.... I'm not making sense.. but its a form of negative feedback. Chaos theory or something.

Its maths in motion. Thats what the most beautiful hypnotic (techno) music is.

If techno is about technology then maths is the language to express both.

[massplanck]

I think the Divide did some project on the similarities behind Classical Music & Fractal Images....

Danny?

[dirty_bass]

I know what you mean jay. No offense!!

I dunno... lets say you have 5 individual tracks making up your song... just loop them over different lengths.. 4 bar/7 bars/ 9 bars/18 bars/56bars whatever and let them do the work for you. Morphing in & out. Sounds simple. It actually is simple. The music just evolves. Its repeats itself but never the same way twce. You just plant the seed and watch it grow. Its what actual musicians (ie classical) do subconsciously. You give the listener a hint of what to expect ( ie predict) but you always surprise him/her with the expectedly unexpected. Now they expect something else... and you resolve it but at the same time deviate from it.... I'm not making sense.. but its a form of negative feedback. Chaos theory or something.

Its maths in motion. Thats what the most beautiful hypnotic (techno) music is.

If techno is about technology then maths is the language to express both.

I know exactly what your saying, although it`s horrible to put down musical beauty to maths. That`s like looking at the person you love most in the world as nothing but a predetermined collection of molecules.
Polyrythmic structures especially in melody are extremely hypnotic.
In fact to induce a hypnotic state one of the most reliable methods is with alpha level sounds played over each other so they phase in and out polyrythmically. I have a hole recording of alpha state hypnotic audio somewhere, from an oldpsychology lecture.
But again, it`s only one facet of music.
Xanakis is very interesting for looking into the visual reference patterns behind music, fractals etc.

I think there`s a time and a place for a DJ to lead, and play grooves, and a time to play music that actually does something. too much of one thing will always lead to stagnation.

[massplanck]

I know exactly what your saying, although it`s horrible to put down musical beauty to maths. .

maths is the universal language of the universe.

the fibonnachi series written in human form looks ugly for sure..



but in nature??









maths is beauty.

[Little_Fella!]

This is a really good counter argument to, "..there's too much looped up techno, so let's have more emphasis on telling a story.." etc. which we have had not so long back...

Was thinking about this and wondering where the middle ground might be, if there is such a place... 'story and tool' set up so if the DJ wishes to create and mold a journey mix to have the crowd following every move, or needs a goddam ciggy break as he/she is half-way through a four hour mix-athon then such a track would be ideal...:-)

[massplanck]

DB. Whats so ugly about this...?

The ancient Greeks figured out that the integers correspond to musical notes. Any vibrating object makes overtones or harmonics, which are a series of notes that emerge from a single vibrating object. These notes form the harmonic series: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 etc. The fundamental musical concept is probably that of the octave. A musical note is a vibration of something, and if you double the number of vibrations, you get a note an octave higher;

[massplanck]

Double the frequency of any note and you end up with the same note an octave higher.

Mathematical perfection. This was true before we invented maths. It just is. Maths is our way of explaining it. You can be ****ing sure that any other sentient being out there knows what maths is.

[Little_Fella!]

I do like the, 'Mathematics in motion', analogy by the way...

There is another discussion point already in the making...

[SlavikSvensk]

tbh i got all the "dj tools" i needed 8-10 years ago. if i buy a record now it's because the tracks works as songs.

[RDR]

There's a disctinc difference between formulae and genericism, nothing wrong with a formulae provided it works.

One of things i think makes a real difference in music is the ability to play a keyboard, once you get into that your music starts taking a different direction indeed. And that applys to ANY formulae.

[Jay Pace]

I think there`s a time and a place for a DJ to lead, and play grooves, and a time to play music that actually does something. too much of one thing will always lead to stagnation.

Kinda agree, but I'd like to see more tracks try experimenting with different things in the 'actually doing something' bit. Doesn't have to be the industry standard 6 min verse chorus malarky.

I wouldn't call spastik, or hood's minus 'dj tools' but they leave a lot more room for creativity.

In a set with too many 'songs' you risk ending up listening to a dj mixing intros & outros together. Essentially a beatmatching jukebox. Woo.

[MARK ANXIOUS]

i totally agree. less dj tools and more non-formula's.

i think the problem we have is the fact that performance has become such an issue in selling techno. records are now for dj's, not record collectors or listeners. and because techno is dj music, things have to be easy for the dj's. and the majority of dj's out there play formulated techno.

just a very recent example, i was speaking to quite a respected dj in the techno field about micheal burkat. 'oh, i don't play his stuff', he said, 'it chages on the 16, not the 32'. now i can see why this would be a problem. you're a dj on the go, haven't had time to learn the record and you're infront of 10,000 ppl and it changes slightly out of the formula that the rest of the records use. damn, you lose the flow of your set and it really does sound like you've messed up.

not the best example of innovation i know hahah but this all got me thinking. techno has got to a stage now where if you change the track on 16 instead of 32 you CANT PLAY IT?!?!?!! WTF?!?!!

let's be honest. hard techno, minimal techno, whatever techno, as long as it's for the dancefloor always ends up becoming tailor made for dj play. sure the original tracks that made us go 'wow, what is this new xxxxx techno sound' are much more unformulated than what comes after it but that's what innovation is all about - making alot of ppl go WOW to something they have never gone WOW to before. it's those tracks that make the change and the rest become bastardised formulaic copies. as long as there are DJ's and as long as there is vinyl, this willl always happen.

for me the true innovation comes from listening to cd's or albums, not 4 track EPs or dj tools. i wish more dj's would play these type of tracks out but in the end 99% of dj's won't and the 1% that does, will probably not get booked. it's the .000001% that will make real waves, but then in the end, they'll probably want an easy life so will eventually fall into the formula trap somewhere down the line.

[DannyBlack]

Music is art, regardless of genre. view it as such and you are onto a winner.