"Don't leave the main hook" - Claude Von Stroke

[TankEyes]

In this month's FM mag video interview, Claude Von Stroke (US techno/house producer with the massive hits "Who's afraid of Detroit" and "The Whistler") is discussing the arrangement for his tune The Whistler, and he says:

"You can't leave the main hook; don't leave the main hook - then you're going to have one of these three songs in one song song, and no one will play it"

In the context of the song, he wasn't talking about a single lead line that you should play through the whole tune, but an idea, or melodic motif that stays in the tune the whole time. In this case it was a recording of Claude whistling, and subsequent edits and re-contextualisation (I just got bonus points for typing that word )

I'm often guilty of trying to shove everything and the kitchen sink into my frenetic breaks tunes. People say they flow together pretty well, but I think at the same time they're telling me that it's hard to get into because of the complexity.

It's interesting because at face value, he's talking about keeping your tune "dumbed down" so that people can immediately get into it. But if this was true, his tunes would be painfully boring. Instead, he starts with a simple idea, and introduces progressive changes - adding more FX, different voicings, longer notes, and a whole bunch of what he calls "tricks" to make the track come alive.

So I guess my question would be, if you did or when you do write a dance tune, do you use a similar approach?

[penguinfromdeep]

One of the most difficult things actually when making dance / club music is to keep it focused and simple. At some point you just have to brutally start to delete things ... When track is played at loud volume in a club, the simplest tracks work the best. But how to make simple ideas interesting, that's the point as you say

[Igro]

Melody is the key. That's why i like some progressive house.

But then, a lot of really good techno(Speedy J) don't have melodies at all.

[penguinfromdeep]

Also other very important thing is arrangement, it shouldn't be too complex but dare I say, a bit 'formulaic' like other dance tracks. That is if you want dj to play your track

[xybre]

I've been focusing on the "complex simplicity principal" for a while now. I don't want the complexities to be obvious, most people don't give a f**k, hell sometimes I don't even give a f**k. I just want to hear some music and get out on the floor if it doesn't suck, I can analyze shit when I get home.

I used to create sprawling, morphing songs which pretty much completely changed every 16 bars or so. Not usually abruptly, but it would cut from one thing to a new drumline or lead, different instrumentation etc. It was all over the f**king place, no coherent ... anything. I got bored easily I guess. So I started cutting back on the randomness, sticking with a lead for longer. This lead to some really mind numbing tracks before I started building up again, adding complexity where it built tension and interest so that it wasn't RDM... Repetitive Dance Music

- edit ---
Actually I wanted to add: I realized this a couple of years after I started making music. I got all elitist and holier than thou about any music played on the radio, stopped listening and sneered any time a popular band was mentioned (even ones that I had liked).

I remember exactly when it happened too.

I was in the car back home visiting my family, my dad had picked me up from the train station and he had the local "alternative" station on (my dad is awesome) and Nine Inch Nails came on. It'd been 6 months or a year since I least heard old Trent.

And right as I was about to complain how simple and dumb the song was, it suddenly dawned on me how complex it was, the modulation, the changes in effects, the layering of the vocals, the way the instrumentation changed, the weird detuned shit that he made sound perfect..

And I felt like a dumbass and it changed how I looked at music forever.

[ecsmix]

In this month's FM mag video interview, Claude Von Stroke (US techno/house producer with the massive hits "Who's afraid of Detroit" and "The Whistler") is discussing the arrangement for his tune The Whistler, and he says:

"You can't leave the main hook; don't leave the main hook - then you're going to have one of these three songs in one song song, and no one will play it"

In the context of the song, he wasn't talking about a single lead line that you should play through the whole tune, but an idea, or melodic motif that stays in the tune the whole time. In this case it was a recording of Claude whistling, and subsequent edits and re-contextualisation (I just got bonus points for typing that word )

I'm often guilty of trying to shove everything and the kitchen sink into my frenetic breaks tunes. People say they flow together pretty well, but I think at the same time they're telling me that it's hard to get into because of the complexity.

It's interesting because at face value, he's talking about keeping your tune "dumbed down" so that people can immediately get into it. But if this was true, his tunes would be painfully boring. Instead, he starts with a simple idea, and introduces progressive changes - adding more FX, different voicings, longer notes, and a whole bunch of what he calls "tricks" to make the track come alive.

So I guess my question would be, if you did or when you do write a dance tune, do you use a similar approach?

I am a big of van stroke since detroit and throat tunes.
As far as music theory and his music, doesn't have a lot is pretty minimal as he mentioned on the interview, even his beats.
He said on that interview that he creates a melody and put an octave up, octave down, shifts the notes a little bit and that's it,plays around with that.
It's all about arrangement and efx, the music theory behind is not much because doesn't have a lot of instruments playing at the same time creating a bigger sound.
This is his style, but if you will create trance,progressive house, you need more instrumentats interacting with each other, playing similar melodies/harmonies above 3rds or 5ths apart.(see other posts in the forum for that.)
Depends of the style of music you are composing, his techy-minimal-housie style it's about a melodic idea and lot of percussion and sound effetcts building the track, it's about the groove that those elements create with eachother,it's all about creativity with those few elements.
What's more, Claude said he doesn't want to do stuff that people can say he was playing the keyboard all the time,the keys, he does lots of efx,automation to create his music to avoid that effect.
The fm interview was good, but didn't say much, I think the guy who does interview don't know how to do the right questions, Claude was more than happy to share/explain everything.The interview's guy should keep asking stuff about those sound effects and how he used, like that saw wave he used on who's afraid of detroit.How he came up with the final sound. More details about that.
It's a shame but was a good video nevertheless.

[TankEyes]

Good stuff!

Ecs I agree completely - but you could say that the idea transcends style, as well. For example your main hook could be a multipart harmony with very "maximal" features.

Xybre - I know exactly what you mean! It's easy to get so obsessed with technicality and experimentation that you forget what you like about music in the first place!

Anyone going to enter a remix for the competition? I'm doing one. It took me a couple of hours but I've made a big multi for kontakt with all the formants eees and ahhs etc, each with different fx and routed to FSU channels.. I've mapped them to velocity layers, and even crossfade layers. Easily the most fun I've had with a remix. These samples sound so good! I highly recommend this remix comp if you're into IDM.