Show me some melody in modern electronic music.

[ghettosynth]

Hey, I can certainly relate to the sonic power of simple bass and drums parts, but as a composer (I'm 44 BTW) I personally need more than that to engage me for very long. I guess in a club with a couple drinks in me it might be a different story.

This completely gives away that you really don't have much experience with the underground dance music scene. Drinking has nothing to do with it, nor does age or music sophistication. I never drink when I dance because drinking makes you sloppy and robs you of the joy of precision. What you have to accept, however, is twofold. First, many people do not need what you need to engage in dancing for hours on end, and second, that, in fact, those people see the type of music you prefer as having "less", not more. Don't get me wrong, I love old school disco, but house is an evolution of disco, it's what disco became because technology gives us the tools to make it better dance floor material.

But I'm of the firm opinion that people danced to very melodic music in the past so, unless our collective DNA very abruptly morphed into something different than it was 30+ years ago, there is no barrier in the human brain to responding to upbeat melodic music with the desire to dance.

An alternative hypothesis is that the advent of technology has allowed people to realize music that is intensely dance-able with much more subtle and dance-friendly variation. In other words, music is MORE danceable because it has less melody, tighter timing, and more repetition.

I remember recognizing this effect early on enjoying the minimal extended grooves from disco records more than I liked the main riff. The best part of Le Freak, for example, is the long groove section in the middle of the record.
Sampling allowed musicians to take these sections and play them over and over again. If all DJs ever did was sample then if melody worked as well on the dance floor we would have more of it. Non-musician DJs can sample 16 or 32 bars as easily as 4 or 8. It has nothing to do with Ableton and everything to do with DJs playing what works on the dance floor. If more melody worked, then we would hear more melody. What repeated hooks have that melody doesn't is that they're hypnotic. Melody is a distraction and only works when it's subtle.

http://www.beatport.com/track/disco-ban ... mix/139171

House artists have long recognized the funkiness in disco and sample it regularly. If disco itself had the essential elements of good EDM, it could be successful today. I have seen several bands try to do "live house" with real drummers and it always comes off sounding like disco. In other words, you might think that the characteristic difference is melody, but I don't think that it is, I believe it is simply the tighter timing of sequenced music in the large combined with the loose timing of samples in the small.

http://www.beatport.com/track/gotta-mov ... ix/1287569
http://www.beatport.com/track/freak-voc ... ix/1346977
http://www.beatport.com/track/ring-it-o ... ix/2747021

With tighter timing, people really connect to the rhythm and excessive melody just becomes a distraction. To me, the connection is instant. I can't listen to the above tracks without starting to move in my seat. I like the original versions, and I appreciate their musicality, Nile Rogers is the shit, but I prefer the remixes when I want to dance.

At a personal level, I find strong combinations of rhythm and melody actually make me want to move my body even more than just strong rhythm and sonic power.

Sure, this is a common perception of people outside of the underground dance scene. If they stay with it, their opinion tends to change.

This isn't "typical" dance music, but I think it falls in the category of Latin dance, and it was the most successful single of the entire decade of the 2000's:

Fortunately, no DJ at any event that I'm talking about was ever daft enough to try to spin "successful" and obvious dance music like that at an event where people were expecting "successful" EDM. It would clear the floor. I only dance to that sort of thing in situations where it's a social necessity and then I'm really just pretending to dance. Like when you're little niece knows that your a DJ and asks you to dance to her favorite "shakira" song at some necessary family wedding event. It's dance music for people who can't dance. It's as obvious as a paint by number. To me, it's so busy vocally and rhythmically that there's simply no space left to enjoy. Think of it like this, I much prefer Buddy Guy to Stevie Ray Vaughn, Stevie Ray was always intense, but Buddy Guy leaves some space for you to enjoy the contrast of his intensity against an alternative.

Here are some good chill house records with some melodic bits. Notice how they combine looping with soulful bits. These producers understand that the hypnotic effect is important. They allow you to drift off into the soul, but then they bring you back in with the repetition.

http://www.beatport.com/release/i-pity- ... -ep/982557

Wait past the break for the nice repeated riff on this one, give it a chance, it will stop repeating...tastefully.

http://www.beatport.com/track/get-toget ... ix/4294810

But, I'll leave you with the type of records that I think convey the essence of house music. THIS is what I want at 1AM sweating bullets. This is what house music is about and this needles into my brain and takes me places that no other type of music can. In that moment, there is only one thing wrong with records like this, they aren't long enough. Fortunately, there's a cure, the DJ mixes almost imperceptibly from this record into another one almost exactly like it.

http://www.beatport.com/track/house-is- ... ix/1740026

Jerome Baker is the real deal. This is insane, and yes, I LOVE how it's repetitive. That makes the track, even very successful musicians won't be able to improve upon this unless they embrace what it's about.

http://www.beatport.com/track/i-35-original-mix/1740027

This is music that is dance-able like you probably haven't experienced. It takes time to get to the place where you prefer this and you have to get past certain barriers. Be honest, do you dance alone, or with a partner? Can you just walk into a club and start dancing, straight sober? That's what me and my friends do, we think nothing of it. Except for fun exchanges of space and negative space with equally "experienced" dancers, I don't really like dancing with others in this setting. It's a personal experience and I get cranky when I don't get it every so often.

Underground EDM has evolved from earlier dance styles. It has the advantage of embracing technology allowing DJs to use only what works, only what keeps people dancing. Consequently, it is explicitly empirically validated as dance music for people who seek out dancing for its own sake, and not as a mating ritual. Pop borrows from the underground and presents caricatures of it as if their "extremifying" is an improvement. It's as wrong as your suggestions. It should not be compared to undergound EDM any more than Kenny G should be compared to Coltrane.

[Gamma-UT]

An alternative hypothesis is that the advent of technology has allowed people to realize music that is intensely dance-able with much more subtle and dance-friendly variation. In other words, music is MORE danceable because it has less melody, tighter timing, and more repetition.

The fashion in dancing is currently for the simple too. That's the primary change. In the 40s/50s/60s, people were used to much more complex dances and had to learn how to do it. I don't think they've attempted to do the American Smooth to Strings of Life on Strictly Come Dancing. Dancing, outside Latin and Ballroom clubs, is as stripped-down as the music.

[A.M. Gold]

ghettosynth, that's an interesting (and lengthy) rundown, and is of interest to me (I only skimmed it but I'll read more of it later).

You are right, but nothing need be "revealed" about me, since the underground dance music scene is of little interest to me and I'm not claiming otherwise. I'm fundamentally a pop musician, I just happen to do all instrumental music at this point and one approach I use, among others, is to have some fairly strong synth elements and dance style beats in my music. If that has to be adapted into a full song format for pop type applications, so be it.

I'm just trying to gather info on what's possible in purely instrumental electronic music that has a danceable quality, as opposed to more atmospheric electronic music.

I'll most likely never be swayed toward the simplistic versions of dance music, and will not attempt to write for that market, partly because it's already completely saturated so it wouldn't make any sense to target it, and partly because my skills are a much better fit for something closer to the pop/dance styles I posted, including the Wyclef/Shakira song.

Shakira's management was, in fact, looking for instrumental submissions from freelance people like myself recently, and the request was for more electronic oriented material.

[A.M. Gold]

An alternative hypothesis is that the advent of technology has allowed people to realize music that is intensely dance-able with much more subtle and dance-friendly variation. In other words, music is MORE danceable because it has less melody, tighter timing, and more repetition.

The fashion in dancing is currently for the simple too. That's the primary change. In the 40s/50s/60s, people were used to much more complex dances and had to learn how to do it. I don't think they've attempted to do the American Smooth to Strings of Life on Strictly Come Dancing. Dancing, outside Latin and Ballroom clubs, is as stripped-down as the music.

True, but I would argue that, in spite of the awe inspiring moves of John Travolta, most people just went to discos in the 70's and danced spontaneously. There were pre-made dances like "the Hustle" but I'm not convinced anyone felt any obligation to learn them in order to go to clubs and enjoy dancing during that era.

Dance music was also melodic in the first half of the '80's, and no one learned any pre-made dance steps. At my high school dances we danced to New Order, The Cure, etc., etc., and it was all just "move your body however it wants to go".

If more complex music resulted in more complex improvised moves, that's possible, but it wasn't any big, special skill to get on the dance floor and do that, unless you were very self conscious about what people thought of you.

[Gamma-UT]

Dance music was also melodic in the first half of the '80's, and no one learned any pre-made dance steps. At my high school dances we danced to New Order, The Cure, etc., etc., and it was all just "move your body however it wants to go".

Maybe it just took a while for music to catch up.

[ghettosynth]

An alternative hypothesis is that the advent of technology has allowed people to realize music that is intensely dance-able with much more subtle and dance-friendly variation. In other words, music is MORE danceable because it has less melody, tighter timing, and more repetition.

The fashion in dancing is currently for the simple too. That's the primary change. In the 40s/50s/60s, people were used to much more complex dances and had to learn how to do it. I don't think they've attempted to do the American Smooth to Strings of Life on Strictly Come Dancing. Dancing, outside Latin and Ballroom clubs, is as stripped-down as the music.

Yes, absolutely. But not really in the disco era, although, there was more focus on couples dancing. That said, however, the simplicity allows a freedom to really enjoy the movement for its own sake. I think that is the reward of it all. I think that the late Terrance McKenna had interesting things to say about dancing as archaic revival. I find a lot of similarity in the experience and feelings induced by intense (good) native drumming and techno. If you don't have to learn any particular move, then any move will do, except, now that you have nothing to learn, you are free to contemplate that moving some ways feels better than others. Certainly the club crowd has figured this out, and their choices reflect their motivations for dancing in the first place.

On a sidenote, I thought that the posting of In The Mood earlier was interesting. After all, it is the techno of it's time, no? I had some older friends (octogenarians) who poopoo'd that record as being simple tat for kids. I love how the dances in the video are all enjoying the breakdown waiting for the big drop. Swing/Lindy is something of a hybrid style as well, learn the basics, and then improvise over that. It's all taught now of course, much like you can take a class on "hip hop dancing" and learn all the "right" moves.

On that note, blasphemey?

[A.M. Gold]

Dance music was also melodic in the first half of the '80's, and no one learned any pre-made dance steps. At my high school dances we danced to New Order, The Cure, etc., etc., and it was all just "move your body however it wants to go".

Maybe it just took a while for music to catch up.

You lost me. Catch up to what?

As I stated, there was no incongruity between a melodic song like "Bizarre Love Triangle" (which was very easy to dance to), and the made up dances of the people I danced with and myself.

I never got the sense that people were thinking "Gosh, if this music just didn't have that pesky melody, I would have a much easier time making up a dance move to go with it." Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves fine as things were.

I even went to a Thompson Twins/Orchestral Maneuvers concert with a guy who ended up being the valedictorian of my HS, and is now some kind of cutting edge theoretical physics PhD at the very prestigious Ivy League Amherst College (hint, hint: he definitely was no great dancer) and he had a great time just wiggling his body around as we stood and watched the show.

My point is there is a good long history of people not struggling to dance to pop based, melodic dance music. It wasn't a big barrier in the past, and I don't think it needs to be one now. I think the real barrier is among DJ's who don't have much skill writing melodic music.

[ghettosynth]

I'm just trying to gather info on what's possible in purely instrumental electronic music that has a danceable quality, as opposed to more atmospheric electronic music.

I suppose that it's trite to say that anything is possible, but, if you're targeting the underground scene, melody does not have the exalted status that it has elsewhere.

I'll most likely never be swayed toward the simplistic versions of dance music, and will not attempt to write for that market, partly because it's already completely saturated so it wouldn't make any sense to target it, and partly because my skills are a much better fit for something closer to the pop/dance styles I posted, including the Wyclef/Shakira song.

Shakira's management was, in fact, looking for instrumental submissions from freelance people like myself recently, and the request was for more electronic oriented material.

I see. In some sense, as has been discussed here already, what you're looking for is hot trends in the undergound scene that you can exaggerate for a pop audience. You should definitely check out the swing house video that I just posted.

[A.M. Gold]

On a sidenote, I thought that the posting of In The Mood earlier was interesting. After all, it is the techno of it's time, no? I had some older friends (octogenarians) who poopoo'd that record as being simple tat for kids. I love how the dances in the video are all enjoying the breakdown waiting for the big drop. Swing/Lindy is something of a hybrid style as well, learn the basics, and then improvise over that. It's all taught now of course, much like you can take a class on "hip hop dancing" and learn all the "right" moves.

I don't see a parallel to techno, since techno is almost by definition intensely repetitive, and In The Mood has a very clear, lyrical melody, much more like a song.

Anyone who said it was silly music for kids, or whatever, was probably just not into any kind of pop sound. That was back at a time when a fair number of people were alive who were born in the 1800's and were probably more interested in Brahms or maybe something populist but more symphonic, like Gershwin.

A much better parallel in today's music to Glenn Miller would be something like Maroon 5 or Train.

[Gamma-UT]

Maybe it just took a while for music to catch up.

You lost me. Catch up to what?

...To the idea that melody isn't a requirement for simple dancing.

There was a dramatic shift at the end of the 80s. People realised it was possible to go out for a whole night with nothing more than a couple of pills and a large bottle of water. The pills removed the barrier of 'attention span'. When they woke the next morning and got over the fact that their limbs felt like twigs, they discovered they liked the music too because they'd become enculturated to it.

My point is there is a good long history of people not struggling to dance to pop based, melodic dance music. It wasn't a big barrier in the past, and I don't think it needs to be one now. I think the real barrier is among DJ's who don't have much skill writing melodic music.

It's not a struggle to dance to it. But when people are dancing to stuff irrespective of its melodic content, and good melody writing is hard for just about anybody, why invest time in it? The difference between the rhythm of a so-so house track and one that shakes the dead out of their graves is incredibly subtle when you try to analyse it. It almost defies analysis, which is not something you can say so much about melody.

[A.M. Gold]

I'm just trying to gather info on what's possible in purely instrumental electronic music that has a danceable quality, as opposed to more atmospheric electronic music.

I suppose that it's trite to say that anything is possible, but, if you're targeting the underground scene, melody does not have the exalted status that it has elsewhere.

I'll most likely never be swayed toward the simplistic versions of dance music, and will not attempt to write for that market, partly because it's already completely saturated so it wouldn't make any sense to target it, and partly because my skills are a much better fit for something closer to the pop/dance styles I posted, including the Wyclef/Shakira song.

Shakira's management was, in fact, looking for instrumental submissions from freelance people like myself recently, and the request was for more electronic oriented material.

I see. In some sense, as has been discussed here already, what you're looking for is hot trends in the undergound scene that you can exaggerate for a pop audience. You should definitely check out the swing house video that I just posted.

Yea, well I think I'm reinforcing what I realized shortly after starting this thread: I'm a dance/pop songwriter in search of vocalist collaborators (or people like Shakira and the UK's new sensation Rita Ora who are willing to review dance style pop instrumental material for song adaptation).

It's important for me to pin this down, though, so I target the right market and don't get stuck in a dead end.

[A.M. Gold]

Maybe it just took a while for music to catch up.

You lost me. Catch up to what?

...To the idea that melody isn't a requirement for simple dancing.

There was a dramatic shift at the end of the 80s. People realised it was possible to go out for a whole night with nothing more than a couple of pills and a large bottle of water. The pills removed the barrier of 'attention span'. When they woke the next morning and got over the fact that their limbs felt like twigs, they discovered they liked the music too because they'd become enculturated to it.

My point is there is a good long history of people not struggling to dance to pop based, melodic dance music. It wasn't a big barrier in the past, and I don't think it needs to be one now. I think the real barrier is among DJ's who don't have much skill writing melodic music.

It's not a struggle to dance to it. But when people are dancing to stuff irrespective of its melodic content, and good melody writing is hard for just about anybody, why invest time in it? The difference between the rhythm of a so-so house track and one that shakes the dead out of their graves is incredibly subtle when you try to analyse it. It almost defies analysis, which is not something you can say so much about melody.

Yea, come to think of it, I really noticed back around '89-'91 or somewhere in there, just in mainstream radio music, the whole rhythm section became much, much more simplified than a lot of what you might have encountered before.

"BOOM CHUCK BOOM CHUCK" (i.e. kick, gated snare, kick gated snare with no variation from beginning to end) was just all over every Top 40 record.

That was one of the fundamental things that led me to stop listening to current music for something like 20 years.

[murnau]

for me there exist dumb and brilliant dance music (like in any other genre too)

therefor i cant tell whats a typical melody because the one i like are a bit more "complex" then the usual chart stuff. as an example: 009 Sound System - Born To Be Wasted (Alexander Perls if someone is interested)

[ghettosynth]

Dance music was also melodic in the first half of the '80's, and no one learned any pre-made dance steps. At my high school dances we danced to New Order, The Cure, etc., etc., and it was all just "move your body however it wants to go".

Maybe it just took a while for music to catch up.

You lost me. Catch up to what?

As I stated, there was no incongruity between a melodic song like "Bizarre Love Triangle" (which was very easy to dance to), and the made up dances of the people I danced with and myself.

Yep, easy to dance to because of the drum machine!

I never got the sense that people were thinking "Gosh, if this music just didn't have that pesky melody, I would have a much easier time making up a dance move to go with it." Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves fine as things were.

Because you weren't in the right place, that's exactly when things started to change. I remember not enjoying how the music changed so abruptly ending my groove. I danced a lot to New Order back in the day. OMD as well, Tesla Girls still cranks my chain. In fact, I go out of my way these days to find cheesy 80s progressive house remixes that I play for own enjoyment.

Drum machines drove the evolution. Their timing made those songs better to dance to than their sloppier human drummer based contemporaries.

My point is there is a good long history of people not struggling to dance to pop based, melodic dance music. It wasn't a big barrier in the past, and I don't think it needs to be one now. I think the real barrier is among DJ's who don't have much skill writing melodic music.

No dude, you miss the point. People dance to what's available. So of course people danced to Bizarre Love Triangle despite the melody, which is great, New Order can do no wrong in my book. Interesting that you bring that record up along with OMD because they certainly were part of the trend to move towards sequenced music which has key characteristics of "more" danceable music.

But, that's not the important bit. Here it is, let's say that I give you for the sake of argument that DJs have no music skill, I don't buy that, but let's say that I give you that. Then let's say that melody makes dance music better. If this were true then DJs would be SAMPLING melodies whole cloth and people like you would be selling fresh melodic lines sample libraries hand over fist. They would play these samples of entire melodies and crowds would go crazy and music would be different today. But, that didn't happen. It doesn't even happen when the classic melody is available in it's entirety and the track is all about sampling it. Listen to that swing house mix. Hooks are sampled, and for some parts you hear more of the melody, heck, the style is much more melodic than most, but, the tracks are still mostly repetitive. If more melody made these tracks better, then the DJs sampling the original tracks would sample more of it and include more of across the entire track.

What makes it dance music is that there is melodic restraint and the hypnotic elements are a key part of the sound.

[ghettosynth]

On a sidenote, I thought that the posting of In The Mood earlier was interesting. After all, it is the techno of it's time, no? I had some older friends (octogenarians) who poopoo'd that record as being simple tat for kids. I love how the dances in the video are all enjoying the breakdown waiting for the big drop. Swing/Lindy is something of a hybrid style as well, learn the basics, and then improvise over that. It's all taught now of course, much like you can take a class on "hip hop dancing" and learn all the "right" moves.

I don't see a parallel to techno, since techno is almost by definition intensely repetitive, and In The Mood has a very clear, lyrical melody, much more like a song.

Anyone who said it was silly music for kids, or whatever, was probably just not into any kind of pop sound.

No, these guys played in big bands. They knew what they were talking about. They expressed the same criticisms that you're expressing regarding the dance music you like versus the dance music you don't. "It's just Da Dah... over and over, sheesh, the kids ate that simple shit up though."

A much better parallel in today's music to Glenn Miller would be something like Maroon 5 or Train.

In your opinion, again, these guys were there, this is what they told me.