Show me some melody in modern electronic music.

[rcat]

I don't think anyone does it better than iamamiwhoami; strange, melodic and interesting.

[ghettosynth]

Yea, Yanni isn't a good fit for what I'm aiming at. Neither is John Tesh. They use synths, but they are really adult contemporary artists. I've dabbled with that but my EDM invention is very different.

Sure, I thought as much, I'm not trying to be dismissive, but I am trying to convey that perhaps there's a misalignment between your goals and expectations, or at least between your inferred audience and your actual audience.

I really need to post some tracks of what I'm talking about but the production quality still needs work before I'll think it's presentable.

That would probably help people understand where you're going.

It wasn't a question in my mind as to whether there was melodic dance pop, I made the assertion that there still was only as a counter to the proposition made early in this thread by ZPH that there was sort of this popular uprising where people just made it clear they don't want melody in dance music.

Right, so now here, you have to be really clear about what you mean by dance music and what you mean by melody. Specifically, what kind of structure do you envision supporting this melody? Most of the examples posted have been dismissed as having only "riffs", and not melody. When I think of groups in the 80s like OMD or New Order, I am hard pressed to think of an example where the melody of the track isn't supported by song like structure and chord progression.

There are plenty of examples of house music with extended blues or jazz solos, whether sampled or played, over an extended period of the track. Listen to some of the samples that I posted for some limited examples of this. I use this technique all the time in my own music and enjoy it in the right context on the dance floor. Here, the right context means that it's usually in the very early, or very late parts of the evening.

Here's an example of a track with a very simple melody, in fact, it's just arped chords, but, it was a huge hit because of the melody. Not playing the little melodic breakdown was asking to get lynched.



Here's another huge hit from back in the day that not playing the full vocal melody would severely curtail the number of groupies available after your set



Personally, I preferred remixes that only hinted at the vocal melody.

There have also been quite a few very successful, at least in terms of popularity among the subculture, of IDM artists that use quite a bit more melody and song like structure in their music. As I'm sure that you know, IDM is techno that bills itself as being equally at home on the dance floor and the listening room. It fails miserably at that, but that doesn't stop people who can't dance from believing that it's true.

Here's Plaid's Unbank from their 2011 Album Scintilli



Going deeper into the chill room, we might hear something like this, but let's be clear, nobody is dancing except for that one weird "conscious dance" guy.

I don't agree with that as a clear cut historical event, but I do take the point that a lot of people don't seem to be bothered by the lack of melody in a lot of uptempo music.

Again, it depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking about underground dance music, then it really is more than just "not bothered by", it's more like "much better without." It doesn't sound like that's your market, but if it is, you would do well to try to approach it without dismissing the audience. They know what they like and they know what works, unless you do as well, you won't reach them. Understanding Scritti Politti isn't enough. I remember when I first tried writing music for this audience. I had spent most of my time playing guitar and keyboard in bands and my early efforts reflected that. It took me a long while to give myself permission to stop trying to structure music like the songs that I knew. Although I played live several times with analog sequencers and synths supported by an MMT8, it wasn't until I bought some turntables on a whim that I started to realize why I wasn't getting the sound that I was hearing in my head.

I just started this thread as an exploratory thing, to try to see if there was something I missed within uptempo electronic instrumental music---something much closer to what I instinctively do. I'm gathering that the answer is probably no.

No man, I get that. I hope that you get that I'm trying to engage you in the topic seriously. I have no patience for the dismissal of DJs as untalented musicians, there are so many counterexamples that I'm simply not going to entertain the discussion, moreover, that type of discussion is simply counterproductive, it comes off as naive envy.

I think what you haven't identified clearly is your target audience. So those of us who participate in some of the scenes that you're less familiar with, come in here and say "that's not going to work, we hate that", but it may not be true because we may not be understanding who you're going after.

There are always people who are successfully able to break the mould and there's no reason why that can't be you, but I don't think that you'll get there without understanding your audience. I'm reminded of groups like Thin Lizzy that used interesting chord progressions and harmony based guitar solos yet still managed to reach a blue collar classic rock audience.

Yeah, so I leave you with my favorite Thin Lizzy song. Yeah, I've got the studio monitors up to 10 for this.

[cryophonik]

I've had similar discussions of this on several EDM forums over the years and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the lack of melody in modern EDM comes from not only DJs, but from all of the bedroom producers who have gotten into production with little/no prior musical training. Today's EDM producers seem to believe that production value and groove trumps melody/harmony. Not only do most of them have no melodies, most of them don't even know what a melody is - spend some time on other forums' song feedback subforums and you'll see people referring to a two-note pluck pattern that repeats ad nauseum as a "nice melody."

Granted, production is relatively easy these days with all the tools and tutorials at our disposal. If someone wants to learn the latest production technique from the hottest producers, it's only a few youtube clicks away. There is no equivalent manner for writing a solid melody, because a solid melody works within a harmonic framework, and for vocals needs to work with lyrics, etc. That takes experience, knowledge, creativity, etc. Sure, people who are good at it can share some of that, but putting it into practice is far more difficult than learning how to dial in settings on a compressor or delay. So, you end up with countless tracks out there that are finely polished turds - production-wise, they can sound as good as commercial tracks, but have nothing interesting enough in them, musically speaking, to keep it interesting for 7-8 minutes.

Don't get me wrong, though - I think it's awesome that music production has become so easy and widely accessible for anybody with a computer and a desire to do so. It's created this sort of subculture that really digs this style of music - nothing wrong with that IMO, but songs without melodies have to have something else special going on to get my attention. Personally, I come from a musical background, so I tend to focus far more on composition than I do on production. And, yeah, that probably shows in my music.

[ZenPunkHippy]

nobody is dancing except for that one weird "conscious dance" guy.

[ariston]

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.

Hell, yes, I feel the same way. I need something to entice my brain as well as my heart, stomach and legs. My favourite music to dance to is usually based on or akin to African or South American songs and rhythms - or some traditional folk music, be it Irish, Spanish or even French (the Bretagne in particular).

As to other forms of electronic music (and not just EDM), I was pleased to discover quite a few artists who still compose their tunes, as opposed to following CMs "how to make chords" tutorials to create a dumb two-bar riff that repeats over the entire song. They're among the usual suspects: Daedelus, Aphex Twin, Plaid, Apparat, Amon Tobin, Clark, Trentemoller, Mouse on Mars, Matmos, Royksopp, Robert Rich, Tycho... there's lots of cool, melodic electronic music out there.

To me, there's music for listening, and there's "utility" music that's designed for some particular purpose (such as dancing, washing up, bonking, etc.). I love it when the two meet up, but they rarely do. When they do, I catch them and grab hold.

All this technology only serves to underline the real challenge: to find a way to express yourself that not only allows you to remain true to yourself, but also to allow you to reach others. That certainly won't change, no matter how far advanced our tech is. And I do believe this: people might dance ecstatically to something that they 'll forget as soon as it's over, but they will always remember a killer melody.

[ghettosynth]

Turntables + a "real instrument", heh! Wait for it....



A bit more of the same...

[Tricky-Loops]

The artists "Moby" and "Gotye" came into my mind. I think they're making very MELODIC electronic music, don't they? And they're trained musicians with many years of experience, especially Moby.

While there is indeed much more 4-to-the-floor-one-chord-only-stuff out there, there still are trained musicians with good melodic electronic music.

[mkdr]

My take on melodic

[No_Use]

A guy that also used to post his tracks here in the music cafe years back, which I love for his melodic Psy-Breaks stuff.

http://www.myspace.com/taumuon

Unfortunately he seems to be no longer at it.

[A.M. Gold]

The artists "Moby" and "Gotye" came into my mind. I think they're making very MELODIC electronic music, don't they? And they're trained musicians with many years of experience, especially Moby.

While there is indeed much more 4-to-the-floor-one-chord-only-stuff out there, there still are trained musicians with good melodic electronic music.

I should check more of Moby's stuff. I know he went aggressively, and very successfully, into the television markets and I've had the sense that there is more scope in TV for melodic electronic instrumental music, but TV is hard to get into and it's also incredibly eclectic. To make a living at it you have to be able to produce anything from dubstep to polka and often with very short notice.

[A.M. Gold]

All this technology only serves to underline the real challenge: to find a way to express yourself that not only allows you to remain true to yourself, but also to allow you to reach others. That certainly won't change, no matter how far advanced our tech is. And I do believe this: people might dance ecstatically to something that they 'll forget as soon as it's over, but they will always remember a killer melody.

YES, 100%.

But there once was a time when much of the most successful dance music had the staying power to still be listened to today. Newt freaking Gingrich has Dancing Queen as his ringtone (and his wife has Super Trooper).

I'm convinced most house music will be forgotten in 50 years. There's not enough to distinguish it from the sea of similar counterparts, so why would any of it survive like the aforementioned Rolling Stones Satisfaction or Hey Jude have?

People don't need to hold onto a specific piece of music to preserve a sense of bone simple, pulsing rhythm, so they won't be reaching back into the past for it. If house music survives, they'll just listen to whatever is current at the time in a few decades from now.

[Tricky-Loops]

All this technology only serves to underline the real challenge: to find a way to express yourself that not only allows you to remain true to yourself, but also to allow you to reach others. That certainly won't change, no matter how far advanced our tech is. And I do believe this: people might dance ecstatically to something that they 'll forget as soon as it's over, but they will always remember a killer melody.

YES, 100%.

But there once was a time when much of the most successful dance music had the staying power to still be listened to today. Newt freaking Gingrich has Dancing Queen as his ringtone (and his wife has Super Trooper).

There was a time when there wasn't as much choice of music as today. They played some dance songs over and over in the radio and TV and discos, and that's why people got used to them and began to like them. ABBA is not bad, but I wouldn't claim that they were one of the greatest songwriters ever.

[A.M. Gold]

All this technology only serves to underline the real challenge: to find a way to express yourself that not only allows you to remain true to yourself, but also to allow you to reach others. That certainly won't change, no matter how far advanced our tech is. And I do believe this: people might dance ecstatically to something that they 'll forget as soon as it's over, but they will always remember a killer melody.

YES, 100%.

But there once was a time when much of the most successful dance music had the staying power to still be listened to today. Newt freaking Gingrich has Dancing Queen as his ringtone (and his wife has Super Trooper).

There was a time when there wasn't as much choice of music as today. They played some dance songs over and over in the radio and TV and discos, and that's why people got used to them and began to like them. ABBA is not bad, but I wouldn't claim that they were one of the greatest songwriters ever.

There was a lot of choice when ABBA was around. Record stores actually existed back then and they were filled with lots of different kinds of music. No one was force fed ABBA unless they only wanted to listen to Top 40 radio.

But that's not my point. ABBA is still popular today and a lot of people who like them are too young to have been exposed to them heavily when they were popular.

That isn't going to happen in 35 years with any straight house acts (not pop house derivatives like Daft Punk, they may still have fans). I give you a total guarantee on that.

[Tricky-Loops]

ABBA is still popular today and a lot of people who like them are too young to have been exposed to them heavily when they were popular.

Are you sure that they haven't heard ABBA many times on the radio or TV or music shows or even in shopping malls?

Playing a song over and over is the best method to make it catchy (given that the songwriting is good, too)...

If they would play the similar pop act "Ace of Base" over and over, they would even be played as an evergreen in 30 years...

[ghettosynth]

All this technology only serves to underline the real challenge: to find a way to express yourself that not only allows you to remain true to yourself, but also to allow you to reach others. That certainly won't change, no matter how far advanced our tech is. And I do believe this: people might dance ecstatically to something that they 'll forget as soon as it's over, but they will always remember a killer melody.

YES, 100%.

But there once was a time when much of the most successful dance music had the staying power to still be listened to today. Newt freaking Gingrich has Dancing Queen as his ringtone (and his wife has Super Trooper).

Is that your target audience? Because I have both of those on vinyl and neither are my ring tone and neither are very interesting to the majority of EDM aficionados today.

I think that your veering off here. If you're just interested in feeding your prejudices, you will find plenty of support from KVR readers as is evidenced by this thread and many others just like it.

This record I linked to a few pages back is well over ten years old, actually, almost fifteen years old now. I purchased it on vinyl and I still play it today. In fact, please note that the link I'm giving you allows you to buy it today.

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

It has a simple and subtle riff that carries the track and it is that simple riff that is memorable. It is still a crowd pleaser and, unlike virtually anything by ABBA, it won't clear the floor.

Of course, if Newt is your target, maybe you should reconsider they styles of Yani and John Tesh?