Show me some melody in modern electronic music.

[A.M. Gold]

Since we are on the subject of Japanese uptempo pop, here's some I quite like (remember I did say POP).

I personally don't find this as cheesy as a lot of the other J-Pop stuff, and to me it seems danceable.

P.S. Just ignore the underage girls and stare at the two in red shirts---they are college aged here.

[HanafiH]

Keep Calm And Listen To Gong

[A.M. Gold]

One other thing I did want to say on the subject of house and/or EDM is that I'm well aware that it has influenced both pop and hip hop in many ways. I acted earlier like I was 100% dedicated to run screaming from it at every opportunity but that was just me overstating things.

I've actually started collecting tutorials on YT showing various aspects of house production and I plan to study them. I won't do straight house, but there are features of it that it's a good idea for me to understand so I can figure out how to incorporate them into what I work on commercially.

[Gamma-UT]

Since we are on the subject of Japanese uptempo pop, here's some I quite like (remember I did say POP).

I personally don't find this as cheesy as a lot of the other J-Pop stuff, and to me it seems danceable.

P.S. Just ignore the underage girls and stare at the two in red shirts---they are college aged here.

I had to look away anyway, the lyric subtitles were doing my head in. But that wouldn't sound out of place on MTV after a spot of, er, translation. Then again, they looked as though they could have come out of a slightly cleaned-up Ke$hanator.

[A.M. Gold]

Yea, the translations are piss poor (at least I hope they are).

Then again that song was written by Japanese music producer/mogul Tsunku, and every song I've seen translated from him is similar. If the translations are any accurate indication, he has an odd way with words, particularly for a pop writer. Maybe that works over there more than it does here.

[A.M. Gold]

BTW, the older one in the hat--- (Ai Takahashi).

[GeckoYamori]

Yea, that Squarepusher track was alright. Sort of reminds me of Air.

As far as DJ's not playing instruments (this is a side note but somewhat relevant), I was a little shocked when one of my favorite hip hop producers, DJ Toomp, had a video I saw on YT in which he did a little seminar for a crowd of people gathered around him somewhere. He made up a live beat from scratch, and he just had a laptop and a little two octave USB keyboard hooked up to it.

The upshot: he couldn't even play in key. He kept hitting wrong notes, and I know they weren't intentional because he was acting a little embarrassed. And this is a guy who has done a fair amount of hip hop production which I believe to be all original (i.e not sampled loops) which I found fairly impressive. He obviously worked it out in the DAW, but I still found it kind of weird that he had never even established the most basic competence on keys.

I also have this story of someone overhearing Avicii working on a song in a studio. They had some issues with dissonance and neither he nor his entire production team could figure out what was causing it. The person in question offered to help, figured out in a few of seconds that they were mixing major and minor chords and fixed it for them. I think anecdotes like these really drive home the point on how DJs and home producers have changed the norms of dance music.

[A.M. Gold]

Yea, that Squarepusher track was alright. Sort of reminds me of Air.

As far as DJ's not playing instruments (this is a side note but somewhat relevant), I was a little shocked when one of my favorite hip hop producers, DJ Toomp, had a video I saw on YT in which he did a little seminar for a crowd of people gathered around him somewhere. He made up a live beat from scratch, and he just had a laptop and a little two octave USB keyboard hooked up to it.

The upshot: he couldn't even play in key. He kept hitting wrong notes, and I know they weren't intentional because he was acting a little embarrassed. And this is a guy who has done a fair amount of hip hop production which I believe to be all original (i.e not sampled loops) which I found fairly impressive. He obviously worked it out in the DAW, but I still found it kind of weird that he had never even established the most basic competence on keys.

I also have this story of someone overhearing Avicii working on a song in a studio. They had some issues with dissonance and neither he nor his entire production team could figure out what was causing it. The person in question offered to help, figured out in a few of seconds that they were mixing major and minor chords and fixed it for them. I think anecdotes like these really drive home the point on how DJs and home producers have changed the norms of dance music.

Yea, it's very true in hip hop too. People just fiddle with the piano roll a lot and it covers a multitude of sins, so to speak.

Hey, nothing wrong with playing by ear, it's mostly what I do, but there are very good reasons for getting real skill on at least one instrument too, and for working ITB, keyboard is the best bet I think.

[Tricky-Loops]

People just fiddle with the piano roll a lot and it covers a multitude of sins, so to speak.

Hey, nothing wrong with playing by ear, it's mostly what I do, but there are very good reasons for getting real skill on at least one instrument too, and for working ITB, keyboard is the best bet I think.

Hip Hop was always sample-based. They sampled old records and made Hip Hop songs out of them. So it isn't surprising that most of them don't compose great piano music with tons of melodies and modulation, but rather simple instrumental and drum loops.

BUT -- now we're at the beginning: It is a prejudice that there aren't any good composers amongst hip hop producers. Many hip hop producers do play instruments (not only Kontakt), and some play even a few of it.

And back to the topic: There still is much melodic content in dance songs. Most of them may be 4-to-the-floor-4-loops-only-compositions. But there even are some great dance songs with complexer melodic lines. I've mentioned Gotye, Moby, William Orbit, and Midnight Juggernauts are coming into my mind -- Midnight Juggernauts are making a great mixture of dance and rock music with stunning atmospheres/textures.

At last, to the ABBA-Queen-battle: Tricky Loops does like ABBA, but I don't think that they're THE GREATEST songwriters ever. The Bee Gees and the Beach Boys I like more in terms of songwriting, but I believe that the composers of most Queen songs are amongst the greatest songwriters ever. It is great how they play with dynamics in Queen songs, they are like classical orchestral tracks.

[musikmachine]

The chemical brothers from about 05 onwards went in a more melodic direction but i don't know if you consider them modern or edm, their albums are quite diverse though...

Jazzanova are also worth a mention, check out the Remixed albums but again going back to late 90s/early noughties...

I can post tracks but i don't wanna spam up your thread.

[VariKusBrainZ]

IMO one indicator of a decent tune with melody is if it can be translated to different genres ie cover versions.

Also IMO, you do need some experience at playing an actual instrument, or failing that, in the rarer cases, a natural ability (talent) to be able to write melodies.

Most people arent very aesthetically critical when it comes to music, just look at the charts which is mostly lowest common denominator. On this same opinion most music is created by talentless people but thats the same in all the arts. Your previous experience of music will also have a huge effect on what you produce. If your tastes are limited so is your output, generally speaking.

If you listen to and enjoy one dimensional simple music, as a young 'artist' wanting to ape what you listen to will result in more of the same.

As mentioned earlier, its also a current trend to write simple music based on beats, textures and timbres rather than the combination of notes and pitches used.

Trends come and go, Ive been waiting for the tuneful funk revival but instead we have folk!! Everything comes around in circles. I was extremely untrendy twenty years ago but the clothes I wore are the fashion these days.

Melody will come back, people have turned back to playing instruments. I see far more kids carrying guitars around these days than say 10 years ago. This will have a backlash on the music in the future as there will once again be actual musicians making music rather than inexperienced users of music technology.

[Spiritos]

Interesting topic.

A lot of different angles already haven been adressed but here's my take:

I think of sound & rhythm as the most primal sense we develop. Hearing the heartbeat of our mother when still in the womb. Early and primitive cultures have a strong tradition in sole percussion / rhythmbased music. Repetitive motion wether in sound, sight or movement has strong connotations with trance-like states (think of mantras, walking meditation or classic hypnosis of following the dangling medallion

EDM is very much based upon this underlying principal. Although I think the origin for this lies not in a conscious decision but rather in available equipment (turntables) and basically a lack of musical craftmanship.

As stated earlier in this thread a lot of todays producers don't have a clue about chord-progressions, keysignatures let alone for eg. contrapoint or syncopation and are unable to play a traditional instrument.

I can however sympathise with that. It's amazing to open up some software, loop a beat and play a one-finger melody on a fat synth and just marvel at the rich sounds you produce. How different from having to learn playing that tune on for eg. a guitarstring and spread your fingers, adjust the tension, angle, picking your thumb etc. It's instant gratification!

I think this is the basis to the fact EDM in general hasn't developed lyrically or melodywise. The very lack of actual playing skills in it's own created a whole new dimension of creative development that focused on SOUND and RHYTHM and was pretty much accessible to anyone in it's wake.

Note that I'm not bashing here! One can obviously be tremendously creative within the confinements of one's (lack of) abilities and I can thoroughly enjoy EDM as much as I appreciate classical, rock and world-music.

To me this seems an explanation for the current state of most popular music and the lack of melody and complex harmony.

Personally I would like to see EDM move more towards a jazz-approach (repetitive modulation -which can be traced back to Bach!) but the world of music is so broad that I think there's enough room for everything and everyone.

And i DO like the dimension that software and MIDI-devices has opened up in terms of live playing in new ways that were unimaginable years ago:

[Gamma-UT]

Personally I would like to see EDM move more towards a jazz-approach (repetitive modulation -which can be traced back to Bach!) but the world of music is so broad that I think there's enough room for everything and everyone.

Try these guys: https://soundcloud.com/brandtbrauerfrick

Then again, Manuel Göttsching was going down that road some years back with E2-E4, so it's kinda always been there.

[ZenPunkHippy]

As stated earlier in this thread a lot of todays producers don't have a clue about chord-progressions, keysignatures let alone for eg. contrapoint or syncopation and are unable to play a traditional instrument.

And also mentioned near the start of the thread, a lot of the actually successful artists who stand the test of time (well, 10 - 20 years since the modern dance music thing started happening) do have a lot of musical experience.

Sascha
Chemical Brothers
Eat Static
Hallucinogen
GMS
Ace Ventura

I think part of the problem here is judging this genre based on "bedroom producers" posting tracks to KVR and other forums. This is not really the best way to judge the music. It would be like judging "the blues" based on the Saturday afternoon practice sessions I hear coming out of the local music school Err ... not much "good" to say about that, but at least they're giving it a shot.

Most "producers" (of the bedroom variety who progress a bit further and start playing out at parties) will tell you that learning some music theory is pretty vital to producing a decent track. Without that it sounds exactly as you've described or worse. And I know this from my own attempts at producing music for 12 years - but all of this is learned with time.

For the sake of illustrating the basic issue here is a track that I happen to love. The thing is, this track is considered to be pure cheese by most people who like psychedelic or progressive trance so it's probably good example of how much melody people who like this genre can take in one sitting



Peace,
Andy.

[A.M. Gold]

House and EDM have also been around quite a while and the market is literally flooded with DJ's, so it's not fair to paint them with a really broad brush. My criticisms have been generalized because there is a big culture of this kind of instrumental electronic music and I think it's true a fair number of producers have crude technical skills.

I don't have any problem with that per se (like I said, DJ Toomp, who comes up with some great orchestral hip hop, can't seem to play a basic riff in key from scratch). My problem is more with a big chunk of the end product I've heard, and we've cycled through a lot of the arguments as to why that product has evolved the way it has. Suffice it to say, probably for a list of different reasons, techno, then house, then EDM & trance, all seemed to move away from traditional song-like melody.

I'm not sure if synth & drum based uptempo music will go in a more generally melodic direction or not, but there's a chance. I personally feel I've proved (at least to myself) that it can work very well and still make the body want to move along with the rhythm, as opposed to obscuring it.