Phrasing in electronic music and the curse of predictability

[Sendy]

I'm thinking specifically about music arranged into sets of multiples of 16 (or 8 sometimes). Two or four sets of those, usually... Now, a lot of music probably needs to have this kind of phrasing, because a DJ will need to mix it without having to think, and there's an argument for dance music being predictable to make it easy to dance to, but in a lot of cases, it's just taken for granted that everything'll be done in powers of 2 in electronic music. This is a pattern ubiquitous in all music, but it seems to be much stronger in electronic.

Breaking this mould has always lead me to fresh inspirations, either by basing a song on an unusual number of bars phrasing (such as 3 sets of 3 bars), or by following the normal trend but breaking it selectively for effect.

A good example that springs to my mind is Squarepusher's Ultravisitor. Some major changes happen right when you're expecting a repeat of the last phrase, and it really adds to the feeling of rushing forwards that the song has.

The problem with incessant sets of 4 and/or powers of 2 is that it can get pretty mind numbing to me. Arbitrarily breaking the rule all over the place sounds really messy and amateurish, and in some circles, it seems to be almost an immutable law of the music they make, but music should play with your expectations. At the end of the day, that's the basis of all music!

[Mimesis]

Just like you said, I think it's okay on several occasions, after the 2 arrangement has been done several times. However if you break the rule from the beginning, it sounds off and no longer an Electronic Music vibe at least the dancey tunes.

Also, for music producers, the consistent use of these phrasings might be mindnumbing for us because we listen to it over and over. We even have to always make that arrangement in almost every song so we know basically in and out how to phrase the whole song usually. However, for the average listener constituting the majority of people, they don't listen to it over and over and make the music like we have to, obviously. It sounds fresh and they can dance to it. It's not to say they are poor listeners, they just don't have to deal with arranging a song.

Most likely you'll get more eccentric or musically oriented people if you do that expectation breaking phrasing and lose more of the normal listeners. If you are okay with that, go ahead and do it, more power to you!

[wrench45us]

There's some number that floats around that says something like 80% of any musical phrase should be predictable by the listener. I suspect that number is even higher for dance music.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Yes, predictablility is part of the pleaureable experience believe it or not!
This is recognised by acedemia.
Thats why pop music is popular because its very predictable.
I can usually sing or hum along to a chart tune Ive never heard and guess what lyric or notes will follow.

However, if its really predictable then it means youre using phrases that are "cultural" so to speak ie those chord progressions and phrases that keep getting recycled over the decades.

[Gonga]

Odd metered, highly syncopated, polyrhythmic, or swinging music is highly danceable. It's just that the "masses" have grown accustomed to being corn-fed, and musicians have grown accustomed to being able to produce something that people will like without having to be special or even good.

Music which is more emotionally and intellectually stimulating can also be more movement-stimulating. It is anti-creative (even destructive) to self-limit to certain narrow restrictions of stylization. Music should be an expression of life. I don't know about you, but my life is not unidimensional, nor do I wish it to be.

[qa2pir]

playing around with form, like dropping the last bar from an 8bar pattern just sounds pretentious to me most of times. there's so much more interesting and less blatant parameters to vary. music is always, implicitly or explicitly, a compromise between innovation and familiarity. trying to innovate by using odd numbers of bars just shows you have no real ideas. it's construed.

not always but in an overwhelming amount of cases.

[KBSoundSmith]

playing around with form, like dropping the last bar from an 8bar pattern just sounds pretentious to me most of times. there's so much more interesting and less blatant parameters to vary. music is always, implicitly or explicitly, a compromise between innovation and familiarity. trying to innovate by using odd numbers of bars just shows you have no real ideas. it's construed.

not always but in an overwhelming amount of cases.

That just isn't true. There are boundless examples of asymmetric phrases going back as far as and including the music of Mozart, Brahms, etc, where the musical idea sounds complete and rounded, but would artistically fail if they had decided to extend the phrase simply to have it conform to some academically idealistic version of an 8-bar phrase.

If someone simply doesn't have the imagination to make it work, that's on them, not the musical idea.

[Sendy]

playing around with form, like dropping the last bar from an 8bar pattern just sounds pretentious to me most of times. there's so much more interesting and less blatant parameters to vary. music is always, implicitly or explicitly, a compromise between innovation and familiarity. trying to innovate by using odd numbers of bars just shows you have no real ideas. it's construed.

not always but in an overwhelming amount of cases.

How does using one idea show you have no other ideas? If someone created music that ONLY relied on odd phrasing with nothing else interesting about it, you'd have a case, but this is like me showing you a green balloon and you assuming I only have green balloons... or more topically, it's like hearing a reso filtersweep in music (you can't get more obvious than that) and claiming lack of innovation without even investigating the other elements. You just can't make a judgement about the whole by looking at one part, it's illogical.

Sounds more like a prejudice on your part, to me. And I'm kinda inclined to agree that it can sound very pretentious, if handled incorrectly or done gimmicky. It's a prejudice I've battled with internally for a long time, coming from dance music background myself (drum and bass)... I just found that as I matured as a composer, I found myself compelled to play with this element of form, and drawn to it, noticing it more and more in music I considered outstanding.

And for some genres like dance, it's simply inappropriate (even though as Gonga pointed out, it doesn't actually harm the dancability or mixability of the music, though it might make the DJ require a bit more planning in advance).

[wrench45us]

The way to handle some of this is to stick with the 4 or 8 bar structure, but come up with phrases that carry across the bar.

I didn't know what this meant when I 1st heard about it, but it's not that complicated and may mean something as simple as delaying resolution into the next bar and then continuing on as if nothing happened.

There are also a lot of ways to push or pull with secondary rhytmic pulses against the steadier main pulse. The so-called space between beats.

etc etc

A song doesn't haveto go all polyryhthm and multi-dimension to add some dynamism. Most don't do it well enough to come across as more than just bored with convention and the need to show off a bit.

[jopy]

playing around with form, like dropping the last bar from an 8bar pattern just sounds pretentious to me most of times. there's so much more interesting and less blatant parameters to vary. music is always, implicitly or explicitly, a compromise between innovation and familiarity. trying to innovate by using odd numbers of bars just shows you have no real ideas. it's construed.

not always but in an overwhelming amount of cases.

That just isn't true. There are boundless examples of asymmetric phrases going back as far as and including the music of Mozart, Brahms, etc, where the musical idea sounds complete and rounded, but would artistically fail if they had decided to extend the phrase simply to have it conform to some academically idealistic version of an 8-bar phrase.

If someone simply doesn't have the imagination to make it work, that's on them, not the musical idea.

exactly!

[wrench45us]

I am reminded of a guitar playing friend of mine who was working through some early Beatles tunes and kept getting thrown off. Months later he got the sheet music and discoverd 'they' had thrown a bar of 2/4 and that was the very spot that had given him grief.

[ariston]

The way to handle some of this is to stick with the 4 or 8 bar structure, but come up with phrases that carry across the bar.

The Pixies were great at this.

One thing we shouldn't forget is that musicians listen to music differently than non-musicians. Non-musicians usually don't care about (non-)predictability... they hardly ever listen close enough to appreciate something like structure and composition. They want to listen and dance to music that reminds them of a hundred other songs that they've liked before, which is not inherently a bad thing. It depends on whether experiencing music is a deeply emotional thing or a way to fill some space in time, whether you want to expand your horizons with music or just want to relive the past.

I think it's a great thing to expand your abilities as a musician by integrating influences and stretching the boundaries through experimentation. It takes a bit of experience to make these things come natural and not sound contrived, however. And when they do, they'll be emotionally infused; if you go for complexity for complexity's sake, without having fully digested the different parts, you'll just cause headaches and constipation.

[cron]

The way to handle some of this is to stick with the 4 or 8 bar structure, but come up with phrases that carry across the bar.

The Pixies were great at this.

One thing we shouldn't forget is that musicians listen to music differently than non-musicians. Non-musicians usually don't care about (non-)predictability... they hardly ever listen close enough to appreciate something like structure and composition. They want to listen and dance to music that reminds them of a hundred other songs that they've liked before, which is not inherently a bad thing. It depends on whether experiencing music is a deeply emotional thing or a way to fill some space in time, whether you want to expand your horizons with music or just want to relive the past.

Totally depends on how much the listener is into music of course, but the variation in 'listening skills' across non-musicians is incredible.

"The CD is skipping."

"Oh yeah, you're right!"

Then there was the restaurant visit where I had to complain when Fragile by Sting started for the 7th time on a loop.

Many people simply do not 'do' listening.

[jancivil]

Odd metered, highly syncopated, polyrhythmic, or swinging music is highly danceable.

if you have rhythm. You know that the late Sherman Hemsley ('George Jefferson') liked to dance to Gentle Giant and other odd-timed prog rock...

we can find cultures all around the world that have not had the necessity to have things regulated to duple time in order to get their dance on.

the tyranny of the bar line is another thing. you can have total periodicity in the four/four but be crossing the bar, and scanning against it all kinds of ways and it doesn't have to confuse the feets; really it could enhance the feeling and impetus to move.

I don't get any feeling to dance with the overwhelming 'kick' hitting four on the floor constantly, quite the opposite of inspiring. it's de rigeur for people that lack the rhythm if you ask me.

[jancivil]

playing around with form, like dropping the last bar from an 8bar pattern just sounds pretentious to me most of times. there's so much more interesting and less blatant parameters to vary. music is always, implicitly or explicitly, a compromise between innovation and familiarity. trying to innovate by using odd numbers of bars just shows you have no real ideas. it's construed.

not always but in an overwhelming amount of cases.

if a procedure exists for its own sake rather than following an actual idea, bad results tend to accrue.