I wrote a general post about what makes a hot beat hot. As a followup, here’s how to program some generic patterns and a few famous breakbeats. The basic unit of dance music is a sequence of sixteen eighth notes, two measures of four-four time. Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 represent the sixteen eighth [...]
Filed in music, software
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Also tagged dance, drum machines, drumming, funky drummer, hip-hop, hone, honey drippers, led zeppelin, looping, programming, rhythm, rock, time
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This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:
Filed in movies, music, software, tv
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Also tagged a tribe called quest, audio editing, beastie boys, biz markie, book, clyde stubblefield, computers, copyright, dance, dj, eighties, george clinton, hip-hop, improvisation, jeff chang, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, music, pro tools, public enemy, recording, remixes, rock, sampling
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The most sampled recording in history is (probably) the Funky Drummer loop from James Brown’s song “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two.” Here I go deeper into how this sample can be reworked into new music. DJs call this practice chopping a sample. It’s much easier to chop samples with computers than with hardware [...]
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Also tagged dna, electronica, evolution, funk, funky drummer, hip-hop, memes, midi, mutation, recursion, recycle, remixes, sampling, sequencing, songwriting, visualization
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Monday, November 23, 2009
One of the biggest copyright failures of copyright law ever is the The Verve song “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” The distinctive string sample comes from an orchestral arrangement of “The Last Time” by The Rolling Stones. Doesn’t sound much like the Verve, does it? The two bands do share a taste in the I – flat [...]
Filed in autobio, music
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Also tagged allen klein, andrew oldham, bitter sweet symphony, copyright, fail, hip-hop, law, originality, pop, remixes, revival revival, richard ashcroft, rock, rolling stones, sampling, staples singers, the verve, uk
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The most-sampled album in history is probably James Brown’s compilation In The Jungle Groove. It includes the original “Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” along with a sampling-friendly remix. It also includes some other much-loved funk tracks. None of them have been sampled as heavily as “Funky Drummer” but there are some contenders. The compilation [...]
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Also tagged book, drumming, evolution, funk, funky drummer, lil mama, michael jackson, music, percussion, primates, queen, remixes, rhythm, rnb, sampling, seventies, sixties, soul, steven mithen, stone age
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Writing a song is a lot like writing a computer program. They both require clever management of control flow. The simplest sheet music reads as a straightforward top-to-bottom list of instructions. You start on measure one and read through to the end sequentially. That’s fine unless the music is very repetitive, which most popular music [...]
Filed in math, music, software
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Also tagged book, chameleon, computer evolution, computer science, computers, electronica, fractals, herbie hancock, improvisation, looping, mandelbrot, math, music, music notation, programming, recursion, visualization
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So far as I know, the most-sampled recording in history is “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” by James Brown and the JBs. It’s a great funk tune, but it’s not as catchy as James Brown’s big hits like “Sex Machine” or “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.” In fact, “The Funky Drummer” doesn’t [...]
Filed in music
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Also tagged algorithms, audio editing, black thought, book, computer evolution, copyright, eminem, freestyle, funk, funky drummer, godel, hip-hop, looping, memes, mos def, music, programming, recursion, remixes, rnb, sampling, soul, susan blackmore
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