First day of music tech class

I recently began my second semester of teaching Music Technology 101 at Montclair State University. In a perfect world, I’d follow Mike Medvinsky’s lead and dive straight into creative music-making on day one. However, there are logistical reasons to save that for day two. Instead, I started the class with a listening party, a kind of electronic popular music tasting menu. I kicked things off with “Umbrella” by Rihanna.

I chose this song because of its main drum loop, which is a factory sound that comes with GarageBand called Vintage Funk Kit 03–slow it down to 90 bpm and you’ll hear it. The first several class projects use GarageBand, and I like the students to feel like they’re being empowered to create real music in the class, not just performing academic exercises.

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The Schizophonia of David Byrne, Brian Eno, and The Orb

In this post, I compare and contrast the soundscapes of two iconic sample-based tracks:  “Regiment” by David Byrne and Brian Eno, and “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb.

Recorded ten years apart using very different technology, these two tracks nevertheless share a similar structure: dance grooves at medium-slow tempos centered around percussion and bass, overlaid with decontextualized vocal samples. Both are dense and abstract soundscapes with an otherworldly quality. However, the two tracks have some profound sonic differences as well. “Regiment” is played by human instrumentalists onto analog tape, giving it a roiling organic murk. “Little Fluffy Clouds” uses synthesizers and digital samples quantized with clinical precision.

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The Amen Break

If you had to name the most influential drummer in contemporary music, who would you pick? If you’re a rock fan, you might go with Ringo Starr, John Bonham, or Keith Moon. A jazz fan might choose Max Roach, Elvin Jones, or Tony Williams. You probably wouldn’t think to name Gregory Cylvester Coleman. But he’s as strong a candidate as anyone.

The Winstons

Coleman was the drummer in a sixties soul band, The Winstons. His claim to fame is a five and a half second break in an obscure song called “Amen, Brother,” the B-side to the minor Winstons hit “Color Him Father.” That doesn’t sound like much of a case for Coleman’s importance. But his short drum break is widely considered to be the most-sampled recording in history, ahead of “The Funky Drummer” and “Apache” and “Cold Sweat” and all the rest of the classic breakbeats.

Here’s “Amen, Brother.” The famous drum break comes at 1:27.

Here’s a visualization I made of the famous break:

Amen Break - polar coordinates

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Nas Is Like

If I had to pick a single track to explain to an alien or time traveler what hip-hop is and why I love it, I think I’d pick “Nas Is Like.”

Nas has a great flow full of powerful imagery, but what truly sets this track apart for me is DJ Premier’s production. It’s a complex web of samples and scratches that tie together so seamlessly as to be much greater than the sum of their parts. A lot of the samples are from other songs by Nas himself.

Here’s a diagram of all the samples, click to see it bigger:

Nas Is Like sample map

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The Choice Is Yours

There’s a commercial on TV right now featuring a bunch of CGI hamsters that reacquainted me with this Black Sheep classic. I knew the song better as the one that goes, “You can get with this or you can get with that.” Thank god for Google, otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about anything.

This is exactly the kind of golden age hip-hop song I love, a party-friendly beat and lyrics delivered with enough pissed off attitude to give it some bite. Dres and Mista Lawnge, I salute you.

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Hey! Wait!

Let Us In

[audio:http://ethanhein.com/music/revival_revival_let_us_in.mp3]

Revival Revival vs Nirvana

mp3 download, ipod format download

Vocals and guitar by Barbara. Additional guitar, controller synth, 808 programming and sampling by me. Contains some salty language.

This continues our recent push into mostly original rock material about Barbara’s complex romantic life. The sample comes from one of my favorite Nirvana songs.

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