Swinging house track

[Shrdlu]

Tell me that this doesn't swing like crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Na9rQfiW60

I had that going (in a mix) in the car while I was waiting for my daughter. Love it to bits. The LP High Pitch Jam Block accents are fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8RFMjC1r2o

About 14 years ago, I ventured into a downtown bar and, by chance, found the best house DJ in town. I had no idea what was going on. I heard this non-ending 4/4 music, at about 126 BPM. I thought the DJ had written it all - so little I knew then.

Actually, he was spinning others' tracks, using two CD players feeding into a mixer. Being a musician, I quickly figured out what was going on. All the tracks are in 4/4, in 8-bar segments. You start a track on one CD player - the speed (BPM) can be set to whatever you want with a slider control. While that is playing, you load the next track into the other CD player. With the headphones, you adjust its speed to that of the track that is playing over the loudspeakers, and set the new track at the start of an 8-bar section near the start. As the playing track nears the end, you start the new track when the outgoing track is at the start of one of its 8-bar sections and raise the volume slider for it, on the mixer. This mixes the new track through the louspeakers with the track that's ending. Mostly, you bring the first track to a dead stop. The majority of house tracks have about 32 bars of just percussion at the start, and at the end, for mixing purposes. Piece of cake for a musician.

After a while, I bought two CD players and a mixer. Pioneer is the best brand. I have two CDJ-1000 Mk 3 CD players and their DJM 700 mixer. It is a lot of fun mixing house.

Yes, there is a lot of garbage house music out there, but the best of it is of a very high standard, composed by trained musicians, such as D. Ramirez. Eric Prydz (Sweden), Jimpster and Seamus Haji. I have seen the last three live.

House is not instead of jazz: it is as well as.

 

[Dan Gould]

<hand shoots up>

No, it doesn't swing like crazy for me.

That was intensely repetitive and boring as fuck, and I couldn't listen past the wordless (?) vocal around 5:00. I didn't really want to listen up to then but I had other tabs open.

Tell me again how or even if this is different from disco?  I continue to find it amazing that two professional musicians who I respect - Jim and Shrdlu - find this stuff of musical value.

Not now, not ever. Have at it and love it to your hearts content.  

[Rabshakeh]

10 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

 

Tell me again how or even if this is different from disco?  I continue to find it amazing that two professional musicians who I respect - Jim and Shrdlu - find this stuff of musical value.

I guess house is derived from the same place as disco and funk, just taken to a further place? A nephew/niece? Part of the same family as jazz certainly, in the same way that those other 1970s musics were.

I've always enjoyed house music, but I do find the beat locked in, which I find increasingly distracting in a way I didn't when I was younger. Hip hop beatmakers are increasingly avoiding the old 120bpm loop feeling, so that beats breathe more (or at least repeat over a longer cycle so that the ear doesn't pick up on it so much), and I'd like it if house producers adopted a similar approach. Then again, maybe they are and I've just missed it. I haven't been anywhere where house was playing for the last three years.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[Shrdlu]

I respect your view on this, Dan. You are more than entitled not to like it. My liking good house tracks is based on hundreds of them. It honestly interests me. I have enjoyed hearing it on location many times. It is good in its context. It seems to have disappeared in recent years. At least, I have not come across it anywhere. Of course, a lot of clubs have been closed during the last couple of years. The biggest one downtown here has been closed permanently. Dan, I listen mainly to jazz: house is just a sideline.

House music is not "disco". And I dislike all other kinds of club music that I have heard. I was surprised that I liked the house music that I heard that first night. I came in with an open mind, having liked jazz from all eras (Fats Waller, Count Basie, bop, hard bop, and [some] experimental jazz from the 1960s, plus Weather Report).

Anyway, that's just me. I am only one person.

Rabshakeh: The beat of house has to be locked in, so that you can seamleassly mix tracks. This is one area where house is inferior to jazz. It certainly isn't anywhere near as creative, though I have played along with it with my soprano saxophone and Latin percussion. Playing the saxophone with it is dead easy, because it is mainly modal - no rehearsal needed, and one take is all that's needed. I have great fun mixing, too.

Here is a great remix of a Laurent Garnier piece, with a nice alto saxophone included

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBBcjgIUoeA

And I'm very fond of this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUwD_-NeEo

 

 

[Rabshakeh]

17 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

Rabshakeh: The beat of house has to be locked in, so that you can seamleassly mix tracks. 

I have no mixing knowledge or ability, but I don't see how this would be the case for house music, but not for post-Kanye hip hop. Perhaps it's just that there's more money in hip hop now, so artists can afford an entourage of people including beatmakers with enough time to spend on the beat itself.

[JSngry]

37 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

It seems to have disappeared in recent years. At least, I have not come across it anywhere.

http://deepersoul.blogspot.com/

https://ssradio.com/

Very mainstream, but totally in line with the type of tracks you've posted as likes.

[Dub Modal]

The mixing described in the first post is what I've always considered "juggling," as reggae selectors have done this for decades. Major labels of that genre such as Greensleeves would issue double LP sets of riddims so that selectors wouldn't go broke or insane from having to get all the 7" singles to string it out. If pressed on music like this I prefer jungle by several miles over typical house. Although a buddy of mine is a house DJ and I do enjoy his mixes. 

[Shrdlu]

8 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

I have no mixing knowledge or ability, but I don't see how this would be the case for house music, but not for post-Kanye hip hop. Perhaps it's just that there's more money in hip hop now, so artists can afford an entourage of people including beatmakers with enough time to spend on the beat itself.

It is vital for house music, by definition. The idea is to keep 4/4 music running for hours (as long as you like) without a gap. Although I like to listen to it, it is basically for dancing. My favorite BPM is 126, for lively stuff. "Deep house", which is more subdued, I would run at 124. Some clubs run at about 133 BPM, but I think that that is too fast; nothing over 130.

Yes, this music is (again, almost by definition) repetitive, but repetition can be very effective. Consider the percussion and bass patterns in Latina music. I am happy just to play a cowbell or a caxixi (shaker) or a shekere, or a cabasa or a guiro.

[Rabshakeh]

9 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

It is vital for house music, by definition. The idea is to keep 4/4 music running for hours (as long as you like) without a gap. Although I like to listen to it, it is basically for dancing. My favorite BPM is 126, for lively stuff. "Deep house", which is more subdued, I would run at 124. Some clubs run at about 133 BPM, but I think that that is too fast; nothing over 130.

Yes, this music is (again, almost by definition) repetitive, but repetition can be very effective. Consider the percussion and bass patterns in Latina music. I am happy just to play a cowbell or a caxixi (shaker) or a shekere, or a cabasa or a guiro.

I think that we may just be speaking at odds. I am not complaining about the repetitious loops, but the quality of the repetitious loops. Hence the comparison to the similarly loop driven and DJ oriented world of hip hop.

[Shrdlu]

I'm Gonna Send Him To Outer Space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoHenB2hpC0

That's a real cool one.

Notice that the track, which is for mixing, starts with simple percussion. That part is never heard over the sound system. Most tracks have a "Radio Edit", which gets straight to the main part, with no intro or outro.

[Dub Modal]

I hope Max Romeo gets paid when these guys continually use his songs (Prodigy did it too, as did Jay Z). 

[Shrdlu]

There are a lot of samba house tracks. This version of "Corcovado" is very good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGlTA0xcmVM

 

[Shrdlu]

That video didn't work, on testing. Dunno why. Here is another link

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RgePNA2mJsY

 

[danasgoodstuff]

That's the sound of death itself.

[JSngry]

No death here.

[danasgoodstuff]

44 minutes ago, JSngry said:

No death here.

Nice enough, some of the source material has some life in it and the mix on the fly gives it an evolving aspect.  But the DJ's dancing still has more life to it than the music.  Still makes me think of clubs I've been in where no one talks to each other much.  Social music for people who aren't very.

[JSngry]

The DJ's dancing? How about the actual dancers?

[Shrdlu]

House tracks hardly ever have just the one mix. Frequently, a composer brings out a track and other composers make remixes of it, usually quite different. That is part of the fun of this fertile genre of music.

Here is an excellent example. Here is the "original mix"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1exlM0EF2_Q

High drama there, but little movement. I love the chord voicings on it.

Now here is a remix by the amazing "Jimpster" (Jamie Odell, from Essex, England)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t213Qm8wdZk

(Bear in mind that these tracks are designed for DJ mixing, and begin with a fairly plain section that is never heard over the club's loudspeakers.)

Jimpster is world-famous and his mixes are always the best for a piece. I was listening to Weather Report's "River People", and it struck me that Jamie could do an excellent house version of it. I told him about it, and he knew the piece. He is very busy, but if he does it, I will play a soprano saxophone line on top of it. These house tracks are modal, and improvising over them is a piece of cake. Only one take needed.

River People

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DuePlxXfAM

 

[Shrdlu]

I just listened to that video. Quite pleasant, but the music isn't house music. House has an even, steady beat - a grid, if you will.

Where I used to go to listen to house, the people were very social, and we used to talk a lot. It was a very pleasant atmosphere, and I miss it. House seems to have disappeared, even though it was not stale.

•  

[JSngry]

"House" has been evolving for quite a while now.

[mjazzg]

That I.G Culture mix is Broken Beat, surely.

On 29/01/2022 at 0:34 AM, danasgoodstuff said:

Nice enough, some of the source material has some life in it and the mix on the fly gives it an evolving aspect.  But the DJ's dancing still has more life to it than the music.  Still makes me think of clubs I've been in where no one talks to each other much.  Social music for people who aren't very.

Funny you should say that as the video features people having a good chat behind the DJ.  

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, mjazzg said:

That I.G Culture mix is Broken Beat, surely.

Surely!

But I consider that an evolution out of trad house. The lore is that they wanted to keep the pulse/ beat but we're tired of the constant 4-on-the-floor (so to speak . ) so they broke it up, literally. IG is a master of it, but he's not the only one.

Bebop drumming, did the same thing, really. Everything, really. To stay alive and vital, it evolves.