writing DANCE music

[YEK]

Honestly never tried. I have a feeling that a fast bpm catchy track is just as hard to write as a more experimental cerebral track... It takes more than 4/4 beat, it has to maintain that energy hmmmm

Anyone have experience writing dance stuff or more poppy electronic?

It's worth a shot I guess, I usually just write stuff without any particular influence and it usually turns into ambient techno.

So yeah just wondering if you guys ever take breaks from writing weird shit and do other stuff?

 

[Nil]

I would love to write a (bunch of) techno track(s) but I’ve yet to succeed. It’s much harder than it seems, to me anyway.

[dingformung]

6 hours ago, yekker said:

I have a feeling that a fast bpm catchy track is just as hard to write as a more experimental cerebral track

It might even be more difficult because experimental music is literally just pressing a button that makes random noise. Jokes aside, key is to tune your drums. A kick drum isn't just a some bass impact, it's an instrument that has to harmonise with the other ones, same goes for the snare and all other drums. Tune them. I'm saying that without ever having made a good dance track.

[d-a-m-o]

I don't think this is easier, Sean is talking about it in that old 94 AE MTV interview :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuPNwLYrMm0&ab_channel=RalphNolte

Edited December 14, 2020 by d-a-m-o

[Cryptowen]

imo the key is to feel it out rather than to think it out. i find i make dancier tracks when i'm standing up, rather than laying in bed (always one of the two extremes, i never work sitting down). when i'm going through a phase of writing lots of rhythmic music i find i'm producing significant quantity of material very quickly (and then picking out my favs), whereas with more experimental music i might spend longer on one track, trying to "get it right". i also find i produce lots of quantity in similar fashion with things like drone, more freeform noise, etc. Also with dance music i find the thought (insofar as it's there) is going more to macro-level processes, ie how i'm arranging my work station, how i organize the sample banks i create, what sort of procedural techniques i'm using - but the actual moment of creation is intentionally kept as simplistic as possible, once these structures have been erected. i want to make the track itself in a single session, preferably in under 15 minutes.

at a more abstract level, i find it hard to consciously dictate what kind of music i'm making at any given time. rather, the things that get made reflect the overall state of my life (either in line with it or as rebellion against it). so questions to ask might be are things like, how structured is my life currently? how free do i feel? how utilitarian is my outlook? how experimental? how much physical activity am i getting? how much social activity? what is my general emotional state? trax are like a crystal ball, they reveal these things to you. i guess even consciously trying to dictate what sort of trax you'll make (and the degree of success you have with that) could even speak to your overall desire to enact control measures or maintain a goal

[thawkins]

I feel like starting out like "yeah today I will make a dance track" is just setting myself up to fail hard.

What seems to work is starting to noodle on some melodies, and then try to drunkenly stumble on to something that might be called a dance music. I have got many unfinished tracks that I could say I would play for people to dance to. I am missing the will and skill to finish them up as dance tracks.

Also I feel there is kind of a chicken and egg problem: if I could test my tracks out on a crowd  - even though this is a gross violation of the Geneva convention - I could get a better hang on how they "work" in a dance setting and also whether the crowd likes it.

On the other hand, I sort of believe a competent DJ can make a "dance track" out of something that the author never intended to be dance music. Probably E2 E4 is a good example of this. So if I was an edgy contrarian person, I could say that it's not the track's fault that people can't dance to it.

I agree with @Cryptowen in that I guess you have got to be in a dance mood in order to make dance track. It's true for all my tracks that I think are "dance" I would end up getting in the mood myself.

 

Probably a good trick would be to cut up and sample your tracks and then try and rebuild them in a live set context where you focus more on tension building and breakdowns. Which brings me to this video:

 

[YEK]

Yeah I think the best way to do it is to write a track and only keep the best bits, to essentially remix your own tracks.

[sheatheman]

I think there’s a lot of overthinking here.

just make a 4/4 kick pattern from 115-135, which is the house-techno bpm spectrum.

then just start messing with a few synths and stuff. It’s not a big deal mayne. Maybe use more mono synth lines for techno and some min7 chords for house.

[Cryptowen]

be careful about writing trax at 120bpm tho. it syncs up too well with clocktime, you might get too deep, have a dissociative episode, lose the ability to tell the difference between scheduling your day & making a track. next thing you know you'll be talking in polyrhythm & making emotional decisions based around how lush the pads are (never as lush as they were that first summer, unfortunately)

[thawkins]

12 minutes ago, Cryptowen said:

be careful about writing trax at 120bpm tho. it syncs up too well with clocktime, you might get too deep, have a dissociative episode, lose the ability to tell the difference between scheduling your day & making a track. next thing you know you'll be talking in polyrhythm & making emotional decisions based around how lush the pads are (never as lush as they were that first summer, unfortunately)

Yeah well joke's on you, I switched my clocks to Swatch Internet Time. Been cranking out those 120bpm-ers a long time now.

[Cryptowen]

in all seriousness though, i have put some thought into adopting experimental alternative time systems now that my lifestyle has become sufficiently hermetic. might have to do some research on this

[Diurn]

Yes I usually do but as you said, it turns to be a custom 4/4 with some pads and strings. The key is alternate some elements at 3/4 and some panning sounds or rolls from time to time. Commercially techno-house has gained a lot of popularity recent years, in detriment of other minor styles of course. My concern is that someday the techno and house scene will be so saturated that will die of fame, as rock today.

regards,

Edited December 15, 2020 by Diurn

[sheatheman]

You could say most music has already died a death. But all genres can still be authentically made and consumed. The question of authenticity, while many would claim to be its arbiter, is an endless one with no ready answer. But it’s out there. 

[TubularCorporation]

 

[auxien]

On 12/14/2020 at 12:08 AM, yekker said:

Honestly never tried. I have a feeling that a fast bpm catchy track is just as hard to write as a more experimental cerebral track... It takes more than 4/4 beat, it has to maintain that energy hmmmm

what kind of 'dance music' are you interested in writing?

[YEK]

1 hour ago, auxien said:

what kind of 'dance music' are you interested in writing?

Just music that has lots of energy... But honestly house/techno is what I'm interested in. I've heard people saying that there should be something in your track changing every 4 bars.

[auxien]

27 minutes ago, yekker said:

Just music that has lots of energy... But honestly house/techno is what I'm interested in. I've heard people saying that there should be something in your track changing every 4 bars.

techno is difficult af (at least to make it interesting) because it's at its core so very simple. it's more about using the framework to express/engender others' expression. imo, obv. i'm no techno/electronic music scholar tho

house i'm even less familiar with in the historical sense, but i'd think it's a little easier to dip your toes into. other than just basic 'emulate, study, destroy, repeat' sorta suggestions for writing, i watch this YT channel often and he does almost entirely house stuff in his various jams and product reviews, might be worth watching and picking up some tips on his approach/workflow...he very much just stream-of-conscious talks out what's working and not in the music, so that could be helpful? best suggestion i can think of: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4OAAbxtB6QEKaTDb-SEe-Q

[ignatius]

i've thought about this a lot because i like dance music and sometimes accidentally a techno track. i think the reason it seems hard is because the people who do it well have a really amazing feel for the dancefloor and know what works and what doesn't etc within their genre or wheelhouse. 

i've made some here and there and typically the simpler tracks with decent arrangement work better. problem is i get  bored often when making straight forward techno so start changing things and it becomes something else.  

i think when doing techno type stuff it's better to work fast and have a jam approach. set your kick and hihats and make some movement and then everything on top is where the development happens. shrug. 

my 2 cents is it's easy to make sounds that  work but  hard to make them all work together to be engaging. 

coincidentally i made a pretty simple techno track the other night and just need to edit/mix it. 

i  haven't spent any time on a dancefloor in fuckn forever so who knows though.

 

[sheatheman]

I like to make live dance music but I usually end up down a wormhole of reorganizing my boxes and cable management.

and then I’m like, “should I do stereo tracks or just stereo return effects, should I put my nova modulator on the model cycles, or on a return track, and should it be stereo or mono? Should tempest be just drums, or just synths, or both? Should I use it to sequence the volca keys or use the volca internal sequencer? How should I route the keystep? Should I split the model cycles into left and right channels and hard pan certain sounds to L/R so they have their own mixer channel? Should I just have one optimal setup that uses all of my gear at once, or should I keep a minimal arrangement of 2-3 boxes that changes every few weeks?”

then I usually pick up my guitar and trumpet and walk over to my Ableton setup and make some loops...

Edited December 16, 2020 by sheatheman

[Berk]

For me the hardest part in making techno-ish stuff is the thin line between making stuff too noodly, or making stuff too boring/samey. I think you have to come up with some motifs that are really really great. Because in techno/house you simply rinse and repeat a lot of things. As such, your melodies get listened with the audio equivalent of a magnifying glass or something. So make melodies that are to the point but that are really good and only slightly alter stuff. Guess it also takes a lot of listening to the good artists out there and learn from them. It's simplicity is what makes it really challenging imo

Edited December 16, 2020 by Berk

[Limo]

3 hours ago, sheatheman said:

then I usually pick up my guitar and trumpet and walk over to my Ableton setup and make some loops...

This.

(without the trumpet, tbh, because I’m weak)

[TheBro]

I like to write dance music but yeah house and techno I guess. My tunes always sound more techno than house tho ha ha!

[TubularCorporation]

Sometimes I accidentally make something that sounds like Limahl having some kind of an episode.

[mclaren212]

I've played around with making dance but never made anything I'd consider a proper track/song. This thread inspired me to do that though

[ignatius]

On 12/16/2020 at 11:10 AM, sheatheman said:

 

then I usually pick up my guitar and trumpet and walk over to my Ableton setup and make some loops...

trumpet tangent incoming:

trumpet is one of mu favorite things to hear. lot's of miles davis in the ipod. sarah belle reid does good things w/the trump and modular synths and Max patches and also modified trumpet that sends gestural/air pressure etc data to max for interaction. the album she put out a year or so ago is good/interesting. has a nice pace to it and good mix of tracks that show the dynamics of trump mixed w/sound design and modular synth bug noises. 

https://www.instagram.com/sarahbellereid/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CI9Pm5-BwVr/

she was interviewed on darwin grosse's podcast a while back to if you are into podcasts.. it's an interesting interview. 

https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/podcast-311-sarah-belle-reid

https://sarahbellereid.bandcamp.com/album/underneath-and-sonder