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Getting away from "formulaic" trance (pg. 5)
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by paranoik0
i don't think it's nearly as flat-out right or wrong no-middle-ground as that (altho probably that's not what you meant)
i'm probably more of a melody man, but i do understand rhytmical music and, as the guy who posted above, the complete lack of attention to rhythm and percussion is one of the things that makes current trance so annoying to me.
i just don't think it's that simple. |
well yeah i basically agree. i mean i definitely appreciate a good melody...i don't think it's so black and white. but too many trance songs are that black and white...they completely neglect rhythm...that's all i really wanted to get across hehe :p |
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| Zombie0915 |
There is something to be said for music that is charismatic enough to make entire crowds act in synchronization, sure it may be lowest common denominator theatrical obvious signals that a crowd reacts to, but to be on the same wavelength as the entire crowd is an incrdibly enjoyable experience. I also understand how going too far down that road resembles the passively enjoyed pop musics though. Things just need to be done tastefully, they need to be mixed up a bit. So it has to fluctuate, and your better trance DJ's know when to play something flowing and just let people do their own thing, and when to play something which guides the crowd to do something. I find sets like PvD @home london were good at this, they had their super trance moments but also had some sections where everything just chugged along on its own.
No matter what your favorite food is you can't eat it every day or you start to hate it. I find the my taste are too inconsistent for me to be able to name what my favorites are. Computers and video games attracted me to electronic music, and I had the same struggle with monotonous repetitve stuff that spirit describes, which ended once I stumbled upon the charismatic trance stuff from the late 90's, we've all heard the story before. One has to be in the right mood to enjoy infinite beat dance music, some of your big dance fiends snap into this mood instantly and violently hate when music drops them out of that mood, some people need tunes to warm them up and ease them into the dancing mood. If you are looking to go out strictly for dancing you would want an infinite rhythm, if you just want to hear some enoyable music without regard to context then you might not be looking for that constant rhythm stuff which leads itself to nonstop dancing.
I always felt like trance was the happy medium, for those who aren't that big on dancing the night away but aren't so big on passive concert music either, it kinda has both aspects. I think the stuff that comes on di.fm's trance channel is still enjoyable, but its like ice cream, you can't listen to just ice cream. |
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| Ishkur |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
So singer-songwriters you hate then? Any of those great people who wrote about THEIR experiences, about THEIR lives, and THEIR beliefs to you are dictators or control freaks or whatever?
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No. Because that's their own music, and that's something we relinquish when we go to see them. We expect that from them. It's an entirely different apparatus of music appreciation. No one dances or engages in a Temporary Autonomous Zone at a concert, after all. The concert has but one purpose: Ingratiating the performer on the stage.
Electronic music does not operate under this construct. Furthermore, you are a DJ, playing someone elses music, so you can't possibly capture the essence of whatever the original artist intended even if they had a message.
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
DJ be not that much different from a songwriter, except mixing other people's tunes to tell a story.
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He is telling a story. He just doesn't get to decide what story he's telling. The story is written by each participant, and it varies from individual to individual. That's why we call them Temporary Autonomous Zones.
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
Yeah i'm different, yeah I want something different then just using DJing to make people shake their booties in a dance club. Yeah I want to DJ to help people, and DJ to tell stories...I know that sounds crazy to some of you guys..
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Have you actually READ "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life"?
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
I'm just looking at this as MUSIC, but also as music that has great potentional to be more then "electronic dance music" but music period, and also music that has the potentional to be theraputic and to allow people to experience things and to get outside of themselves and to look inside of themselves.
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I think you need to go to school, and get degrees in music theory, psychology, and musical therapy. Then come back and tell us when you finally understand what it is you're trying to say (or accomplish). |
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| Ishkur |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spirit5
See thats what I want to do, help people through music, not the only way I'll help people, but I think it will be an added touch. And I feel that music, particularly trance music, is a good way of doing this because it's mostly uplifting and euphoric. |
How much music theory do you actually know? If I asked you to play through the circle of fifths on a piano (natural minor), could you do it? |
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| Ishkur |
| quote: | Originally posted by Floorfiller
there are three types of people...those that like melody...those that like harmony...and those that like rhythm.
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fixed. |
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| Zoso |
| I feel like I started a small, well contained flame war here. That wasn't my intention, really. I was just expressing some mild frustration about my EDM preferences. The bottom line is that I need to explore more genres. Perhaps some tech trance or some goa/psy trance are what the doctor ordered. Or maybe I need to try something more progressive. Time to break out the J00F White Label Euphora this weekend. Get lost in my Stanton cans and see what else is out there. :) |
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| Keo_Nade |
| I like to mix in alot of hard house. even though this can drastically change the pace of the set, throwing some house or even trip-hop (or even Rob Zombie if the atmosphere is right!) makes me feel like im nt playing the same set as the next guy and it also adds some real flavor into my sets (which tend to be either very-trancy or very-prog. housey). maybe clubers and live audiences wouldn't appreciate it as much, but I DJ for radio and my friends and i get alot of good reactions to throwing in DJ Shadow or Krush or even popy stuff like briney spears' "toxic" or some Felix Da' Housecat and changing the mood of the set after like an hour of trance or prog. Just sayin thats what I do. |
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| DJMaytag |
| quote: | Originally posted by zoric
Would be nice to have a flowing set all the way until the end or something and then play a tune which is a "Hands in the Air". I like this thinking.
Also, You're really feeling how tired you're getting when there's breaks all the time. Something you won't feel as easy when someone plays a flowing set. |
+1,000,000,000 |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
How much music theory do you actually know? If I asked you to play through the circle of fifths on a piano (natural minor), could you do it? |
No I don't have a huge musical background. I played alto sax for about 6 years, and took a beginning piano class and a music theory class in high school. I don't plan on majoring in music, i don't plan on becoming a musician, I don't plan on becoming a professional DJ or a music producer. All I want to be is a psychologist, and also DJ on the side, and eventually use both skills to help people out through having an experience they will never forget, like at a rave. And I wont be the only DJ, and I don't have my skills up yet, this is like 10 to 15 years away or more (when I want to possibly create this center, it's just an IDEA..it's too far in advance to even say for sure if it will ever be a reality). So obviously I don't plan to start up anything like this right away. I don't think I need a huge musical background to become a DJ, like a music degree, I just want to play music that is uplifting and melodic...and do it as a hobby, not my profession, but it's good to sometimes use your hobby for good use, like an artist, writer or musician does who just does that on the side from another full time occupation. |
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| LiquidSteel |
| I want to hurt people with my music. I want to poison them and damage them with my music. I want to turn people into stone with my music. Just like a Bard in Final Fantasy. |
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| Spirit5 |
| I'm done with this discussion, never meant to turn this into a debate or get into this, it was just an added thing I decided to put as an explanation of one of the reasons why I like the more melodic, emotional variety of electronic music. Never meant to get flammed and to have this blown out of porportion, sorry to the thread starter, I got off topic on this (why I started another thread, but it went nowhere...as usual...). |
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| miamitranceman |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
The people decide the music, not you. It is a give and take thing--a real tug-of-war between composer and consumer. The people participate just as much as the DJ does, everyone's minds being opened to all possibilities. They decide where the music should go, what it should mean, what it should tell them. They exist as pirate utopias, teetering on the edge of chaos, like a bubble balancing on the head of a pin. The DJ gives hints, offers possibilities and paths, but the people decide where to go. It is a two-way street.
What you want to be instead is an insufferable, pretentious demagogue. You are a control freak. You want everyone's minds to be closed, except to your overbearing ideas. You want things to be a one-way, the people to be spectators of your opulent passions. You want to be the puppet master, the dictator and the lord of the dance. You want to rule with an iron fist, tell them YOUR story, YOUR ideas, YOUR beliefs, YOUR psychology. You want them to feel YOUR emotions through YOUR music.
Sorry, pal. It doesn't work that way. You are in control of nothing. Shut up, play your damn music. Let nothing be true, everything be permitted, and the rest will take care of itself. |
Forgot the crazy pills this morning eh? |
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