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Groove in more concrete terms (pg. 9)
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| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
ah man ,
everyone knows panteras walk is ridiculous groovy for metal.
http://youtu.be/AkFqg5wAuFk |
That's why I used different examples ;)
Mouth for war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzVpw9hWbs&feature=related
Hell, their whole damn catalog.
The solution is simple. If a person can listen to Pantera and not innately 'get' or 'feel' groove, it's time to give up. And they are as white as white gets.
That said, I'm not a HUGE Pantera fan (I like it, not love it), but I respect the hell out of their ability. |
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| Vector A |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
This example here of groove you gave is not groovey in any way. |
:stongue:
| quote: | | I used to hear this sh1t in Oxford street music shops - the usualy skinny white guy thinking he was funky, and me being embarassed to be white as the black kids raised eyes to heaven. |
Yeah, okay, explains why black artists have repeatedly sampled the drum track from "When The Levee Breaks," right? |
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| EddieZilker |
| I'm beginning to resent this thread a lot. The discussion is interesting. It's not because I don't think it's worthwhile. In fact, I think the technology has advanced enough where we should be considering it more. It's just the meaning has yet to achieve the threshold of being concrete, let alone meaningful. |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
I'm beginning to resent this thread a lot. The discussion is interesting. It's not because I don't think it's worthwhile. In fact, I think the technology has advanced enough where we should be considering it more. It's just the meaning has yet to achieve the threshold of being concrete, let alone meaningful. |
Does your intellectual mind ache? |
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| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
I'm beginning to resent this thread a lot. The discussion is interesting. It's not because I don't think it's worthwhile. In fact, I think the technology has advanced enough where we should be considering it more. It's just the meaning has yet to achieve the threshold of being concrete, let alone meaningful. |
Since it's such a moving target, I don't think it can be hard-quantified. Pantera grooved. Red Hot Chilli Peppers groove. Stevie Wonder grooves. P-Funk grooves. And they all do it at different tempos, time sigs, genres etc. As has been said by others, a person who has played a physical instrument in the presence of, and along with others, (the interplay between them) feels it (assuming they are decent musicians) and plays to the 'feel' of the given song.
It is like trying to describe an orgasm to a virgin. You can clinically attempt to describe the sensation, but until they get their freak on, it doesn't make a bunch of sense. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
Does your intellectual mind ache? |
As much as any psuedo-intellect is capable of. I think I just feel dumber, and maybe I am. Maybe my intellectual gifts are just a delusion and I really have no keen sense of logic, what-so-ever. Spatial relationships are negotiated autonomically with the assistance of an advanced, adaptive limbic brain without so much as a rudimentary capacity for the more advanced concepts of spatial reasoning. The same could be said for time and while I have an instinct for anticipation my temporal comprehension ends, six seconds from the present. I am just a cat with fingers, chasing my cursor across the screen with a series of letters to approximate words that have no real or even consequential meaning. I boldly swipe at concepts, as though they were yarns dangled in front of my face, only to run into a wall where my giggling idiot of an owner has shined a laser dot that disappears when she has become bored of watching my frantic fascination concerning a two-dimensional rendering of light in a three dimensional world. I must find that ing dot, kill it, and eat it but I can't because there is no such thing! |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Normie
Since it's such a moving target, I don't think it can be hard-quantified. Pantera grooved. Red Hot Chilli Peppers groove. Stevie Wonder grooves. P-Funk grooves. And they all do it at different tempos, time sigs, genres etc. As has been said by others, a person who has played a physical instrument in the presence of, and along with others, (the interplay between them) feels it (assuming they are decent musicians) and plays to the 'feel' of the given song.
It is like trying to describe an orgasm to a virgin. You can clinically attempt to describe the sensation, but until they get their freak on, it doesn't make a bunch of sense. |
Or like trying to explain what a rose smells like to someone who has never had a sense of smell. If it has such a mercurial meaning that can't be quantified, my problem then is still the same: How does one apply that to making EDM?
If I were going to describe it in terms of a metaphor relating to a performance ensemble, I'd use a flock of birds. Somehow, whether it's a squadron of geese or a murmuration of starlings, everything fits together in a cohesive pattern while remaining far from quantized. What's more is that the pattern itself is elegant and natural. As insane as the patterns seem to be, collisions are avoided and cohesion is maintained.
The problem I'm having is that groove seems to be this concept that, much like soul, doesn't have an adequate description; particularly because once you begin describing it, the essence of it falls apart. The descriptions offered, to this point, have only presented the reader with a dithered understanding because that is all they can do. The examples haven't seemed to help, either. And no, I don't think that's because the strictly EDM producers can't sense the totality of subtle nuances predicating the "groove". If anything, they're analyzing it so as to emulate it and, in doing so, have had to reduce it to elemental parts - elemental parts that, in and of themselves, do not sum to what is considered groovy. The thing I'm seeing that's pissing me off is that the people who are trying to explain it can only do so with an almost condescending, "you have to be there" line of reasoning. I'm personally finding that a little hyperbolic, at best, and a little insulting, at present.
The fact of the matter is that I cannot see nor hear how anyone is relating it to EDM in concrete terms with bona fide evidence to bolster their arguments. Tons of non-EDM examples populate this thread but until someone puts something up that relates specifically to EDM, the talk and admonishments and antagonism consist of nothing more than the grumblings of musicians bitching about techno sounding grooveless, and as such, is pretty much an extension of the same ing conversation I had with an acoustic guitarist, back in the eighties, an acoustic guitarist, back in the nineties, and another acoustic guitarist, back in 2001. While I welcome the opportunity for it to extend past its present virtues, this discussion seems increasingly fruitless and all-the-more frustrating. |
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| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
If I were going to describe it in terms of a metaphor relating to a performance ensemble, I'd use a flock of birds. Somehow, whether it's a squadron of geese or a murmuration of starlings, everything fits together in a cohesive pattern while remaining far from quantized. What's more is that the pattern itself is elegant and natural. As insane as the patterns seem to be, collisions are avoided and cohesion is maintained.
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Kidding aside, that's about the best description I can imagine.
As it pertains to EDM or any other genre...
Primarily I'm a guitarist. Not a great one, but regardless. I have played Metal songs and mellow. Certain songs, regardless of genre have a certain 'feel' to them as they are written. Some try to evoke the emotion of love, some anger etc. But You can play Master of Puppets as an acoustic ballad and pull it off. Likewise, you can make "I'd really love to see you tonight" by England Dan and John Ford Cooley into Gangsta rap.
It's all in 1: the way you play those notes - speed/tempo and most importantly articulation/inflection.
2:the way you play those notes in relation to the notes surrounding them. Like Cryo said earlier in his Bass example. On their own, 'groove may not be aparent, but added AGAINST another instrument where each of you play off the other, changing timing, inflections and articulation to create a mood/feel/emotion wt all, it reveals itself.
That's where the 'live' performance aspect comes in - to a point...sty with me here.
In the Commodores/Marching band example, the MB is live performance but the last thing your mind expects a MB to do playing that kind of song is 'groove'. A marching band doing Brick house is bad comedy at best. But a Bass/drum/horn combo as played by a funk band is a whole different animal.
Why? First, it's that the two are trying to do different things. One is going for 'spectacle' and the other is trying to make your ass move. One is big and boisterous, the other more 'sensuous/sexy'. The inflections/articulation in the playing are worlds apart. An MB isn't trying to groove, they are trying to march and not up.
Now as it applies to EDM. IMO FWIW YMMV ETC...
Since most EDM is programmed, there is there it no interplay between musicians. You are musically masturbating. You sit there doing your song, I sit here doing mine on a computer and at best we play keys against a static drumbeat that has no way to 'talk back' to us as a real drummer would. It's one way communication.
Even when you 'play' your own player/programmed drum beat, bassline etc, it's still an exercise in self love. Because there is only interplay with yourself. There is no spontaneity, none of the minute errors in timing that are half of what makes groove 'groove' and none of the changes in note articulation that you get when the 'opposing' player sparks you to hold back/play sharp...whatever.
Now, can EDM Groove? Sure. Play it just like any other genre. The key being 'play', whether that's with a mouse or a Jackson. And for a one man show, that's very hard to do.
If I had to try defining it, Id say this...
Groove: The interplay of musicians/instruments manifested in timing/inflection/articulations within the confines of a measure/phrase/song.
But of course, that's only part of it. The rest, I can't hope to quantify and thus my prior post.
Again, For what it's worth. |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
Or like trying to explain what a rose smells like to someone who has never had a sense of smell.
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But, it can be heard and felt. That was supposed to be the point of my Commodores vs. marching band comparison a few pages back, which apparently was too clever, or something, because I guess the point wasn't obvious enough. :D It's the "same" song, but one has groove, the other doesn't even come close. Listen to the original - your head starts bobbin' and your bootie starts shakin'. Listen to the marching band's rendition and the jive is long gone. The difference is the groove (well, among many other things, but you get the point). |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
It's the "same" song, |
OMG...I didn't even notice that. |
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| Normie |
On the Regular music vs. EDM thing...
Imagine this scenario: DJ Billy Bop sits down and is handed a basic beat/melody and told "Make this into a song."
Then a Guitarist.bassist,drummer and Key/synth dude are handed the same and they are told 'have at it.'
Ask which of the two up front, has the potential to 'groove'. Now ask why. Why do you automatically think that? It's likely the real musicians and It's likely the interplay I was talking about. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
it really isn't that mysterious. Get a recording, do a spectral analysis, There is your groove. That information can be applied to your track without ever pressing a note on a keyboard or playing anything the live.
the point really was to explain what it is and what it isn't. Not to give examples and it took about 3 iterations to explain that groove is not swing, it isn't something you only find in funky music. It is actually quite tangible. |
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