Electronic Music (Cambridge Introductions to Music) by Collins Nick & Schedel Margaret & Wilson Scott

Author:Collins, Nick & Schedel, Margaret & Wilson, Scott [Collins, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2013-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 8.2 An introductory family tree of some core EDM styles

Musical analysis of EDM

A universal description of electronic dance music is a dangerous proposition, given the breadth of styles. If we include the whole of hip hop and rap along with faster club musics, few consistent features may remain aside from the influence of certain core technologies, like sequencers and samplers, and a certain draw to loop-based cyclical repetition as a strong constructive principle for dance function. Different sub-genres emphasize different musical attributes, so that while we might investigate harmonic rhythm in international trance-techno, it may be irrelevant to minimal techno.

Simon Reynolds provides a thirteen-point breakdown of key elements of electronic dance music which is worth paraphrasing here.29 It illuminates social factors in the main rave/club scenes as much as directly musical attributes:

(1) Technology obsessive machine music.

(2) Texture and rhythm promoted above melody and harmony.

(3) Physical responses to the music important (e.g., bass at high volume rattling bodies).

(4) Mass communion for dancing crowds.

(5) Pleasures clearly on the surface of the music, showy if shallow.

(6) Drugs.

(7) Primacy of sound over visuals, and crowd over any specific artist.

(8) Facelessness, anti-personality cult.

(9) Democratic, collective, generic.

(10) Full of cultural taxonomists impatient for new scenes and trends.

(11) Valuing underground tracks over sell-out mainstream hits.

(12) Site-specific (e.g., music created for the sound systems of particular clubs).

(13) Mixed crowds and mashed-up tracks.

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