Club dance music

Club dance music of the late 20th and 21st centuries has many different forms, including drum and bass, hip-hop, garage, R and B, trip-hop, house, rave, techno, ambient and europop. You won't have to know all the differences between these styles, but you will need to be able to pick out the main musical elements and comment on the use of technology in GCSE questions.

Club dance music always makes use of technology. In particular :

Looping: where a pattern, usually in the bass or drum part, is repeated constantly.

Sampling: where a voice or a sound clip has been processed by a computer to distort it.

Digital effects: such as reverb, an echo effect on the voice, and vocoder, where the voice is given a synthesised effect.

Scratching: a DJ technique where the hand is put on the vinyl disc and moved backwards and forwards on the turntable.

Quantising: This is a process on the computer where fast notes are automatically put into time by shifting the note to the nearest (usually) semiquaver. The effect of this is that the music is always completely in time with the beat.

Multi track recording: Where each part of the music (bass, drums, main vocal etc.) is recorded on its own track. It means, for example, that a singer can perform the main vocal and later perform the backing vocal as well (overdubbing).