Music
20th - 21st Century dance
In the 1970's dance music moved into new venues called Discotheques, with faster, more 'bassy', electric music. By the 1980's the music had become faster, harder and more electronic. In the 1990's clubbing took over, DJs mixed their own music, and dance rhythms dominated popular music.
During the 1970's, Disco music began to develop in the USA and around Europe. Music of this kind was quite fast, usually played at 120 BPM (beats per minute).
Disco music became even more popular after the film Saturday Night Fever. Here is a BeeGees track that featured in the film:
Two features of disco music were a very strong bass part and a strong accent on the 2nd and 4th beats of the bar. Disco music often made use of riffs (repeated patterns of notes) on the bass guitar, guitar or keyboards.
Many bands during the 1970's used a horn section as part of the band. This was the term used for a section of brass instruments, such as trombones, trumpets and saxophones. Some of these horn sections played very complex music and filling patterns.
Click for an example of this - from the band The Tramps.
Guitars in disco music were played with a clean rather than distorted sound. Other instruments used were the electric piano, electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit. Occasionally, a string section was also included.
Salsa is a style of dance music developed in Cuba. Today, you can hear salsa being played on dancefloors throughout the world.
A noticeable feature of many salsa pieces is the use of syncopated rhythm.
Bands such as Gloria Estefan and the Buena Vista Social Club toured widely across the world, making salsa popular throughout the world. Click to hear a sample of a Gloria Estefan song.
Salsa music usually contains many drums and other percussion instruments. The percussion all play different rhythms so that the overall percussion part sounds very complex. Often this is an example of ‘Polyrhythm’: the simultaneous sounding of two or more individual rhythms (eg 3 against 4), found in jazz, African, Cuban and minimalist music. Unlike disco music, salsa preferred the ordinary (acoustic) piano rather than the electric piano. Also included in Salsa music was a horn section, consisting of trombones, trumpets and saxophones. Here is an example:
Call and response is very common in salsa music - where a soloist sings something that is immediately answered by a chorus or a section of musicians.
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).
Listen to this piece of dance music from the 20th century and comment on:
| Answers | Examiner's comments |
|---|---|
| Talvin: The tempo is quite fast. There was lots of technology used in this, including synthesisers, drum machines and synthesised voices. There is a strong beat throughout this music which is important in dance music of this kind. | GRADE F. Not a very full answer, but he has got some credit for mentioning the strong beat and the instruments. |
| Sarah: The tempo is around 100 BPM. The music uses lots of technology, like a repeated synthesised voice part singing 'I can feel the beat'. The synthesiser was probably played through a computer to get some of the effects and it has probably been put in time by the computer. The music builds up to a climax by having just one instrument then another then another and so on. Finally the drums come in at the end of the climax. | GRADE C. Sarah has picked out the main points of the music but could not use the special terms like loop, quantise, sample. Her guess at the tempo was slightly out. It was around 120 BPM which is exactly 2 beats a second. |
| Geeta: The tempo is around 120 BPM. The music has loops in the rhythm part towards the end of the excerpt and the synthesiser part which has 4 repeated chords. A sampled voice singing 'I can feel the beat' is used with the last 3 words being repeated in the sample. The sample also has a fade. All the parts have been quantised. All the synthesised parts were probably composed on a sequencer. The 4 chord structure is built up during the piece, first by the synthesiser, then the voice comes in, then the bass part and finally the full rhythm part. Just before the rhythm comes in, there is a crescendo on the snare drum and a roll. Also, there is a glissando heard near the beginning on the synthesiser. | GRADE A. A very full answer which is full of correct terminology. Geeta has picked out all the main points and also some of the not so obvious points, like the glissando on the synthesiser and the snare drum crescendo. All 4 points of the question fully answered. |
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