Dance Music from 1985 to the present day

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• Publié par: yrokaleb
• Nombre de lectures: 71
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Dance Music from 1985 to the present day   Styles and Trends in Dance Music from 1985 to the present day    Dance music is an extremely complex and constantly evolving genre to categorize as its fanatical fan base is constantly re-defining it into more and more sub-genres. Names change and can depend on your location and sometimes even the time of day!    Club dance music is whatever is being played by DJs in clubs, and although clubbing happens all day every day somewhere in the world, its most important season is the summer. Many resorts have become centres for clubbing, and islands like Ibiza become centres for the clubbing scene every summer. DJs are the centre of dance music. They devise and define the styles, and decide what will be the “anthem” of the summer. A DJ is employed on the basis of how many clubbers he can attract to a club, and clubs gain their reputation based on the prowess of the DJ. Each DJ may specialize in garage, jungle, drum ‘n’ bass or hardcore in addition to the standard anthems of the summer. Pretty much any piece of music can be given the dance treatment from children’s television themes to classical themes (Satie’s Gymnopedie No3 / Barber’s Adagio for Strings etc.).    Listen to: “Adagio for Strings” by Tiesto   Where does Dance Music come from?    Dance music has its roots firmly in the 1960’s when a style of music called Dub was evolved by King Tubby (who was Bob Marley’s producer). He took some reggae tracks, removed the vocal part and then overdubbed (hence the word Dub) some other sounds or effects. This became a marketing ploy as singles from this time had a vocal “A” side and then the same track remixed with Dub on the “B” side. This displayed both the creativity of the producer and saved money on musicians and recording costs. These artists are considered to be the first DJs, when they started to perform live, by playing the instrumental tracks on a PA system and then adding their Dub effects on to the top. They became popular because they were cheaper to hire than a whole band of musicians.       In the 1970 the rise of Funk and Disco music had a major impact on dance music and many venues that had previously been for the performance of live music became “discothèques” or discos for short. Meanwhile the rise of synthesisers and electronic keyboards gave musicians a much greater musical palette to work from and led to the keyboard player being the standard 5 th member of many bands. Much experimental electronic music was written and recorded at this time, in particular by German synth pioneers Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream as well as British prog- rock bands Yes, Genesis and Emerson Lake & Palmer.    In Chicago in the mid 1980s, DJs such as Frankie Knuckles and Farley “Jackmaster” Funk pioneered a sound that was to become known as house (named after the club where it was first played – The Warehouse). The DJs would take existing tracks and remix them, or cut them up, mixing them together with other tracks because they didn’t have enough new material to play. Music played in the Warehouse ranged from Disco and soul to Euro synth-based pop. Sometimes a drum machine was added to enhance the “Four to the Floor” characteristic of house music.    Acid house is a style characterised by the sound of an electronic instrument the Roland TB303.  

Dance Music Glossary

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