Posts Tagged ‘EDM’
“Let there be bass”*…
Sometimes, it really is all about that bass…
A recent study in the journal Current Biology found that people danced 12% more when very low frequency bass was played.
The study was done by scientists at the LIVElab at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, who wanted to see what musical ingredients make us want to dance.
“We look at things like what kinds of rhythms most pull people into that steady beat that we groove along with, and what kinds of interesting, syncopated, complex rhythms make us really drawn in and want to move more,” said Daniel Cameron, a neuroscientist and the lead author of the study.
Now, the lab for this experiment wasn’t the classic fluorescent lights, white coats and goggles setup. Instead, the LIVElab space was converted into an electronic dance music concert, and EDM duo Orphx performed live for volunteers adorned with headbands that had a motion capture sensor.
The lab was equipped with special special speakers that can play a very low frequency bass, undetectable to the human ear. The set lasted about an hour, and researchers introduced that very low bass every 2.5 minutes, and found that the concertgoers moved more when the speakers were on – even though they couldn’t hear it.
“It’s the inner-ear structures that give us a sense of where our head is in space,” he said. “That system is sensitive to low-frequency stimulation, especially if it’s loud.”
“We also know that our tactile system, that’s our sense of touch … is also sensitive to low-frequency stimulation, low-frequency sound.”…
“And that’s feeding into our motor system in the brain, the movement control system in our brain,” Cameron said. “So it’s adding a little bit of gain. It’s giving a little more energy … from that stimulation through those systems.”…
“What makes us dance? It really is all about that bass,” from @NPR.
For more on ultra-low frequency sounds and their effects, see “How low can you go?“; and lest we think this phenomenon restricted to humans, “Watch These Rats ‘Dance’ to the Rhythms of Mozart, Lady Gaga, and Queen.”
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As we go low, we might recall that it was on this date in 1792, during George Washington’s first term as president, that the first edition of The Farmer’s Almanac was published. (It became The Old Farmer’s Almanac in 1832 to distinguish itself from similarly-titled competitors.) Still going strong, it is the oldest continuously-published periodical in the U.S.
“Be still / Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity”*…
Nodding your head to a beat, or swaying along with the music, can feel as though it is happening automatically when a song comes flowing from loudspeakers. But have you tried to resist? Researchers have discovered that it is virtually impossible to stand completely still when hearing music.
Nobody has managed it so far,” says Alexander Refsum Jensenius a Professor of Music Technology [at the University of Oslo]. He is conducting research on human micro-movements along with Victor Evaristo Gonzalez Sanchez, postdoctoral fellow in biomechanics, and Agata Zelechowska, doctoral research fellow in music psychology.
How we move to music when dancing has been of interest to researchers for some time. The tiny, involuntary movements our bodies make to music when we are really standing still, however, has never been systematically explored. Until now…
The researchers have studied this by conducting various experiments. They have even organized a series of Norwegian Championships of Standstill, where the winners were the ones who moved the least. After holding four such championships the results were clear: People generally move a bit more when they hear music.”
It turns out that people stand still in very similar ways. On average you sway your head 7 millimeters per second when you’re trying to stand still. There are also very few variations, with the standard deviation being just a few millimeters,” says Jensenius.
The Norwegian record belongs to the participant who only swayed 3.9 millimeters per second..
More at “Not moving to dance music is nearly impossible, according to new research“
* Laotzu
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As we stifle the sway, we might send rhythmic birthday greetings to Charles Hardin Holley; he was born on this date in 1936. Better known by his stage name, Buddy Holly, he was a pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. During his short career, Holly wrote and recorded several songs– perhaps best known among them “Peggy Sue” and “That’ll Be The Day.” He is regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums.
Holly died at the height of his fame, on a tour with his band, the Crickets– which included future country music star Waylon Jennings (bass), famed session musician Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums)– Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, in a plane crash– memorialized by Don McLean as “The Day the Music Died” in his song “American Pie“.
Holly was a major influence on later popular music artists, including Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, The Hollies (who named themselves in his honor), Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw (who later played Holly), and Elton John. He was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986; and Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of “100 Greatest Artists”.
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”*…
From the annals of the $20 billion phenomenon that is Electronic Dance Music (EDM)…
The latest craze, known as miss-mixing, is proving very popular amongst digital DJs as a way of highlighting that they are actually manually mixing tracks rather than using the sync button.
Michael Briscoe, also know as DJ Whopper, spoke about miss-mixing with Wunderground, “Flawless mixing is now a thing of the past, especially for any up and coming digital DJs. You just can’t afford to mix without mistakes these days or you’ll be labelled as a ‘sync button DJ.’”
“I learned how to mix on vinyl years ago so naturally I’m pretty tight when it comes to matching beats,” continued the resident DJ. “I swapped to digital format a couple of years ago because it’s convenient, now I spend more time practicing making mistakes than I do practicing actual mixing.”
“I like to drop in on the second or third beat, leave it play for a couple of bars and then quickly correct myself,” explained Mr. Briscoe. “It’s subtle yet affective, I call it The Perplexer. People who don’t know what they’re listening to won’t even notice it while other DJs will be thinking ‘that’s a great mistake, who is this DJ Whopper lad anyway?’ d’ya know what I mean?”…
Ponder the price of authenticity at “DJs Now Deliberately Making Mistakes To Prove They Are Real DJs.”
* The title of a seminal work by recent (R)D “honoree” Walter Benjamin
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As ask ourselves if it’s real or if it’s Memorex, we might recall that it was on this date in 1985 that the first Farm Aid concert was held, in Champaign, Illinois.
It started with an offhand remark made by Bob Dylan during his performance at Live Aid, the massive fundraising concert held at Wembley Stadium, London, and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, in the early summer of 1985. As television viewers around the world phoned in donations in support of African famine relief, Dylan said from the stage, “I hope that some of the money…maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe…one or two million, maybe…and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks.” Dylan would come under harsh criticism from Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof for his remarks (“It was a crass, stupid and nationalistic thing to say,” Geldof would later write), but he planted a seed with several fellow musicians who shared his concern over the state of the American family farm. Less than one month later, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp announced plans for “Farm Aid,” a benefit concert for America’s farmers.
As one might have expected of a concert staged to “raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land,” Farm Aid featured a number of performers from the worlds of country, folk and rootsy rock music. There were the three main organizers and the instigator Bob Dylan, for instance, along with Hoyt Axton, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Joni Mitchell and Charley Pride. But the first Farm Aid, more than any of the annual Farm Aid concerts since, was a bit of a stylistic free-for-all, featuring artists united only by their interest in supporting a good cause.
“As soon as I read in the paper that there was gonna be such a thing,” Sammy Hagar told MTV’s cameras on the day of the show, “I called my manager and said, ‘I wanna do it.’ And he said, ‘It’s all country.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. It’s America. I wanna do it.’ If there was anything more surprising than hearing Hagar perform his hard-rock anthem “I Can’t Drive 55” on the same stage that had earlier featured the quiet folk of Arlo Guthrie, it was hearing Lou Reed perform “Walk On The Wild Side” on a stage that had featured John Denver.
Over the years since its first charity concert on this day in 1985, the Farm Aid organization has raised upwards of $33 million to support small farmers, promote sustainable farming practices and encourage consumption of “good food from family farms.”
[source]
Coincidentally, it was on this date in 1962 that Dylan played his first gig at Carnegie Hall…
Dance! Dance! Dance!…
While your correspondent is quite sure that his readers are among the hippest of the hip, he imagines that even they may be surprised to know that EDM– Electronic Dance Music– is eclipsing other musical genres. According to a recent study (pdf; summary here):
The EDM market is a $15.0 to $20.0 billion global industry, with the major players in the global festival market achieving $4.5 billion in sales for 2012. Digital music revenues grew an impressive 9.8% in 2012 (IFPI, 2013)… Attendance for the top 50 EDM specific festivals was two times the number in attendance of concerts for all other music genres combined…
So perhaps it’s only natural that those at the controls of this musical juggernaut– the DJs– are feeling… well, a bit entitled.
@DJsComplaining chronicles their pain, then djscomplaining.com illustrates (and adds very amusing commentary)…
Imagine having 30,000 followers. 30,000 people who listen to every little thing that you compulsively fart out in 140 characters or less. 30,000 souls, as 3-dimensional and full of dreams as you or I. 30,000 humans, all over the world. Falling in love. Laughing. Getting lonely. Buying fags and scratch-cards. And they all care about you. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t it Max Graham? It’s not enough is it though? Poor Max Graham.
One of the many problems facing the international DJ in the twitter era is that no amount of followers is ever enough. 30,000 zorks reading about your every move might seem like a lot to your average hairy-arsed chancer, but there’s always some Johnny-come-lately with a cap balanced on his head who releases one All Back To My Late Night Fabric Factory mix and BAM! – he’s leapfrogged you to 50k. Yes, envy is a powerful player in the music world, and in this age of information it is almost impossible to avoid those more successful than you…
Rave on!
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As we reach for out glo-sticks, we might recall that it was on this date in 1966 that NBC greenlit that series The Monkees. The prior September, the creators of the show, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, had placed an add in Daily Variety:
Madness!!
Auditions
Folk & Rock Musicians-Singers
For Acting Roles in New TV Series
Running Parts for 4 Insane Boys, Age 17-21
In fact, the show’s production company, Screen Gems, had already put Davy Jones– who had appeared the same night as the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing in his role as the Artful Dodger in Oliver— under contract. The other three Monkees, chosen from among 437 aspirants, were of course Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz, all of whom had musical backgrounds and two of whom (Dolenz, the star of Circus Boy, and Nesmith, a drama student) had acting backgrounds. The show ran successfully (initially in a time slot that pitted it against Gilligan’s Island) for almost five years; at the same time, the band released a clutch of hits (e.g., “Last Train to Clarksville”, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, and “Daydream Believer”). At their peak in 1967, The Monkees outsold both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; as of 2012, their albums and singles have sold over 65 million copies worldwide.
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