Dance Music: talented vocals, quality production...so why isn't it on the air?

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by the way

 

Oh dear! Looks like i've touched a nerve here? -

For one thing who says you have to play in a "successful" band to play music for 22 years, jack ass?
Ever heard of a session musician?, Oh, guess not. That must be because electronica doesn't use musicians.
I've played in bands for fun. The real cake is in session work. Get a clue before you shoot your mouth off about pseudo- musos, what ever language that is. I've forgot more about music than you'll ever know. Maybe spit out the ecstasy and listen to something with an instrument in it, preferably one with strings or breath that takes several "years" of practice to master, played by someone who has mastered it. Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by morthn1waytoskinacat]

If you have read any of my previous posts on this thread you would realise that i am someone who has genuinely varied musical tastes including the genres you've played in and others such as non-commercial dance, funk,mowtown/atlantic soul, reggae and prog rock (you may have been able to work that out given i gave you a little parable about people being resistant to change in music, had you not had such a knee-jerk reaction?), to name a few.
You chose to ignore the valid points i made about synthesisers not being "real" instruments to some, about how rock and metal are essentially "electronic" in nature (take away those effects i mentioned and guitar music goes no further than blues or chuck berry style rock!) and instead responded with some very nasty,ignorant and very personal abuse.
The fact that you have done session work (playing music OTHERS HAVE WRITTEN) shows no creativity -by baiting you on your career i was hoping you could supply some evidence of what great musical art you yourself have made?
Sadly by making comments like-
"Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject."

And-

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by the way

 

Oh and by the way, someone can play for 22 years without being old. It requires an early start, but I guess I can forgive you since you are obviously handicapped (or a teenager...same thing really).
Just a suggestion though:
If you are surrounded by idiots, I suggest you get out of that hall of mirrors you are standing in, stupid and ugly is a hard thing to live with..........

You have sadly only proved my point that there are a lot of ignorant,
blinkered nazi's (and not just the musical kind,judging by your comments) out there who will never push their musical boundaries. And to return to the OP-this is why decent dance music will always stay underground-there are too many people like this guy around.

Oh dear! Looks like i've touched a nerve here? -

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by the way

 

For one thing who says you have to play in a "successful" band to play music for 22 years, jack ass?
Ever heard of a session musician?, Oh, guess not. That must be because electronica doesn't use musicians.
I've played in bands for fun. The real cake is in session work. Get a clue before you shoot your mouth off about pseudo- musos, what ever language that is. I've forgot more about music than you'll ever know. Maybe spit out the ecstasy and listen to something with an instrument in it, preferably one with strings or breath that takes several "years" of practice to master, played by someone who has mastered it. Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by morthn1waytoskinacat]

If you have read any of my previous posts on this thread you would realise that i am someone who has genuinely varied musical tastes including the genres you've played in and others such as non-commercial dance, funk,mowtown/atlantic soul, reggae and prog rock (you may have been able to work that out given i gave you a little parable about people being resistant to change in music, had you not had such a knee-jerk reaction?), to name a few. You chose to ignore the valid points i made about synthesisers not being "real" instruments to some, about how rock and metal are essentially "electronic" in nature (take away those effects i mentioned and guitar music goes no further than blues or chuck berry style rock!) and instead responded with some very nasty,ignorant and very personal abuse. The fact that you have done session work (playing music OTHERS HAVE WRITTEN) shows no creativity -by baiting you on your career i was hoping you could supply some evidence of what great musical art you yourself have made?
Sadly by making comments like- "Otherwise shut it, you are unqualified to speak on the subject."
And-

Originally posted by morthn1waytoskinacat
reply to post by the way

 

Oh and by the way, someone can play for 22 years without being old. It requires an early start, but I guess I can forgive you since you are obviously handicapped (or a teenager...same thing really).
Just a suggestion though:
If you are surrounded by idiots, I suggest you get out of that hall of mirrors you are standing in, stupid and ugly is a hard thing to live with..........

You have sadly only proved my point that there are a lot of ignorant,
blinkered nazi's (and not just the musical kind,judging by your comments) out there who will never push their musical boundaries. And to return to the OP-this is why decent dance music will always stay underground-there are too many people like this guy around.

People please stay on topic and quit attacking each other in this thread. Thank you.

Sorry double post!

[edit on 5-5-2008 by the way]

Also, i think i am open minded enough to admit when i'm wrong. My apologies if i mistakenly called you old. It should have read "old fart". Like my man George Carlin says- " i knew people who were old farts when they were 20". The cap fits, so wear it with your brown shirt. And "surrounded by idiots" (from my member profile,no less!) is actually the name of Pharrell Williams first band-it isn't offensive to anyone,other than idiots and you took offence so....

reply to post by the way


Once again you fail to realize (thus showing your ignorance in a zeal to dismiss actual experience of the creative process that is many and varied) that just because you are a session artist does not necessarily mean you don't create your own part in the piece. Frequently (most always, especially singers who rarely have anything more than a hummable phrase to go on ) artists come in with a rough idea and expect the session artist to come up with their own part "on the fly" (in cases like this I've actually been given writing credit as well. Love them residuals). I could drop some names of things I have done professionally, but first, tell us where you work, (provided you have a job) and while you are it, name, address and phone number please.......No?, Didn't think so.
I'm not about to put anything on here that is going to readily identify who I am.
Now, since I am actually working on a soundtrack for an independent animated film in my home studio right now (which is nothing but synthesizers, by the way, all played by your's truly), I have to go. Some of us "old fart pseudo muso's" are actually creating music, instead of just talking about it.......Enjoy your soother and glow stick.

The Way,


I'm not talking about repetative riffs. I'm talking about arranging. the composition it's self is not up to par with music theory. I mentioned that most dance music (most, not all) has little motion. What I mean by this is this.

For music to emotionally connect it has to follow this psychological equation. Resolved chord structure alternating to dissonant notes or chord structure which then resolve back to chord tones that are back within the harmonic structure. Good music invariably does this. It's the understood psychology behind music. What happens is the brain likes complete patterns. it seeks them to be complete. it drives the brain nuts when the pattern whether it's harmonic or rhythmic is not a complete pattern or doesn't fit within the structure (the premise behind a siren). It's like an itch the brain can't scratch. When the pattern goes back to being in order the psychological itch is scratched and the brain feels pleasure. Most dance music throws this right out the window. It's all resolved chords that generate no interest to the brain. Dance music while rhythmically complete doesn't do a whole lot for the brain due to it's chord structure it generates no "voltage" in the brains circuitry to even generate much interest in the song. You need both rhythmic interest and harmonic interest for the song to be catchy. It can't be perfect either (all resolved structures). it has to go between resolved and dissonant or no motion happens. Thats why there is a difference between the verse and chorus sections of a song. Choruses are usually a major release of emotion in the song. it's a big scratch to an itch thats been slowly developing throughout the previous verse. do it right and the scratched mental itch releases enough pleasure on the brain it's called a hook. Dance music that is popular does this effectively, but most dance music doesn't and is too static to the brain. nothing develops just a rhythmic pattern that can eventually lead to self hypnosis but not much else and therefor among the human population it isn't as popular. there is literally little for the brain to connect with in the music.

Dance music is good in a lot of ways. it's driving. great for dancing. but a lot of dance music even for dancing purposes doesn't have the staying power of more melodic music, which is why people will be dancing to AC/DC or whatever on the dance floor long after current dance tracks have come and gone. People like to dance to music that also gets them emotionally evolved in more of a way that just a solid beat, it gets boring.

Don't get me wrong hell I like Infected Mushroom (they have the sickest live sound engineer I've heard in a long time) sonically they sound great but after a few listenings to the tape I've got to put them down for a few months before I can listen to them again.
I'm not the only one who feels this way about electro/dance music, otherwise there would be more draw on the market and dance music would be at the forefront which it isn't.

Now people can say all they want that there is some conspiracy in the record industry to force only certain music down peoples ear canals. driving us crazy with drivel say on the radio and I agree that most pop music seriously sucks.

Buuuuuutttt..........I work in the record industry. really deep in the industry. I've had to work daily with these executives that are running these major labels. They're just people trying to keep their profits up. Thats all. They are running on business models that are waaaaaay outdated and aren't with the current zietgiest (which the older cats don't understand over at the labels anyways). Pop music sells period. due to the mindset of most americans and most europeans. it's a buy buy buy trivial crap world, and the record industry is geared toward that. it's beginning to fail now that the internet is up and running. Not because the major labels aren't making sales on the internet (trust me if they were worried about not getting paid on their product they'd hit up all the non domestic versions of the RIAA that never pay, the industry looses hundreds of millions a year due to that problem, ask any label BA lacky or admin jock they'll tell you) but because the internet is beginning to make the music industry into a nitch market. Each band gets smaller and smaller slices of the pie but there are now a hell of a lot more slices in that pie. the indie labels are the pioneers of this. so if you like dance music than start networking on the internet and get new prospects for the dance industry that way. it works. it's the future of dance music. all music.

As far as payola schemes in the radio side of things. hell yeah that happens. a lot.
Which is why you hear the same over hyped rapper on the radio only to find that their sales are non existent. the label paid a lot to get that song pushed. Ever heard of the rapper the The Game. happened to him. now check where he is. thanks to payola schemes to push his stuff. Ashley Simpson? same thing. daddy paid a lot to have his daughters music on the airwaves. it worked for a while. Payola schemes although somewhat effective through out history are actually being curtailed a lot in the record industry right now. not going to ever go away. but the influence is diminished.

I can tell you that unlike the banking conspiracies which are probably true the record industry is just driven by a group of people that just want to make money to keep their mortgages up on their 5 houses and 4 luxury cars, and spoiling their kids with lexuses. Their are clueless about a great majority of things. There is no conspiracy to drive people to listen to only a specific type of music. whatever sells...sells and generates money which is where their interests will always be.

Dance music doesn't sell. like I said hard for the average person to listen to something like dance music on a daily basis. It has it's purposes like in a dance hall but thats it. Also, if you understand the world DJ in the club scene you'd know that nobody buys tracks. they rip them or share them. the tracks almost NEVER in their original arrangement or recording, they're mixed in with a bunch of other tracks frequently blended together at the same time. Who gets paid on that track then? nobody. thus no economy for the product. it's not complicated






[edit on 6-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

[edit on 6-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Also,

I feel that a synthesizer whether its addative or deductive (old school like late 1970's weather report/ joe zawinul) is a beautiful instrument and is very legit. I love a nice kurzweil or motif even a nice moog. Even though other posters haven't made this argument I think this is what they are getting at, which is this.

THe synths in dance music tend to manned by people capable at tweaking the sounds the synth is making, sometimes live, although usually through protools, logic, and it's billions of Ripped plugins. My favorite is to run logic through protools while exploiting the crap out of my favorite plugin Lucifer which is one hell of a sweet programmable gate. They (dance song writers) make great sounds, but are horrible songwriters and arrangers. Remember the whole part about the ebb and flow between resolved and dissonance? THats where the art of writing music really is. Thats what makes the composer a genius or not. Unfortunantly most dance song writers are not geniuses in this skilled art and therefor get the label of being untalented usually rightfully so.

THis is probably what the other posters are alluding to in their gripes about it all being computer generated.

Also, the human ear is very sensitive to things like timbre (sonic charachteristics or quality) a dance track songwriters synthesizer skills don't usually leave much room for things like finesse or the individual fingerprint imparted by a certain musician on that instruments sound. Guitars do though (along with a zillion other instruments) which is why I can always tell joe satriani from chris squire or jaco pastorius from marcus miller or yo yo ma from mitslave rostropovich or well you get the point.

Most dance music lacks this quality too, which makes the average listener balk even if they don't know that thats part of the equation too as to why the dance song has little resonance with the masses.

As far as the quality of the recording goes. I beg to differ. Most of the dance music is way over compressed and lacks a ton of dynamics that make for good sound recordings and aren't actually recorded well at all. It's pretty falt. Don't feel bad about that though most music is being recorded worse and worser. due to low budgets, due to cheaper home recording equipment and due to the demands put by label execs on the engineer to create a loud over compressed track that will stand out volume wise over the other songs droning out of the radio. It makes for crappy sound quality. it's a real problem industry wide. more and more sound masters don't have any work to do anymore because of it. When the track arrives at their studio for mastering it's so compressed to crap that theres nothing to tweak it's already too far gone to help.

Also, things like MP3 and Itunes don't help. to a trained ear the sound quality is awful. Another real problem. the track files need to be muuuuuuuch bigger than what those things are. they can't be compressed. it's ruining the sound of the recording.

PS. good vocals? what are you talking about. the vocals in songs are getting worse and worse every year. you really thing that 95% of the singers on the airwaves are talented. Nope most of them sing very, very flat. If you listen carefully you'll hear all the pitch problems they have. they simply can't sing. Period. Walk down the halls in any reputable music conservatories vocal department and you'd be blown away by no name singers who could take a dump on alicia keys or christina aguilara with ease on their warm ups alone. Listen carefully and you'll identify all the pitch correction software they are using on the recordings and even live. Don't even go there with the talent levels of most modern recorded musicians they're awfully untalented, but sure lucky to be getting paid for their products.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Sorry I gotta agree with morethanonewaytoskinacat. he's basically right on.

Also, my roomate back in college is a world renowned cellist. played with anybody of importance. yo yo ma etc... he started when he was 3. he's now 26 and a certified master of the instrument. young people can be masters of their instruments. it just takes 22 years of serious woodshedding to get the skills down. the same even holds for motzart. he was a novelty when he was younger, even music historians will tell you that nothing of genius came out of him until his later years after he mastered the instrument.

regarding semitones. yes middle eastern scales and asian (esp. india) scales utilize semitones and even temper the scales slightly differently but the rules are still the same. see my previous posts. it's still bound to the laws of physics and how harmonic nodes overlap. when they don't fit well into the fundamental note it is still dissonant. and the brain won't like it. it's just physics. the brain still isn't going to like it if it's all semi tones that aren't within the fundamental harmonic structure of the fundamental note.

all these semitones do is allow more ways to create that ebb and flow between the resolved chords and unresolved ones. nothing has really changed. and by and large most people don't have a problem with hearing semitones. even the western societies don't shy away from it.

our 12 tone scale is just a simplified, concise version of how to subdivide a fundamental note and it's octave into notes that ride within the harmonic nodes(resolved chords like a IV or V or even a III) and unresolved dissonant chords or melodic tones like a flat 9 or #11. no conspiracy by the catholic church. they just needed a system that could be used more universally so that people could actually correctly play music in their time (which around that time was mostly religious music) when nobody was on the same page figuratively as to what was the accepted pitch for say a c note or and a note or even how to quantatize the rhythmic figure on the chart in front of them. every city had their own system. nobody could communicate musically on paper. So like many things the church did was create a system that we know more or less as our modern harmony theories.

Hell it could have been worse. we could still be going by the rules to traditional harmony which forbids parallel 4th 5th in voice leading a chord and a lot of other stupid rules. If that still held today there would be no such thing as a power chord in rock music.

also, stop confusing scales with modes. the c major scale Ionian is a scale. Dorian, phrygian, mixolydian, lydian, aeolian, and locrian are modes of the key or c major (ionian) scale. Aeolian gets special treatment for being the relative minor of ionian and is commonly concidered the minor scale but it's still just an artifact of the ionian scale.
people call modes scales and they can be looked at seperately as a scale but they are just modes of the major scale. Even when you are using modified scale systems like the melodic minor diatonic system. modes are just parts of the scale. dorian is the major scale started from the second note to it's own octave. not an independant scale although it can be used as one. like the song good times/AKA rappers delight. it's in the key of D major. the scale the song uses is the D Ionian scale. but the song is played in Dorian mode. The entire bassline for the song is the E dorian mode in the Scale of D major. which is also the key of the song. lots of flamenco songs are written around the phrygian mode but the scale the song is in is still found 400 cents back from the starting pitch of phrygian. the scale the song uses is also the key signature unless you are looking at the perspective of the relative minor position.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


You are bang on brother. I use keyboards on plenty of stuff. I'm not a piano player (hence the comment about a 7 year old being able to do it after reading the manual), but I do understand theory and have a great deal of experience with "song" writing techniques. That being said, I play most contenporary string instruments (and if I never have before, I tend to pick it up real fast). You put into 15000 words what i was trying to say in 500. I guess sometimes a mountain dropped on your head works better than a brick in the face.

Right on Morethan,

Sometimes they need to have the evidence shoveled onto them instead of offered.

I am envious of people like you who can play any instrument put into their hands. My cellist roommate from back in the day had that same ability. Really made me feel untalented. He would just go "cool whats that, hows it tuned? in 5ths? cool. and then he would just play the crap out of that instrument like it was part of his body. We used to get him drunk and then throw on anything on the record player and tell him to improve over it. our goal was to get him to trainwreck or not be able to do something nice with the track. he even played the hell out of Me So Horny by too live crew on his cello improvising over all of it in strangely really tasteful ways. Didn't know one could do that with two live crew but he could. even the top chairmen of the string department were like dude why are you here? we don't even know what to teach you. could you give us lessons? He landed 3 chair in the boston pops his first semester and had full rides to every notable conservatory in the world. No Joke. I've lost contact with this guy but he did get nominated for a grammy for his cello skills when he was playing with an outfit called the four fiddlers or something.

Me I can barely get the ambidexterity to play a drum set and I can't play the bass and sing at the same time. Although i can play the hell out of a bass. I too do session work in LA. but only when the budget can't afford a real session player's union double scale. I end up being the el cheapo solution. but I know plenty of session players who would agree with you and I on this topic of dance music. One famous session drummer Really famous session drummer, is really into Titor and UFO stuff. maybe he's even been to ATS before. who knows.

Why have all the labels pumped millions of dollars into consultants who in turn pay off the radio stations to play hip hop, and "dance" gets nothing?

I am glad it is not as prevalent on the radio. I have noticed that any genre that is popular quickly deliniates into to crud. It's music of a counter culutre. Look at what happened to hip hop, heavy metal, and punk.

Besides repetive, loop heavy music is not for everyone. In this short attention span society most people want it now, not ten minutes from now.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


Some money is made in sales of maxi-singles and dance compilation CD's. Also BMI/ASCAP/ESCAPE royalties. For many of the artists in the genre they can go on tour at dance music festivals, club appearances, and pride festivals etc...perhaps we are seeing the industry that has yet to really figure out to get the music to the consumer properly. I just read in Rolling Stone where Itunes just passed Wal Mart as the largest distributor of music now, and so we are seeing a "non-packaged" product now dominate sales and distribution.

Another way the industry can and is making "dance" work is bundling the product where one version is used for CHR/RHY radio and also a Maxi-single sales complementing the radio version and album version thus allowing for more promotion and reach at the clubs every weekend and in turn spuring popularity and album/single sales. The promotional activity at the club then buttresses the radio promotion and the song can be available in digital format online for consumers, or in album/CD format at the stores, or at the Maxi-single CD packaged format also for the fans who like hearing various mix versions of their favorite song/artist...mix shows on CHR weekends or nights and weekends have preformed well in the ratings in various markets as well, so this says it has some viability and ability to succeed on the air waves. I believe were it not for the "payola" money backing up the other formats and not much there for "dance" may be partly why we don't see more big broadcasters take a frequency and gall "all-dance", but it's just a hunch. The reason this would be a "conspiracy" is because didn't the Supreme Court say "payola" was illegal back in a ruling in the 70's? I'm sure the lawyers have the holes plugged on the issue of course, and perhaps it's time for them to revisit the issue and bring a little more "fairness" into the industry???

Excellent post by the way, I really enjoy reading this. On a side note, I found a really interesting book by Daniel J. Levitin ("runs the laboratory fro Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University, where he holds the Bell chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication. Before becoming a neuroscientist, he worked as a session musician, sound engineer, and record producer...." from the back cover of his book) called "This is Your Brain on Music, the Science of a Human Obsession" 2006, Dutton /Penguin Group Publishers). Fascinating read!


[edit on 6-5-2008 by skyshow]

Sky show,

great post. You are correct about a lot of what you said regarding the sales of music. Can't argue with you there, just that the royalties and I see a lot of clients royalties on a daily basis aren't really a whole lot. these dance writers make a majority of their money on the road gigging. but even that has it's pitfalls. DJ Kaoki is now broke as a joke living on peoples bedroom floors reeling from the fact he used to be famous. If you can even call what he was famous. I know this personally. he's also a jerk but thats a different story. The money they make doesn't last long, trust me. even I have blown through a good 30K in advancement money back when I was in a band in a few months with nothing to show for it. I learned a lot of really important financial lessons from that.

Also, you are correct, Itunes does control about 70 percent of the downloaded music business. In fact Apple now controls about 70 percent of all downloaded music. apple is telling the big label execs what up. jobes even has refused on two different times to raise the price of universals catalog of songs that are sold through Itunes, even though the chairman of universal personally asked him both times. So in some good ways the music industry is turning around. just don't expect dance music to be at it's forefront. ever.

PS payola is very illegal, but it does indeed happen, just not as much anymore. but nothings to stop people from legally paying to have their album played more than others, which happens all the time too. Especially in the hip hop industry. also pay attention to the disparity between the actually sales and earnings of the record or artist and the amount of magazine, trade article and promo hype they blow on these artists only to have nothing to show for it in the end. The Game anyone.

But very illegal stuff happens in every industry, and again you are also correct that the industry perhaps hasn't found the best way to get the product to the consumer. like I said the internet allows for a niche market for just about every form of music. people now can listen to only what they want and not the mainstream. all the marketing is mainly from word of mouth and links from one bands site to another, or from one fans site to another fans site of another band altogether. people of similar interests flock and purchase together. so these big labels are freaking out because they can't sell their pop crap on the top 40 to everybody anymore. no more big bucks, no more house in the malibu colonies mansions. But nicely a lot of variety in the industry. Good for the artist even though the most potential they can reach will now only be a fraction of what used to happen when the big labels were running things but only had 1 or 2 bread winners on their artist roster. fact is all the labels are making a majority of their music off of old pre 2000's catalog stuff. The indie labels are founded generally by younger more savier execs who understand the internet better and their model of business is actually working out better than the major labels system no surprise. In fact a lot of the major labels have tried to hire execs from the indie labels to work as execs for them. a lot of these indie execs don't take the job because they know that they will in the long run be better off at their indie label. major labels have even taken to buying indie labels but leaving them alone to operate independant of the major label except in administrative and back office stuff and in funding. they leave everything up to the indie label. the major just want to do whatever it can to stay in the game.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

reply to post by BASSPLYR


Wish I were that good. Can't play drums at all, but I can write drum tracks with the virtual software, because I do understand musical structure. I am primarily a bass player like yourself (because it is the coolest instrument, EVER!). I'm in much the same boat as you when it comes to session work. I mostly just do it on a "Hey, I know these guy's doing a recording, and they need a bassist/rhythm guitarist/programmer for their project, they have a small budget, so I told them to call you."
That's how I got the current movie project I'm working on, except this time I have to compose, perform, record, and mix the entire soundtrack, foley and voiceovers. Daunting, very daunting. But very satisfying artistically as well, ( and the price I'm charging will keep me in bass strings and beer for a couple years, yeehaw!).

...all valid points in terms of taste of differing variety of music, and sub genre's of dance, but not one soul yet has defended the "mainstream" dance such as Cascada, Paul Van Dyk, Rockell, Ralph Falcon, Erika Jayne, Sarah Atereth (indie out of NY) Avalon, even Donna Summer, Rihanna, Kimberly Locke, Kristene W. Taylor Dayne, Madonna etc...and all of the top 100 or so of vocal house (origins from the 70's) that pack my freakin' dance floor every weekend. If it's so horrible and wrotten, why is my dance floor way over capacity at times and all of them are groovin' to this obvious (as some of you suggest) horrible garbage that mainstream dance turns out? Even the bigger question is, why very very very few radio stations even play it? and yet the clubs all over America dance to this stuff like it's the last damn S*&t that will ever be played?

Please, I took music classes in University on my way up to Master's level...I know musical arrogance when I see it....yet this has mass apeal! Either it's payola, or it's some grand conspiracy to keep it away from larger groups via the airwaves...but you can't tell me this stuff isn't amazing sounds...lest my dance floor, and thousands of others all over N. America and Europe and Asia and all over th world would be deserted every single weekend...

When I worked radio I was told it was all about ratings...guess what? my dance-mix show had a 48 share in the damned arbitrons, and guess what? It was cancelled because the consultants and promoters (with the payolla) wanted it that way. You can't # a #ter guys.

I still say it is because dance music is not for the casual listener.

On Topic:
I think in the case of Dance, trance or any type of electronic music, it has gotten so diluted, and because of technology you are actually able to put together a create a good dance song. It leaves you to be one and a million and all of the million is actually good. Why do some people make it and others do not?
PR... the ones that stick out are the ones you know about. The guy/girl who is at every club in NYC pushing it it until everyone knows his/her song. Building a fan base, being a DJ at a club, having 2 billion Myspace friends (I know it messed up but its a driving marketing tool for music) With Live music, Rock, metal, alt. You are still one an a million, but.... the gene pool is very selective.
If you suck, you suck there is no way of hiding it. (well maybe a few, but in the rock side of the music industry you will get found out very quickly) And even then there are horrible bands that "make it" over others, is it image, is it a nitch genre, some labels (most indies) make there money on owning every dime of some young bands music, putting in 10K sell 40K records and they are very happy like that. So it all depends on SOOO many factors. And the last but not least, who ya know!

Off Topic

Right On BassPlayer, good to see people in the know Musically,
Just to add your Mode post, Anyone interested in really knowing your instrument and being creative and have the ability to improv with out sounding like your in the box, needs to know you modes. A good start is:

1) Learn the Major Scale pattern starting at any root (in my case guitar) starting from any fret. Meaning Learn to play the major scale from any note in that keys major scale. There is a specific pattern up and down the neck.

2) Learn how each mode feels, (major, minor a mix of the two)

3) Learn what relative major scale is for the root note and mode you want to play. Ex. You are playing in Em if you play any of the notes starting at any position on any fret of the C Major scale. You will be playing in the Phrygian (sp) mode. There is an interval from each root note, to a major scale for every mode.
It sounds complicated but once you know your major scales you can play in any mode at any time and all you will every really be playing is a major scale. The feel of the song changes because of the root note behind it.

Shift trio (sp),

You are correctamundo with the modes. The easiest way to learn them and get familiar with them is to learn the major scale and then learn to play the major scale from each successive note within the scale to it's own octave and to really get the sounds characteristic to the modes ingrained into your ear.

dorian is easy to recognize just remember the bass line to rappers delight and that's all you'll ever need to remember how the dorian mode sounds. or just listen to miles davis' song So What.

Phrygian has that flat 9 it's distinctive. Lots of spanish guitar uses this mode.

lydian and it's #4. creates a very spacey futuristic or dreamy heroic sound. although I think tom petty's here comes my girl sounds very lydian to me.

I think if I remember how the song sounds and I haven't heard it in a long time the star trek the next generation theme is written around the mixolydian mode a lot of 60 psychadelic rock too. Mixo is a very happy mode to me.

locrian is the easiest but also easy to confuse with the sounds of the diminished modes.
Can't think of anything written in the locrian mode sorry, but it sounds cool if not very dark

Personally I like the whole tone scale, it's trippy. But the eastern european minor modes that sound a lot like harmonic minor diatonic stuff due to the #4 are pretty wicked sounding especially on a shredder guitarists solo, ala racer x, yngwie malmsteen, and even yikes joe stump.


edited to fix about 100 spelling errors.
[edit on 7-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

[edit on 7-5-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Damn morethan you sound like you're a full fledged film scorer. sounds overwhelming and not something I'd be up to task in.

Sweet that you are a bass player as well it is the coolest instrument EVER!!!!!
What axes ya got, what sorta gear you like etc...

We're going to have to find someway to get this thread back on topic though.