I am struggling with it. Teach me something about …
… Space. This is about rhythm and sound and intentionally leaving gaps, blank spaces, void, … that form a rhythm on their own in between the sounds you play.
I would like to learn something new, so please let’s talk and share some wisdom about the ominous Space in Between that makes rhythm and sound so much more vivid and interesting oftentimes.
So, please fellow creators of beats, patterns and noise, what’s your recipes, wisdom and techniques? Sound, theory and references are all very welcome.
Hmm… for me “Swing” is how you push the rhythm forward and “Funk” is using the low end to bring it back, the space between is when those 2 things move the air, and I mean literally move the air on a real soundsystem or using big loud amps and real drums
I think a good way of thinking about this is to picture yourself playing the rhythms you are creating with synths, with an electric bass. It’s imo the best instrument for learning to understand different ways of creating a rhythmic vibe, meaning how long the notes play and how exaggerating or diminishing the length can be an incredibly expressive and cool thing.
I find this helpful for determining the release time as well, as with an electric bass it makes such a big difference how you stop the string from vibrating.
Hopefully that makes any sense hahaha. This is how I usually approach setting the lengths of rhythmic elements. Often times kinda air playing those with an imaginary bass to get the feel right.
Something I often notice with Elektron sequencers is that I don’t leave enough gaps. It’s just so fun to go wild with p-locks and trig conditions, it pushes me in the direction of making ever-changing walls of noise rather than something more airy. It’s different to how I write with a piano roll in a DAW, and certainly much different to how I play if I play a part in ‘live’. Which isn’t to say that one of those options is ‘better’ than the other just that it’s worth considering how your tools push you to write in different ways.
Good topic. I’ll flip it a little and add frequencies to the conversation. You can have 1 sound, sparsely spaced, and sound empty. But if that sound covers all the frequencies, I bet you can get a full sounding phrase that’s minimally spaced.
It’s also helpful to start arranging a loop or track idea as soon as possible. Often you’ll notice that some elements just work on their own or that other elements aren’t needed at all. Same can be applied to a melody or bass line - make it as sparse as possible without losing the idea.
I don’t have much to share other than expressing that I’d like to explore this in my own music more.
Rei Harakami is one of my favorite artists who wields this concept.
An almost obnoxiously good example here but really all of his work is built around this spirit.
It’s basically all made with a Roland sound canvas and Yamaha sequencer. So even the sonic palette and compositional leanings are a broad exercise in restraint.
I tend to cut and leave complete silence for one second in audio before the drop. That’s intentional. Other times i just listen to a groove. Though i wish to find more silent parts in my tracks as well. Something i am working on. Contrast is important to me, but most of the time i get carried away.
It’s hard to get away from that internal hum.
Quite an Intresting concept. I heard once a similar album. (Wasnt able to find it right now - but its in my opinion also rhytmically very intresting.)
I.e. there a distributed “beats” where several sound sources explode, and then come back together - like a living pulse.
I tend to treat silence more from the minimalistic view - i.e. only the bassline provides context, and other instruments do the spacing. I am still fascianted by older the cure albums, i think they carried this empty feeling quiete well.
One thing I’ve picked up from Caterina Barbieri’s minimalist music: once you’ve looped a phrase or sequence a couple of times, no matter how far apart the notes are, you create a frame. Once you’ve put a frame around this empty space, everything you do within it sounds bigger, more important, and more deliberate. I’ve stolen the techniques from this performance in one of my own sets and it seemed to work pretty well:
If I think about arranging as spacing out elements over time this makes a lot of sense to me.
I have to admit, that mostly jamming on single patterns doesn’t come close to arranging very often. Taking a mental not here to try to remember building at least a variation or two in future…
When thinking about this in my own n music I’ve noticed it’s actually a difference sound quality and quantity.
If I’m not sure of the quality of individual sounds I add more to drown them out, almost safety in numbers.
But when i focus on the quality of the sound and ask myself is this sound good enough to stand alone then i begin to gift it space it deserves, i don’t want to crowd it out.
Also, above the ‘quality’ concept is actually confidence. Am I confident enough to use this cowbell as the main element of groove???
I use song mode on DN2 for that. Once you used it a few times, it’s pretty fast to get something going. I’m also building little transitions by playing only 16 steps of a 128 step pattern or something like that.
Exactly what I’m after. The interplay between what is there and what is not there. Philosophically you could say that one can’t exist without the other. So understandably filling all the gaps you might kill the vibe.
