From cognition Sent Mon, Sep 13th 1999, 15:47
From cognition Sent Mon, Sep 13th 1999, 15:47
kurt: the original hip hop djs noticed that the most popular part of the songs they were playing were the "breaks" ie. the part where it drops down to just the "meat" of the percussion (ie where the percussion is all there in the groove and at its best). they started using double copies of records to go back and forth between the breaks of their records so that the breaks would be longer. so say they were playing a track with a juicy 4 bar break, they would let that play on one turntable, then when that ended, on their second turntable play the break *again* from their *second* copy of the same record, then go back to their first copy of the record on the first 'table and play the break again, etc. breakbeats and breaks refer to the same thing, thus james brown saying "let's break it down", "break it down" etc, he's referring to the musicians to all stop to let the drummer "give 'em some" ie. do his thing. anyway, producers in the 80s and 90s clued in that they could sample the best breaks from classics like james brown's funky drummer, led zeppelin's when the levee breaks (sorta ironic title in hindsight, eh?), etc, etc, etc, so you'll hear pop songs like alanis morrisette et al with a led zep break or james brown break looped throughout, plus you also have had producers do breakbeat tracks where the emphasis has the break looped more in the foreground, as opposed to the background like alanis et al are doing. coldcut's beats and pieces, for example, was the first track to use led zepelin's break from when the levee breaks to show best what i'm talking about here. much of the early "trip hop" was essentially breaks with some stuff on top, same for some hip hop. much of the early jungle just took the incredible bongo band's break from their track "amen" and looped it, now producers use ReCycle and other programs to chop up this break (check hrvatski's oiseaux 96-98 for some fine examples), but it's still break oriented in the end. hope this helps (and makes sense! :) andrew duke xxxxxx@xxxx.xxxx.xxx wrote: > i wonder if someone could take me aside and explain > what really defines 'breakbeat' > (or point me towards a site that might be helpful) > > thanks, and apologies to the rest of you > > kurt -- Cognition/Andrew Duke's In The Mix mailto:xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xx http://www.techno.ca/cognition 1096 Queen St #123 Halifax NS Canada B3H 2R9