EDM Music

[Pino]

Quote from JoeH
I guess folks here don't really like electronic music (vs "Pop music")

Jo & other EDM players,
it's not that folks don't like it, it's how do you go about playing it, I am a musician, I can play anything as long as I can feel the music, if I want to play "Careless Whisper" by Wham then I get the sheet music, sort out the style and that's it, I'm on my way, but, how do you go about playing EDM, do you listen to mp3 songs or ,how do you learn what to play,

I do restaurant work and I could do with some easy listening EDM stuff mixed in with the classics and pop stuff. My audience is of all ages.

Do I need to listen to a lot of EDM music and then "play by ear" or is there some sheet music somewhere or do you make it up as you go, I mean the EDM styles on my 975 sound ok by just changing the chords,

I would like to learn more on how I could play EDM and what in your opinion are the top 5 EDM songs.

Pino

[panos]

Hi Pino,
I will just write about how I see Electronic Dance Music as Panos.
For me EDM is just what Disco used to be in the 70's  & 80's.
Now they call it EDM or Club music.
20 years ago they might called it "rave" or "trance" music.
EDM includes  house, techno, trance, drum and bass,dubstep etc
Basically is the kind of music which combine dance with new electronic sounds (and drumkits)
We can hear and learn about new songs on the radio,in night clubs and Youtube.

I don't know if something like dubstep is a kind of music you can play on a restaurant
but you certainly can play modern songs using less "crash boom bang" dance styles.
I believe that remixes work both ways:
Not only by choosing a radio hit and making a club remix but we can also choose a club hit and make an easy listening "radio" version.

Some songs that I liked their music for the past years and i can think of right now:

Clean Bandit - Rockabye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=papuvlVeZg8

Pink - What About Us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClU3fctbGls

Rihanna - Diamonds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWA2pjMjpBs

Alan Walker - Fade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7SZ5SBzyY

Alan Walker - Faded (It is "Fade" with lyrics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ItHLz5WEA

Avicii - Wake Me Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrbM1l_BoI

Charlie Puth - Attention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfs8NYg7yQM

Ed Sheeran - Shape of You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwWNGJdvx8

Camila Cabello - Havana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ0mxQXmLsk

There are sheet music,midis and of course keyboard covers(or tutorials) of these songs on Youtube so we can learn to play them.

This might help also
Top 10 Most Viewed Music Videos Each Year (2010-2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq31EzDqoqw

I believe also that a fine melody may sound great (at least to some people)
no matter what "style" we choose to play it 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWcuUuUEAI4

[Pino]

Thank you Panos for an excellent reply,

I am basically a Big Band, Ballads and Bossa's kind of performer and some pops thrown in, since I've had the S975, which has a lot of EDM styles and voices, I've been messing about with the styles and I must say they sound terrific through my Maui 5's and even better at high volume through Eon 1's to a point that I may consider playing some EDM,

It's a busy time this month but early 2019 may be a good time to put some stuff together and see what happens.

Thanks again Panos for spending the time to include all the links and info.

Regards

Pino

[Joe H]

Hi Pino,

Yes I listen to a LOT of Trance EDM and not so much of pop EDM that we hear on the radio. And I do play by ear. EDM is a very big music genre umbrella.  It covers a lot of territory as the examples Panos have provided.  Thank you Panos.

The closest type of EDM in Panos examples is the instrumental and vocal version of Fade by Alan Walker.  Some examples of the European Trance Vocals I listen to  are below. These are very complex arrangements that are a challenge to reproduce on an arranger keyboard since all this music is produce in a DAW.  Some of it is played by a controller keyboard into the DAW and much of it is produced by arpeggios with filter sweeps and pan sweeps and changing real-time release envelopes and Depth Send of DSP effect processors.  In other words Trance EDM is very animated music.

Magic Dance Sketch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xePLAwUXF2c

See you Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfD_skH8Nw

Dynamic Arp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHyYOS61pO4

I'm still working on my techniques which requires the use of registrations (often 2 full banks of registrations)  The programming of side chain and filter and pan sweeps in style files and Multi Pads is programmed manually in StyleMagic.

The other BIG factor is having the right Voices (sounds) and drum kits.  Things are improving in that area with 3rd party expansion packs.

Here are some examples (musical sketches) of my music to date... but I will be working on more complex arrangements after I finish my current synth Voice pack and some new custom phrases I am creating from the Proteus arpeggios I am converting for use on the arranger to make custom style parts and Multi Pads.  The thing about EDM is the rhythmic character of the music.  By this I mean not only the drum part(s) but also the melodic phrases (motif) which are rhythmic in nature and create the character of each song / tune. The main thing it's music people can dance to.   

https://app.box.com/s/nduby9ihg11g0cfku8ulhu09t8f58jlf

https://app.box.com/s/26xhbjg21v7hxd12nbyyw5c0zp4zmwkl

https://app.box.com/s/iz9wf4bllx7xrviatdut7y8p640lf1ye

This last one was produced with the help of an external MIDI controller to vary the Release Envelope (via a foot pedal) on the right-hand arpeggio

Joe H

[Duurduur]

Not my kind of music but very well played.

[Pino]

Thanks JoeH for your reply
Apologies for my late reply
It's been a busy weekend, today, Monday is a day off for me.
it's a catch-up day.

Listened to all of your links
The first 3 would need a female vocals,

Your own compositions sound very good,
That's what I could be doing, just instrumentals in an early evening beach side restaurant bar, I don't do any EDM at the moment but there's no reason why I could not include some,  there is a night market close to where I am working, they play EDM Music till about 10pm and their dance floor is always full but I never did see anyone over 40ish dancing,

I play OTS only, that's just the 4 instrument parts per style/song, then I press a registration to  bring in a new song, then I have 4 new OTS for that song, my styles may only have one variation on all the 4 variations ABCD but there will a different OTS to each variation, I don't think I would be into programming 2 banks of registrations, just wouldn't have the time for that and everything has to be easy, easy, easyfor gigging.

The biggest problem would be learning the songs, I cannot see much of a pattern, verse, chorus etc.as yet, I will need to listen a lot more, If someone asked me to play 'Beatles 'or something like that then the chord progression would come straight through to my fingers and the melody would be easy cos I would have this song in my head from listening over the years but EDM Music is not so easy, from what I hear the chords are not that complex but the melody is more robotic.

However,

The EDM styles on the S975 sound so good that I really want to experiment more, I almost could play some chords and they sound like full songs without much melody and I can see people dancing, I will look on utube for some simple tracks that I can learn quickly and see how it goes from there.

Thanks for your reply Joe and all the links, it's a completely new area for me and only brought on since I purchased the 975
I hope to be able to 'mix it up' with more up to date songs in future gigs.

Regards

Pino

[panos]

Nice works there Joe,welldone!!
They sound great!

I like how the melody between Joe's "See You Again" and JM Jarre's "Oxygene 8"(released in1997) follow different "paths" to complete their phrases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CsqFOhNN0k

Pino,I think you got it right.
Choose a music Scale (better be a melodic minor) with 4 chords and play a kind of melody (improvisation) that suits to these chords.
Just simple musical phrases is fine.
Or just use chords and arrpegios without a  melody line at all.
It is still will sound nice.

[gary3917]

I am trying to send this topic to my email ..it will not send .Is there any way I could save this topic some how ?

[panos]

To keep a web page we just add this page to our favourites depending on the web browser we use
(Internet explorer,Windows 10 Edge,Mozilla Firefox,Google Chrome,Opera etc)

For example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjS4qFe2qi4]

or we can take the "address" and put it somewhere on our computer.
https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,47769.0.html

e.g on a document like Microsoft word,notepad etc
or we can also send an email to ourselves with the web address.

[Joe H]

Gary,

I clicked on the original post by Pino, then copied the url:

http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,47769.msg373958.html#msg373958

You can copy this yourself and paste it in your email.  If you have MS Outlook, you can then high-light the url and select from the Insert menu... Hyperlink and that will create a live link to this thread just like the one above.

Joe H

PS: you don't have to use the Insert function... copying the link above will work when you paste it in a new Outlook email.  Another way is to go to the original post, click on the topic and create a book mark in your browser.