4-to-the-floor
4-to-the-floor (actually four-on-the-floor in English ) is a rhythm that developed primarily in the disco music of the 70s and became a key feature of electronic dance music in the decades that followed.
construction
It is a uniformly stressed rhythm in 4 / 4 ¯ clock , in which the bass drum is played on every beat (1, 2, 3, 4). It became popular with disco music in the 1970s, and the term four-on-the-floor was widely used during this period.
Many variants of electronic dance music, especially house and techno and all of their descendants, use this rhythm as their foundation. A special form can also be found in jazz : here, instead of playing the bass drum loudly as in the other styles, its sound is only hinted at (“sprung”) so that the sound is felt rather than heard. Typically this is combined with a ride cymbal and hi-hats as syncope . This rhythm is wrongly described with the term swing .
If a stringed instrument sets the rhythm (such as a rhythm guitar , banjo, or violin ), all four hits are played at the same pitch and with the same velocity.
In reggae , the bass drum is usually put on the third beat ( one drop ). Nevertheless, the 4-to-the-floor rhythm is a common design element in reggae ( steppers ). A well-known example of this is the song Exodus by Bob Marley & The Wailers . The sound system culture associated with reggae , which is characterized by deep bass-oriented music reproduction and thus makes the bass drum beats physically noticeable, had a lasting influence on the concept of 4-to-the-floor rhythm in electronic dance music.
4-to-the-floor sounds particularly puristic in some works by Electronic Body Music from the 1980s and 1990s, for example in the piece Headhunter by the Belgian band Front 242 . The same band also produced the track No Shuffle , the title of which is characteristic of the EBM and early techno scene, as these two styles were mainly characterized by the fact that the drum and bass sequences were not even in eight-minute pieces were varied. From today's perspective, for example with a view to dubstep , this may seem unimaginative, but it was precisely this constant repetition of a pattern that was the secret of success for EBM and techno and accumulated a little later in the term trance , although this connection only applies to the early productions. But also newer pieces such as machine from Unheilig make extensive use of the 4-to-the-floor.
Sometimes every rhythm that is played in 4 ⁄ 4 time and every beat is emphasized equally loud is also (incorrectly) referred to as 4-to-the-floor.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rick Snoman . (2004) The Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys and Techniques , ISBN 0-240-51915-9
- ↑ Shapiro, Peter . (2000) Modulations: a History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound , London: Distributed Art Publishers , ISBN 1-891024-06-X , p. 40
- ↑ Michael Miller: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Drums. 2004, ISBN 1-59257-162-X .