Ornette Posted October 19, 2010 Report Share Posted October 19, 2010 From the early days of the Drum & Bass Arena mailing list (before anyone had heard of forums)... this little gem that I just felt needed to be brought to the surface again! Many thanks to Aaron Stigberg for forwarding it to me at the time (as i overlooked it the first time around?) --------------------------------------------------From: Jon Beck <JonB@runningwithscissors.com>Sent: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 22:33:18 +0100To: DNB list <dnb@beats.co.uk>Subject: Furthering my breakbeat philsophy (or why a house beat is sex) This expands on one of my earlier posts about how I consider a breakbeat to be a conversation between the bass (a mans presence) and the snare (a womans). Earliest conversation (I'll keep this to 16th notes for now) (B = bass, s = snare, .= rest) B...S...B...S... = They just met, kind of boringly bouncing back and forth evenly B...S.....B.S... = Man begins doing that offbeat thing, pretending he's too good for the woman B...S...S.B.S... = Woman starts "tat-Boom-tat-ing" trying to get his attention. B.B.S...S.B.S... = Man slips off his high rock a bit, starts to lean towards the woman. B.B.S..S.S.B.S... = Woman laughs back, guzzling another shooter, "Tat-tat-boom-tat"! B...S......B.SB... = When the man starts to jump on the woman, "TatBoom!" B...S...SB...S...S = Woman trying to assert more a presence on the man, trying to get him to do this: B...SB...B.B.SB... = Man completely flipped over woman (note early appearance of "TatBoom!"), excessive bass with no woman in between. B.BBS.B.B.BBSB... = Poor guy is probably stalking her at this point. So then, when a man finally gets underneath the womans proper position (after the man), we get the house beat B...B...B...B... ....S.........S... = Notice woman hardly ever can take enough of this kind of action to be on every beat. DO NOT ENGAGE IN THIS BEAT UNLESS THE SNARE AGREES! Except during those few years when women began to do snare rolls, trying to shove ever other bass drum under em. Bass hardly ever rolls without sounding excessively opressive. I obviosly left out a myriad of beats that I can't express with the 'B', 'S', '.' format, like a typical amen, with just one real bass B <AMEN1> b <AMEN2> Note that the little 'b', or the second bass, is usually offbeat and more an impression that a sound. Like the man was "kind of interested" (youngsters take note). Since the first bass was just so awesome, it sent the woman into an amen-type snare explosion. I also left out the trebles (cymbals, hats & shakers) as they are really just after effects of the bass and snare communicating. I once pictured this communication as a wave, seeing the bass sound being on the low end of the sound spectrum, and snares on the high end, going back & forth is a wave. This is also why we never listen to breaks that go S...B......S.B... Going back over this email it probably doesn't make any sense(unless your used to graphical sequencing), but I could sing it for you and send you a real audio version though if your confused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sti3 Posted October 22, 2010 Report Share Posted October 22, 2010 Ah memories! I totally had forgotten about this--thanks for resurfacing. There were some characters on that list I tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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