Disco Music

Disco is a genre of dance-oriented pop music. Disco songs usually have soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady four-on-the-floor beat, an eighth note (quaver) or sixteenth note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and prominent, syncopated electric bass line. Strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and unlike in rock, lead guitar is rarely used. Well-known mid-1970s disco performers included Evelyn "Champagne" King, Tavares, Chic, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross, the Village People, Sylvester, the Jackson 5, and Barry White. While performers and singers garnered the lion's share of public attention, the behind-the-scenes producers played an equal, if not more important role in disco, since they often wrote the songs and created the innovative sounds and production techniques that were part of the "disco sound".[1] Many non-disco artists recorded disco songs at the height of disco's popularity, and films such as Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It's Friday contributed to disco's rise in mainstream popularity and ironically the beginning of it's commercial decline. However Disco was very important in the development of Hip hop music (especially the subgenres of crunk, snap, and hyphy) and Disco's direct descents -- 1980s and 1990s electric dance music genres of house music and its harder driving offshoot techno as well as '80s British New Wave. During the early 1920s a popularized dance form of jazz became popular at nightclubs in major cities. Many parallels exist between the dance music of the 1920s and disco music from the 1970s. Both forms of music featured lavish orchestrations. Both came during period of relative social liberalism (see Roaring Twenties). They both became popularized through black nightclubs although Disco was just as heavily--if not more-- popularized through nightclubs and culture as well. It was during the 1920s that the disco ball first appeared. An example can be seen in the nightclub sequence of Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Gro?stadt, a German silent film from 1927. The Great Depression led to a religious revival and to a socially conservative period in which nightclubs were shut down and relations between whites and minorities became strained. By 1935, swing music had replaced the dance music that had characterized the night life of the 1920s. (Another conservative movement would contribute to the demise of disco late in 1979.) The "disco sound" while unique almost defies a unified description as it was an ultra-inclusive art form that drew on as many influences as it produced interpretations. Jazz, Classical, Latin, Soul, Funk, and new technologies just to name a few of the obvious were all mingled with aplomb. Vocals could be frivolous or serious love intrigues all the way to extremely serious social conscious commentary. The music tended to layer soaring, often reverberated vocals, which are often doubled by horns, over a background "pad" of electric pianos and wah-pedaled "chicken-scratch" (palm muted) guitars. Other backing keyboard instruments include the piano, string synth, and electroacoustic keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, and Hohner Clavinet. The rhythm is laid down by prominent, syncopated basslines played on the bass guitar and by drummers using a drum kit, African/Latin percussion, and electronic drums such as Simmons and Roland drum modules). The sound was enriched with solo lines and harmony parts played by a variety of orchestral instruments, such as harp, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, clarinet, flugelhorn, French horn, tuba, English horn, oboe, flute, and piccolo. Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line. This basic beat would appear to be related to the Dominican merengue rhythm. Other Latin rhythms such as the rhumba, the samba and the cha-cha-cha are also found in disco recordings, and Latin polyrhythms, such as a rhumba beat layered over a merengue, are commonplace. The quaver pattern is often supported by other instruments such as the rhythm guitar and may be implied rather than explicitly present. It often involves syncopation, rarely occurring on the beat unless a synthesizer is used to replace the bass guitar. In 1977, Giorgio Moroder again became responsible for a development in disco. Alongside Donna Summer and Pete Bellotte he wrote the song "I Feel Love" for Summer to perform. It became the first well-known disco hit to have a completely synthesised backing track. The song is still considered to have been well ahead of its time. Other disco producers, most famously Tom Moulton, grabbed ideas and techniques from dub music (which came with the increased Jamaican migration to NYC in the seventies) to provide alternatives to the four on the floor style that dominated. Larry Levan utilized style keys from dub and jazz and more as one of the most successful remixers of all time to create early versions of house music that sparked the genre [3].

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