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
supine@mail.bway.net wrote:
quoted 7 lines i wonder if someone could take me aside and explain
> 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
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