Music for a juggling act?
March 3, 2010 3:07 PM   Subscribe

Can you help me find a musical track for a juggling act?

I'm hunting for examples of musical tracks with some very specific properties. Unfortunately neither my brain nor iTunes indexes music according to these properties.... maybe your brain does!

The track I want

- is approximately three minutes long
- is accessible to the point of being catchy
- is mainly upbeat
- has several different well defined sections in which the tempo (and perhaps volume) varies
- preferably has at least one repeated musical motif
- has points where the music stops to catch a breath. Doesn't have to be complete silence, but a noticeable "stop" of some kind.
- does not have offensive, disturbing, or misogynistic lyrics
- if it's well known that's even better, but fine if it's not

An example of this is "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Dub" by Apollo 440, but it could be jazz, hip hop, or pretty much any genre.

All the songs I'm listening to are either nice without being catchy, or are same-y all the way through. For example, I'm currently listening to "Zombie Nation" by Kernkraft 400, which is very catchy but goes on and on and on at the same tempo.

Even if you don't know of a specific track, maybe you can think of a genre likely to contain lots of this kind of thing, or anything to narrow down the search.
posted by emilyw to Media & Arts (14 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
French Navy by Camera Obscura?
posted by Duffington at 3:15 PM on March 3, 2010


Make 'em laugh
posted by Think_Long at 3:19 PM on March 3, 2010


The Blue Danube
posted by timshel at 3:27 PM on March 3, 2010




Previously.

Boban Markovic Orkestar's Baltic Fest is supreme.
posted by Paragon at 4:02 PM on March 3, 2010


You'll definitely find something worthwhile on this album: http://www.amazon.com/Carl-Stalling-Project-Cartoons-1936-1958/dp/B000002LJE
posted by Alabaster at 4:32 PM on March 3, 2010


Pistolero - sorry this isn't a youtube link, but I'm at work and it's blocked - but this should make it easy to find.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:54 PM on March 3, 2010


dj shadow - the number song - has stops, counting (maybe you could do something with that), and a slowdown part at the end. I think it's pretty catchy as well.
posted by tremspeed at 5:00 PM on March 3, 2010




Since you're doing a juggling act, you might consider some of the stuff from the Cirque du Soleil soundtracks. This is one of the tracks from La Nouba. It's about 5 minutes long, but it has its ups and downs, but stays pretty upbeat except for a slower section at about 2:30. The lyrics are generally in a foreign language that may or may not actually be a real language, and I think most of the stuff is catchy as hell. If this interests you, check out pretty much anything by this guy, who has written a few of the different Cirque soundtracks.
posted by stufflebean at 6:02 PM on March 3, 2010


Sorry for my mangled post there. "It's about 5 minutes long, but you could probably edit it down a bit. It has its ups and downs..."
posted by stufflebean at 6:03 PM on March 3, 2010


Perhaps a song by Beirut? This one's pretty catchy, and there's something nostalgic about it that i think would go well with a juggling/street performance. There's also a gradual 'stop' just before the two min mark and then around 2 and a 1/2 min.
posted by skauskas at 8:47 PM on March 3, 2010


Blackfoot Roll by Mr Scruff.
posted by tenaciousd at 5:31 AM on March 4, 2010


Raymond Scott... POWERHOUSE
posted by Oireachtac at 10:23 AM on March 4, 2010


« Older Is Eve Online a good match for my gaming style?   |   Flash, uh huh Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.