MusicFilter: What is this called?
May 13, 2020 3:55 PM   Subscribe

Listening to two songs and certain parts keep sticking in my head. What type of beat is this? What other songs sound like this?

I don’t know the correct terminology for any of this so apologies for the painful description to come. Basically what I am wondering is if there are names for this particular sound and if you can recommend specific songs or other artists that have that same sound.
Song 1: Example 0:43-0:50, 1:41-1:47. The sound repeats throughout the song, so I guess it’s the chorus? I like how the heavy thumping sound is interspersed throughout the song and how it stands out against the more trippy techno sound. What are the thumping and techno sounds called? Are they just drumbeats? If so, what type of drumbeats? Riffs?

Song 2: this also has the thumping sound for emphasis in the background but clapping is added. I really love the beat from 0:50-1:18 when it’s quicker and stronger, particularly at 1:12-1:13.

Please describe these characteristics to me!
posted by anonymous to Media & Arts (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
The term for a repeating musical phrase is ostinato. That's not specific to an instrument but essentially means a continuous (or near-continuous) loop within a piece of music. It does not need to last for the duration of the piece but the repetition is the key component.

For instance, in Sanctified by Nine Inch Nails there is a repeating bass line through the entire song.
posted by acidnova at 4:16 PM on May 13, 2020


I can't tell exactly what you're asking about, whether it's the specific sounds, or a more general terminology for the elements in those sections.

In the first song, the elements in that section are a bass drum that's serving as a bass line. This bass drum sound is from or influenced by the bass drum of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. There are some other percussive elements that sound like large shakers, something akin to a horn stabs (probably horn samples mixed in with a synthesizer sound), and then that plucky melody that's panned to the right.

The second song doesn't really share any of the same elements. It has a different feel, too. The first song is four straight beats per measure, and the second has a three-against-two feel which could be called a few different things (swung eighth notes, 6/8 time, etc.). It has a heavy bass sound synced with the bass drum, so I guess that's similar to the first song where the bass drum IS the bass line.

"Believer" by Imagine Dragons has a similar feel to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wtfhZwyrcc
posted by jonathanhughes at 5:53 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sail may be an example.
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 7:01 PM on May 13, 2020


I know next to nothing about music, so apologies if this doesn't match what you are looking for, but your song examples immediately brought to mind Work Song by Hozier.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 7:38 PM on May 13, 2020


The "heavy thumping sounds" common to both your examples are stabs, and both happen to have a timbre influenced by the BRAAM popularized by the movie Inception.
posted by STFUDonnie at 8:09 PM on May 13, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think the sounds you're talking about in song 1 are the tuned bass notes that have been adapted into mainstream music from the electronic dance music genre of trap. See if this does anything similar for you: Major Lazer - Original Don (Flosstradamus remix).

But yeah, as jonathanhuges said, if it's that bass boom you're talking about it comes from TR-808 bass drum hits. Originally, like for instance in 80s hip-hop, it was just used as percussion without any thought to the note it was hitting, it was just huge bass. Eventually folks got the idea to start having the 808 booms actually play low notes that were in tune with the higher melodies of the music, instead of merely a big warm boom.
posted by glonous keming at 8:12 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]


Other examples of the horn sound: 1; 2
posted by ageispolis at 10:52 PM on May 13, 2020


I think the thump is also quite like a stomp, in the very straightforward sense that an indie folk band would stomp on the floor or on something to contribute to the sound.
posted by lokta at 4:53 AM on May 14, 2020


The sound repeats throughout the song, so I guess it’s the chorus?

Side note of sorts: the parts of a song, the structure - verses, chorus, bridge - are more a function of melody, chord progressions, and lyrics rather than "sounds." Sounds and rhythms can certainly be used as elements of signaling that we're now in a different part of the song, but more often than not the structure of a song will remain even with a completely different arrangement - i.e. if somebody was to perform that "Wild Horses" song with just an acoustic guitar + singing, no keyboards or sampled drum beats, the listener would still be able to hear the difference between the verses and the chorus.

So, for example, in the "Wild Horses" song, the chorus starts when she starts singing "wild horses" at about 0:29 and runs through about 0:59. The snippets you're asking about are part of the chorus, yes, but they're not the entire chorus and more an element of production and arrangement than the actual structure of the song.

Super-simple very general rundown: the verse is one melody and set of chord progressions that repeats through the song with different lyrics each time, the chorus is a different melody & chord progression that repeats the same lyrics each time, the bridge is a third section of chords, melody, and lyrics that's often used to create a sort of tension in a later part of the song (which tension then gets "released" by a return to the verse or chorus.)

(I think this is what may be causing some confusion for folks attempting to answer this - it's not entirely clear how much you're inquiring about:

1) specific sounds used in the production (which you've gotten some good answers on, but it might be difficult to recommend "more" as creating unique sounds for a production can be very important),

2) rhythmic elements of these songs, how the beats are structured (which might be easier to recommend "more" from, as the rhythmic elements don't necessarily depend on the sounds).

and 3) the underlying structure of the song itself.)

(Which is perfectly OK, you don't know what you don't know, that's why Ask is here, but if you're feeling unsatisfied with the answers you might contact a mod to post some follow-up questions.)

Are they just drumbeats? If so, what type of drumbeats? Riffs?

Ehhhhhhh . . . *hand-waggling motion* "Riffs" generally refers to more melodic elements than drums - for example the repeating guitar part in the verses of "River" could be called a "riff" - so IMO, yeah, just "beats."
posted by soundguy99 at 7:22 AM on May 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


All that being said, one thing that these two songs have in common - IMO, and I don't think I'm the only one who's picked up on this, given some of the "more" suggestions - is that there's a sort of half-time feel to the arrangements & production, where some musical elements are suggesting one tempo (speed), and other elements are suggesting a tempo half that (twice as slow.) And the drum beats/sounds you're asking about are certainly a factor in that "half-time" feel.

Lemme see if I can explain this properly in text:

Taking "River" as an example, the singing and the guitar parts are suggesting a tempo like

1 2 3 4

where you could/would commonly arrange the drum parts as

1 (Boom bass drum) 2 (higher tone/pitch percussion like a snare drum or claps) 3 (Boom) 4 (claps) (Repeat)

But instead what's happening is they've arranged the beats as:

1 (Boom) 2 (nothing) 3 (claps) 4 (nothing)

So you've got a sort of push-pull tension, where it feels like you have two different tempos happening simultaneously, one slower than the other.

This gets emphasized in "River" because the verses either leave out the "boom" entirely or use a much less bass-heavy sound for those beats, and then when the chorus kicks in the big BOOM bass drum sound shows up on the first beat of each measure. This is what's happening in the 0:50 - 1:18 part - that's the chorus of the song.

particularly at 1:12-1:13.

And then what happens here is there's a lower bass-drum-like sound added just for a second that actually goes twice as fast as the "original" tempo, which adds another layer of rhythmic contrast.

(I think most musician folks would call that a "fill" or "drum fill", which sort of traditionally would be done on an instrument higher-pitched than a bass drum - it can be hard to do something that quick on a big bass drum that is struck with a foot pedal - like a tom or snare drum, but over the 30-40 years of increasing use of sampled or electronic drum sounds doing a fill with a bass drum sound has become far more common.)
posted by soundguy99 at 8:04 AM on May 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


« Older Loveable weirdos   |   Carpenter Bees and My Blink Camera Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.