help needed, is my music repetative ?

[Gps]

I am listening to a lot of music, also house and disco mixes.

Then I look at my latest creation, and notice stuff.

Basically my loop is too long (not enough variation), and I am still doing too much copy paste.

Also fixed something. My kick drum. It goes boom boom boom boom, boomboom.
The boomboom was out of sync with my chord progression.
Also need to think about and listen to my base line.

I might have been too creative, were this bass line does not totally fits in.

I also notice something I already knew, I do also like repetitive music.
The track that might have started it all. (house edm and all)

Donna Summer - I feel Love (Gorgio Moroder)

Which is not be everybody cup of tea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFEbXJN ... =AnatMusic
No Donna Summer in this one.
With some explanation on how to do that bass line. (delay so it will go wacka wacka wacka)

If I am not mistaken, there was no midi yet, but Giogo Moroder used a click to sync the instruments.
Although I do not understand fully how this works, I have seen him telling this in an interview.

[tavasti]

Donna Summer - I feel Love (Gorgio Moroder)

Same song by Kingston Wall is more my cup of tea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_86Fu42yfDo

[Gps]

Interesting, now that is a cover I do like.

He totally nailed the Moroder base line, even though he is using a guitar. I am impressed.

Cold it be, he is using delay?

I also like how the strings from the original are replaced by guitars.

[Gps]

I wonder what the person who called my track repetitive would think of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ6RbvO ... dayNightTV

I just realized I have been listening to DISCO too much.

There is how ever a lot happening, in an attempt to hide its repetitiveness.

Same guy, Try it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpAudda ... imonAmbler

I need to process this, were is my track is different. I do notice a lot.
There are kinda random sounds and lets call it synth arpeggios.
And awesome funky guitar play loops.

My track has too much literately copy and pasted parts.

There comes the frustration again. Not being able to nail the solution within seconds.

On the bright site, I refuse to give up.

I also do notice why my track is too repetitive.

[Gps]

Still refusing to give up still, I realized something while looking at my lmms file.

My base line is totally not funky,
Funk disco is the type of disco I really like.

My current base bass needs a lot of work.
It does not wanna make me move, it even gets a bit on my nerves. Way to repetitive without syncopation.

I am a bit worried, I might be too white, to create funk.

I clearly need to get a better understand about funk. What is it, specific, I like about certain disco (house / hip hop / soul music)
I am saying for years I like disco, but recently also found some disco tracks that made me second guess this statement.

Might be a good moment to hook up my midi keyboard.
My sense of rhythm, is good.

Tapping along is easier then figuring out were too click in the piano roll.
happy thoughts.

[sunrat]

I am a bit worried, I might be too white, to create funk.

Maybe you need to get some Bootsy Collins, Nile Rodgers, and Bernard Purdie pills.

[Gps]

Nile Rodgers

Gonna google the other two.
Although they sound familiar already.

This woman is probably gonna help me though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGrrdYr ... ngeloMusic

Nile Rodgers though, once wrote a track for Chic. Chic did not wanna play it.
Then they hired some french singer, Shiella E.

And then she sung spacer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figgL4W ... el=SHAYMCN

Sheila E and her black devotion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBOpXGH ... lerChannel

Oh boy, somebody said black. And off course it was shortened to b devotions.

[Gps]

Stuck between hope and desperation.

I copied my melody to the bass line, and that was already a huge step forward.

Why this works so well in this case, is because my melody has syncopation and short notes.

I can see this ending in two ways. Me giving up and stop making music, or there will be a step forward of my noise.

I keep hearing in my mind, some feedback I got. Which means he is right, but how to fix it ?

How can something basically so simple be so hard ? (music)

Bootsy Collins is definitely my cup of tea.

This track has me thinking. It sounds so familiar in a way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tgYr03 ... PriderFunk

I instantly want to sing along, but that must be from some kind of cover.
Some Disco mix or HipHop.

Different lyrics though, but still I recognize it.
The part starting at 0.03 sec.

Maybe I found it, but it feels too slow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdyUqqR ... PROXXVideo

[Gps]

I am still thinking a lot, about my track duality.

The good news for me is, that I am to stubborn to quit making music.

My track was called repetitive, by one of the LMMS devs.
I need to let go of that feedback.

It causes an error in my brain.
Here is an old example, why I don't get it.

Glenn Miller in the mood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-0E_ ... l=symir547

I might be seeing the light though. My loop is longer then any other track, and this loop does repeat for the entire track.
A lot of the loops in house and such are only 1 measure.

This brings me to the feedback I got from an american friend.
He did not say my track was repetitive.

This is what he said in a chat:

To be blunt...you have no Movement.

4 measure intro. 8 measures vocals. 2-4 measures refrain. 4-8 measures Vocals. 4 measuers Chorus...it how most songs begin

My loop is about 16 measures.

Never give up never surrender ?

[erlkönig]

What i'm missing a bit in this thread is a more historical perspective on the theme of repetitive music, such a perspective can sometimes lead to surprising insights. I like repetitve music, too, and try to do it myself. From the mid-80s on, when i first heared King Crimsons "Discipline", or indonesian gamelan music, i loved that style of music. I didn't know, how it was done. Then there was a music teacher, who showed and explained the music of Steve Reich and Phil Glass, and that was really a turning point. I'm not so much into House music, or technoid music in general, but there are a few artists, who seem to have learned from those minimalists, and that's the point, where that style is something i like.
That minimal stuff works much with pattern shifting. Listen at Steve Reichs clapping music to understand the principle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzkOFJMI5i8
...and that's something you can apply with echoes/delays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E20iADAe6g
listen at the synth coming in at 1'30" : that's a simple pattern of mainly fourths, having a dotted echo. That fills amazingly. You could do something like that with your main synth line. To push the rhythm more forward, i would try to give a delay on the clap, that echoes right on the next clap, maybe with some variable filter. Usually, this builds up. You could fill up the backing synth areas to a wall, by adding some timed delays of them. I wouldn't do that drastically - just for filling it in a way, that you don't hear it, but you miss it, when they're switched off.

One more thing - Here's the most useful bit of mixing advice I've ever heard that changed everything for me: Think about the arrangement in terms of whereabouts things are sitting in the frequency range. If you have multiple things playing in the same octave it can be a nightmare to mix.

Absolutely right, that's the point, where a good arrangement comes into the game.

[Gps]

Thank you, and your first lines are basically why I am having a big issue with understand the lmms dev, stating my track is repetitive.
To me most music is repetitive.
It is probably best for me, to ignore that.

This leaves me with the feedback from the American online friend. His feedback I do understand.
He talks about structure (lag of) , and using different instruments, to make the loop sound different.

I do wonder what the lmms dev had said about:
Banco de Gaia - Last train to Lhasa
He might just not like repetitive music.

It does at the start remind me of a house / ska track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_BqcBR ... venlyHouse

This track does follow the feedback I got from that American.
Something changing about every 1 or 2 measures.

I am gonna have a look at what notes I have used. The way I make tracks has to do with how I started, when people asked if I was tone deaf.
Bassline is C, then all other tracks are in C. (the safe and boring way)
These days my ears are trained enough, so that I can use even out of scale notes, and then hear if it fits or not.
Thanks to a vid of a music teacher, who played an out of scale note, then asked if the class heard anything wrong.
When the class answered no, she replied nor do I.

I took me about 6 months though, to go from tone deaf to be able to hear if something is in tune or not.
I need to focus more, on all the stuff I learned already, instead of the less positive feedback from one dev.

[tavasti]

Thank you, and your first lines are basically why I am having a big issue with understand the lmms dev, stating my track is repetitive.
To me most music is repetitive.
It is probably best for me, to ignore that.

Yeah, there is plenty of repetitive music that still works. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SthznLfppuE

So point 'have something changing' all the time is most likely the point.

[Gps]

The feedback I got on the duality track nearly made me quit.

After giving it a rest for months, and just listening to it again, the person from the LMMS judges does have a point, even though I suspect he does not like house (edm) music.

Although there are minor changes during the track, most are almost unhearable.

I have also been listening a lot to repetitive music.

Some house tracks for example do have something extra happening, about every two beats.

The one famous example for house, a vocal sample.

One famous example Snap - I got the power.
The intro could be a copy paste but every 2 measures something vocal happens.

An earlier house track of mine, also has this. Vocal samples which takes our mind of the repetitiveness.

This has been bugging me for months. Now I can start to let it go.

Progress, but first that levee will break in Ardour.

[sunrat]

@Gps hip-hop music is often mindlessly repetitive but that hasn't stopped the genre from becoming popular. It's all been mostly downhill since Grandmaster Flash's "The Message". I'm sure your stuff is better than most of the modern stuff.
Remember Sturgeon's Law - "90 percent of everything is crap". Be the 10%!

I really like a lot of Carbon Based Lifeform music. They do some quite long songs based on the same beat and melody but gradually evolving to keep it interesting.

[Gps]

Yeah Grandmaster Flash and the furious 5 had a message (pun intended).

It was not about bitches and money.

I still think I made something catchy but my duality tracks does needs work.

A common problem when I work on a track, it gets drilled into my mind and I like it.
Then when I let the track rest for a while, and listen to it with fresh ears, I start to notice some short comings.