It’s a Friday night, and you’re going out with your friends. You put your lipstick on in the bathroom mirror and put on the perfect outfit you picked off Pinterest hours ago. You get on your chosen method of transportation and wait in line, giggling with your girls until you finally reach the bouncer. You can see the lights, the people, the DJ. Music theory is the farthest thing from your mind, but should it be?
Club or rave music is notorious for its electric, loud, and colorful feeling. The bass rattles the floor, the techno sounds pierce your ears, and the rhythm has you jumping and dancing until there are sweat stains on your Y2K “vintage” Urban Outfitters crop top.
EDM and house music are rarely considered technically eloquent, but after the release of “Brat” by Charli XCX, conversations around club music shifted. The unsuspecting crowds began seeing the substance behind the music.
The Past
Club music stems broadly from many types of dance music, mainly disco, house, and techno. It’s no surprise that electronic music originated in Black communities. We see influence from a wide range of genres (especially those dominated by people of color), including jazz and R&B.
The most prominent of these genres is disco. The word “disco” actually comes from the name of a type of club that played solely disco music, called “discothèque.” Its rise to popularity in the ‘70s gave space for artists like Donna Summer, The Trammps, and the Bee Gees. The genre’s rise is mostly credited to the abysmal times the decade was, from the Vietnam War to Watergate.
A key difference between disco music and the club genre is the average length of the song. A disco song, on average, is about six to eight minutes long. Disco artists wanted to inspire the people of the time to dance all night, and the lengthy nature of the songs supplied the means for just that. Club music, our dance music of the present, is often mixed together by DJs to hold this longevity. Clubgoers can now dance all night without the need for a nearly 20-minute-long song, like Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby.”
House music rose after disco near the end of the ‘70s. NPR journalists credit a gay nightclub for the start of club and house music. In 1977, Frankie Knuckles had a residency in The Warehouse, a disco club that quickly turned into the classic nightclub we see today. We saw classic artists like Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, and Blondie being remixed into something new and electric. The mix of the past (disco) and future (electric house music) made the dance scene increasingly more interesting. A song I really admire from this era is “Situation” by Yazoo. You can see the clear disco influence, but the beat is perfect for the modern club. By the ‘80s, new technology was popularized, including drum machines and synthesizers. From here, the club music we know was born. The genre was built from a dogpiling of musical styles and technologies, creating something new, unique, and powerful in its own regard.
The Present
Focusing more on popular techniques rather than specific artists or genres, what’s big right now? Is music theory even relevant to the club music scene right now? Consult just about any Reddit-SoundCloud rapper, and they’ll give you a simple answer: no.
Music forums tend to disagree. A moderator on Gearspace expresses the genuine talent and care it takes to make a good mix while simultaneously saying, “It doesn’t need to be full-on Mozart, it can be as simple as someone repeating the phrase, ‘It’s time for a percolator.’”
Professor Tim Riley, music educator at Emerson College, says it’s “ignorant” to overlook the technical elements of club music.
“Music theory plays a role in every kind of music,” he said. “So why wouldn’t it play a role in club music?”
Music theory, in the simplest terms, is just how we quantify music. Riley describes his negative feelings toward those who look down on club music, especially when comparing it to Western classical music. Sonata form is so often notated as the “best way” to format a song, which is simply just one way to format music. Sonata form aims to divide a musical piece into three different sections, each exploring a specific theme or idea. There are certain requirements for each section, like what key it should be in and what musical elements must be included. Something like this clearly wouldn’t work for something as eclectic as club music.
He poses the question, “Why would you want club music in sonata form? That’s a little bit like using the wrong tool to measure something.”
There are a million biases in the music world. Music theorists often favor the Western classical genre because of its consistent organization and how easily you can tell good from bad. The organization of club music, on the other hand, is almost solely based on what will get the crowd moving. Producers use elements like beats per minute (BPM) to craft a sound that will energize and excite the audience.
Referring to club music producers, Riley says, “They’re not saying, ‘Oh, I hope the musicologists like this.’ That’s not what they’re thinking at all.” He adds, “Musicology is not being used well if it’s being used as a prescription.”
While there is still much to learn from Beethoven and Mozart, good music isn’t so black and white. Taking into account the writing, recording, performance, and distribution of material, we perceive the music a certain way. “To dismiss any single one of those elements is to miscomprehend,” Riley says.
When thinking about performance, although it isn’t a direct part of music theory, we can view it as kind of an add-on. Riley refers to performance as an “extra layer.”
“You can take a mediocre song and hear a great performance of it by a great singer, and you can think, ‘Well, I love this singer, but the song isn’t that great,’ but you still listen to the song because you love the singer,” he said.
A large part of club music culture is a loud, impactful performance. Whether that is by the artist or a DJ, we see such intense performances adding to the sound. Riley says this shouldn’t be discounted.
The technical elements of club music are what make the genre what it is.
The Future
So, what’s the future of the club genre? Can we use music theory to determine this? Riley says no.
“I would think that’s impossible, but if I’ve learned one thing, it’s to never doubt the ingenuity of the creatives,” he says. “In my ideal world, there’s a music theorist who is so creative that they could figure out how to predict the future of club music.”
“It’s possible, it’s just not probable,” he said. He hopes that a music theorist with great technical skill and a creative imagination will someday be able to crack this code, but for now, we will have to wait to see what producers and musicians come up with.
