DI on Music Theory Print

Die anderen Bands

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bands#

Dekadance
Dritte Wahl
Feeling B
First Arsch
Herbst in Peking
Die Skeptiker

Sources#

Ronald Galenza, Heinz Havemeister (eds.): „Wir wollen immer artig sein…“ Punk, New Wave, Hiphop und Independent-Szene in der DDR von 1980 bis 1990. (2nd revised and expanded edition, including a virtually complete discography of all recordings of alternative DDR bands on state and independent labels) Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005
Alexander Pehlemann, Ronald Galenza (eds.): Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund. DDR 1979–1990. Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin 2006
Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, Cyrus M. Shahan: Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2016
Juliane Fürst, Josie McLellan: Dropping out of Socialism: The Creation of Alternative Spheres in the Soviet Bloc. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016

External links#

:(mostly in German) * http://www.die-anderen-bands.de * http://podcast.parocktikum.de * https://web.archive.org/web/20070604023056/http://www.generationpunk.de/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20070328211016/http://www.aggeige.de/ (AG Geige) * http://www.dekadance.de (Dekadance) * http://www.die-art.de (Die Art) * http://www.freygangband.de (Freygang) * http://archiv.digitalcraft.org/is-berlin/isb/_awolter/HIP/STERN.html (Herbst in Peking) * http://www.kirsche-co.de/ (Kirsche & Co.) * http://www.muellstation.de/ (Müllstation) * http://www.sandow.de/ (Sandow) * http://www.dieskeptiker.com/ (Die Skeptiker) * http://happystraps.de (Happy Straps)

Digicore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “digicore” is a portmanteau of “digital” and “-core” (derived from hardcore), and originally appeared in the 2000s as a shortening for the genre “digital hardcore”. In the late 2010s, an online community of teenage musicians, communicating through Discord, coined the modern usage of the term “digicore” to distinguish themselves from the preexisting hyperpop scene. The style was originally seen as a subgenre of hyperpop, though later described as developing alongside the movement. In late 2019, artist lonelee, the founder of the record label teardrop digital, coined the modern usage of the term “digicore” to replace draincore,

Digital hardcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Digital hardcore music is typically fast and abrasive, combining the speed, heaviness and attitude of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and riot grrrl with electronic music such as hardcore techno, The electric guitar (either real or sampled and usually heavily distorted) is used alongside samplers, synthesizers and drum machines. While the use of electronic instruments is a defining feature of the genre, bass guitars, electric guitars, and drum kits are optional. Vocals are more often shouted than sung by more than one member of the group. Typically, the lyrics are highly politicized and espouse left-wing or anarchist ideals. Some practitioners have been influenced by anarcho-punk.

Dikir barat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

is typically performed by groups of ten to fifteen members, though there is no actual set size, even in competitive environments. A group usually sits cross-legged on a platform, sometimes surrounded by the audience. Where the is performed competitively, the two competing groups will both be on the stage at the same time. who is often the person in charge of the musical training of the group. This first segment usually contains the more complex musical arrangements, and will likely feature the (lit. ‘crew’, chorus) singing in unison with the , as well as responsorial segments of singing, similar to what the (‘weaving master’) does with the , later in the performance. Though musically more complex than what will follow, the first segment is seen as the “low-key” segment of the performance. (Pantuns are an oral poetry form indigenous to the Malay region, and are not exclusive to the .) That the uses does not mean that it is a performance of poetry. Like any poet, the is expected to create lyrics that touch upon everyday life, but he can also address social issues, legal matters, politics, government regulations, and human foibles. Historically, dikir barat performances have been all-male. However, in recent years, especially with groups based in urban areas, female performers are beginning to appear. While most musical instruments are excluded from , some groups employ percussion instruments, including the rebana, maracas, or a shallow gong.

Dikir Barat Singapura

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early beginnings#

The first known dikir barat performance in Singapore occurred in 1975 at Victoria School. A group of students, inspired by the Pesta Dendang Rakyat television show on RTM, decided to create their own rendition of the performance. While their initial attempts were unpolished, they successfully sparked an interest in dikir barat locally. The Victoria School group began to gain recognition and was invited to perform at various schools, community centers and weddings. Over time, their performances improved and helped shape the development of dikir barat in Singapore.

Dirge

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the late Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the breviary alongside members of monastic communities. Formal liturgical saying of the Dirige–then legally required to be in Latin –persisted through the first half of the 16th century, with occasional requirements that certain proportions of a parish church’s congregation be present for such events. as the members’ anthem of the Lyke Wake Club, a society whose members are those who have completed the walk within 24 hours. This dirge saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s following performances by English folk bands such The Young Tradition and Pentangle. The Dirige was retained within the Elizabethan primer over Protestant objections to prayers for the dead and there remained resistance to the public liturgical performance of the devotion. In 1560 and 1561, episcopal visitors of the Church of England observed with disapproval the continued practice of clerks singing psalms in “dirge-like” fashion. Since their evolution away from Christian usage, some dirges have intentionally been written to be set to music, while others have been set or reset at later dates. Among the latter cases is the “Dirge for Fidele”, a portion of William Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline that was later set to music by multiple composers.

Dirty blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable songs#

*NB. According to AllMusic, this list of dirty blues songs also included “What the Blues Is All About” by Chick Willis, “Cigarette” by Backwards Sam Firk, and “Georgia Grind” (1926). The latter’s music was written by Spencer Williams and recorded by Blue Lu Barker and Louis Armstrong among others.

Dirty rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Late 1980s and early 1990s dirty rap#

The genre had been around since at least the 1970s or the 1980s, with Blowfly’s Rapp Dirty release. However, it was not until later that decade, when Oakland rapper Too Short released the 1985 album Don’t Stop Rappin containing multiple dirty sex subjects, that sex became a central focus. Although the release did not see much attention outside of his hometown of Oakland, he would continue to use provocative and sexual lyrics throughout his career, gaining him six platinum albums and three gold. The controversial rap group 2 Live Crew brought “dirty rap” to the mainstream with their Miami bass debut 2 Live Crew Is What We Are. With the graphic sexual content of their X-rated party rhymes, 2 Live Crew garnered much negative publicity. However, it was not until their 1989 album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, that dirty rap became a legitimate genre. After being attacked by conservative critics, censors, and attorneys, 2 Live Crew responded with the 1990 album Banned in the USA, a much more political and angry album. 2 Live Crew returned to their utterly pornographic roots with 1991’s Sports Weekend: As Nasty as They Wanna Be, Pt. 2, which was lambasted by many critics as running the sexually deviant lyrics of As Nasty As They Wanna Be into the ground. From Sport’s Weekend onward, the Crew continued to make dirty rap and party rap. Various rappers followed with dirty rap in the wake of 2 Live Crew’s popularity. The group Poison Clan became widely successful, as did the group Bytches With Problems. Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit single “Baby Got Back” could arguably be considered within the dirty rap genre; however, the majority of Mix-A-Lot’s work is not sexually explicit enough for him to be considered a true dirty rap artist. Similarly, the new jack swing hip hop group Wreckx-n-Effect scored a dirty rap hit with their 1992 single “Rump Shaker”. In the early 1990s, the Baltimore club scene first began gaining an identity separate from house music and mainstream hip hop. Baltimore club, or gutter music, often features sexually explicit lyrics, and has influenced many current dirty rappers. Both ghettotech and ghetto house (or “booty house”) also evolved around the same time, and, to an even greater extent than Baltimore club, frequently contain pornographic and sexually explicit content, as exemplified by DJ Assault and DJ Funk, two artists who pioneered ghettotech and ghetto house, respectively.

Disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “disco” is shorthand for the word discothèque, a French word for “library of phonograph records” derived from “bibliothèque”. The word “discotheque” had the same meaning in English in the 1950s. “Discothèque” became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, after they had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian nightclub in an English magazine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Discotheque as “A dance hall, nightclub, or similar venue where recorded music is played for dancing, typically equipped with a large dance floor, an elaborate system of flashing coloured lights, and a powerful amplified sound system. " Its earliest example is use as the name of a particular venue in 1952, and other examples date from 1960 onwards. The entry is annotated as “Now somewhat dated”. It defines Disco as “A genre of strongly rhythmical pop music mainly intended for dancing in nightclubs and particularly popular in the mid to late 1970s.”, with use from 1975 onwards, describing the origin of the word as a shortened form of discotheque. In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called the “discotheque dress” was briefly very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form “disco” described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964; Playboy magazine used it in September of the same year to describe Los Angeles nightclubs. Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the 13 September 1973 feature article Discotheque Rock ‘72: Paaaaarty! that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine.

Disco polo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Classic disco polo songs are characterised by simple chord progressions and melodies, and take further influence from the steady rhythms found in folk music. The genre is dominated by compositions in the time signature. Lyrics are often sentimental and playful, written around themes of love and sometimes holidays.

Roots of the genre#

The genre originates from music played at weddings by bands with a repertoire of Polish folk music and wedding songs. Later, electronic instruments were adopted over traditional acoustic instruments. The most common lyrical themes included melodramatic lyrics about unrequited love. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, more bands emerged, such as Akcent, Atlantis, , and . Scenes were centered in Białystok and other cities in the province of Podlaskie, with regional scenes in Żyrardów and Sochaczew.

Diss track

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin and early examples#

Though the term “diss track” originated in hip-hop, there are many examples throughout music history of earlier songs written as attacks on specific individuals. Some have also been retroactively described as diss tracks in their own right. The 18th-century British American song “Yankee Doodle” has been labeled a “diss song” and “diss track” by The New York Times and Cracked magazine. The song was written by Loyalist colonists against Patriot colonists, opposing sides in the American Revolutionary War. Loyalists (siding with the British monarchy) often sang “Yankee Doodle” directly at Patriots (siding with the American revolutionaries) who were characterized in the song as a foolish and gay man named “Yankee Doodle”. Notably in the song, Yankee Doodle puts only a “feather in his cap” and believes he thus qualifies as a “macaroni”, a type of fashionable and sophisticated male European elite back then. The song was later reclaimed as an unofficial national anthem of the United States. Another early example is the 1963 comedy album I Am the Greatest by boxer Muhammad Ali (then named Cassius Clay), released six months prior to Ali winning the first world heavyweight championship fight against Sonny Liston. The album helped establish Ali’s reputation as an eloquently poetic “trash talker”, dissing Liston and any future contenders several times, as demonstrated on the album’s fifth track “Round 5: Will The Real Sonny Liston Please Fall Down”. At the album’s release, Ali’s remarks were treated as mere promotional bragging, until Ali won against Liston in their fight on February 25, 1964. I Am the Greatest is widely considered a precursor of hip-hop music. Reggae musician Lee “Scratch” Perry was known for writing tracks that insulted his former musical collaborators. One prominent example was the 1967 song “Run for Cover”, directed at producer Coxsone Dodd. Another example was “People Funny Boy”, a 1968 track which attacked Jamaican reggae producer Joe Gibbs; Gibbs would respond later in the year on the track “People Grudgeful”. Perry’s 1973 track “Cow Thief Skank” was a diss against fellow record producer Niney the Observer, who was feuding with Perry at the time. John Lennon of the Beatles wrote “Sexy Sadie”, a song released on the band’s 1968 album The Beatles, as a diss track aimed at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru who he felt had been a let-down to them. The original lyrics specifically targeted him, but at the request of George Harrison the lyrics became more vague. Lennon continued writing diss tracks after the break-up of the Beatles; his most forceful such song was “How Do You Sleep?”, from his 1971 solo album Imagine. Lennon had the impression that the song “Too Many People” from Paul McCartney’s Ram (1971) was a dig at him, something McCartney later admitted, and that other songs on the album, such as “3 Legs”, contained similar attacks. As a result, Lennon wrote “How Do You Sleep?” to indirectly mock McCartney’s musicianship. While McCartney is never mentioned in the song, the many references make clear he is the target, particularly in the lyrics “The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you’ve gone you’re just another day”, the first lyric being a reference to The Beatles’ 1965 song “Yesterday” and the second line referring to McCartney’s 1971 song “Another Day”. The 1974 song “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd deliberately insults Neil Young for his criticism of Alabama in the song “Southern Man”. Young admitted later “I didn’t like my words when I wrote them. They are accusatory and condescending.” The 1980 song “Play It All Night Long” by Warren Zevon would in turn mock “Sweet Home Alabama” by depicting it as a favorite song of a dysfunctional, sickly, poverty stricken, and incestuous southern family who would “turn those speakers up full blast/play that dead band’s song.” The Sex Pistols are another group who recorded several diss tracks, including “New York”, aimed at The New York Dolls, and “E.M.I.”, aimed at their former record label EMI.

Dithyramb

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Dithyrambs were sung by choirs at Delos, but the literary fragments that have survived are largely Athenian. In Athens, dithyrambs were sung by a Greek chorus of up to fifty men or boys dancing in circular formation, who may or may not have been dressed as Satyrs, probably accompanied by the aulos. They would normally relate some incident in the life of Dionysus or just celebrate wine and fertility. The ancient Greeks laid out the criteria of the dithyramb as follows: * special rhythm * aulos accompaniment in Phrygian mode * enriching text * considerable narrative content * originally antistrophic character Competitions between groups, singing and dancing dithyrambs were an important part of the festivals of Dionysus, such as the Dionysia and Lenaia. Each tribe would enter two choirs, one of men and one of boys, each under the leadership of a coryphaeus. The names of the winning teams of dithyrambic contests in Athens were recorded. The successful choregos would receive a statue that would be erected—at his expense—as a public monument to commemorate the victory. However, most of the poets remain unknown. The earliest mention of dithyramb, found by Sir Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge, is in a fragment of Archilochus, who flourished in the first half of the seventh century BCE: “I know how to lead the fair song of the Lord Dionysus, the dithyramb, when my wits are fused with wine.” As a literary composition for chorus, their inspiration is unknown, although it was likely Greek, as Herodotus explicitly speaks of Arion of Lesbos as “the first of men we know to have composed the dithyramb and named it and produced it in Corinth.” The word dithyramb has no known origin, but is frequently assumed not to be derived from Greek. An old hypothesis is that the word is borrowed from Phrygian or Pelasgian, and literally means “Vierschritt”, i. e., “four-step”, compare iamb and thriambus, but H. S. Versnel rejects this etymology and suggests instead a derivation from a cultic exclamation. Dithyrambs were composed by the poets Simonides and Bacchylides, as well as Pindar (the only one whose works have survived in anything like their original form). Later examples were dedicated to other gods, but the dithyramb subsequently was developed (traditionally by Arion) into a literary form. According to Aristotle, Athenian tragedy developed from the dithyramb; the two forms developed alongside one another for some time. The clearest sense of dithyramb as proto-tragedy comes from a surviving dithyramb by Bacchylides, though it was composed after tragedy had already developed fully. Bacchylides’ dithyramb is a dialogue between a solitary singer and a choir. It is suggestive of what tragedy may have resembled before Aeschylus added a second actor instead of the choir. In the later 5th century BCE, the dithyramb “became a favorite vehicle for the musical experiments of the poets of the ’new music’.” This movement included the poets Timotheus of Miletus, Cinesias, Melanippides, and Philoxenus of Cythera. By the 4th century BCE the genre was in decline, although the dithyrambic competitions did not come to an end until well after the Roman takeover of Greece.

Diva house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The term “diva house” was in use by at least July 1992, when Billboard described Dee Dee Simone’s “What Are We Doin’” as “iron-lunged diva-house”. The style is characterized by prominent vocals, often performed by or sampled from female singers. Source material has included soul, disco, gospel and musical theatre recordings, frequently drawing on performers who have been associated with gay audiences, such as Bette Midler, Judy Garland, and Liza Minnelli. The genre has also included club-oriented tracks and remixes of pop recordings by artists including Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue, Cher, Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Madonna. The term “handbag house” has been particularly associated with British club culture. It is commonly explained as a reference to groups of women dancing around handbags placed on the floor, though early usage within dance culture has been described as derogatory. During the 1990s, house music gained wider exposure alongside the increased visibility gay clubs and nightlife. Diva house became one of the more accessible styles within club music, contributing to its presence beyond underground scenes. In the United Kingdom, handbag house was widely identified with mainstream club culture. Music historians Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton note that by the mid-1990s, the style played a role in the expansion of clubbing as a “mainstream leisure activity.” During the 1990s, the term “diva” became commonly associated with vocal-driven house music in gay club scenes.

Divertimento

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Genre#

As a separate genre, it appears to have no specific form, although most of the divertimenti of the second half of the 18th century go either back to a dance suite approach (derived from the ‘ballet’ type of theatrical divertimento), or take the form of other chamber music genres of their century (as a continuation of the merely instrumental theatrical divertimento). There are many other terms which describe music similar to the divertimento, including serenade, cassation, notturno, Nachtmusik; after about 1780, the divertimento was the term most commonly applied to this light, “after-dinner” and often outdoor music. Divertimenti have from one to nine movements, and there is at least one example with thirteen. The earliest publication to use the name “divertimento” is by Carlo Grossi in 1681 in Venice (Il divertimento de’ grandi: musiche da camera, ò per servizio di tavola) and the hint that the divertimento is to accompany “table service” applies to later ages as well, since this light music was often used to accompany banquets and other social events.

Dixieland jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, recording its first disc in 1917, was the first instance of jazz music being called “Dixieland”, though at the time, the term referred to the band, not the genre. The band’s sound was a combination of African American/New Orleans ragtime and Sicilian music. The music of Sicily was one of the many genres in the New Orleans music scene during the 1910s, alongside sanctified church music, brass band music and blues. Much later, the term “Dixieland” was applied to early jazz by traditional jazz revivalists, starting in the 1940s and 1950s. In his book Jazz, the critic Rex Harris defined Dixieland as “Jazz played in a quasi-New Orleans manner by white musicians.” The name is a reference to the “Old South”, specifically anything south of the Mason-Dixon line. The term encompasses earlier brass band marches, French Quadrilles, beguine, ragtime, and blues with collective, polyphonic improvisation. While instrumentation and size of bands can be very flexible, the “standard” band consists of a “front line” of trumpet (or cornet), trombone, and clarinet, with a “rhythm section” of at least two of the following instruments: guitar or banjo, string bass or tuba, piano, and drums. Led by the Assunto brothers’ original Dukes of Dixieland, a band known for its virtuoso improvisation and recording history’s first stereo record, the movement brought semi-retired musicians a measure of fame late in their lives, as well as bringing retired musicians back onto the jazz circuit after years of not playing (including Kid Ory and Red Nichols). Many Dixieland groups of the revival era consciously imitated the recordings and bands of decades earlier. Other musicians continued to create fresh performances and new tunes. In the 1950s a style called “Progressive Dixieland” sought to blend polyphonic improvisation with bebop-style rhythm. Spike Jones & His New Band and Steve Lacy played with such bands. This style is sometimes called “Dixie-bop”. Lacy went on to apply that approach to the music of Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Herbie Nichols.