By Naomi Clair | Culture | 19 March 2013, Tuesday
Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM (we at Poached Mag are not exactly big fans of that acronym), has in recent years, taken over commercial music by storm. Big name producers such as David Guetta, Skrillex and Armin van Buuren have dominated airplay, and current crowd-friendly artistes like Rihanna and Lady Gaga have incorporated electronic elements into their pop-till-you-drop chart-toppers.
However, electronic dance music does not stop at whatever you’ve just bobbed your heads to on the radio – it is a whole new realm of music that requires lots of technical know-how before even attempting to name yourself as a ‘DJ’, let alone a musician or an artist. Before one goes into all the nitty-gritty, which consists of instruments, software and production, a basic consensus must be met in terms of what constitutes EDM.
What is Electronic Dance Music?
Electronic Dance Music is music produced through equipment and played in a dance-based environment. It creates a different kind of body to music, unlike rock and metal bands of the 60s and 70s, which allow room for mistakes and improvisation when played live.
The common denominator of dance music is primarily the turntables, in which the Disc Jockey (DJ) uses to combine tracks electronically into one smooth mix. Synthesizers and voice manipulation through softwares such as Logic Pro and Fruity Loops are widely used. “Organic” instruments such as the acoustic guitar can also constitute as part of the equation, and contemporary musicians bring in eccentric elements – a violin, congo drums and et cetera – to add that special ‘feel’ to their music.
That’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it. The 1960s – The ‘Birth’ of Electronic Dance Music
Some people say that the early usage of electronic instruments and electronic manipulation in music was in the 1960s, where the boom of funk and soul required the use of the bass guitar and a