Paul Kim Music History 12W Sec.

. 1C 204-011-602 Mind and Music: The lure of EDM Introduction: What is music? There exists an intimate, almost ethereal, connection between a person and music. At its most basic level, music is merely composed of intangible waves of energy traversing space through alternating rarefactions and compressions while using air as a medium. Yet these intangible waves have the power to invoke such strong psychological responses in a person because the brain interprets these waves and translates them into frequencies and amplitudes. We then mentally perceive these aural phenomena as different pitches, tones, and timbres. But given the atomic scale on which these waves act, there is virtually an infinite way these waves can propagate to produce every sound we have ever heard. Music is thus infinite; it has no limitations and by extension of its atomic scale, it can almost be considered chaotically unorganized. Yet amidst a chaotic sea of molecules vibrating back and forth, arises works of art and beauty that we uphold so dearly as individuals and as society as a whole. But what is the dividing line between sounds we consider noise (such as jet engines, jackhammers, wind, etc.) and the carefully crafted sounds we consider music? The decisive factor lays in the essence of creativity and necessity for sonic expression an artist injects in his compilation of sounds to turn it into art. Just as poems are the medium by which writers express creativity, a majority of music is the same for musicians: it is the expression of imagination and manifestation of the intangible. But another question then arises: How is the success of this art measured?

After all, the intangibility of music itself renders no product that is measurable in any discrete, empirical quantity. There are neither (temperature) degrees of notes nor molar quantities of pitches. Sound and noise itself can be measured in decibels of loudness but when organized into music, the classification of music becomes completely subjective. This classification is the genre, a descriptive factor that can be taken akin to the scientific description of the columns in a periodic table such as the term Noble Gases and Alkaline Family. Though one might say music can be measured and classified by the ebb and flow of the air that it pervades, there is a subtle line between noise and music. As stated before, music is an entirely human construct. To other life forms, what we call music and genres is perceived as sounds and its many varieties by which it can be formed. But one particular genre that sparks my own interest and curiosity is electronic dance music, often referred to as plainly EDM. Moving past the realm of my own preferences, EDM likewise has sparked the attraction of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. But what is it about this genre that sells itself to people? EDM has the ability to provide musical experiences unique to itself because of the distinctive way the music interacts with the human mind on a psychological level in different sub-fields, namely by simulating almost ethereal experiences of musical immersion and social inclusion, and a piece from one of the more popular sub-genres of EDM will serve to provide evidence for this proposal. What is EDM? The advent of EDM seems like a logical follow-up to the rapid advance of modern electronics and technology. As our ability to manipulate electricity to do our bidding increased, then why not harness that power in the creation of new music? After

all, an instrument is not played in the traditional sense. Technology provides the basis for compositional and performance methods (Thompson, 2012) and thus the process of creating music is much simplified than before, where one would take years to master an instrument of choice. In its most general definition, EDM is an umbrella term that refers to music that was composed with the assistance of electrical instruments to produce sounds (i.e. drum machines and synthesizers [as opposed to amplifiers]). Essentially all modern pop music consists of the use of virtual instruments and sound effects and thus technically most of the genre can be considered EDM. Paralleling its rapid development, EDM has also rapidly grown as a widely known genre. Understandably, however, the most common connection to EDM that people make is the music that EDM aficionados would consider house music (a sub-genre that will be defined and dissected momentarily). After all, EDM is most frequently played at clubs and music festivals, such as Electric Daisy Carnival and Ultra Music Festival (each of them annual events with thousands in attendance), and the music played at such events is usually house music. The key appeal of it (house) as a musical form is its ability to hype and pump up an audience with energy relatively easily. In reality, EDM itself consists of many different sub-genres, each having their own origin and unique nuances that define its niche within the genre of EDM, but within the context of this paper, the (disputably) most popular sub-genre that will be represented is house. The Staple of EDM: House If EDM were to be defined by one archetype, it would be house music. House music is the bread and butter of EDM and can even arguably be considered to make up the bulk of popular EDM in production right now, with house DJs (disc jockeys)

regularly dominating most public polls of top DJs. As a sub-genre, a very prominent 4/4 meter structure at a tempo of ~130 bpm (beats per minute) defines it with a kick drum on every beat, a percussion pattern that is colloquially known as the four on the floor pattern. A snare drum usually accompanies on beats 2 and 4 of every bar along with a hihat cymbal rhythm on every off-beat (the and in 1 and 2 and 3 and when counting music verbally). House music also frequently features dynamic and lively synthesizers to fill the upper registers with very clearly audible harmonies and lower registers with solid bass lines. The melody is then usually fulfilled by a vocals or another synthesizer that provide the main source of escape from reality, a concept that will be further explored later, and the song structure usually includes one or more intros/buildups, outros, and full-blown sections. A song that fits these descriptions would be Eyes by Kaskade, featuring Mindy Gledhill. The song immediately starts with the standard 4/4 kick drum pattern with snares, along with a variation on it that consists of a syncopated kick drum between the offbeat of beat 1 and the downbeat of beat 2 and an offbeat kick drum between beats 2 and 3. There is also a snare drum on beats 2 and 4 along with a synthesizer playing a single note on every beat. As the song progresses, a virtual piano plays a chord of what sounds like at least 3 notes on every 8 counts, which sets the key for the rest of the song. A solo female voice then enters the mix to sing the melody and the sparse lyrics of the song. The timbre of the voice, however, is a type that is unique and typical to EDM: the female sings very lightly, almost like a whisper, to give her voice a light, feathery feeling and give it an ethereal quality to it. As the song builds up with the entrance of sub-bass synthesizers, the song suddenly drops off into a break with only soft synths and the

vocals remaining. The next couple of seconds is what completes the experience of the song though: as the song drops off, a sound effect is applied to the synths to make it sound muted; as if you were at one end of a tunnel, the synths were at the other end, and there is some intangible substance clouding the clarity of the sounds. As the break progresses, the effect is slowly diminished, creating the auditory illusion that you were approaching the source of the heavenly sounds of the synths and the mystical female voice calling out to the listener as she repeatedly sings the line look into my eyes almost hypnotically. And just as if you would be showered with light upon exiting a dark tunnel, the song also climaxes and the listener is showered with a wide array of synths playing repetitive arpeggios and a heavy sub-bass kick drum engraining the four on the floor pattern into the mental metronome of the listener. The combination of the female voice and the break in the song is thus what creates the escape from reality experience for the listener: for the listener, he/she can almost be mentally transported completely to another mystical dimension where the only things that exist are the listener, the music, and in the case of raves and festivals, the sense of unity infused into the audience. At least for the few minutes of the song, the listener is devoid of worry and only appreciation of the music exists. Psychology and Music As mentioned earlier, the innate connection between a person and music is indisputable. Whether we realize it or not, music is the one of the most apparent external natural physical phenomena to instill such a wide range of emotions within us. The next closest phenomena that could do such a thing are extreme temperatures or sources of pain. Music, however, can send us into the deepest of mental chasms or into the highest

of blisses. But the question of the mechanism by which this happens then arises: how does the different aural nuances of music translate into the psychological states we experience? The answer may lay in the complex and multifaceted field of psychology, the study of the human mind and its behavior. When someone mentions the word psychology, most people would think of psychology in the clinical setting; where psychologists would sit their patients down on recliners and listen to them, patiently taking notes along the way. Not often do people realize the breadth and depth of psychology and all the sub-disciplines it includes. Cognitive psychology explores the dimension of internal mental processes and attempts to explain how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems (Feist, 2009). Social psychology puts us on a level field with other minds and allows us to predict how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (Allport, 1985). In the context of this paper, however, psychology can explain how the aural nuances and societal influences of EDM render it as a relatively popular music genre whose proliferation is a milestone of this era. The Escape from Reality Humans naturally harbor fear of change or fear of the unknown. Though at times new experiences may give us exhilarating rushes of adrenaline, we are naturally and biologically prone to want to know what will happen in the next moment of time. When we do not know what is impending, we generate an emotion called anxiety because it serves as a signal that the person must prepare for an upcoming event (Oltmanns, 1998). In a series of controlled psychological experiments, two researchers, Overmier and Seligman, described a condition called learned helplessness, the tendency to feel

helpless in the face of events we cant control (Lilienfeld, 2011). Fox describes this fear of the unknown as a senseless humanoid fear (Fox, 1987). Humans have an innate desire to feel consistency in their lives, sort of like a schedule that they can unconsciously follow and expect to describe the next moments of their lives. Though we may not cognitively realize it, we feel comfort in consistency. Applied to the context of EDM, the aural nuances in certain genres of EDM, such as house, techno, and trance, may seem to assuage these unconscious fears. With the the earlier mentioned song as an example of a persistently steady beat pattern in (usually) a 4/4 metrical organization, we are drawn into the constant rush of the rhythm and essentially become a part of the music as we bob our head or tap our feet or even hop in unison with the rhythm. And for maybe hours on end, we are mentally stimulated and rushed along as the performance aspect is not only presented to us, it takes residence within our psyche as we become part of the performance itself. But what aspect does the particular metrical organization represent? After all, 3/4 meter is a similarly predictable structure used heavily in the composition of waltz since music for dance needs to be predictable to allow the kinetic movements to be fluid and connected from bar to bar. What 3/4 lacks but 4/4 has is symmetry. 4/4 has equal pairs of downbeats and offbeats, allowing for very smooth consistency throughout the whole song. It can be taken akin to walking, most people walk in steps of left, right, left, right, and so on and so forth. 3/4 meter on the other hand, lacks symmetry. There is 1 more downbeat/offbeat than the other and generally, how we mentally would count out the measure would be a downbeat on every 1st beat while the 2nd and 3rd beats are offbeats that contrast with the 1st. This creates sort of an innate swinging feel to the music as the emphasis on beats is stressed on the 1st beat while the later beats take up

more time. 4/4 meter evenly distributes beat emphasis along with time allocated to each beat. Thus, most EDM pieces will be based off an even metrical structure because of the symmetry and consistency it provides. The Niche of EDM Even beyond the music, features that are associated and connected to EDM contribute to its psychological interaction. In a separate article, Ostertag highlights the stereotypical setup of an EDM concert or festival that seems to promote the diversion of attention away from the stage: people who make electronic dance music have been going to great lengths to divert people's attention from their actual presence: putting on light shows, showing films and videos, and so on (Ostertag, 2002). Thus, if the musicality and performance of EDM does not lie in the music itself and the artist goes to great lengths to conceal him/herself, then it must lay with the audience, the listener. Through its unique sonic qualities, it strives to transport the listener out of the real world into an inner world crafted by delicate mental constructs that brings a sense of peace, freedom, and bliss to the listener. Combined with the desire for cognitive consistency, then this automation and escape of thought (in the form of rhythm and almost hypnotic music) must be the cause for unconscious attraction to the genre of EDM. Similarly, this notion of cognitive consistency can be applied to the lure of the sub-culture surrounding EDM along with aspects from other sub-disciplines of psychology. Take social psychology for example. Humans evolved to be a highly social species because early hominids traveled in small clans and depended on each other for different societal roles needed for survival. Thus, we humans have a biologically based need for interpersonal connections [] and suffer negative psychological and physical

consequences when we cant [form them] (Lilienfeld, 2011). With this human requirement for social interaction explained, therein lies an exponential relation between cognitive consistency and social conformity. People can be first drawn to the consistency provided by the musical structure of EDM. We then find others that crave the same consistency and we are drawn to them because we tend to psychologically gravitate toward those that share the same interests and mental processes. But while the person becomes part of the group, fulfilling an unconscious need-to-belong theory (Lilienfeld, 2011), the group as a whole then finds cognitive comfort in the uniform consistency in both interests and rhythm, completing the cycle and forming the sub-culture. The origins and purpose of EDM also provide a complimentary explanation to the attraction. In some genres of music, such as classical or rock, the music is a performance: the audience observes the performance of the artist. In other genres, such as tribal or cultural, the music is participatory: the audience collaborates to some extent to make music. Cultural and tribal music often binds a group together strongly, as seen by elaborate community traditions and rituals that can be built around the production of some form of music. But as the name states, electronic dance music originated for the purpose of dance. Dance in informal settings, such as nightclubs, is almost exclusively socially interactive: people dance in couples or large groups of friends. But regardless of the numbers, with such a large amount of social interaction involved in this type of dance, members of the sub-culture connect EDM to the fulfillment of social interaction and thus the appeal of EDM as a musical genre increases. EDM is not Music

But just as in physics how Newtons Third of Law of Motion states the presence of a reaction to every action, there also exists opposition to EDM being considered as a valid and important form of music. A quick Google search of EDM is not music yields a top link that has the following as the preview of the article: Let's just cut the shit for a minute and say it: electronic dance music is the stupidest music on the planet (Mann, 2012). Proponents of the opposition would say that EDM is merely noise and is a ruckus. But even if they did somehow acknowledge it as music, they would still argue that all the fancy embellishments associated with EDM invalidate it as a musical genre and consider it as rather the intangible embodiment of a stimulant drug such as MDMA (3,4methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine, or more commonly known by its street name Ecstasy). For example, shouldnt all the fancy light shows and visual add-ons at festivals such as smoke machines and live dancers distract the listener from the music itself? If it did, then EDM is not a legitimate musical genre and is rather the noise that accompanies the visual stimuli, akin to the drone of stock cars that accompany watching them race around the track. The drone would definitely not be considered the main feature point of attending races but rather the visual part of watching the cars is. The setting of musical performance and listening play almost as big of a role as the music itself does in the appreciation of it. For example, Joshua Bell (a professional, Grammy Award-winning violinist) conducted a social experiment in 2007 with The Washington Post. Bell, dressed in street clothes and a baseball cap, performed as an incognito busker in a subway station of New York City. His 45-minute repertoire was videotaped and it was found that of the 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen to him, and only one recognized him (Weingarten, 2013). Just a couple nights

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prior to the experiment, Bell performed the same repertoire at a classical concert where tickets sold for hundreds of dollars. Relating this to EDM, the setting and visual features of EDM only serve to enhance the experience of the music rather than distract the listener from it: the specific type of visual features used is what completes the experience of transporting the listener away from reality. The colorful lasers, flashing strobe lights, and wispy fog, in conjunction with the EDM pouring out of massive speakers, fully engage a persons senses. The stimulus fully engulfs a person and creates another world for the listener. The live dancers present on stage at many of these festivals also contribute to the musical experience. The dancers are dressed in a very showy fashion, complete with brightly colored clothing, painted faces, gem-embroidered lingerie, and accessories reminiscent of fantasies straight out of wild imaginations. They essentially remove their identity as humans by use of their costume and act as mystical beings that are part of the music of EDM. Since the dancers look as if they were from another world, this, combined with the visual effects, completely whisks the listener away to a trance crafted by the aural nuances of EDM. Conclusion: The Future of EDM Just as paintings are crafted upon a blank canvas, music is crafted upon silence. Paintings utilize colors while music utilizes sound. And just as painting techniques have evolved over the millennia to yield different styles and eras of art, musical production has evolved to yield different genres. One such genre that arose is EDM. And unlike other genres where the music directly translates to experience, EDM should be taken with a multi-faceted approach to analysis. Because of the way the subtleties of the music interact with our conscious, it can provide valuable insight into the way we perceive stimuli and

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hopefully offer explanations as to what kinds of stimuli we as humans are naturally attracted to. The rapid advancement of technology offers other pathways down which EDM can traverse. Moores Law, which has stayed true for the last 45 years, states that the number of transistors that can be put on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months, which essentially doubles the processing power of electrical components. Through the rapid proliferation of the popularity of EDM and the fulfillment of Moores Law, EDM sees almost no limits in its future advancement as a genre. Even as this paper is written, UMF (Ultra Music Festival, a large EDM festival) is being put on in Miami, with thousands attending and with each year seeing attendance increases in the thousands. EDM is unique in itself because of the aural, social, and visual stimuli that it provides. And the way that these stimuli translate into inimitable experiences of psychological immersion and social inclusion are what sets it apart. These qualities and capabilities of EDM are what validate it as a genuine and important genre of music.

References 1. Thompson, P. (2012), An empirical study into the learning practices and enculturation of DJs, turntablists, hip hop and dance music producers, Journal of Music, Technology & Education 5: 1, pp. 4358 2. Feist, Gregory J., and Erika L. Rosenberg. Psychology: Making Connections. 1st ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.

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3. Allport, G. W (1985). "The historical background of social psychology". In Lindzey, G; Aronson, E. The Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill. 4. Oltmanns, Thomas F., and Robert E. Emery. Abnormal Psychology. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print. 5. Lilienfeld, Scott O., Steven J. Lynn, Laura L. Namy, and Nancy J. Woolf. Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. Print. 6. Fox, E. R. W. "Fear of the Unknown." Western Journal of Medicine 146.6 (1987): 759. 7. Ostertag, Bob. "Human Bodies, Computer Music." Leonardo Music Journal 12 (2002): 11-14. Print. 8. Mann, Michael. "No Talent Is Required to Perform Electronic Dance Music."Straight.com. Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp., 4 July 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.straight.com/music/no-talent-required-performelectronic-dance-music>. 9. Weingarten, Gene. "Pearls Before Breakfast." The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, 8 Apr. 2007. Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html>.

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