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February 26, 2005
Roatan
One of my favorite pictures of the island Roatan, Honduras that I never posted.
Posted by Jeff at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
Semuc Champey
Semuc from above...
This is Semuc Champey, where we went rafting right before winter break. They were class four rapids, which isn't that extreme except when your boat leaks and you've nicknamed your three Argentinian boatmates "The Three Sisters" because they paddle like Nancies. And there was the whole "Alto" vs. "Alto Lado" thing.
I did however do a backflip off a rickety suspended bridge, which is braggable, I feel.
What do you mean, of course that's really me. Jeremy, my personal gymnastics coach, taught me how to do a backflip.
Posted by Jeff at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Antigua
I'm going to start a series of posts to share pictures that should've been posted earlier, but didn't.
This is our favorite weekend getaway - a small colonial town called Antigua ("Antique") where they've forbidden certain types of commercial development like new buildings that are not in the colonial style. It's about an hour outside Guatemala City. These pictures are from around October. Later, I'll be posting some amazing pictures from our New Years Eve, which we spent with our siblings in Antigua.
Posted by Jeff at 11:49 AM | Comments (1)
February 15, 2005
DJs - Use the Circle of Fifths
The image above is the key to improving your mixes. If you google for DJ tips and tutorials, you’ll find lots on beatmatching, but almost nothing on keymatching or how to traverse the circle of fifths. Maybe it is a secret that good DJs guard, but it definitely represents a right-of-passage for DJs to be considered musicians instead of just human jukeboxes. DJs who learn this technique will have a major advantage over others, especially for studio work.
While I've known about the circle of fifths since Rudiments of Theory in college, I ignored it until now, and now I can't live without it. This seems to be a little-known secret of the DJ world, but if you listen carefully to any professional DJ's mix-CDs, you'll notice that it is probably being used.
What follows is a full explination of the circle of fifths, and how DJs can use it.
When mixing songs, you choose the next song (and when you will introduce that song) based on some criteria: matching volume levels, similar tempo, compatible beats and upper percussion, don't overlap vocals, and don't clash melodies. Then you choose the kind of transition – the length, smooth or sudden, EQ work... Every DJ remembers how when practicing with new music, 1-in-10 of your transitions will be amazing because the songs just fit so well - even though you wouldn't have predicted it. By mixing with the circle of fifths, you can makes this happen much more often.
While you may not have time to employ this technique while quick-mixing a live show, it's an essential for the studio with demo CDs, and also for your practice sessions. You’ll come across many more favorite combinations that you’ll remember when you’re in the mix.
Construction and Meaning of the Circle of Fifths
Here's your quick music theory, and is not necessary to understand this to use the circle of fifths for DJs. You can skip this section if it bores or confuses you.
There are 12 semitones (the chromatic scale) on a piano keyboard before you repeat them as a higher or lower octave - seven white keys and five black keys. Scales are made of whole-step and half-step (semitone) intervals. We can play all the white keys, starting on a C (the "root"), to derive the pattern for a major scale (sounds happy). The pattern is:
1 - 1 - 1/2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1/2
Most dance music is not composed in major key signatures however, they are composed in minor keys. My cataloging of my collection has indicated that around 90% of electronic music is in a minor key.
The "related natural minor" is a minor scale (sounds dark or spooky) that uses all the same notes as the major, but starts 3 semitones lower. The related minor to C Major is A minor (abbrieviated as "Am" or just lowercase "a"), and by playing all the white keys on the piano starting with A, we can see the natural minor progression:
1 - 1/2 - 1 - 1 - 1/2 - 1 - 1
These progressions are useful because you can now compose any of the 12 key signatures, major or minor, starting on any key of the piano. This is something you'll have to do when you go through your record case and assign melodic songs a key signature.
Since there are 12 major key signatures, and the same sets of notes make up the 12 related minors, it makes sense that you could represent them with a 12-position circle like a clock. The magic of the circle of fifths works like this: Place C major on the outer ring, at the top. Remember how this key is all white keys on the piano, so there are no sharps of flats. Now you fill the entire clock going clockwise, by setting the next position to the "perfect fifth" of the current scale. If the root is the "1st" and the next note in the scale is the "2nd" etc, then the 5th is the note your right pinky usually plays when you play the "major triad" chord. It's always 7 semitones up from the root. If you look at the graphic above, you see that G is the perfect fifth of C. D is the fifth of G, etc, all the way around the circle. Now comes the magic, which is only of interest to musicians. It turns out that from the top with C, when you move clockwise, that new key signature has one more sharp in it than the previous key. Likewise, you add one flat each key you move counter-clockwise, until you meet up at the Gb/F# position (6 o'clock) which has 6 flats or sharps, depending on your point of view. (Note: I represented my circle of fifths with only flats because I was a bass-cleft trombone player and am more comfortable with them). Also of marginal importance to us DJs, but FYI: The actual flat you just added in each case is shown one more position counter-clockwise. The actual sharp you add in each case (traveling clockwise from C at the top) is shown two positions counter clockwise.
More magic, the related minor is usually represented in the inner ring of key signatures, and you simply reproduce the outer ring, shifted three positions counter-clockwise. This is the ring we'll be using the most.
If you ever need to reproduce the entire circle from memory, I generally just remember the acronym "Bead GCF" and put C at the top.
How DJs can Use the Circle of Fifths
The hard part is that you need to assign a key signature to any music you’d like to key match, and like everything with DJing, it gets easier with practice. This usually means playing notes on a synth or piano until you’ve identified the key signature by including or eliminating sharps and flats. I use a shareware program called “Sweet Little Piano” but there are tons of other keyboard programs out there (NI Reaktor can do this too). When you’ve identified the key, you should be able to play the scale on the piano on top of the song, and every note will sound pretty good (ignoring the complexities of accidentals and key changes). Another good test is to just find the root – what note just sounds “right”, when played as quarter notes on every beat. Usually the key progressions or baselines resolve to the root at the beginning or end of a phrase (32 counts – 8 measures – the basic unit of dance music). I am still searching for a central database of dance music key signatures – I know of none, so I’ve been rating my songs by myself, it takes about a minute per song. Please post comments if you know of one!
Update: Since I posted this, I've since found two sites that address this. I guess it's more commonly called "harmonic mixing", but information is still scarce compared to information in beatmatching. There is one service that you have to pay for harmonic-mixing.com, and a free site with a different kind of compatibility chart (related to the circle of fifths if you study it) and lots of comprehensive information at DJ Prince's site. Apparently
Once you have songs with key signatures, try choosing songs by mixing songs in the same key (as well as all the standard criteria like genre, beat, and where you are in your set) – it’s amazing for any DJ who’s never heard this. You can mix melodies, play vocals on top of each other – you’re breaking some of the usual "rules", and it sounds fine.
The next trick is to mix songs that are only one position away from each other on the circle - this is called the Perfect Fourth (subdominant - counterclockwise) and Perfect Fifth (dominant - clockwise). This forces the key signatures to share all the same notes except for the one sharp or flat that you added/subtracted – AND you have the benefit of sharing (overlaying) the two most important notes of any scale – the root and the fifth. This trick is best for intros and outros that have a baseline or upper feature, but not robust chords, melody, and vocals. (What’s an upper feature? Think about the offbeats of beats 3 and 4 in Stardust – Music Sounds Better with You or Room 5 – Make Luv)
You can also mix to a "conjugate", meaning the relative major or minor - this is moving from inner to outer circle or vice-versa. If you have some songs in a major key (for example, Milky – Just the Way You Are in Eb), you can mix them into their related minor (a song in Cm), and because they share all the same notes, it will sound like it fits; not perfectly, but surprisingly good. Also you can mix from a major to a minor with the same root (C -> Cm, Db->Dbm, etc) – they’re only two notes different, and they share the root and fifth so they’re also mostly compatible.
When you can’t find a song that makes sense in the circle of fifths, just match like normal using beats, or use a song that doesn’t have much harmonic content (16th Element - Warped, Joy Kitikonti – Joyenergizer)
I’m using Traktor DJ Studio 2.5 for my laptop-based mixing, and the support for mixing by key signature is fantastic. Here’s a screenshot of a playlist I’m working on:
Traktor Screenshot in New Window
Traktor lets you assign a key signature to every song in your record case. I’ve circled a series of three songs for this example. Get Yourself High is in Cm, which is one click on the Circle of Fifths away from the next song – Open Up in Fm. This means that they share all notes of the scale but one (the added flat – Bb), and they share the important note C (root of Get Yourself High, fifth of Open Up).
In the decks you can see I loaded Open Up and the next one, Able to Love. Notice how they are actually just one semitone off – Open Up is in Fm, so I shifted Able To Love up one semitone from Em to Fm (you gotta love Traktor and any equipment that will do time-stretching so you can shift pitch independently from tempo). Now they’re in exactly the same key.
To print my DJ Circle of Fifths above: Right-click the image at the top to "Save Picture As". The image is 694x694 pixels, which means it is exactly the size of a CD (4.6in) when printed at 150 dpi. My newest toy is a Denon s1000, and the scratch platter is a replaceable clear CD. I replaced the sheet under the platter with this image so it's always in front of me.
I hope this helps my fellow DJs take their mixing to the next level.
Posted by Jeff at 11:17 AM | Comments (2)
February 09, 2005
EatFat
Because the word in spanish for "grease" and "fat" are one in the same, this dish detergent could reasonably be interpreted as having the ever-alluring brand name of
EatFat
Posted by Jeff at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
Oh, so that's what it is
This is in plain public view. It's about 8 feet tall on the outside of a lingerie store in a strip mall. If the infomercials didn't get you, well, now you know: This is a silicon bra. Collar and bow-tie sold separately.
Posted by Jeff at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)
BANG BANG BANG
For the next few entries, I'm going to post some pictures that I found funny simply for cross-cultural or English/Spanish reasons.
I NO WAN TO KNOW YO NAME, I JUST WAN
The word "Bang" means nothing in Spanish, but here in Guatemala, it is a clothing store.
Posted by Jeff at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2005
Conversation with a world-famous DJ
Since I was the only person who spoke English at the club last night, I thought that gave me a special right to have a conversation with Teri Bristol after her show last night, around 1:30AM
Jeff: Teri! Teri Bristol! Comin down - thanks.
Teri: Hey I saw you dancing. I saw the Chicago Pure Future shirt!
Jeff: So great... taste of home, promoter... who promoter? brought you down?
Teri: What promoter brought me down? Actually the club owner.
Jeff: Friend of ... Vince. Garcia! Flipside, you know. Sends his love. [Note: I actually barely know Vince]
Teri: Ahhh... ok!
Jeff: So when's that? Next time?
Teri: Uhh I think I might be back down in March.
Jeff: Rock! Science! Needle go fwop, so intense, bitch!
Teri: Right - thanks for coming out.
Jeff (in tears): Sinister strings mix... Never current, sing tiddle-tiddle ummm cha umm cha cha - Say Hi for Paul Johnson and triple B de chee-caw-go.
And I turned to leave. That's the kind of special bond that you get to make with a world-famous DJ when you're the only one who speaks English in a club, and you're from the same little hometown of three million people, yet meeting up in a foreign country. It was really special.
Posted by Jeff at 07:02 AM | Comments (1)
February 01, 2005
Chicago DJ Coming to Guate
I'm there.
Posted by Jeff at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)