The Disco High Hat Pattern

[hutchcsx]

On "Disco - Spinning The Story", Earl Young says he came up with the first disco beat using the phased hi-hat pattern, on "The Love I lost". Was that really the first disco song with that sound? Since alot of people say that "The Love I Lost" was the first disco song, was it because of the hi-hat beat?
Some of my favorite songs that have heavy use of the hi-hat include:

All Night Thing - Invisible Man's Band 1979
Get Down Boy - Paper Doll 1977
Star Love - Cheryl Lynn 1978
Cocomotion - El Coco 1977
Precious Moments- Nightlife Unlimited 1979

I haven't found very many songs from 1974 or 1975 that have the hi-hat pattern.

I could't find any other posts related to this....

[Disco Funk]

Are you talking about the, what I call, the bouncing hi-hat? I think some people call it a flying hi-hat. It's what you hear at the beginning of the Love I Lost and TSOP.

There are a lot of examples of this style of playing from 74/75 and earlier. Heck, Earl used that style of playing in 72 on the Trammps' Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart. In 73, before The Love I Lost, he played it throughout the entire song of Waitin For The Rain by Fantastic Johnny C.

Other examples from 74/75 include 'The Player' by First Choice (Earl on drums); 'Salsoul Rainbow' by Salsoul Orchestra (again Earl);

Non-Earl examples are hard to come up with off the top of my head right now.

Before him, there were artists that used it in funk songs. Sly & The Family Stone's drummer Greg Errico used it on Life and Are You Ready in '68. There was a track called 'World' by The Whatnauts, which I think was from '71 or 72, and it has that same hi-hat play. But it's not a disco song.

Are You Ready (towards end of sample)

Life

World

If you listen to the bass in Life, you'll also hear some disco elements (the walking bass).

Disco Funk

[hutchcsx]

Yep, that's what I'm talking about. The bouncing hi-hat is a good name for it. I had a hard time thinking of good examples from 74/75 too.

From 1975 there's "Stoned Out Of My Mind" - Maryann Farra and Satin Soul

It seems like it started getting more popular around 76/77, and by 1979 it seems like it was a necessity in most commercial disco.

[Disco Funk]

Yep, that's what I'm talking about. The bouncing hi-hat is a good name for it. I had a hard time thinking of good examples from 74/75 too.

From 1975 there's "Stoned Out Of My Mind" - Maryann Farra and Satin Soul

It seems like it started getting more popular around 76/77, and by 1979 it seems like it was a necessity in most commercial disco.

By 76 or 77 I guess the disco elements had been fully established. By then you need 'this', 'this', and 'this' for your song to be considered part of the genre. :)

I thought of a few early examples:

Satin Soul was AKA Touch. They were the group Tony Valor used on his Gotta Get It album. They also put out their own LP called Energizer, which I think was from '75. The track 'Me and You', which can be found on the TVI Records compilations, features that style of hi-hat play.

George McCrae's 'You Can Have It All' from the Rock Your Baby LP.

Tribe's 'Koke' AKA the outro to Genie Brown's 'Can't Stop Talking' from '73. Here's the audio to Koke synched up to the Campbell Lockers:

Lockers and Tribe's 'Koke'

Edit: Just thought of another few tunes, Van McCoy related:

Disco Kid by Van McCoy ('75)
Love Can Be Hazardous and I've Got Nothing But Time, both by David Ruffin ('75)

And I can't believe I forgot these two:

Never Can Say Goodbye by Gloria Gaynor ('74)
Doctors Orders by Carol Douglas ('74)

Disco Funk

[garrybcoston]

Being a musician I call it the high hat off beat because it is not on the quarter note beat (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4 in 4/4 time), but actually an eighth note off the quarter note beat (i.e., 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 (the & would be the hit of the high hat cymbal with a rest on the beat)).

I believe you all are correct. The love I lost was the first song that I can remember that had the bouncing high hat beat as everyone calls it; but it kind of calmed down after that and when disco started to become really uptempo, it gained momentum, especially during late 1978 on until disco's death. The O'Jays came out with disco songs that had the boucing high hat and other Philly type of groups that jumped on the disco bandwagon.

I was listening to Mike Theodore Orchestra the other day, and both albums, the one in 1978 (Cosmic Wind), and 1979 (High on Mad Mountain) were almost devoid of the bouncing high hat; cosmic wind had much slower songs so you would expect no bouncing high hat (The Bull was fast but again, no bouncing high hat); but you would expect the bouncing high hat on "Mad Mountain" because the majority of disco songs during the latter part of disco's reign (Circa 1979 and later) had the bouncing high hat, (French Kiss, Simon Orchestra, USA European Connection, Peter Jacques Band, Donna Summer/Barbara Streisands Enough is Enough, etc.).

Around 1975 when "Love to Love You Baby" came out (which in my opinion was the toddler phase or growing up phase of disco), the bouncing high hat was here and there but it did not rule disco music. By late 1978 and into 1979 and a little thereafter, the bouncing high hat became a staple and firm symbol or identifier of disco music.

Garry:icon_smile:

[Disco Funk]

Being a musician I call it the high hat off beat because it is not on the quarter note beat (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4 in 4/4 time), but actually an eighth note off the quarter note beat (i.e., 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 (the & would be the hit of the high hat cymbal with a rest on the beat)).
Garry:icon_smile:

Thanks for the technical description, Garry.

Here are a couple of other additions to the list:

Save Me - Silver Convention ('74)
Guilty - The First Choice ('74)
You Believed In Me - Executive Suite ('74)

I think Waitin For The Rain was the first dance/disco tune to feature a four on the floor beat with the bouncing hi-hat. It was put out in Feb 73 in it's vocal form according to the PhilLA of Soul label remix compilation. I think The Love I Lost was released late '73. Either way, it's the same drummer. The instrumental mix was released a year later under The Philly Sound. Check out the sounds samples on the Philadelphia Roots CD:

Philadelphia Roots

Disco Funk

[discorecordplayer]

hey, how would you like to find and elevator like this?
YouTube - neil strauss on the elevator picking up!=

[QUINNY]

Poor ol' Earl was wrong...oh well, we all get old and memory fades. I'm sure there were earlier examples.....if only my brain could access them!!

Although not exactly the same, rhythmically, you'll find many a Ska record had a similar feel to it. e.g Prince Buster & the Skatallites - Al Capone. Instead of hi hat you get scatting and or piano.:icon_smile:

You can listen to it here: trevor miller

I'm gonna think hard about this topic.

[Simon White]

I've noticed how artists often think of their biggest or first hit record as their 'first' record where us, the fans want to go deeper....Ms Gaynor doesn't really mention 'She'll Be Sorry' for instance. Maybe Earl just refers to 'The Love I Lost' as the first big hit tune to carry the riff?

I would think there might possibly be even earlier examples (a drummer friend refers to the riff as 'pea soup' ) than even "Waitin' For The Rain" and "Zing !" (1972 !) though.


But whatever, the development of the Philly Sound is fascinating. Just this morning I was listening to Joe Simon's Gamble and Huff written 'Drowning In The Sea Of Love' from 1972 and thinking how much it sounded like the 1968 'What Kind Of Lady' from Dee Dee Sharp and the instrumental 'Reflections Of Yesterday' a Three Degrees 'b' side from 1970. It a very short leap to Disco from those records....

[zeca azevedo]

I can hear a "bouncing hi hat" on the chorus of SAM AND DAVE's YOU GOT ME HUMMING. Am I wrong?:icon_rolleyes:

[Disco Funk]

I can hear a "bouncing hi hat" on the chorus of SAM AND DAVE's YOU GOT ME HUMMING. Am I wrong?:icon_rolleyes:

I just listened to a sound sample of this track, and yup, it's got the bouncing hi-hat.

I think we should still give credit to Earl Young and the philly sound for taking that style of hi-hat play, stream lining the drum groove, to create what became the archetypical disco beat.

Disco Funk

[disco1999]

I wasn't too sure of what you guys were talking about until I looked for hi-hat in wiki, pictures are worth 1000 words.


A good example of early hi-hat would be Isaac Hayes - Theme from Shaft (in 1971)
A lot of people hated disco because they found this specific beat to be annoying and repeating.
Hi-hat made a huge return in Chicago's underground clubs past the mid 80's when classic house was created.

[paul]

Poor ol' Earl was wrong...oh well, we all get old and memory fades. I'm sure there were earlier examples.....if only my brain could access them!!

Although not exactly the same, rhythmically, you'll find many a Ska record had a similar feel to it. e.g Prince Buster & the Skatallites - Al Capone. Instead of hi hat you get scatting and or piano.:icon_smile:

You can listen to it here: trevor miller

I'm gonna think hard about this topic.

I'm impressed Quinny. You are right about Ska, and that was mid '60s. I'm even more impressed that you would know Prince Buster. He had a song called Wreck A Pum-Pum that if I remember was banned in Jamaica.

[Simon White]

Prince Buster had a UK top twenty pop hit in 1967 and his influence and the influence of Ska on British Pop music, culture and fashion goes way beyond that.

As for Ska and the Hi Hat......well kind of yes, but not really with a disco feel !

[QUINNY]

Paul: Ska music was a dance staple in the UK in the mid '60s, (read: it was music played in discos over here) as well as Blue Beat and Rock Steady (a little later). However, I for one, don't know where one genre begins and the other stops. It was revived in the late '60s going into the '70s when the Skinhead movement came to prominence and again to a lesser extent with the whole 2 Tone entourage in the late '70s - early '80s. The UK has quite an affinity regarding Ska and its many incarnations.

Maybe a better example in Ska might have been the briliantly quirky Bonanza Ska by Carlos Malcolm (yes, it WAS a Ska version of the Bonanza theme). A much faster toon that clearly shows where the Disco pattern might have come from.

Amazon.com

I love Ska music for its fun, musicianship and dance vibe...always have since I first heard it in '65 (even though I was more into Rock then).

[Simon White]

LOL.... I love the idea that the Disco hi hat might have come out of Ska!

I'm sure the use of hi hat goes back waaaay before that. Maybe someone like Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich invented Disco then Quinny? :icon_biggrin:

[zeca azevedo]

I think we should still give credit to Earl Young and the philly sound for taking that style of hi-hat play, stream lining the drum groove, to create what became the archetypical disco beat.

Disco Funk

I agree. EARL YOUNG did not invented the "bouncing hi-hat sound", but he helped to turn this sound into one of the trademarks of disco music.

EARL YOUNG was/is an amazing drummer. Is he playing drums these days? I've seen him perform with EARL YOUNG'S TRAMMPS on DVD, but he was just singing. How old is he now?

[Disco Funk]

I agree. EARL YOUNG did not invented the "bouncing hi-hat sound", but he helped to turn this sound into one of the trademarks of disco music.

EARL YOUNG was/is an amazing drummer. Is he playing drums these days? I've seen him perform with EARL YOUNG'S TRAMMPS on DVD, but he was just singing. How old is he now?

I think with the Trammps, he usually was up front with the singers. In the old footage I've seen on You Tube, they had the backup drummer, Michael Thompson, on drums, even though it was Earl on the studio recordings.

I'm not sure how old he is. He's been drumming for the philly sound since the late 60s, so I wouldn't be surprise if he's in HIS sixties now.

Disco Funk

[garrybcoston]

I think with the Trammps, he usually was up front with the singers. In the old footage I've seen on You Tube, they had the backup drummer, Michael Thompson, on drums, even though it was Earl on the studio recordings.

I'm not sure how old he is. He's been drumming for the philly sound since the late 60s, so I wouldn't be surprise if he's in HIS sixties now.

Disco Funk

Earl Young was born on February 14, 1941 which makes him 66 years old; wow, hard to believe. Of course all of us discoers are up there in age now.

Garry:icon_lol:

[QUINNY]

LOL.... I love the idea that the Disco hi hat might have come out of Ska!

It's not such a stupid idea really. The accent in those old Ska tunes is very much in the same place as that where the hi-hat emphasis was placed in Disco. You can't say the same thing about FUnk from the same period.

The thing is....Ska was THE dance music of its day, made by black (mostly jazz influenced) musicians and was largely 4/4 based. O.K., they were West Indian, but the similarities are there with the New York musicians 10 years later. Fast forward 40 years. Listen to almost any of the current day pop dance records and rythmically, you could probably lay Ska underneath quite easily.

I'm sure the use of hi hat goes back waaaay before that. Maybe someone like Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich invented Disco then Quinny? :icon_biggrin:

Charlie Calello made Sing, Sing, Sing as a Disco track in homage to Krupa, n'est-ce pas? A great deal of Disco musicians were weaned on the Big Band and Jazz music from the '30s, '40s & '50s, where the same hi hat accent appears (in Swing music) only with a different emphasis and time signatures. That schlurp is what defines Swing music.

[Simon White]

Some interesting theories Quinny..I'm not musically proficient so don't really know but I would have thought Ska was on the off beat rather than on the 'fours' ?? I also didn't realise Ska was 'THE' dance music of the day...I would have thought it was a bit more specialised.
But I can hear the hi hat you mention in Ska. The influence of the 1950's R&B of New Orleans is heavily there to.

[garrybcoston]

And.......if any of you listen to today's dance, techno, house, etc., though they don't use the physical "hi-hat" instrument that drummers use, they use the same sound/sample of the hi-hat, and I will go out on a limb and say 90% or more of the time!

A friend of mine who is 10 years junior to me, who is into dance and techno, didn't know that I knew the dance and techno scene and was trying to educate me on it; one of the things he stated he loved (and I was quiet while he was supposedly educating me), was the off beat sound (which I knew was an off beat hi-hat pattern but he didn't and he loved the sound); I then educated him on the fact that sound has been around over 30+ years, that it eminated from disco, and that sound was prevelant back in the day (the early to late 70's) and would not be around had it not been for disco!

He was surprised to say the least; I then took out some of my disco albums and let him take a listen and he was shocked that the off beat hi-hat pattern was there from records that were over 30 years old.

So much for educating me.

Garry

[garrybcoston]

Some interesting theories Quinny..I'm not musically proficient so don't really know but I would have thought Ska was on the off beat rather than on the 'fours' ?? I also didn't realise Ska was 'THE' dance music of the day...I would have thought it was a bit more specialised.

But I can hear the hi hat you mention in Ska. The influence of the 1950's R&B of New Orleans is heavily there to.

I think it was my Grandmother who used to always say that what already exists already has been so there is nothing new under the sun!

We were just too young back then to realize the possibility that the off beat hi-hat symbol sound may have been prevelant back in the 40's or even the 30's. The young dance and techno crowd seems to think that this sound is something new, but we know that it has been around for a long time.

At the time, we also thought it was something new, Earl Young, for goodness sakes might have thought the same or may have borrowed it from some old recordings he had heard (Jazz, 40's, etc.).

Garry

[paul]

And.......if any of you listen to today's dance, techno, house, etc., though they don't use the physical "hi-hat" instrument that drummers use, they use the same sound/sample of the hi-hat, and I will go out on a limb and say 90% or more of the time!

A friend of mine who is 10 years junior to me, who is into dance and techno, didn't know that I knew the dance and techno scene and was trying to educate me on it; one of the things he stated he loved (and I was quiet while he was supposedly educating me), was the off beat sound (which I knew was an off beat hi-hat pattern but he didn't and he loved the sound); I then educated him on the fact that sound has been around over 30+ years, that it eminated from disco, and that sound was prevelant back in the day (the early to late 70's) and would not be around had it not been for disco!

He was surprised to say the least; I then took out some of my disco albums and let him take a listen and he was shocked that the off beat hi-hat pattern was there from records that were over 30 years old.

So much for educating me.

Garry

I love that story. Perhaps that youngster will go out and explore disco and hear what good music really is :icon_biggrin:

[remicks]

*****

zeca azevedo: I can hear a "bouncing hi hat" on the chorus of SAM AND DAVE's YOU GOT ME HUMMING. Am I wrong?:icon_rolleyes:

I just listened to a sound sample of this track, and yup, it's got the bouncing hi-hat. Disco Funk

:icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen:


AND ........ this is where I must point out that this early usage of a drumming technique that would some day become a defining sound in disco ..... this distinctive method of the one-off bouncing high hat ..... that is found here on Sam and Dave's YOU GOT ME HUMMING .....



Well .... that record was arranged and written by ...... a particular up and coming Stax Records in-house producer .....

A-huh .... that's right :icon_mrgreen: ... that most special (disco) sound being heard here was brought to you by none other than : .... (drum roll please) ....



---- Isaac Hayes !!!!!! ..........:icon_cool: :icon_lol: ............................. and .... fade to black .....



*****