Resources about disco music itself

**Diskos** · December 7th, 2008, 06:42 AM

Hi!
Do you know sources about disco music itself, that is, how disco music is made, what its different styles are, how you recognize them and so forth? There's a lot of material about disco, but rather as a historical and social phenomenon than as a distinct style of music. So I am particularly interested in the "musicological dimension" of disco.
Thank you!

**Diskos** · February 18th, 2009, 05:56 PM

Do you mean, there's nothing about disco music, just disco music itself is left? Or do you just don't know? I would guess that this is the best place on the whole internet to ask such a queston?
Thanks.

**70spop** · February 18th, 2009, 06:19 PM

The book, "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" might be a good place to start. Lots of historical info, of course, but it does go into some of the different genres from the '70s into the early '90s.

Brian

**drlove** · February 20th, 2009, 01:36 PM

. . and ya might wanna try clicking on the "101" link above the title of this thread way up above . . . . it's a great starting point for all things disco (particularly the timeline) :icon_idea:

**Disco Funk** · February 20th, 2009, 09:31 PM

Originally Written by Diskos

Hi!
Do you know sources about disco music itself, that is, how disco music is made, what its different styles are, how you recognize them and so forth? There's a lot of material about disco, but rather as a historical and social phenomenon than as a distinct style of music. So I am particularly interested in the "musicological dimension" of disco.
Thank you!

If you mean the elements that make up a disco song, that's very subjective. You could say 'strings', for instance, but there are many disco songs that don't have strings. It all depends on what someone considers disco. Recognizing styles of disco can also be subjective because one person might hear a track as being soul-disco, while someone else thinks its more pop-disco. I've never read any books on the subject, other than ones that described the hits of the day, like the billboard book of number 1s, or various other resources that named songs as 'disco'. Eventually I would be the songs and categorize them as this type of disco or that type.

Sorry, I can't give you the answer you're looking for. My knowledge on disco has been acquired over the last couple of decades through osmosis from various sources. The best way to learn about the music, though, is to own it!

Disco Funk

**Diskos** · February 21st, 2009, 05:27 PM

Well, let's say I would like to know how you approached the task of creating a typical disco song in the 1970s. We know about general technical conventions, like BPM, the technique of combining independent tracks to "simulate" an orchestra that normally didn't exist, that you have a very prominent rhythm as well as strings (that's for me the essential disco, because strings contribute substantially to the psychological "seductive" and uplifting effects of disco). But apart from that, there are other more detailed conventions that make disco - well, sound like disco. Thanks to those conventions you are able to recognize when a track was produced. But unlike in classical or jazz music, there seems typically to be no deeper analysis in the other fields of popular music, no note examples or things like that. To me, conversation about disco is too often confined to a mere exchange of good tracks and opinions about them. Last year I met a German DJ that has spinned vinyls for many years, and while he has developed a very good ear for assessing the quality and the effects of different disco tracks, he's not able to explain it at all, he doesn't know how to read notes or to speak about the music in musical terms (like beat, syncope and so on). Not that it would be required in order to enjoy disco music, but I know how interesting and enriching it can be to experience music not only by listening to it, but also by playing and analysing it. That's why I'm also interested in how disco music is made.

**Disco Funk** · February 21st, 2009, 08:18 PM

Thumping beat is definitely a must. Pumping bass riff. It's not an easy thing to describe, just like trying to describe what makes a rock song 'rock' is not easy to describe. There are formulas and conventions one could follow, or examples you could be pointed to, but in the end, it depends on what you feel is disco. For example, I think the dance music that came out of Philadelphia as early as 1972 was true disco or at least what disco would become. But that's my interpretation of what is disco. Someone else might not think that. Some people might call a dance track from 1984 'disco', when I might call it Hi NRG or House music or New Wave. That's the beauty of disco, it's dance music that can be rigidly structured, but is generic enough that it can blend into other types of music and other types of music can be blended into it.

Disco Funk