Alexis Battle's Digital Past Blog

Just another college student trying to get by, one procrastinated assignment at a time.

Funk: “And 1!”

I’m not a musician by any sorts. However, I am a dancer, and I can appreciate the technicalities and the importance of beats in music. The rhythm of beats can drastically change the sound of a song, and that is very similar in dance. The performance of particular movements are heavily dictated by the beat that they are supposed to be performed on. Growing up, I listen to artist such as James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations, etc… Mostly I listened to them because that is what my parents listen to, but I always thought that it was good music. I never took into account the contributions that those artist have made to music’s  advancement in terms of how they utilize specific beats to completely change the sound of a song. Today in class specifically we talked about James Brown, and his usage of the “and 1…” beat. In dance, this usage of “and 1” beat can take away or add to the complexity of a phrase.  A lot of times the “and” is used to squeeze in a fast movement in between phrases, but it can also be used as a moment to take a breath before going into the next phrase. At the time when James Brown used this way of emphasizing the “1” beat was seen as something absurd to do; however, he utilized in a way to create a unique sound to his songs that other artist began to want emulate. One artist in particularly is Curtis Mayfield, and his song “Give Me Your Love”. There is very little singing in this song; however, the opening of the song constantly puts an emphasis on the “1”. It’s not as pronounced as it is in some of James Brown’s songs and it is a little bit slower, but you can definitely recognize his influence within the song.

 

(P.S. This entry was done in October, but wasn’t published until December)

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