When you produce any type of music there will be times where you either draw a blank! Or you need something for a section,something unique ,something different.Something unique.
Maybe you just want to add some tension to a otherwise boring song. Maybe you are working on a remix contest and want to stand out from the rest!
Whatever the case is no matter what you are working on,theres one thing you can go to everytime to spice up any track. Its called the call and response.
How does it work
You cannot mess with science this pretty much will work every time.So how does it work? What does it sound like?
The truth is you’ve allready heard it millions ,countless times already . You just may not have been producing or composing or arranging at the time so it was not that clear to you.
Every song you hear today on the radio in the clubs at a concert utilizes a form of call and response.
The question and the answer
The most common one is the question and the answer.
You create a question and then you answer it . You decide when you will answer it in the song usually its at the end if that bar. Or you may decide to answer it right away on the next beat it all depends on your song,and its all up to you.
As I said earlier it can take on many forms whether it be a conga,a side stick a cow bell,a tom drum,a reverse snare. Like I said anything is fair game.
Some examples
So some examples would be: Lets say you have a four to the floor track like this:
And all you have is a kick and snare so all you hear is boom boom/snare boom boom/snare
After a few seconds this will get boring real fast as it is not doing anything pretty static.
You set up as many as you want
So once you add some call and response. All the magic starts to happen. By adding a question and answer into your drum loop you basically injected some interplay into your track that was not there before.
So when ever you hear a tom you then play a few side sticks in a pattern close so that it mimics the tom drum!
Whenever you hear another percussive hit you then play another hit to answer it like so:
So now your track sounds like.
And the beauty of it is you can have multiple questions and answers in one loop to basically funk things up.
So when your track is lacking that human feel or you just hit that writers block think about the call and response.
You can use it for any element in your music
Keep in mind the call and response does not have to be just about percussion you can use it for any synth in the coming days when I have time will be uploading other examples ,of ways you can use the question and the answer in melodies and arps so stay posted and as always do subscribe so you wont miss any music tips.
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