A successful popular-music MIDI recording will reflect authentic style accompaniment and proper instrumentation. In this usage, the word “style” refers to a distinctive manner of performing a piece of music.

Virtually all electronic keyboards manufactured today will have a feature labeled “style accompaniment.” Software accompaniment programs offer examples of many styles: Jazz swing, country, bossa nova, rock, rhumba, cha-cha, reggae, etc. Styles, of course, can be subdivided into types. To illustrate, “Country” comprises ballads, country rock, Cajun, bluegrass (Appalachian), etc.

Let's talk about country for a few minutes.

If one is going to create a MIDI recording worthy of a Nashville audience, he is entering the bailiwick of some celebrated performers: Chet Atkins, Willie Nelson, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and all the Grand Ole Opry stars. Moreover, he is venturing into a land of well established tunes: Crazy, San Antonio Rose, For the Good Times, Orange Blossom Special, My Little Red Wagon, Please Release Me, Wabash Cannonball...

The moral? As credentials, a cowboy hat and a pair of suspenders just won't cut it! You have to be able to pick, and strum, and fiddle as a genuine, foot-stomping country band does.

One way to get the feel of this music is to listen carefully to live bands or accompaniment styles. Bluegrass will normally be played at about 110 beats a minute (to start out, anyway). A country ballad (with all its sad lament) about 104 BPM. Country rock: Much brighter, around 132 BPM. A rousing country waltz may swirl at 140 BPM.

In the country accompaniment style, listen for the drum sounds, the steel guitar (patch #26), the bass line, the fiddle (patch #111). Once you understand the style of country music, the amount of fun to be had in creating and editing MIDI files is limited only by one's imagination. Toss in a few measures using the General MIDI patch #106, the banjo; the Honky-Tonk piano, patch #4; the harmonica, patch #23; the blown bottle, patch #77. And if you're really in a foot-stompin' mood, play the bridge (the release, the middle part) of the tune with patch #37 or #38--the slap bass.

By the way, be sure that these bass sounds are in the right register (as we discussed before). They should sound low-down, not like a guitar. If not, you might have to transpose down an octave or two.

A sequencing program provides the occasion to experiment with a multitude of musical styles, each of which has its distinguishing characteristics.

Rock Shuffle displays a heavy 2nd and 4th beat, with a prominent electric bass sounding. Big Band arrangements feature alternating brass and sax sections in 4/4 tempo. Dixieland is usually two-beat. In Latin songs (sometimes called “Caribbean”) one will hear the conga drums, the bongos, the toms, the cabasa... In a samba arrangement, one is likely to discern a happy guy blowing a whistle in the background.

Gospel music, rhythm and blues, bossa nova, reggae, polkas, Viennese waltzes--all these styles can be imported into a sequencer or emulated in a MIDI recording. Soft and tender, or bright and exciting. Nostalgic or contemporary. Provided that it is done properly. A patch of steel drums belongs in a calypso arrangement, not in a tarantella.

Accompaniment programs offer a wide range of musical styles for sequencing, and are constantly adding to the number and types available. Moreover, the inventive user can create his or her own style. Besides these options, there is another approach that deserves mention, namely, the idea of combining styles in order to transform traditional arrangements. Here's an example.

Take the ancient jazz warhorse, All of Me (1931). For most of the past 60 years, the tune has been played as a swing standard in 4/4 time at around 160 BPM. This old song can be considerably revitalized by a substituting a bossa nova beat. The normal bossa nova beat is about 162 BPM. Boost it to a lively 200 BPM, and try All of Me or any other swing standard.

Popular tunes that we have grown weary of hearing in the same meter, tempo, and rhythmic style can sound radically different with some simple changes. In lieu of a jazz beat, try mambo accompaniment, samba, “Latin jazz,” reggae, calypso... Behold: transmogrification!

In the evolution of popular music, many hybrids have already emerged. The jazz waltz, rock shuffle, rock boogie, disco-rock, blues boogie, and countless others.

Changing style: Another means of enhancing MIDI recordings.

Copyright © 1995 Eugene A. Confrey, PhD. All rights reserved.