EDM Acoustic - The Operatics

EDM as we know it is about 20 years old and is created for people 18 to 26 who wanna dance. Most want to ingest chemical stimulants when they dance, which is a large part of the appeal and almost essential to the EDM Lifestyle. Nothing wrong with that, the more happy people the better, and how they get there is entirely up to them.

During the past 10 years, the creators and promoters of massive EDM festival discovered hundreds of millions of dollars can be made in this marketplace with this audience. By investing 2 or 3 million dollars, they can make 40 or 50 million dollars each summer. They create Spectacle Entertainment, in large spaces, with loud sound and light-shows.

And still, much of the music is god-awful. Truly, when compared to other genres, EDM has produced very little catchy or charming melodies, with no original rhythms, and very limited sounds-- the fake sounds, the synth sounds. The loud, big 4/4 thumping rhythm barely qualifies as music, when compared to all other forms of music. But, that loud 4/4 is easy to dance to, and creates the Trance, which is also aided greatly by the stimulants.

Two women from Seattle, Maddie and Rollii, The Operatics, decided they wanted to dance to other sounds. They love EDM, the rave experience, the stimulants, the Trance, and of course The Huge Party!

But, they love many other sounds, sounds not found in the synth-boxes. They choose to use their music notation software, and digital-sampling of the acoustic instruments of the symphony orchestra. They compose music for violin, trumpets, cellos, harps and human voices. Their percussion is digitally-sample acoustic drums, not drum machines sythn-sounds.

According to a several music review magazines, this has never been done before in the genre of EDM. The 4/4 dance beat is still there, but the variety of musical sounds is much greater than the variety heard at massive EDM festivals. With all the millions being made from EDM, one would imagine the producers could hire an actual composer or two, to bring more music to the music. Apparently not.

Apparently both the audience and the producers are satisfied with the limitations of synth and drum machines, rarely rarely going further.

The ravers are comfortable with the synthesized sounds. Those sound are familiar, sounds they are use to when they ingest and dance. The Operatics have proven, the dancing, loud 4/4 does not need to be limited to electronically produced sounds, except in the sense, digital sampling is electronically produced. This opens the gates, the wide, wide and important gates, to allow living musicians, with great artistic skills, with human hands and human voice to have jobs. To earn money creating music for other people to dance to. As it was in the days of the Grateful Dead. The band played, the people ingested, and danced. And everyone had a good time! And musician had a way to make a living.

Human musicians with talent are more impressive than any well-tattooed and dancing DJ. After all, the musicians have spend time learning to play instruments, and musicians offer a much wider variety of musical entertainment than is possible with a DJ. Recorded, sampled, mixed and matched sounds remain a very limited form of human expression.

Here we must think about the reasons we have music. Dancing, invoking The Trance, is only one reason for the existence of music. Invoking The Trance has been important to religions for tens of thousands of years. So, it is no surprise, 18 to 26 years old are compulsively attracted to music which invokes The Trance. And having fun chemical to ingest certainly helps.

The producers of large festivals, in a strange way, take the role of mega-churches, providing a space, providing the stimulants to invoke The Trance. And, like the mega-churches, the producers of festival smile and laugh all the way to the bank. Hundreds of millions of dollars are made by successfully invoking The Trance, and drawing in the big crowds.

But all that has little to do with the actual value of music. With current EDM the limitation of musical style and musical variety are extreme. Both the producers and the ravers have not had attempted to dance outside of the synth-box. They are comfortable inside the synth-box. Who knows why? There is truly no good reason at all for tens of thousands of festival-goers to dance inside the synth-box. Their ears can go muh further. Their imaginations can go much further.