# Is there a name for these effects in music?



## alanfarwell

Okay, so I didn't know what category to post this in, so if someone could please redirect me to the correct place to ask this question, I'd very much appreciate it.

Alright, so this has been frustrating me for quite a while. I've been analyzing a lot of the music I like listening to to see what exactly it is that makes me like them. I've noticed 2 common things:

1) I've noticed that I like listening to pieces where there are rapid changes between low notes and high notes. I've tried looking up what the name of this effect is, but all I've found is Tremolo, which is rapidly switching between 2 different notes, and that's not the same thing I'm thinking of. I guess another way to think of it is a note bouncing up and down. Danny Elfman does a lot of this. In most of his pieces, he plays a really low note on one end of the piano and then immediately follows it with a higher pitched one. Here are some audio examples:






























So hopefully I've given enough examples that you know what I'm referring to. I've noticed that most of these are either a shift from a low note to a high note on the piano or a low, deep brassy sound (most likely a Tuba) to a quick ascending note on a string instrument

2) The other thing I've noticed is a little more complicated to explain. It's almost indescribable, but I'm going to try my best. There's this sort of low "roaring" sound, almost like a saw cutting something or a dog barking. It's usually hidden behind some loud brass instrument. Here is an example:

https://clyp.it/3v3b3oag

after fiddling around with the equalizer, I was able to pinpoint the sound quality that I'm trying to describe, and amplified it around the 500 range.

https://clyp.it/qa134fao

Now, this is a bit different, but since it's within the same types of songs, I'd figured I'd add this too. I'm almost willing to bet that this is a string instrument, but I've been proven wrong on here multiple times so I can't say for sure. Somehow it sounds like a violin, guitar, accordion, harmonica, and horn all at once (or at least to me anyway). It has a sort of "buzz" to it that makes it sound like de-tuned strings on a guitar being strummed. Other times, it sounds like strings on a violin being bowed and then distorted. It can also sound sort of "wheezy" like an accordion or harmonica, and it also kind of reminds me of those guys that climb mountains while blowing through those long horns, making a wailing call. Here are some examples:

After the loud brass womps in the beginning, you can hear a tail at the end of each one that sounds a bit like a squawk or an accordion letting air out. Then that same instrument (I think) plays by itself and goes back and forth between sounding like an out-of-tune guitar being strummed to a violin being bowed in an unusual way:

https://clyp.it/cui1hwif

I'm also fairly sure this is the same instrument. Sort of has that buzzing, loose strings sound to it...

https://clyp.it/3bq4owrf

Although I don't think this is the same instrument, you can hear that same sound quality in the background of this if you listen closely:






Anyways, thank you in advance to anyone who can help me figure this out. I've been chomping at the bit to know for the longest time.


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## drmdjones

Thank you for your well-formed questions with audio examples. You might get better answers than I can provide on the Orchestral Music or Movie Music threads. Good luck.


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## millionrainbows

alanfarwell said:


> Okay, so I didn't know what category to post this in, so if someone could please redirect me to the correct place to ask this question, I'd very much appreciate it.
> 
> Alright, so this has been frustrating me for quite a while. I've been analyzing a lot of the music I like listening to to see what exactly it is that makes me like them. I've noticed 2 common things:
> 
> 1) I've noticed that I like listening to pieces where there are rapid changes between low notes and high notes. I've tried looking up what the name of this effect is, but all I've found is Tremolo, which is rapidly switching between 2 different notes, and that's not the same thing I'm thinking of. I guess another way to think of it is a note bouncing up and down. Danny Elfman does a lot of this. In most of his pieces, he plays a really low note on one end of the piano and then immediately follows it with a higher pitched one.
> 
> So hopefully I've given enough examples that you know what I'm referring to. I've noticed that most of these are either a shift from a low note to a high note on the piano or a low, deep brassy sound (most likely a Tuba) to a quick ascending note on a string instrument


Yes, this is called a "polka."



> 2) The other thing I've noticed is a little more complicated to explain. It's almost indescribable, but I'm going to try my best. There's this sort of low "roaring" sound, almost like a saw cutting something or a dog barking. It's usually hidden behind some loud brass instrument.


Yes, they're squeezing a poodle at the same time the brass note plays.


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## philoctetes

Danny Elfman is very Prokofiev-like, and that high-low sound is typical of music from the "mechanical" era of music, Nancorrow for example, often heard on pianos, and still thrives within minimalism, Ligeti's etudes, and other various suspects.

The other comments suggest organ music of some kind... I didn't try the samples... cellos perhaps...


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## Larkenfield

It sounds like what is known as a “bouncing baseline.” It’s all in the left-hand of the piano or in the bass register in the orchestra. Unless one is going to try to improvise it, it doesn’t really need a name because it’s been written down.


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## philoctetes

Could be that those low brass sounds are what people sometimes call "raspberries", for vague reasons....


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## dgee

Is your number 2 just the ringing on of the cimbalom?


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## millionrainbows

philoctetes said:


> Danny Elfman is very Prokofiev-like, and that high-low sound is typical of music from the "mechanical" era of music, Nancorrow for example, often heard on pianos, and still thrives within minimalism, Ligeti's etudes, and other various suspects.
> 
> The other comments suggest organ music of some kind... I didn't try the samples... cellos perhaps...


Hey philoctetes, you should start a thread called "Danny Elfman Is Very Prokofiev-like" and see what kind of reaction you get from Woodduck! :lol:


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## philoctetes

millionrainbows said:


> Hey philoctetes, you should start a thread called "Danny Elfman Is Very Prokofiev-like" and see what kind of reaction you get from Woodduck! :lol:


Wanna make bets on how many paragraphs he churns out?


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## Larkenfield

Danny Elfman is nothing but treble.


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## tortkis

1) It sounds like the characteristic of Stride. "Stride piano is highly rhythmic because of the "oom-pah" (alternating bass note / chord) action of the left hand. In the left hand, the pianist usually plays a single bass note, or a bass octave or tenth, followed by a chord [...]" (wikipedia)

Maybe "Oom-pah" is the word?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oom-pah


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## tdc

Post #3 is right I think, (I answered this same question in another forum the other day). It is a syncopated rhythm derived from polka it is found in a lot of different styles of music and probably pre dates polka, but that is the earliest form I could trace it to.

Same question/different thread:
Is there a name for this effect in music?


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