TK Records was an American independent record label founded by record distributor Henry Stone and Steve Alaimo in 1972. and based in Hialeah, Florida . The record label went bankrupt in 1981.
155-443: "TK" was inspired by the initials of sound engineer Terry Kane, who built a recording studio in the attic of Stone's office in Hialeah. TK Records is closely associated with the early rise of disco music, having in 1974 been the label that released the second bona fide disco song (after The Hues Corporation 's " Rock The Boat ") to reach No. 1 on the pop music charts, namely " Rock Your Baby " by George McCrae . A little more than
310-436: A cor à plusieurs tours against two violins, two violas, and basso continuo, and a Sonata venatoria from 1684 by Pavel Josef Vejvanovský calls for two trombae breves , which probably also means spiral horns, though hooped horns are not out of the question. A particularly significant composition is a Concerto à 4 in B ♭ by Johann Beer , for corne de chasse , posthorn, two violins, and basso continuo; Beer died in
465-443: A horn section , a string orchestra , and a variety of " classical " solo instruments (for example, flute, piccolo, and so on). Disco songs were arranged and composed by experienced arrangers and orchestrators , and record producers added their creative touches to the overall sound using multitrack recording techniques and effects units . Recording complex arrangements with such a large number of instruments and sections required
620-443: A Dance Floor , Random Access Memories , Future Nostalgia , and Kylie Minogue 's album itself titled Disco . Modern day artists like Dua Lipa , Bruno Mars and Silk Sonic have continued the genre's popularity, bringing it to a whole new younger generation. The term "disco" is shorthand for the word discothèque , a French word for "library of phonograph records" derived from "bibliothèque". The word "discotheque" had
775-450: A Sextet for two horns and strings, Op. 81b, and a Septet in E ♭ major, Op. 20 , for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. One of Schubert's last works is the Octet (D803), written in 1824, which adds a second violin to Beethoven's Septet scoring. The combination of horn with violin and piano is called a horn trio , and though Brahms's Horn Trio
930-429: A band. Maresch had made a second set of thirty-two (or perhaps thirty-seven) horns, each capable of playing a different, single note—the second harmonic of the instrument—from a C-major scale covering several octaves. (Later the size of the band was increased to sixty horns encompassing five octaves.) The instruments were straight or slightly curved horns made of copper or brass, had a wide conical bore, and were played with
1085-486: A beat (which in 4/4 time is 4 beats per measure). Disco is further characterized by a 16th note division of the quarter notes (as shown in the second drum pattern in the picture above, after a typical rock drum pattern). The orchestral sound usually known as "disco sound" relies heavily on string sections and horns playing linear phrases, in unison with the soaring, often reverberated vocals or playing instrumental fills, while electric pianos and chicken-scratch guitars create
1240-460: A cupped trumpet-type mouthpiece. A metal cap fixed to the bell end was used to adjust the tuning. Each man in the band was trained to play his note in turn, similar to the way in which a group of handbell ringers perform melodies by each sounding their bells at a predetermined moment. This horn band, effectively a giant human music-box of the sort only feasible in a slave culture, played its first public concert in 1753 or 1755 and debuted officially at
1395-417: A five-part piece for strings called "Le cors de chasse" in the comédie-ballet La Princesse d'Élide , itself part of the extravagant entertainment titled Les plaisirs de l'île enchantée (1664). According to another opinion, Lully actually meant the scoring of the "Air des valets des chiens et des chasseurs avec Cors de chasse" to include trompes de chasse , making this the first use of the new instrument in
1550-518: A fourth apart, such as Gherardello da Firenze 's Tosto che l'alba , after the words "suo corno sonava" (sounded his horn). A less certain association is found in the same alternation of two notes a fourth apart in John Bull's The King's Hunt in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book , copied at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The increased tube length of the cor à plusieurs tours in
1705-551: A group of accompanying musicians who were among the most dextrous, knowledgeable, and brilliant in all of popular music (Motown bassists have long been the envy of white rock bassists) and 7) a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing (boosting the high range frequencies) to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio." Motown had many hits with disco elements by acts like Eddie Kendricks (" Keep on Truckin' " in 1973, " Boogie Down " in 1974). At
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#17330936143411860-408: A horn player must adapt to. The bore is generally cylindrical as opposed to the more conical horn; thus, the "feel" of the mellophone can be foreign to a horn player. Another unfamiliar aspect of the mellophone is that it is designed to be played with the right hand instead of the left (although it can be played with the left). While horn players may be asked to play the mellophone, it is unlikely that
2015-406: A hunt the mouthpiece was not removable. It was soldered to a mouthpipe, which in turn was often soldered to the body of the instrument and strengthened by a crosspiece, as was also the bell, rendering the horn more solid. The sound they produced was called a recheat. Change of pitch was effected entirely by the lips (the horn not being equipped with valves until the 19th century). Without valves, only
2170-442: A hunting accident in 1700. His concerto not only combines two different kinds of horn, but the corne de chasse part is the earliest solo example of a horn in F (sounding a fifth lower than written), which came to be the "classical" size of the instrument. The F horn appears again soon afterward in an aria from Carlo Agostino Badia 's opera Diana rappacificata (Vienna, 1700), where two horns play typical triple-time fanfares. By 1705
2325-441: A key influence in the development of electronic dance music , house music , hip hop , new wave , dance-punk , and post-disco . The style has had several revivals since the 1990s , and the influence of disco remains strong across American and European pop music. A revival has been underway since the early 2010s , coming to great popularity in the early 2020s . Albums that have contributed to this revival include Confessions on
2480-465: A key part of the disco club experience. The Loft party host David Mancuso introduced the technologies of tweeter arrays (clusters of small loudspeakers, which emit high-end frequencies, positioned above the floor) and bass reinforcements (additional sets of subwoofers positioned at ground level) at the start of the 1970s to boost the treble and bass at opportune moments, and by the end of the decade sound engineers such as Richard Long had multiplied
2635-537: A letter C or G. Depictions of these instruments are found from the 5th century BC onward on Etruscan funerary monuments. The Etruscan name for them is unknown, but the Romans called them buccina and cornu . The latter name is the Latin word for "horn", and the source of the name of the musical instrument in many Romance languages: French cor , Italian corno , Provençal corn . Very old metal instruments similar in form to both
2790-697: A major trend in popular music in the United States following the infamous Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, and it continued to sharply decline in popularity in the U.S. during the early 1980s ; however, it remained popular in Italy and some European countries throughout the 1980s, and during this time also started becoming trendy in places elsewhere including India and the Middle East , where aspects of disco were blended with regional folk styles such as ghazals and belly dancing . Disco would eventually become
2945-406: A merengue, are commonplace. The quaver pattern is often supported by other instruments such as the rhythm guitar and may be implied rather than explicitly present. Songs often use syncopation , which is the accenting of unexpected beats. In general, the difference between disco, or any dance song, and a rock or pop song is that in dance music the bass drum hits four to the floor , at least once
3100-552: A musical composition, as opposed to hunting signals. An engraving by Israël Silvestre , published c. 1676 , portrays a scene from Lully's work, and is probably the earliest iconographic representation of the hooped horn. Soon afterward the hooped trompe de chasse began appearing in ballet and opera orchestras in the Empire and German states. The intrada of a ballet by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer , performed in Linz on 15 November 1680,
3255-428: A non-phallic full body eroticism. Through a range of percussion instruments, a willingness to play with rhythm, and the endless repeating of phrases without cutting the listener off, disco achieved this full-body eroticism by restoring eroticism to the whole body for both sexes. This allowed for the potential expression of sexualities not defined by the cock/penis, and the erotic pleasure of bodies that are not defined by
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#17330936143413410-460: A prominent Moog synthesizer on the beat, was one of the first disco tracks to use the synthesizer. The rhythm is laid down by prominent, syncopated basslines (with heavy use of broken octaves , that is, octaves with the notes sounded one after the other) played on the bass guitar and by drummers using a drum kit , African/ Latin percussion , and electronic drums such as Simmons and Roland drum modules . In Philly dance and Salsoul disco,
3565-495: A relationship to a penis. The sexual liberation expressed through the rhythm of disco is further represented in the club spaces that disco grew within. In Peter Shapiro 's Modulations: A History of Electronic Music : Throbbing Words on Sound , he discusses eroticism through the technology disco utilizes to create its audacious sound. The music, Shapiro states, is adjunct to "the pleasure-is-politics ethos of post- Stonewall culture." He explains how "mechano-eroticism", which links
3720-414: A single hoop (or sometimes a double hoop), is the ancestor of the modern orchestral and band horns. Beginning in the early 18th century, the player could change key by adding crooks to change the length of tubing. It is essentially a hunting horn, with its pitch controlled by air speed, aperture (opening of the lips through which air passes) and the use of the right hand moving in and out of the bell. Today it
3875-399: A stronger effect. According to Peter Braunstein , the "massive quantities of drugs ingested in discothèques produced the next cultural phenomenon of the disco era: rampant promiscuity and public sex . While the dance floor was the central arena of seduction , actual sex usually took place in the nether regions of the disco: bathroom stalls, exit stairwells , and so on. In other cases
4030-480: A team that included a conductor , copyists , record producers, and mixing engineers . Mixing engineers had an important role in the disco production process because disco songs used as many as 64 tracks of vocals and instruments. Mixing engineers and record producers, under the direction of arrangers, compiled these tracks into a fluid composition of verses, bridges, and refrains, complete with builds and breaks . Mixing engineers and record producers helped to develop
4185-571: A tube long enough to allow playing higher partials, while at the same time allowing the instruments to be played on horseback. Marin Mersenne calls these trompe , made in a crescent shape, and the cor à plusieurs tours , a tightly coiled instrument in spiral form. The tightly coiled (or spiral) form of horn was never very popular in France, but both there and in Germany was usually called a "trumpet". In German,
4340-606: A venue were mostly a French invention, imported to the United States with the opening of Le Club , a members-only restaurant and nightclub located at 416 East 55th Street in Manhattan , by French expatriate Olivier Coquelin , on New Year's Eve 1960. Disco music as a genre started as a mixture of music from venues popular among African-Americans , Hispanic and Latino Americans , gay Americans , and Italian Americans in New York City (especially Brooklyn ) and Philadelphia during
4495-559: A year after McCrae's hit, the record label struck gold with KC & The Sunshine Band , releasing five singles that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 : including " Get Down Tonight ", " That's the Way (I Like It) ", " (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty ", " I'm Your Boogie Man ", and " Please Don't Go ". The KC & The Sunshine Band single " Keep It Comin' Love " reached No. 1 on Billboard's erstwhile Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 2 on
4650-493: A young reporter, who happened to be covering the opening of the club, impulsively took control of the record player and introduced the records that he chose to play. Klaus Quirini later claimed to thus have been the world's first nightclub DJ. During the 1960s, discotheque dancing became a European trend that was enthusiastically picked up by the American press. At this time, when the discotheque culture from Europe became popular in
4805-495: Is The Art of Hunting (1327) by William Twiti, who uses syllables such as "moot", "trout", and "trourourout" to describe a number of calls involved in various stages of the hunt. Hardouin de Fontaines-Guerin's treatise Le Livre du Trésor de vénerie (1394) includes fourteen hunting-horn signals using a notation specially designed to the purpose, consisting of a series of black and white squares. Although Dame Juliana Berners 's Boke of Saint Albans ( c. 1345 )—also known as
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4960-430: Is a standard member of the wind quintet and brass quintet , and often appears in other configurations. Notable works from the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries include two quintets by Mozart, one in E ♭ major for horn, violin, two violas, and cello (KV407/386c) and the other for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn (KV452). Beethoven also wrote a Quintet for piano and winds, Op. 16, as well as
5115-588: Is achieved by lightly pressing the guitar strings against the fretboard and then quickly releasing them just enough to get a slightly muted poker [sound] while constantly strumming very close to the bridge." Other backing keyboard instruments include the piano , electric organ (during early years), string synthesizers , and electromechanical keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes electric piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, and Hohner Clavinet . Donna Summer 's 1977 song " I Feel Love ", produced by Giorgio Moroder with
5270-446: Is placed in the exact center of the lips, but, because of differences in the formation of the lips and teeth of different players, some tend to play with the mouthpiece slightly off center. Although the exact side-to-side placement of the mouthpiece varies for most horn players, the up-and-down placement of the mouthpiece is generally two-thirds on the upper lip and one-third on the lower lip. Usually, in order to play higher octave notes,
5425-421: Is played as a period instrument . The natural horn can only play from a single harmonic series at a time because there is only one length of tubing available to the horn player. A proficient player can indeed alter the pitch by partially muting the bell with the right hand, thus enabling the player to reach some notes that are not part of the instrument's natural harmonic series—of course this technique also affects
5580-454: Is played for dancing, typically equipped with a large dance floor, an elaborate system of flashing coloured lights, and a powerful amplified sound system. " Its earliest example is use as the name of a particular venue in 1952, and other examples date from 1960 onwards. The entry is annotated as "Now somewhat dated". It defines Disco as "A genre of strongly rhythmical pop music mainly intended for dancing in nightclubs and particularly popular in
5735-549: Is thought that the trombon da caccia called for by Vivaldi in his opera Orlando finto pazzo (1714), and his Concerto in F for violin, two trombon da caccia , two oboes, and bassoon, RV574, was also a hooped horn. In the eighteenth century some outstanding concertos were written for solo horn and orchestra by Telemann , Christoph Förster , Michael and Joseph Haydn, Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , and Carl Stamitz . Concerti grossi include concertos for two horns by Vivaldi and Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto . At
5890-568: Is tuned to F or less commonly B ♭ . The more common "double horn" is found almost exclusively in the German design, only rarely in the French horn, and never in the Vienna horn. It has a fourth valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B ♭ . Although first developed by Paxman, a British firm, triple horns with five valves are also of
6045-405: Is used in modern brass bands and marching bands, and is more accurately called a "marching mellophone" or mellophone. A derivative of the F alto horn , it is keyed in F. It is shaped like a flugelhorn, with piston valves played with the right hand and a forward-pointing bell. These horns are generally considered better marching instruments than regular horns because their position is more stable on
6200-722: The Book of Hawkinge, Hunting and Fysshing —is cited as an even earlier source of notated horn calls, the copy containing them actually dates from the sixteenth century. As in Hardouin's treatise, the notation of the calls is in a specially designed tablature . The first occurrence of horn calls in standard musical notation is in the hunting treatise La vénerie by Jacques du Fouilloux, dated variously as 1561 and 1573, followed soon after in an English translation by George Gascoigne (often misattributed to George Turberville ) titled The Noble Art of Venerie or Hvnting (1575). Jacques du Fouilloux notates
6355-585: The Concertstück for four horns and orchestra. Other important works from this era are the concertos by Saverio Mercadante , Franz Strauss , and the First Concerto (1882–83) by his son Richard Strauss . Camille Saint-Saëns did not write a concerto as such, but did compose two Romances for horn (or cello) and orchestra, Op. 67 in E major (1866), and Op. 36 in F major (1874), and a Morceau de concert Op. 94 (1887) for horn and orchestra. The horn
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6510-520: The Step By Step disco dance TV show was launched with the sponsorship support of the Coca-Cola company. Produced in the same studio that Don Cornelius used for the nationally syndicated dance/music television show, Soul Train , Step by Step' s audience grew and the show became a success. The dynamic dance duo of Robin and Reggie led the show. The pair spent the week teaching disco dancing to dancers in
6665-478: The cornett . The cornett, which became one of the most popular wind instruments of the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, was developed from the fingerhole-horn idea. In its most common form it was a gently curved instrument, carved in two halves from wood. The pieces were then glued together and wrapped in black leather (hence the term "black cornett"), and a detachable mouthpiece added. Another variant, called
6820-457: The euphonium , but its possible range is the same as that of the horn, extending from low F ♯ , below the bass clef staff to high C above the treble staff when read in F. These low pedals are substantially easier to play on the Wagner tuba than on the horn. Amongst the first written records of horn music are hunting-horn signals, which date back to the fourteenth century. The earliest of these
6975-539: The hippies informed proto-disco music like MFSB 's album Love Is the Message . Partly through the success of Jimi Hendrix , psychedelic elements that were popular in rock music of the late 1960s found their way into soul and early funk music and formed the subgenre psychedelic soul . Examples can be found in the music of the Chambers Brothers , George Clinton with his Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Sly and
7130-490: The recording studio . Larry Levan, for example, was a prolific record producer as well as a DJ. Because record sales were often dependent on dance floor play by DJs in the nightclubs, DJs were also influential in the development and popularization of certain types of disco music being produced for record labels. In the early years, dancers in discos danced in a "hang loose" or "freestyle" approach. At first, many dancers improvised their own dance styles and dance steps. Later in
7285-443: The trumpet , the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical . In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument , and a section of brass or woodwind instruments , or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts. Variations include: As the name indicates, people originally used to blow on
7440-402: The tuba family. Invented for Richard Wagner specifically for his work Der Ring des Nibelungen , it has since been written for by various other composers, including Bruckner , Stravinsky and Richard Strauss . It uses a horn mouthpiece and is available as a single tuba in B ♭ or F, or, more recently, as a double tuba similar to the double horn. Its common range is similar to that of
7595-468: The "disco sound" by creating a distinctive-sounding, sophisticated disco mix . Early records were the "standard" three-minute version until Tom Moulton came up with a way to make songs longer so that he could take a crowd of dancers at a club to another level and keep them dancing longer. He found that it was impossible to make the 45-RPM vinyl singles of the time longer, as they could usually hold no more than five minutes of good-quality music. With
7750-522: The "mute cornett", was turned from a single piece of wood with the mouthpiece an integral part of the instrument. Because the types of wood used were usually light in colour, these were sometimes referred to as "white cornetts". Amongst the earliest representations of the cornett, showing its characteristic octagonal exterior, is a carving in Lincoln Cathedral from about 1260, which shows an angel apparently playing two cornetti at once. The earliest use of
7905-512: The 1840s and 50s, the saxhorn was first patented in Paris in 1845 by Adolphe Sax , though the validity of his patents was challenged by rival instrument makers during his lifetime. Throughout the mid-1850s, he continued to experiment with the instrument's valve pattern. Later makers, particularly in America, altered the scale and designs sometimes to such an extent as to make it difficult to determine whether
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#17330936143418060-521: The 1960s, the Motown record label developed its own approach, described as having "1) simply structured songs with sophisticated melodies and chord changes, 2) a relentless four-beat drum pattern, 3) a gospel use of background voices, vaguely derived from the style of the Impressions , 4) a regular and sophisticated use of both horns and strings, 5) lead singers who were half way between pop and gospel music, 6)
8215-603: The Baltic region of Europe, and in some parts of Africa. In Scandinavia it is known by many names: björnhorn , bukkehorn , fingerhorn , lekhorn , låthorn , prillarhorn , soittotorvi , spelhorn , tjuthorn , tuthorn , vallhorn , and many others. In Estonia it is called sokusarv and by the Bongo people mangval . Descriptions in French are found from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries of instruments called coradoiz (= modern French cor à doigts ), which are precursors of
8370-691: The Billboard Hot 100. TK had numerous subsidiary labels, which included Cat Records, Drive Records, Wolf Records , and Bold Records. At one point, they had established a gospel label named Gospel Roots. Artists signed to TK Records and its subsidiaries included Betty Wright (Alston), Clarence Reid, a.k.a. Blowfly , Benny Latimore (Glades), Peter Brown (Drive), Foxy , Kracker (Dash), Jimmy "Bo" Horne (Sunshine Sound), Timmy Thomas (Glades), Little Beaver , Gwen McCrae ( Cat ), T-Connection (Dash), Bobby Caldwell (Clouds), and Anita Ward (Juana). In 1980, TK Records encountered financial problems and
8525-472: The British Isles, playing arrangements of standard concert repertory and Russian folk music, as well as original compositions. Although received with praise for their accomplishment, they were also criticized for "reducing man to the level of a machine". In Eastern Germany, workmen's bands modified the technique of these horns by adding the upper octave to each instrument's note, and the use of hand-stopping for
8680-466: The Dresden instrument maker Johann Georg Werner. In this type of instrument, the relationship between the mouthpiece and lead pipe is usually undisturbed and a series of cylindrical-bore sliding crooks are fitted into the central portion of the instrument to lower the pitch from E downwards. These sliding crooks also had the function of tuning slides, obviating the need for tuning "bits" inserted before or after
8835-461: The Family Stone , and the productions of Norman Whitfield with The Temptations . Horn (musical instrument) Plucked A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other brass instruments such as
8990-504: The French cor d'olifant / oliphant , " elephant horn") was the name applied in the Middle Ages to ivory hunting or signalling horns made from elephants' tusks . Apparently of Asian origin, they reached Europe from Byzantium in the tenth or eleventh century, and are first mentioned in French literature in the early 12th century. In Europe they came to be symbols of royalty. From late antiquity there are mentions of "alpine horns", but
9145-413: The French horn is small, between 10.8 and 11 mm, compared to 11.5 mm for the German horn, but not as small as the Vienna horn at 10.7 mm. These narrow-bore French instruments are equipped with piston valves (also called Périnet valves, after their inventor), unlike today's more usual orchestral (German) horns, which have rotary valves. A musician who plays the French horn, like the players of
9300-573: The Gang , and Village People . While performers garnered public attention, record producers working behind the scenes played an important role in developing the genre. By the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had thriving disco club scenes, and DJs would mix dance records at clubs such as Studio 54 in Manhattan , a venue popular among celebrities . Nightclub-goers often wore expensive, extravagant outfits, consisting predominantly of loose, flowing pants or dresses for ease of movement while dancing. There
9455-402: The German and Vienna horns (confusingly also sometimes called French horns), is called a horn player (or less frequently, a hornist). Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn , which is tuned to F or less commonly B ♭ . Although double French horns do exist, they are rare. A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece. Most of the time, the mouthpiece
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#17330936143419610-490: The German-horn type, tuned in F, B ♭ , and a descant E ♭ or F. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B ♭ and alto-F branches. This configuration provides a high-range horn while avoiding the additional complexity and weight of a triple. The French horn (as distinct from the German and Vienna horns), is also usually referred to simply as the "horn" by orchestral players. The bore of
9765-463: The Grand Hunt concert in 1757, creating a fashion that spread outside of Russia and continued for eighty years. With proper training, such a horn ensemble was capable of playing relatively complex music in full harmony. The Russian nobility developed a taste for horn bands, which were sometimes sold as a body—the performers along with horns—since most of the players were serfs. Some bands toured Europe and
9920-508: The Guinness Book of World Records. He danced for 205 hours, the equivalent of 8½ days. Other dance marathons took place afterward and Roberts held the world record for disco dancing for a short period of time. Some notable professional dance troupes of the 1970s included Pan's People and Hot Gossip . For many dancers, a key source of inspiration for 1970s disco dancing was the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). Further influence came from
10075-458: The Pumpenvalve (or Vienna Valve), which is a double-piston operating inside the valve slides, and usually situated on the opposite side of the corpus from the player's left hand, and operated by a long pushrod. Unlike the modern horn, which has grown considerably larger internally (for a bigger, broader, and louder tone), and considerably heavier (with the addition of valves and tubing in the case of
10230-462: The Stonewall riots. As New York state had laws against homosexual behavior in public, including dancing with a member of the same sex, the eroticism of disco served as resistance and an expression of sexual freedom. He uses Donna Summer's singles " Love to Love You Baby " (1975) and " I Feel Love " (1977) as examples of the ever-present relationship between the synthesized bass lines and backgrounds to
10385-680: The TK Records catalog on CD until Sunnyview's acquisition by EMI-Rhino in 1989. Rhino owns the North American rights to the Sunnyview/TK catalog; internationally, the catalog was managed by EMI until 2013, when Rhino's newly acquired sister label Parlophone took over after Warner Music Group 's purchase of the remaining EMI assets. On October 12, 2013, Henry Stone received a proclamation from Hialeah's then-mayor, Carlos Hernandez , declaring it TK Records Day every year on October 12. Wolf Records
10540-446: The United States, several music genres with danceable rhythms rose to popularity and evolved into different sub-genres: rhythm and blues (originated in the 1940s), soul (late 1950s and 1960s), funk (mid-1960s) and go-go (mid-1960s and 1970s; more than "disco", the word "go-go" originally indicated a music club). Musical genres that were primarily performed by African-American musicians would influence much of early disco. Also during
10695-647: The actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. This original usage survives in the shofar ( Hebrew : שופר ), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals . The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called קרן ( keren ) in Hebrew, qarnu in Akkadian , and κέρας ( keras ) in Greek . The olifant or oliphant (an abbreviation of
10850-416: The background "pad" sound defining the harmony progression . Typically, all of the doubling of parts and use of additional instruments creates a rich " wall of sound ". There are, however, more minimalist flavors of disco with reduced, transparent instrumentation. Harmonically, disco music typically contains major and minor seven chords, which are found more often in jazz than pop music. The "disco sound"
11005-649: The beginning of another song using the DJ mixer's crossfader. Notable U.S. disco DJs include Francis Grasso of The Sanctuary, David Mancuso of The Loft , Frankie Knuckles of the Chicago Warehouse , Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage , Nicky Siano of The Gallery , Walter Gibbons , Karen Mixon Cook , Jim Burgess , John "Jellybean" Benitez , Richie Kulala of Studio 54 , and Rick Salsalini. Some DJs were also record producers who created and produced disco songs in
11160-462: The birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christina. On 19 November of the same year, Lotti's opera Porsenna was performed at the Teatro S Bartolomeo in a version "adapted and directed" by Scarlatti, and in almost all of his own subsequent operas Scarlatti used horns in the orchestra. The usual name for the horn in these Neapolitan scores was tromba da caccia , an Italianization of the French trompe de chasse . It
11315-400: The calls on a single pitch, C 4 , whereas Gascoigne presents them on D 4 . Although it is generally accepted that the horns used on the hunt at this early date were only capable of a single note, or at best a striking of the pitch well below and "whooping up to the true pitch", the objection has been raised against a literal, monotonic interpretation of the notation on grounds that many of
11470-554: The calls would be indistinguishable one from another, whereas the hunt participants would need each call to be distinctive, even if we have no direct evidence of melodic variation. Apart from hunting calls, there is no surviving music from before the seventeenth century that specifies use of the horn. However, there are some allusions to horn calls in vocal and keyboard music. In the late fourteenth century, Italian caccie (a word meaning both " canon " and "hunt", and cognate with English "chase") sometimes use lively figures on two notes
11625-535: The capital area's gay and straight college students in the late '70s. By 1979 there were 15,000-20,000 disco nightclubs in the US, many of them opening in suburban shopping centers, hotels, and restaurants. The 2001 Club franchises were the most prolific chain of disco clubs in the country. Although many other attempts were made to franchise disco clubs, 2001 was the only one to successfully do so in this time frame. Powerful, bass-heavy, hi-fi sound systems were viewed as
11780-560: The cha cha ". The pioneer of disco dance instruction was Karen Lustgarten in San Francisco in 1973. Her book The Complete Guide to Disco Dancing (Warner Books 1978) was the first to name, break down and codify popular disco dances as dance forms and distinguish between disco freestyle, partner, and line dances. The book topped the New York Times bestseller list for 13 weeks and was translated into Chinese, German, and French. In Chicago,
11935-557: The chest. Men often wore Pierre Cardin suits, three piece suits with a vest, and double-knit polyester shirt jackets with matching trousers known as the leisure suit . Men's leisure suits were typically form-fitted to some parts of the body, such as the waist and bottom while the lower part of the pants were flared in a bell bottom style, to permit freedom of movement. During the disco era, men engaged in elaborate grooming rituals and spent time choosing fashion clothing, activities that would have been considered "feminine" according to
12090-455: The cornett were devised. In order to put the fingerholes within reach of the human hand, these bass instruments required so many curves they acquired the name " serpent ". Toward the end of the eighteenth century various attempts were made to improve the serpent. An upright version, built on the pattern of the bassoon and made sometimes of wood, sometimes of metal, sometimes a combination of the two, were called "bass horn" or " Russian bassoon ". In
12245-590: The crook. In order to raise the pitch above F, however, it was necessary to insert a new, shorter lead pipe, acting as a crook. This design was adapted and improved by the Parisian maker Raoux in about 1780, and adopted by many soloists in France. This was called the cor solo , and was distinguished by the use of just five crooks for playing in the most common keys for solo compositions, G, F, E, E ♭ , and D. Orchestral horns are traditionally grouped into "high" horn and "low" horn pairs. Players specialize to negotiate
12400-418: The dance and fashion aspects of the disco club scene, there was also a thriving club drug subculture , particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud, bass-heavy music and the flashing colored lights, such as cocaine (nicknamed "blow"), amyl nitrite (" poppers "), and the "... other quintessential 1970s club drug Quaalude , which suspended motor coordination and gave
12555-413: The dancers wanted, transitioning from one song to another with a DJ mixer and using a microphone to introduce songs and speak to the audiences. Other equipment was added to the basic DJ setup, providing unique sound manipulations, such as reverb , equalization, and echo effects unit . Using this equipment, a DJ could do effects such as cutting out all but the bassline of a song and then slowly mixing in
12710-482: The dancing, sex, and other embodied movements that contributed to the corporeal vibrations within the Sanctuary. It supports the argument that disco music took a role in facilitating this sexual liberation that was experienced in the discotheques. The recent legalization of abortion and the introduction of antibiotics and the pill facilitated a culture shift around sex from one of procreation to pleasure and enjoyment. Thus
12865-415: The disco became a kind of 'main course' in a hedonist's menu for a night out." At The Saint nightclub, a high percentage of the gay male dancers and patrons would have sex in the club; they typically had unprotected sex , because in 1980, HIV-AIDS had not yet been identified. At The Saint, "dancers would elope to an unpoliced upstairs balcony to engage in sex." The promiscuity and public sex at discos
13020-571: The disco clubs. The instructional show aired on Saturday mornings and had a strong following. Its viewers would stay up all night on Fridays so they could be on the set the next morning, ready to return to the disco on Saturday night knowing with the latest personalized steps. The producers of the show, John Reid and Greg Roselli, routinely made appearances at disco functions with Robin and Reggie to scout out new dancing talent and promote upcoming events such as "Disco Night at White Sox Park". In Sacramento, California, Disco King Paul Dale Roberts danced for
13175-675: The disco era, popular dance styles were developed, including the "Bump", "Penguin", "Boogaloo", "Watergate", and "Robot". By October 1975 the Hustle reigned. It was highly stylized, sophisticated, and overtly sexual. Variations included the Brooklyn Hustle, New York Hustle , and Latin Hustle . During the disco era, many nightclubs would commonly host disco dance competitions or offer free dance lessons. Some cities had disco dance instructors or dance schools, which taught people how to do popular disco dances such as "touch dancing", "the hustle", and "
13330-568: The double horn) the Vienna horn very closely mimics the size and weight of the natural horn (although the valves do add some weight, they are lighter than rotary valves), even using crooks in the front of the horn, between the mouthpiece and the instrument. Although instead of the full range of keys, Vienna horn players usually use an F crook and it is looked down upon to use others, though switching to an A or B ♭ crook for higher pitched music does happen on occasion. Vienna horns are often used with funnel shaped mouthpieces similar to those used on
13485-417: The earliest secure description of the wooden instrument now called an " alphorn " dates from the sixteenth century. This description by the naturalist Conrad Gessner calls the instrument a lituus alpinus and says it is "nearly eleven feet long, made from two pieces of wood slightly curved and hollowed out, fitted together and skillfully bound with osiers ". Nevertheless, one modern authority says that at
13640-515: The effects of these innovations in venues such as the Garage." Typical lighting designs for disco dance floors include multi-colored lights that swirl around or flash to the beat, strobe lights , an illuminated dance floor , and a mirror ball . Disco-era disc jockeys (DJs) would often remix existing songs using reel-to-reel tape machines , and add in percussion breaks, new sections, and new sounds. DJs would select songs and grooves according to what
13795-450: The end of the 1960s, musicians, and audiences from the Black, Italian, and Latino communities adopted several traits from the hippie and psychedelia subcultures. They included using music venues with a loud, overwhelming sound, free-form dancing, trippy lighting, colorful costumes, and the use of hallucinogenic drugs. In addition, the perceived positivity, lack of irony, and earnestness of
13950-584: The end of the century Beethoven composed a Sonata for Horn and Piano in F major, Op. 17, for the Bohemian virtuoso Giovanni Punto (Jan Václav Stich), a master of hand-horn technique. In the early nineteenth century, Carl Maria von Weber , in addition to giving the horn a prominent orchestral place in the overtures to the operas Oberon and Der Freischütz , composed a spectacularly difficult Concertino in E Minor which, amongst other things, includes an early use of multiphonics , produced by humming into
14105-441: The entire body rather than the obvious erotic parts of the body. The New York nightclub The Sanctuary under resident DJ Francis Grasso is a prime example of this sexual liberty. In their history of the disc jockey and club culture, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton describe the Sanctuary as "poured full of newly liberated gay men, then shaken (and stirred) by a weighty concoction of dance music and pharmacoia of pills and potions,
14260-523: The first discotheque and to have been the first club DJ in 1953 in the "Whisky à Go-Go" in Paris. She installed a dance floor with colored lights and two turntables so she could play records without having a gap in the music. In October 1959, the owner of the Scotch Club in Aachen, West Germany chose to install a record player for the opening night instead of hiring a live band. The patrons were unimpressed until
14415-516: The first time. Valves were originally used primarily as a means to play in different keys without crooks, not for harmonic playing. That is reflected in compositions for horns, which only began to include chromatic passages in the late 19th century. When valves were invented, generally, the French made narrower-bored horns with piston valves and the Germans made larger-bored horns with rotary valves. The variety in horn history includes fingerhole horns,
14570-457: The first was discovered in 1797. Many are in unison pairs, curved in opposite directions. Because their makers left no written histories, their use and manner of playing is unknown. The lur was likely known to the Etruscans, noted as bronze-workers from the 8th century BC, who in turn were credited by the Romans with the invention of their horns and trumpets, including long curved horns in the form of
14725-662: The gender stereotypes of the era. Women dancers wore glitter makeup, sequins , or gold lamé clothing that would shimmer under the lights. Bold colors were popular for both genders. Platform shoes and boots for both genders and high heels for women were popular footwear. Necklaces and medallions were a common fashion accessory . Less commonly, some disco dancers wore outlandish costumes, dressed in drag , covered their bodies with gold or silver paint, or wore very skimpy outfits leaving them nearly nude; these uncommon get-ups were more likely to be seen at invitation-only New York City loft parties and disco clubs. In addition to
14880-532: The growing prevalence of hand-stopping and other newly emerging techniques. In 1818 rotary valves were introduced by Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blümel (later, in 1839, piston valves were applied to the horn by François Périnet), initially to overcome problems associated with changing crooks during a performance. Valves' unreliability, musical taste, and players' distrust, among other reasons, slowed their adoption into mainstream. Many traditional conservatories and players refused to use them at first, claiming that
15035-414: The help of José Rodriguez, his remaster/mastering engineer, he pressed a single on a 10" disc instead of 7". They cut the next single on a 12" disc, the same format as a standard album. Moulton and Rodriguez discovered that these larger records could have much longer songs and remixes. 12" single records , also known as " Maxi singles ", quickly became the standard format for all DJs of the disco genre. By
15190-573: The horn was also being used in church music, for example by Dieterich Buxtehude In Lübeck, who in that year called for horns in his cantata Templum honoris . The horn did not officially enter the Imperial court orchestra in Vienna until 1712, but from there it quickly migrated to the Neapolitan viceroyalty, dominated at that time by the Austrians. In the works of Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Lotti ,
15345-455: The horn was quickly adopted into Neapolitan opera, the most fashionable in Europe at the time. It was in the hands of these Italian composers that the horn took on its characteristic "harmonic" orchestral role. One of the first Neapolitan works to use horns was Scarlatti's serenata Il genio austriaco: Il Sole, Flora, Zefiro, Partenope e Sebeto , performed 28 August 1713 as part of the celebrations for
15500-399: The horn, mellophones can be used in place of the horn in brass and marching band settings. Mellophones are, however, sometimes unpopular with horn players because the mouthpiece change can be difficult and requires a different embouchure . Mouthpiece adapters are available so that a horn mouthpiece can fit into the mellophone lead pipe, but this does not compensate for the many differences that
15655-480: The hunting horn played on horseback, the left hand held the reins while the right hand gripped the body of the horn, but with crooks the left hand was required to hold them and the instrument securely together, with the right hand grasping the bell or the body of the instrument. The solution came with the creation of the Inventionshorn in about 1753 by the famous horn player Anton Joseph Hampel in collaboration with
15810-402: The instrument was ever intended as a substitute for the horn, mainly because of the fundamental differences described. As an instrument it compromises between the ability to sound like a horn, while being used like a trumpet or flugelhorn, a tradeoff that sacrifices acoustic properties for ergonomics. The marching horn is quite similar to the mellophone in shape and appearance, but is pitched in
15965-485: The instrument while playing. Gioachino Rossini exploited the instrument's association with hunting in a piece called Rendez-vous de chasse for four corni da caccia and orchestra (1828). All of these works were written for the natural horn. The advent of the valved horn brought new possibilities, which were exploited by Robert Schumann in two works written in 1849: the Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano Op. 70 and
16120-438: The key of B ♭ (the same as the B ♭ side of a regular double horn). It is also available in F alto (one octave above the F side of a regular double horn). The marching horn is also normally played with a horn mouthpiece (unlike the mellophone, which needs an adapter to fit the horn mouthpiece). These instruments are primarily used in marching bands so that the sound comes from a forward-facing bell, as dissipation of
16275-522: The label was acquired by Morris Levy 's Roulette Records ; a merger of the two labels created Sunnyview Records, which had success with the electro hip hop group Newcleus . The last single to be released on TK Records was "Weird Al" Yankovic 's " Another One Rides the Bus " (1981), based on Queen's song " Another One Bites the Dust ". In 1986, Henry Stone formed Hot Productions with Paul Klein and continued to re-release
16430-471: The larger sizes of the resulting instruments actually have descended from the saxhorn or the tuba. The tenor and baritone horns , amongst other sizes of instruments used in British brass bands, are members of the saxhorn family. The Wagner tuba is a rare brass instrument that is essentially a horn modified to have a larger bell throat and a vertical bell. Despite its name, it is generally not considered part of
16585-601: The late 1960s to the mid-to-late 1970s. Disco can be seen as a reaction by the 1960s counterculture to both the dominance of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music at the time. Several dance styles were developed during the period of 70s disco's popularity in the United States, including "the Bump ", "the Hustle ", "the Watergate", and "the Busstop". During the 1970s, disco music
16740-466: The late 1970s, Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan was arguably the best-known nightclub in the world. This club played a major formative role in the growth of disco music and nightclub culture in general. It was operated by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager and was notorious for the hedonism that went on within: the balconies were known for sexual encounters and drug use was rampant. Its dance floor
16895-860: The late 1970s, most major US cities had thriving disco club scenes. The largest scenes were most notably in New York City but also in Philadelphia , San Francisco , Miami , and Washington, D.C. The scene was centered on discotheques , nightclubs and private loft parties. In the 1970s, notable discos included " Crisco Disco ", "The Sanctuary", "Leviticus", " Studio 54 ", and " Paradise Garage " in New York, "Artemis" in Philadelphia, "Studio One" in Los Angeles, "Dugan's Bistro" in Chicago, and "The Library" in Atlanta. In
17050-562: The late sixteenth century and with the trompe de chasse in the middle of the seventeenth, a larger number of pitches became available for horn calls, and these calls are imitated in programme music from the second quarter of the seventeenth century onward, though scored not for actual horns but for strings only. An early example is found in the "Chiamata a la caccia" in Francesco Cavalli 's opera Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo (1639). A few years later, Jean-Baptiste Lully used horn calls in
17205-465: The lurer and the cornu, often also with ceremonial or military uses, are known on the Indian subcontinent by a variety of names: ramsinga , ransingha , sringa , ranasringa (Sanskrit for "war-horn"), kurudutu , and kombu . Early metal horns were less complex than modern horns. By the early 17th century, there were two main types of hunting horns, both designed to deal with the problem of providing
17360-555: The mid to late 1970s.", with use from 1975 onwards, describing the origin of the word as a shortened form of discotheque . In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called the "discotheque dress" was briefly very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form "disco" described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964; Playboy magazine used it in September of
17515-583: The middle of the seventeenth century instruments began to appear in the form of brass tubes wound into a single open hoop, with a flared exit opening (the bell). Although these came to be associated especially with France, the first known example was made in 1667 by the German maker Starck, in Nuremberg. In French, they were most often called trompe de chasse , though cor de chasse is also frequently found. In Germany, they came to be called Waldhörner . Because these horns were intended to be played on horseback during
17670-415: The modern convention of writing both the first and third parts above the second and fourth. In the mid-18th century, horn players began to insert the right hand into the bell to change the effective length of the instrument, adjusting the tuning up to the distance between two adjacent harmonics depending on how much of the opening was covered. This technique, known as hand-stopping , is generally credited to
17825-455: The mouth, they project better, and they weigh less. It is primarily used as the middle voice of drum and bugle corps . Though they are usually played with a V-cup cornet-like mouthpiece, their range overlaps the common playing range of the horn. This mouthpiece switch makes the mellophone louder, less mellow, and more brassy and brilliant, making it more appropriate for marching bands. As they are pitched in F or G and their range overlaps that of
17980-403: The mouthpiece and the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra tubing. German horns have lever-operated rotary valves . The backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound, in concert situations, in contrast to the more-piercing quality of the trumpet. Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which
18135-799: The music and dance style of such films as Fame (1980), Disco Dancer (1982), Flashdance (1983), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). Interest in disco dancing also helped spawn dance competition TV shows such as Dance Fever (1979). Disco fashions were very trendy in the late 1970s. Discothèque-goers often wore glamorous, expensive, and extravagant fashions for nights out at their local disco club. Some women would wear sheer, flowing dresses, such as Halston dresses, or loose, flared pants. Other women wore tight, revealing, sexy clothes, such as backless halter tops , disco pants , "hot pants", or body-hugging spandex bodywear or "catsuits". Men would wear shiny polyester Qiana shirts with colorful patterns and pointy, extra wide collars, preferably open at
18290-488: The name bucium . They are made in straight, hooked, and S-shaped forms, in lengths between 1.5 and 3 meters. A variant of the straight version is called tulnic . Metal instruments modelled on animal horns survive from as early as the 10th century BC, in the form of lurer (a modern name devised by archaeologists). Nearly fifty of these curved bronze horns have been excavated from burial sites, mostly in Scandinavia, since
18445-595: The name in English is in Le Morte d'Arthur from about 1400 where, as in most subsequent sources it is spelled with a single T: "cornet". The spelling with two Ts is a modern convention, to avoid confusion with the nineteenth-century valved brass instrument of that name, though in Old French the spelling cornette is found. The name is a diminutive derived the Latin cornu , "horn". In the sixteenth century still larger versions of
18600-456: The natural horn, Russian horns, French horn, Vienna horn, mellophone, marching horn, and Wagner tuba. Animal horns adapted as signalling instruments were used from prehistoric times. Archaeologists have discovered cow horns with fingerholes drilled in the side (providing a more complete musical scale) dating from the Iron Age . This type of rustic instrument is found down to the present day all over
18755-399: The natural horn, with very little (if any) backbore and a very thin rim. The Viennese horn requires very specialized technique and can be quite challenging to play, even for accomplished players of modern horns. The Vienna horn has a warmer, softer sound than the modern horn. Its pumpen-valves facilitate a continuous transition between notes ( glissando ); conversely, a more precise operating of
18910-597: The nineteenth century, an all-metal version with larger tone holes closed by keywork was called an ophicleide (from the Greek ophis (ὄφις) "serpent" + kleis (κλείς) "key" = "keyed serpent"). The ophicleide only remained in use until the middle of the nineteenth century when it was eclipsed by the superior valved brass instruments. Natural horns include a variety of valveless, keyless instruments such as bugles , posthorns , and hunting horns of many different shapes. One type of hunting horn, with relatively long tubing bent into
19065-456: The notes within the harmonic series are available. Since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, they had no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of crooks , i.e., sections of tubing of differing length which, when inserted between the mouthpiece and lead pipe, increased the length of the instrument, and thus lowered its pitch. The earliest surviving crooked horn
19220-468: The off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line. A recording error in the 1975 song " Bad Luck " by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes where Earl Young 's hi-hat was too loud in the recording is said to have established loud hi-hats in disco. Other Latin rhythms such as the rhumba, the samba, and the cha-cha-cha are also found in disco recordings, and Latin polyrhythms , such as a rhumba beat layered over
19375-474: The pressure exerted on the lips from the mouthpiece is increased. But, although some pressure is needed, excessive pressure is not desirable. Playing with excessive pressure makes the playing of the horn sound forced and harsh as well as decreases endurance of the player by about half. The Vienna horn is a special horn used primarily in Vienna , Austria . Instead of using rotary valves or piston valves , it uses
19530-517: The quality of the tone. In 1751, Prince Narishkin, Master of the Hunt to Empress Elizabeth of Russia , had a set of sixteen carefully tuned metal horns made to ensure that his huntsmen would sound a harmonious D-major chord while signalling to each other. He then got the idea of enlisting a Bohemian horn-player, J. A. Mareš, who was in service with the Imperial court in St. Petersburg, to organize these new horns into
19685-474: The result is a festivaly of carnality." The Sanctuary was the "first totally uninhibited gay discotheque in America" and while sex was not allowed on the dancefloor, the dark corners, bathrooms. and hallways of the adjacent buildings were all utilized for orgy-like sexual engagements. By describing the music, drugs, and liberated mentality as a trifecta coming together to create the festival of carnality, Brewster and Broughton are inciting all three as stimuli for
19840-411: The same ambitus above F as the trumpets have above C. However, they sound more poetic and are more satisfying than the deafening and shrieking clarini ... because they are a perfect fifth lower in pitch." One performing difficulty raised by the use of crooks inserted at the mouthpiece end of the instrument was that players were obliged to hold the horn in a way that the crooks would not fall out. For
19995-497: The same meaning in English in the 1950s. "Discothèque" became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, after they had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian nightclub in an English magazine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Discotheque as "A dance hall, nightclub, or similar venue where recorded music
20150-618: The same year to describe Los Angeles nightclubs. Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the 13 September 1973 feature article Discotheque Rock '72: Paaaaarty! that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. The music typically layered soaring, often- reverberated vocals, often doubled by horns, over a background "pad" of electric pianos and "chicken-scratch" rhythm guitars played on an electric guitar . Lead guitar features less frequently in disco than in rock . "The "rooster scratch" sound
20305-523: The self-same Anton Joseph Hampel who created the Inventionshorn . It was first developed around 1750, and was refined and carried to much of Europe by the influential Giovanni Punto . This offered more possibilities for playing notes not on the harmonic series. By the early classical period, the horn had become an instrument capable of much melodic playing. A notable example of this are the four Mozart Horn Concerti and Concert Rondo (K. 412, 417, 477, 495, 371), wherein melodic chromatic tones are used, owing to
20460-401: The sensation that one's arms and legs had turned to ' Jell-O . ' " Quaaludes were so popular at disco clubs that the drug was nicknamed "disco biscuits". Paul Gootenberg states that "[t]he relationship of cocaine to 1970s disco culture cannot be stressed enough..." During the 1970s, the use of cocaine by well-to-do celebrities led to its "glamorization" and to the widely held view that it
20615-452: The simulated sounds of orgasms. Summer's voice echoes in the tracks, and likens them to the drug-fervent, sexually liberated fans of disco who sought to free themselves through disco's "aesthetic of machine sex." Shapiro sees this as an influence that creates sub-genres like hi-NRG and dub -disco, which allowed for eroticism and technology to be further explored through intense synth bass lines and alternative rhythmic techniques that tap into
20770-455: The smaller horns to add one or two lower semitones. The German horn is the most common type of orchestral horn, and is ordinarily known simply as the "horn". The double horn in F/B♭ is the version most used by professional bands and orchestras. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player (or, less frequently, a hornist). Pitch is controlled through the adjustment of lip tension in
20925-698: The sound from the backward-facing bell becomes a concern in open-air environments. Many college marching bands and drum corps, however, use mellophones instead, which, with many marching bands, better balance the tone of the other brass instruments ; additionally, mellophones require less special training of trumpet players, who considerably outnumber horn players. The saxhorns constitute a family of brass instruments with tapered bores. Pitched in eight alternating sizes in E-flat and B-flat, like saxophones , they were originally designed for army use and revolutionized military and brass bands in Europe and America. Developed during
21080-468: The sound was enriched with solo lines and harmony parts played by a variety of orchestral instruments, such as violin , viola , cello , trumpet , saxophone , trombone , flugelhorn , French horn , English horn , oboe , flute , timpani and synth strings , string section or a full string orchestra . Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat set by a bass drum, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat pattern with an open hissing hi-hat on
21235-522: The technology used to create the unique mechanical sound of disco to eroticism, set the genre in a new dimension of reality living outside of naturalism and heterosexuality. Randy Jones and Mark Jacobsen echo this sentiment in BBC Radio's "The Politics of Dancing: How Disco Changed the World," describing the loose, hip-focused dance style as "a new kind of communion" that celebrates the sparks of liberation brought on
21390-582: The time it was a straight instrument eleven feet long, and this form persisted in Austria until the nineteenth century. The more familiar form, with an upturned bell, was developed in Switzerland in the eighteenth century. The practice of making these instruments in different sizes, to be played together in part music, originated in 1826. Similar wooden instruments, used by shepherds for signalling, are known in Romania by
21545-475: The unusually wide range required of the instrument. Formerly, in certain situations, composers called for two pairs of horns in two different keys. For example, a composer might call for two horns in C and two in E ♭ for a piece in C minor, in order to gain harmonics of the relative major unavailable on the C horns. Eventually, two pairs of horns became the standard, and from this tradition of two independent pairs, each with its own "high" and "low" horn, came
21700-447: The valveless horn, or natural horn, was a better instrument. Some musicians, specializing in period instruments, still use a natural horn when playing in original performance styles, seeking to recapture the sound and tenor in which an older piece was written. The use of valves , however, opened up a great deal more flexibility in playing in different keys; in effect, the horn became an entirely different instrument, fully chromatic for
21855-441: The valves is required to avoid notes that sound out of tune. Two instruments are called a mellophone. The first is an instrument shaped somewhat like a horn, in that it is formed in a circle. It has piston valves and is played with the right hand on the valves. Manufacturing of this instrument sharply decreased in the middle of the twentieth century, and this mellophone (or mellophonium) rarely appears today. The second instrument
22010-488: The word "trumpet" was usually qualified by "Italian" or "hunting", to distinguish these coiled horns from the military or courtly trumpet, though spiral trumpets (sometimes called trombae brevae ) pitched in D and played in clarino style also existed. The earliest surviving horn of the tightly spiralled type, dating from about 1570, is by Valentin Springer, though it is described as early as 1511 by Sebastian Virdung . Around
22165-448: Was a "soft drug". LSD , marijuana , and "speed" (amphetamines) were also popular in disco clubs, and the use of these drugs "...contributed to the hedonistic quality of the dance floor experience." Since disco dances were typically held in liquor licensed - nightclubs and dance clubs , alcoholic drinks were also consumed by dancers; some users intentionally combined alcohol with the consumption of other drugs, such as Quaaludes, for
22320-581: Was a jazz subsidiary that released only three albums, each produced by Joel Dorn : There is a present-day Austrian record label of the same name that was founded in 1982 and specializes in releasing blues music. Disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines , string sections , brass and horns , electric piano , synthesizers , and electric rhythm guitars . Discothèques as
22475-571: Was also a thriving drug subculture in the disco scene, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine and quaaludes , the latter being so common in disco subculture that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits". Disco clubs were also associated with promiscuity as a reflection of the sexual revolution of this era in popular history. Films such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) contributed to disco's mainstream popularity. Disco declined as
22630-522: Was decorated with an image of the " Man in the Moon " that included an animated cocaine spoon . The " Copacabana ", another New York nightclub dating to the 1940s, had a revival in the late 1970s when it embraced disco; it would become the setting of a Barry Manilow song of the same name . In Washington, D.C. , large disco clubs such as "The Pier" ("Pier 9") and "The Other Side", originally regarded exclusively as " gay bars ", became particularly popular among
22785-412: Was described as having a " pansexual attitude [that] was revolutionary in a country where up until recently it had been illegal for two men to dance together unless there was a woman present; where women were legally obliged to wear at least one recognizable item of female clothing in public; and where men visiting gay bars usually carried bail money with them." Disco was mostly developed from music that
22940-579: Was developed further, mainly by artists from the United States as well as from Europe . Well-known artists included the Bee Gees , ABBA , Donna Summer , Gloria Gaynor , Giorgio Moroder , Baccara , The Jacksons , Michael Jackson , Boney M , Earth Wind & Fire , Rick James , ELO , Average White Band , Chaka Khan , Chic , KC and the Sunshine Band , Thelma Houston , Sister Sledge , Sylvester , The Trammps , Barry White , Diana Ross , Kool &
23095-595: Was fostered a very sex-positive framework around discotheques. Further, in addition to gay sex being illegal in New York state, until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as an illness. This law and classification coupled together can be understood to have heavily dissuaded the expression of queerness in public, as such the liberatory dynamics of discotheques can be seen as having provided space for self-realization for queer persons. David Mancuso's club/house party, The Loft ,
23250-520: Was made by the Viennese maker Michael Leichamschneider and is dated 1721. However, Leichamschneider is known to have been making crooked horns as early as 1703, when he sold "a pair of great new Jägerhorn " equipped with four double crooks and four tuning bits to the Abbot of Krems. In England, the crooked horn appeared as early as 1704, when it was called corno cromatico or, because of its origin and because it
23405-849: Was most often played by German musicians (in particular the Messing family, who popularized the instrument in London beginning around 1730), "German horn". In cases where it was necessary to specify the older, hooped horn without crooks, the English called it the "French horn". By the second decade of the eighteenth century horns had become regular members of continental orchestras. In 1713 Johann Mattheson stated, "the lovely, majestic hunting horns (Ital. Cornette di Caccia , Gall. Cors de Chasse ) have now become very fashionable, in church music just as much as in theatre and chamber music, partly because they are not so coarse as trumpets, but also partly because they can be managed with greater facilité . The most useful have
23560-404: Was much more costly to produce than many of the other popular music genres from the 1970s. Unlike the simpler, four-piece-band sound of funk , soul music of the late 1960s or the small jazz organ trios , disco music often included a large band, with several chordal instruments (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer), several drum or percussion instruments (drumkit, Latin percussion, electronic drums),
23715-473: Was part of a broader trend towards exploring a freer sexual expression in the 1970s, an era that is also associated with " swingers clubs , hot tubs , [and] key parties ." In his paper, "In Defense of Disco" (1979), Richard Dyer claims eroticism as one of the three main characteristics of disco. As opposed to rock music which has a very phallic centered eroticism focusing on the sexual pleasure of men over other persons, Dyer describes disco as featuring
23870-524: Was played by violins and hunting horns together, according to the libretto (the music does not survive). Georg Bronner's opera Echo und Narcissus (1693) and Agostino Steffani 's opera I trionfi del fato (produced in 1695 in Hanover) also used horns. At about this same time the horn began to appear as a solo instrument. An anonymous Sonata da caccia con un cornu from before 1680 found in a manuscript in Kroměříž sets
24025-468: Was popular on the dance floor in clubs that started playing records instead of having a live band. The first discotheques mostly played swing music . Later on, uptempo rhythm and blues became popular in American clubs and northern soul and glam rock records in the UK. In the early 1940s, nightclubs in Paris resorted to playing jazz records during the Nazi occupation. Régine Zylberberg claimed to have started
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