The “orchestra hit” - The sound that connects Stravinsky to Bruno Mars
Hi all,
Here's an interesting and brief [[nine and a half minutes) Youtube clip that tells the history of a sound [[a default sample) that most of us have heard hundreds of times called an "orchestra hit." This ubiquitous sound stab has been in songs by Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Yes, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, and countless others.
From Estelle Caswell’s Earworm series for Vox. Here's the blurb:
The sound that connects Stravinsky to Bruno Mars
"It’s about the “orchestra hit” sound that became super popular in the 80s…but which has its origins in an unauthorized sample of Igor Stravinsky included with an influential digital audio workstation invented in the late 70s. If you listen to the first few seconds of Bruno Mars’ “Finesse” [[hint: listen to the Cardi B remix) you’ll hear a sound that immediately creates a sense of 80s hip-hop nostalgia. Yes, Cardi B’s flow is very Roxanne Shante, but the sound that drives that nostalgia home isn’t actually from the 1980s. Robert Fink and the inventor of the Fairlight CMI, Peter Vogel, help me tell the story of the orchestra hit — a sound that was first heard in 1910 at the Paris Opera where the famed 20th century Russian composer Stravinsky debuted his first hit, The Firebird.
The popularity of the orchestra hit is also a good reminder about the power of default settings. The musicians and producers who used the Fairlight CMI could record and sample any sound in the world but they ended up using this one included with the machine. Even the heavyweights — Herbie Hancock, Afrika Bambaataa, etc. — went with a default sample."
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'Sorry, I forgot how to post Youtube videos but here's the url for the clip.
You might need to copy and paste it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A1Aj1_EF9Y&t=29s
Maybe this one is clickable[[?)
https://kottke.org/18/05/the-fascina...a-hit-in-music
