The Infamous 'amen Break'

[LittleDragonfly]

Hey Guys!

I came across this little youtube documentary on the 'Amen Break'.

I'm sure many of you know about it already, but for those who don't, The Amen Break was a 6 second drum solo performed on a B-side by 'The Winstons' in 1969. Since then, and with the help of samplers, it has almost singularly spawned three distinct genres of music - Hip Hop, Drum n Bass and Jungle - and arguably many sub-cultures on top of that.

Even if you're not into any of these genre's particularly (I'm not), it is an interesting phenomenon that as musicians I thought you would find an eye opener.

It is 18 mins long, and the narrator is quite monotonous at times, but if you do have the time it is a good watch.

Enjoy!

Listen.Love.Grow.

Edited July 10, 2012 by LittleDragonfly

[LittleDragonfly]

Here is the break at the three typical speeds you hear

[LittleDragonfly]

And here is the original song in all its glory!!

[john]

nice one. A bit like several John Bonham beats, recycled and reused in several music genres.

[LittleDragonfly]

nice one. A bit like several John Bonham beats, recycled and reused in several music genres.

Was just this second listening to some of the Zepp! Page always mellows me out. But I had no idea Bonham was extensively sampled, I knew about the beastie boys...Could you point me to a few more tracks you know of?

Thanks

[LittleDragonfly]

Very informative! Honestly, I'd never heard of "The amen".....didn't have a clue. It's always interesting to learn about the origins of this stuff.

I will make comment though.....as a long-time drummer myself. When he played the intial version of the "the break", quickly followed by an example of two, it was easy to hear the similarlity & make the connection to the original.

But, as the narrative continues & gets into applications such as "Jungle", etc.......it becomes virtually impossible for me to associate the examples back to the original beat (break). Honestly, in my mind at least, there was almost no similarity between the two! Had the narrator not been telling me that it was derrivitive, there's no way I would have made a connection. Some of those later examples sound as much like the guitar riff from "My Girl", as they do that original amen break Kind of makes me wonder if maybe the industry stretches the historical connections of this kind of stuff a bit thin.-LOL

Anyway, still informative & I still enjoyed the info.......thanks, nice post!

Tom

Hmmm, I'm sure there is that possibility, people do have a tendency to glamorise and exaggerate everything. As for the Jungle star 'Shy FX' in the video, I know he definitely used the break - the guy has openly stated it. As for the others I can't say, I haven't looked them up myself.

But it is amazing what you can do with a couple filters, eq, pitch shift, an MPC etc - especially if you start with a grainy old distorted vinyl in the first place.

Thanks for taking the time to watch!

[LittleDragonfly]

When it no longer bears enough resemblence to the original, that your ears can detect the similarility, I feel like it's a stretch to call it derivitive. At that point, they've simply constructed something new, utilizing random bit & pieces of the original recording. That's what I was getting at.

Tom

Ahh I get you. Totally agree.

[john]

Was just this second listening to some of the Zepp! Page always mellows me out. But I had no idea Bonham was extensively sampled, I knew about the beastie boys...Could you point me to a few more tracks you know of?

Thanks

Here's one song, when the levee breaks, look at the section "samples of the drum track":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Levee_Breaks

As you can see the Beastie Boys feature as users of that beat. They also used a beat from The Ocean and from Moby Dick. They also used samples of other instruments from Custard Pie, The Ocean and Rock and Roll.

Most use of his drum samples are definitely rappers, but they even frature in tracks like Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

I seem to remember Black Dog being used a lot, bits of Moby Dick and a few others. take a look at the number os John Bonham sample libraries and you realise he is an extensively sampled drummer.

[LittleDragonfly]

Here's one song, when the levee breaks, look at the section "samples of the drum track":

http://en.wikipedia....he_Levee_Breaks

As you can see the Beastie Boys feature as users of that beat. They also used a beat from The Ocean and from Moby Dick. They also used samples of other instruments from Custard Pie, The Ocean and Rock and Roll.

Most use of his drum samples are definitely rappers, but they even frature in tracks like Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

I seem to remember Black Dog being used a lot, bits of Moby Dick and a few others. take a look at the number os John Bonham sample libraries and you realise he is an extensively sampled drummer.

Nice, will check these out.

Thanks again!

[TapperMike]

I seem to remember Black Dog being used a lot, bits of Moby Dick and a few others. take a look at the number os John Bonham sample libraries and you realise he is an extensively sampled drummer.

What's odd to me, for a time I was working with a lot of hip hop artists during the early 90's and they loved Kashmir

[john]

I can attest to that too, the main musical theme more than anything else