music with no percussion

wondering what people's thought are on this. you can take it any way you want - music with vocals, music without vocals - a genre flexible question. i guess the obvious would be to say that a lot of ambient or choral music sounds great without percussion, but what about other genres? i feel like a lot of people need a beat or some rhythm to get invested in a song. speaking in terms of music with vocals specifically, what are examples that work without percussion? open to all thoughts.

Lots of folk music.

... a lot of which is dance music, of course.

Old time fiddling
Steve lacy playing his soprano sax by himself
String quartets.
Greek shepherds w clarinets
Sardinian launeddas players

Shakuhachi players
Most John Fahey records
Gavin Bryars “the sinking of the titanic”
“Tom Sherman’s Barroom” by dick devall
William Harris “bill frog blues”

Shakuhachi players
Most John Fahey records
Gavin Bryars “the sinking of the titanic”
“Tom Sherman’s Barroom” by dick devall
William Harris “bill frog blues”

this is tricky because lots of instruments not classed as "percussion" (piano, guitar) can be hella percussive
i once heard an amazing acapella rendition of "love is a battlefield" with part of the chorus doing quasi-beatboxing
so like what are the parameters here?

My understanding was that the piano counted as percussion because of the mechanical hammers but I’m a drop out

Fiddling with foot clogging: OUT.
Fiddling with banjo: IN

yeah i'm def trying to get at all this! i for sure consider piano and in ways also guitar percussive. so feel free to take it there. keen to unpack that.

https://wordery.com/jackets/7ebf1c50/jigs-reels-hornpipes-complete-edward-huws-jones-9780851621210.jpg

foot drum!

what is the controversy level of reminding people that the piano is a percussion instrument?

― Swen, Saturday, 9 March 2024 13:08 (eight hours ago) link

i just saw this in the other thread ⚡⚡⚡
lol

haha right?

<3

just thinking of the "indie/alternative canon" there are certain songwriters whose melodies seem to have been written over a drone, and lend themselves to all kinds of arrangements (Bjork, Panda Bear)

so even though most of the familiar versions have some sort of percussion, you don't really need it,and i'm sure there are recordings and performances without it

lots of pop ballads that can be reduced to just voice and strings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yip0Wx8Ofj0

some of the songs on Automatic for the People (Sweetness follows which has a few percussive elements but no "percussion", * me kitten, and maybe others - it's been a while)

relatedly, world of echo

idk this is hard, i feel like there is still the strong implication of a "beat" in all these examples

i'm sure digging through my library would turn up songs that are really just drones and pads, but

string chamber music

oh my bad, missed the vocal requirement in the post

a capella music, i guess, tho i don’t enjoy it

Yesterday

Yeah re folk music I listened to a bit of English/Scottish/Irish traditional solo vocal stuff during the pandemic… fishing songs, sweet romantic ballads, etc, great stuff, like being immersed in history in a way. It’s just like an extension of oral storytelling

definitely not limited to vocal music, voodoo! i love string chamber music.

idk this is hard, i feel like there is still the strong implication of a "beat" in all these examples

Beat yes, percussion no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8rumyup0Os

Arthur Russell is a master of this.

this comes to mind too -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRKOZolW6L4

In terms of music one expects to have drums/percussion, I was shocked when Slowdive released Pygmalion but I came to love that album.

David Sylvian's Blemish

Some rockabilly is drummerless, but standup bass and rhythm guitar are providing the beat.

Bluegrass music traditionally has no percussion, and it's even looked down upon to have it by purists, although there have been bands that incorporated it.

The "mandolin chop" is kind of the main percussion and the playing of the guitar and banjo is already fairly percussive, so I tend to think adding percussion is too much.

There's a subgenre of hip hop called Drumless btw.

heh yeah was gonna bring up Roc Marciano and Daringer

I actually didn't know that, but Jay Electronica has some good drumless tracks

(repercussions dad joke here)

lot of good Zap Mama tracks here

Brrlak!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxkbipVwZv4

Take Me Coco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuWE8AGVNNM

Mupepe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2fqmJbUMsk

haha can't believe i forgot to mention drumless hip-hop. my fav song of 2022 fits that bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yspLw1dZzhE

ka - "ascension"

lots of percussion-free music i love - i say writing as i'm listening to an old cut hands fact mix that would appear to be just percussion.

away from ambient/arthur russell most of my favourites will be folk. i must note two of my favourite albums ever made ever: show of hands' live at the royal albert hall and lunasa's the merry siters of fate. almost entirely without percussion, which admittedly is nothing unusual for the sort of records they are. but the usually counterpoint acoustic guitar sometimes takes on almost percussive qualities through dent of being played so rhythmically and quickly.

i do sometimes wonder how much heavy (electronic) dance music there is without a beat. jesus jones' spiral was an attempt to do hardcore/acid techno but without a beat (though there are occasional throbs of sine bass that are almost bass drum-like). being jesus jones your mileage my vary but it makes me want more of that suspended-in-mid-air menace.

Hugo Largo fit right in here. Line up of two bass players, violin, and vocals. Eno released their records and Michael Stipe produced their debut (called Drum, natch).