Hip Hop Beat Production in Music Education: Essential Techniques for Sound, Loops, and Structure

Given the scope of this chapter, we can provide some basic considerations around elements of Hip Hop beat production that should be useful for music educators. I (Adam) have attempted to translate here what I have come to understand (through working with Lamont and others over the years) into language that I believe most music educators would know. Some details of these concepts will inevitably be lost in translation, but these should at least provide a starting ground for further exploration. I have included three basic areas, which I present in the order of a common compositional approach: 1) Sound Selection: Balancing Innovation and Convention, 2) Feel: Constructing a Loop, and 3) Sequence: Developing Form and Structure.

Sound Selection: Balancing Innovation and Convention. What many music educators might call “timbre” is easily one of the primary initial concerns of a Hip Hop producer. Beat makers spend a lot of time considering—and reconsidering—the qualities and details of the sounds that they use. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry where folks create “sound packs” that contain particular instrument sounds worth purchasing. While most DAWs come with a set of stock virtual instrument sounds, many producers will either avoid the stock sounds altogether or at the very least invest time editing the stock sounds in order to make them unique.

Some producers will also create custom instruments out of audio samples. These might be originally recorded sounds (from conventional instruments or “found sounds”), or they might be short sounds sampled from already existing recordings. Sounds are often then turned into instruments by “mapping” them across a keyboard or drum machine. Further pitch shifting and other editing gives a producer seemingly endless possibilities to create bespoke instruments for each of their compositions.

I (Adam) recall some of my earliest hours in amateur Hip Hop studios being amazed at the amount of time producers put into browsing through folders of audio files searching for the exact right hi-hat sound, and then being further amazed as the selected sound often went under further scrutiny and evolution with the application of software plugins and effects. While producers will often spend a great deal of time fine tuning instrument sounds and seeking their own signature sound, they are also in constant dialogue with stylistic conventions. For example, if a producer is making a trap beat, there are certain 808s and hi-hat sounds that are arguably more “correct” than others. Overall, producers are often in a balancing act of strategic moves to both fit into and reject aesthetic trends. Whether trying to replicate an example or achieve an original sound, the sound selection process is incredibly important and involves high levels of listening and audio engineering skills.

Feel: Constructing a Loop. As producers develop their sounds, they often begin creating a beat by focusing on stacking instrument voices in a loop (often four or eight bars). The starting voice could be almost anything. Some producers always start with drums, others may start with samples, and others may vary how they begin on each new project. Regardless, the initial aim for many is to develop a loop that will serve as the main material for the instrumental. Loops might be premade and available within a DAW, or producers might compose them out of samples, software instruments, or original recordings. If premade or samples, producers often spend time “chopping” the samples into pieces and rearranging them, editing them with effects, pitch shifting them, changing their tempo, reversing them, or any other manner of customization.

With so many different personal approaches and so many musical traditions continually blended into contemporary beat production, it is impossible to describe a singular musical set of values during the loop construction process. However, it is somewhat safe to say that feel is an incredibly common priority. The concept of feel overlaps with what music educators would probably think of as rhythm, but the premium on how the rhythm feels cannot be overstated. The producer is often chasing a particular feel, and the reaction that the music elicits in the body during this process is paramount. It’s not just that the music makes your head bob, but the way in which the head bobs that matters.

Watching producers and onlookers in a studio space will reveal a complex language of shoulder movements, facial expressions, head movements, and more. As the loop develops into patterns that groove, it then becomes important to establish moments of rupture (Rose, 1994). These are interruptions to the groove of the pattern in the loop. Ruptures may occur via a dropped or added instrument, an added or removed beat, or any other element that breaks the flow and expectation of the established loop. They may occur regularly as part of the main loop, or they may happen less frequently in transitions between sections in the larger form, at halfway points during a long verse section, or in any unexpected moment.

Sequence: Developing Form and Structure. Like most Hip Hop composition, there are no real rules regarding form and structure, but there are some typical conventions. These are worth considering in terms of adhering to or rejecting them depending on a producer’s goals. For example, it is common that verse sections of Hip Hop songs are 16 measures long and hooks are eight measures, but one would not be hard pressed to find exceptions to that formula. For many, after an initial loop is created, the producer will turn to sequencing or arranging the project into sections (e.g., intro, verse, hook).

This is what most music educators would think of as the compositional element of form. Because the main loop (which often becomes the hook) typically shares so much material with other sections, it is the element that many music educators would call texture that usually distinguishes between sections in the form. The introduction of a beat may have only one or two of the voices from the originally composed loop, the verse sections typically have a thinner texture (often with a change in texture halfway through), and the hook typically has the thickest texture. Of course, there are endless variations and exceptions, but these are common practices in terms of form and structure. There are plenty of beats with different harmonic progressions and/or different material entirely in sections, some beats have pre-hooks, some have bridges, and some use complex transitions while others are the same eight bars looped for three minutes.