7/18/2008 02:16:00 PM|W|P|Mr. Bandwidth|W|P|Riddims are to reggae what standards are to jazz - stock riffs, progressions, beats and melodies that can be re-interpreted by each and every new player. The difference is that for reggae, the "riddim" means mostly the drum and bass groove, with less accent on other rhythmic instruments like guitars, keyboards and percussion. This distinguishes riddims from standards, which are more often defined by harmony and melody (the "tune," if you will). In the 1970s, riddims, most often one-off records of drum and bass grooves, became the building blocks of reggae styles like dub and talkover. DJs would play the riddim record and then add effects, add other instruments, play other records at the same time, or add live vocals. The riddim gave the crowd something familiar to latch on to, and the DJ's real art was to re-interpret the familiar record and make a new version. In our digital, recombinant times, when the remix and the mashup rule the ether, and a lively culture of open-source internet remixing has emerged, the time is ripe for putting stock musical elements - or textual, or visual elements, or ideas - out there on the internet and letting the public rework them at will. Hence some web denizens have recently latched on to the web's convenience for distributing reggae riddims. The Jamaican Riddim Directory offers a large database of information about classic reggae riddims, while MIDI RIDDIMS offers midi-made recordings of classic riddims (on another note, we mustn't forget Phat Drum Loops, a veritable vault of classic breakbeats). Remixers delight! - and just more proof of reggae's dynamic, pioneering influence in terms of remixing, sound-engineering, and musical styles (an argument we've pursued before - see also this post on DJ Spooky and track 17 from the Farewell Estate, "the future of dub"). Happy remixing!|W|P|2252758985765409071|W|P|midi riddims|W|P|pizzapelsa@gmail.com