ATB- Ecstasy

Like all techno pieces I know of, the beat underneath is the driving force of the piece. It is interesting how this beat grows in the beginning of the piece, showing the different elements and building blocks that make it up. First, it does 4 phrases or so of the electronic melodic pattern by itself then it adds a percussion beat, then the bass pattern, then another percussion beat, and then once the beat is set, the voice comes in. The phrasing of the voice part follows the beat pattern. The voice often sounds unsure when it begins a new phrase and then the beat reinforces it. If you can ever truly consider a techno piece to have a particular form, I think you’d have to consider this Rounded Binary. The A section would be the different verses and is very tonally centered. The B section would be the chorus and is further up in the register and contains more leaps and is more chordal than tonally centered. The piece transitions from A to B occurs each time that the girl surprisingly sings 2 or so measures on a high note after the final verse of the A section. The vocal melody of the A and B sections are distinctly different from each other, but it is the continuing beat which gives the B section a relation to the A rather than a separate identity.