At Chief Ike’s by Adam’s Morgan I heard a couple tracks I really liked.  A music pattern revealed itself- something harder to find on headphones or home speakers.  Basically its a minimal hip-hop with deep bass pattern.  With the right subs it just really makes you want to dance.  Two songs in particular:

It occurred to me that I must go out to a club that plays music closer to top 40 stuff, every couple months, just to keep up with whats new.  Funny to think of going to a club for the purpose of research in composition and production.  Hearing things in headphones or at speakers at home just doesn’t compare to what its like in a dance environment.

So I’m exploring this pattern using this:

It is pretty amenable to the minimal hip hop deep bass pattern.  Playing this by hand is of course more difficult than simply sequencing- but with this sort of instrument interaction it is simply easier to play one thing at a time.  The result is that it is easier to play beats that are minimal,  having a good amount of space for each hit.  Given that some of the percussion also has a deep bass, this is exactly what I was looking for.