Saxophone Solos in EDM-The Roles of an Acoustic, Improvising Instrument in Dance Music

Abstract

In this applied musicology thesis, I investigate how saxophone solos in electronic dance music facilitate structural shifts while injecting elements of liveness into EDM tracks. This work seeks to expand discussions of improvisatory strategies in EDM by illustrating how the saxophone’s association with jazz and other Black American musical traditions, opening a wide range of improvisatory reference points that resonate uniquely in electronic contexts. Key findings include a mapping of how improvising saxophonists in the subgenres of electro-jazz, funky, tropical, melodic, and deep house music drive structural changes and shape musical events like rises, drops, and breakdowns. Theorisations of conversational irony in jazz practice are in turn used to parse the novelty of saxophone use in a case study of Anders Nilsen’s Salsa Tequila (2014). New knowledge is demonstrated in this thesis through both the musicological analysis of improvised saxophone lines presented in Chapters 1 and 2 and in the major creative work submitted for examination, discussed in Chapter Three, that applies the findings of the musicological analysis to a set of newly composed musical works.