![]() ![]() While the Roland CR-78 was the company’s first programmable drum machine that could, thanks to new microprocessors, fade sounds in and out, the TR-808’s sound quality was much improved though, again, not to the point that it made realistic the percussive elements that now included kick, snare, hi-hats (open and closed), cowbell, toms (low, mid, high), claves, rim shot, maracas, cymbals fill, and yes, a handclap. Because the 808 was designed with analogue circuitry, the drum machine couldn’t come close to replicating the sounds of actual drums something that would become relatively easier with digital and sampling technologies (first, the sampled drum sounds of the Linn LM-1 drum computer and the LinnDrum digital drum machine). In 1980, eight years after founding Roland, Kakehashi’s TR-808 drum machine hit the market. This rhythm generator, primitive by today’s standards but cutting edge at the time, would prove to be a major influence on Roland’s later drum machines. ![]() The drum machine that appeared in the Hammond was the FR-1 Rhythm Ace, which was equipped with 16 presets, with players being able to play four parts manually-bass drum, cymbals, cowbell, and claves. Kakehashi’s Ace Tone Rhythm Ace series of drum machines featured music technology that would be incorporated into Hammond organs in 1967, and later in Roland’s various rhythm synthesizers. The handclap’s rebirthīefore founding Roland, Ikutaro Kakehashi, a Japanese inventor and engineer established Ace Tone, a maker of organs, effects pedals, amplifiers, and drum machines. It was not an intentional act, but one that grew out of the limitations of analogue music technology, and Roland’s own assumptions about how the 808 would be used by musicians. The 808, as it is colloquially known, basically turned the handclap on its head. The history of the handclap in hip hop, electro, house, and techno really can’t be told without also telling the story of Roland’s TR-808 drum machine. But drum machines changed all of that in a radical way. Beyond the handclap’s role as a natural rhythm generator, it was a means of bringing the audience into the performance. Whatever the culture, the handclap was popular precisely because it is an instrument that everyone has literally in their hands. Sometime after it had become standard applause in Western civilization, the handclap was used to keep time. In the 7th century Rome, for instance, Emperor Heraclius used a chorus of applause as an attempt to intimidate a barbarian king. Developing alongside body percussion was the clapping element in a political spectacle, long before it became standard applause in a theater. Historically speaking, the handclap is one aspect of body percussion, a type of rhythmic expression that uses the body as an instrument (sometimes polyphonically) that can be seen in various folk music traditions around the globe, as in the Indonesian Saman dance or as one of several rhythmic media (like stomping) in traditional African music. But the handclap’s uses, of course, are far more ancient and varied. Before the advent of modern pop music, gospel and various types of folk music used the handclap was a common rhythmical element. ![]()
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