Often in the announcement of musical compositions you can see mysterious words and signs like feat, pres or &. What do they mean? This is known only to literally insiders. But many such reductions have appeared recently. This means it’s time to improve your musical literacy.
What does feat mean?
Feat is an abbreviated derivative of the English word “featuring”, which means “to participate”, “with participation” (if we are talking about a film, video, etc.). “Feat” is used when one musical group or performer participates in the preparation of a recording of another group or singer. Moreover, such participation should be taken throughout the creation of the entire composition, song, concert or even a full album. In show business, such a tandem is also called guest participation or featuring.
And then on albums, discs or in videos it is indicated, for example, “Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown", "ATB feat. Heather Nova" etc.
If the list of invited singers and musicians grows, then the participants are either listed separated by a comma, or such listing is supplemented with the word “feat”, after which the names or titles of assistants are indicated separated by a comma. For example, “Taito Tikaro feat. J. Louis, Ferran, Rebeka Brown."
Sometimes the comma is replaced by the word “with”, meaning in English “along with”, “together”. And then the name of the performers’ union will sound, for example, “Markus Schulz feat. Departure with Gabriel & Dresden."
The important thing to remember when using "feat" is that it is never replaced by an ampersand - "&".
What is an ampersand?
The ampersand or “&” is used when indicating creative unions or duets in the title of a composition. Moreover, real names can be replaced by pseudonyms. Sometimes the "&" sign is replaced with a "plus" sign. For example, this is what Blank+Jones did.
What is the prefix “pres.” used for?
"Pres." comes from the English word “present” (“to represent”). This mark is used when a popular group or singer promotes an unknown team or performer on their behalf. For example, “Above and Beyond pres. OceanLab." True, there are cases when start-up companies act as
protégés of the same yet unknown groups. And they also use the prefix “pres.”
Do English song titles need capital letters?
It turns out that this rule is not mandatory in Russian. This technique only works in English-language publications, where you can write every word in the title of a song, composition, etc. with a capital letter. Moreover, articles and prepositions are left in lowercase. True, in long titles this looks very hard on the eyes. For example, "Why You Don't Want To Dance With Me." And for the Russian language such a presentation is real torture. A name like this looks and reads difficult. Why? Because it violates the spelling of words and grammar familiar to the Russian eye. If we leave the English version of the song title, then in Russian we get the following: “Why Don’t You Want to Dance With Me?”
Therefore, it is best to follow the canons of the target language when naming a musical work.
But there is one rule that can be circumvented: the definite article “the” can either be omitted or left in the names of groups. For example, "The Beatles" or "The Beatles" would be equally correct.
How to write musical styles correctly?
When indicating the name of a musical style, you can write it with a lowercase letter, or you can start with a capital letter. However, when listing styles, each name must be capitalized. For example, Reggae, Dub, Ska.
If the names of styles contain more than one word, then each is written with a capital letter. In particular, Pop Rock, Progressive House, etc.
What does the abbreviation "vs" mean?
“Vs” comes from the Latin word “versus,” which means “against.” This abbreviation is most often used when talking about a “battle” between two performers or groups. For example, “Groove vs Tsvetkoff”. Or “vs” is placed on compositions that are a parody or remix of another work.
Is bootleg plagiarism?
In fact, this is the use without the knowledge of the copyright holder of his musical composition or part of it. The word originates from Prohibition in the United States, when bootleggers were those who smuggled alcohol into the country. But now, very often, bootlegs are still used to refer to the legal combination and re-release of works by different performers by other persons. And when such an album is released, the word “bootleg” will be indicated. For example, if the collection contains compositions by Bob Marley, then the link to them will be as follows: “Sun is shining (Funkstar De Luxe bootleg)”, “Sun is shining (ATB bootleg)”, etc.
What is the difference between a mix and a remix?
A remix is denoted by the word “remix” or abbreviated to “rmx”. Represents the processing of a piece of music by an outside musician. For example, “Rivera juicy Ibiza remix”. A mix or “mix” is a reworking performed by a member of the group who performs the original version of a song or melody. And the link to this in the album should look like this: “New world mix”, for example.
Extended, instrumental and radio versions
When preparing a song or melody for radio broadcast, so-called radio versions or “radio edit”, radio version are released.” There are times when the word "radio" is omitted. But this is not true because it misleads the listeners. However, such a variation is easy to recognize: as a rule, the length of the radio version is no more than 4-5 minutes and even shorter.
Extended versions or “extended” last longer than the radio version: from 5 to 8-9 minutes, but sometimes longer. Very often, to enhance the impression of the work, the word “extended” is supplemented with the word “original”. As a rule, it is added to mixes of works to indicate the completely “native” origin of the version. Moreover, the combination “original mix” is directly used to state that third parties had nothing to do with the processing of the composition. When describing a single in an album it would look like this: “Kolombo Coda (Original mix)”, for example.
Instrumental versions can be extended (“extended instrumental”), club (“instrumental club”) and for radio stations (“instrumental radio edit”). Such versions differ from any other variations in the absence of voice parts and even individual vocal fragments.
