Chord of the Day: Get Down Saturday Night

Get Down Saturday Night was a 1983 hit for Oliver Cheatham written by himself and Kevin McCord and released on MCA Records, peaking at #38 in the UK singles chart that year. It’s been sampled countless times, most notably by Daft Punk, Michael Gray and Room 5.

In addition, it was re-released in 1988, ‘89, ‘98, ‘99, 2002, ‘03 and ‘07 as well as getting another crack of the whip on the GTA Vice City soundtrack. There’s clearly something about it that has a timeless quality so let’s have a look at how it’s put together.

Oliver Cheatham – Get Down Saturday Night (1983)

Get Down Saturday Night is in the key of B minor and at 116 bpm for this. Interestingly when searching for alternate versions on iTunes I found some obvious vinyl rips that had been sped up and were nearly 2.5 bpm faster than the original and up half a semitone.

I’ve used Arturia’s Prophet V for the chords, employing a couple of detuned sawtooths with a light envelope filter. I’ve bounced it with the metronome so you can clearly hear where each chord falls. Notice each chord is a double dotted half note – this means it’s duration is 1 + ¾ the original duration. It’s a little tidier to notate that rather than a dotted half note tied to an eight note. You can read more about double dotted notes here.

One of the key features in the harmony is that first chord, a minor chord with the fourth degree in the bass, in this case with an added seventh on top too. Slash chords, as these are commonly known are a key part of the sound of 70s and 80s soul music.

Here’s a mock up with drums, bass and guitar added:

Daft Punk – Voyager (2001)

Daft Punk interpolated Get Down Saturday Night on their pioneering 2001 album Discovery.

Let’s start off again with our chords.The main chord structure is very similar to Cheatham’s although Bangalter and de Homem-Christo have played with them slightly. The first thing to notice is the harmonic rhythm is identical. This method of pushing chord so they anticipate the beat is of course not unique to Get Down Saturday Night and can be heard in a tonne of boogie/disco tracks from the era, but it is noteworthy.

Secondly the progression starts with that same minor chord with a fourth degree in the bass, this time B minor with an E in the bass.

I’ve used my same Prophet from earlier adding in Logic’s ES2 to fill in some higher frequencies with a buzzier synth string sound. I used two detuned sawtooths with some 6 voice unison. To widen it some more I used some Valhalla SpaceModulator and Logic’s Ensemble plug-in. This is topped off with some fake sidechain compression:

There are three different slash chords here with a chromatic bass-line. The right hand part is simple triads (D, Bsus4, Em, C) but the bass notes re-contextualise them.

The bass line of one of Daft Punk’s most memorable. To my ears it sounds like a Moog but I could easily be wrong. I’ve used U-He’s phenomenal Diva:

Here’s a version with the drums, bass and guitar:

Room 5 feat. Oliver Cheatham – Make Luv (2003)

Some people’s first exposure to this track was the 2003 hit by Room 5 featuring the man himself, Make Luv, which reached number 1 in the UK singles charts for four weeks back in March and April of 2003.

The sample has been pitched up a semitone, taking it from the original 116 bpm:

…up to 125 bpm.

With the new sample in place, some beefier drums and some additional guitar, here’s a rough version:

Michael Gray – The Weekend (2004)

In 2004 Michael Gray had a hit with the getting-ready-to-go-out The Weekend. It reached number 7 in the UK singles charts.

If you thought the inclusion of Voyager was spurious in this list, The Weekend might be even more so, but for the interpolated lyric “I can’t wait for Saturday night/the weekend [delete as applicable] to begin”, which can be heard about three minutes in.

Let’s add an instance of Native Instruments Kontakt and use the Scarbee Mm-Bass to play in our bassline. It’s a four chord motif using a lot of octave with some triplets in the last bar. I’ve added Logic’s ESM underneath to give a little extra weight to the bottom end:

The chords all land on beat one of each bar playing for four counts. You can see each chord has a high B that remains throughout, this is a technique called an inverted pedal point.

If anything this progression is more similar to voyager, with the root notes of measures two and three being the same, and the tonality of the first chord being the same. The likeness ends there, but it’s acceptable to point out there is some influence perhaps.

There’s also a lead line, this is actually an interpolated line from Kerr’s 1984 proto-hiphop/electro funk number Back At Ya.

I’ll embed the piano roll as well as the score as there’s a pitch-bend that’s important to get, the range of which is one octave.

Let’s hear it all together:

Twitter user 🌱Sour Dani🌱 pointed out the comparison too:

here's a quick video i whipped up. not super scientific but you get the idea. pic.twitter.com/YZ0fYSiLQS

— 🌱Sour Dani🌱 (@PunishedGreene) December 2, 2022

That’s it! These aren’t supposed to be identical copies, they’re just for educational purposes/fun so hopefully it’s fun to read. Any clarifications, corrections or other feedback, please leave a comment and let me know.