[ArticDonkey]

I´m completely lost with the electronic music...for me House, Trance, Electro, Techno are all the same thing...can anybody help me with this? I´m trying to understand people´s minds when they go crazy for the Dj´s!

I think that if Madonna works with Dj´s as producers there must be something good going on with it.

[HomerJ]

Well, since I love electronic music I would like to introduce you to it genres...

Ambient

Ambient music is a style that focuses on sound and space rather than melody and form. It is music that is intentionally created to be used as both as background music and as music to listen to. It usually features slowly evolving sounds, repetition, and is relatively static.

In 1978, Brian Eno released Ambient 1: Music for Airports. It came out at the peak of disco, and was largely ignored when it was released. Music for Airports has grown in significance every year since, though. Ambient 1 was a beautiful manifesto. It is a set of intriguing, timeless soundscapes, artfully packaged. It is also the beginning of ambient music.

Eno wanted to make music that would support reflection and space to think. Eno did this by creating music that was beautiful, but did not have a center of focus to demand your attention. In his liner notes, Eno puts it this way: "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

From

Synthopia

BreakBeat

Breakbeat music was arguably introduced to the Bronx massive (a collection of people, usually friends) by Kool Herc in 1969, a DJ who arrived there from Kingston, Jamaica, with a skill known as 'cutting breaks'. It was Grandmaster Flash, the legendary Hip Hop pioneer, though, who first utilised 'breaks', who created Breakbeat music, and who started a revolutionary new form of music production.

Breaks?

Breaks are often the moments when a drummer gets to shine. The key features of a break, therefore, are that they generally feature percussion only and are usually a little bit 'flash'.
In any musical track that employs drums and a drummer to keep to a particular tempo and add rhythm (irrelevant of the genre/period), there usually exists a standard drum pattern1. This standard rhythm will continue for a section of several bars - the exact number depending on:

The time signature that the track is written in
The style/nature of the track itself
How flash the drummer is feeling at the time
In the last bar of the section, the standard rhythm (or beat) is broken up by a bar that is a little different. The aim of this bar is to break up the monotony, create a sub-rhythm and lead the musicians into the first beat of the next section. This bar is called the break.

Breakbeats?

Old School

By using two record decks and a mixer2 the DJ uses two records to:

Play a break from record A
Quickly change the source on the mixer to record B
Play a break from record B while simultaneously re-cuing the break on record A
Quickly change the source on the mixer back to record A
This process (cutting) is then cycled, creating a new rhythm entirely made from breaks. Skilled DJs can quickly locate different breaks on the record/different records and create a whole new backing track over which MCs (or rappers) can wax lyrical.

New School

With the advance of technology it is now possible to sample music, chop out the breaks and re-combine them without needing the proficiency of the DJ who can do this on the fly. This is clearly an art in itself but differs somewhat to the 'old school' DJs who were essentially using their record decks as a live musical instrument and humanising the recycled beats. Some 'new school breaks' sound more electronic due to this lack of human quality but the relative merits of each 'school' can be, and are, argued elsewhere (furiously!).

From

BBC

Next posts will be about this genres:

Electro
Hardcore
House
Industrial
Jungle/Drum N Bass
Techno
Trance

[MissYasuri]

Way cool HomerJ!!!

I´m a total freak for House Music! I can stand Electro and Drum n Bass....but nothing of the rest

[curupi]

You can find a complete guide to electronic music (including song samples) at http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html

[ArticDonkey]

Hey! Let HomerJ show himself

[HomerJ]

Electro

Electro, short for electro funk (also known as robot hip hop) is an electronic style of hip hop directly influenced by Kraftwerk and funk records (unlike earlier rap records which were closer to disco). Records in the genre typically have all-electronic sounds and vocals are delivered in a deadpan, mechanical manner often through a vocoder or other electronic distortion.

Characteristics

With few exceptions, the definition of the electro sound is the use of drum machines as the base of a track. A legendary drum machine with a recognizable sound still used today is the Roland TR-808. The instrumentation is generally all-electronic with a funk-style synthesizer bass line. Heavy use of effects such as reverb and echo together with electronic pads create a rich and simultaneously cold sound that emphasizes the common science fiction theme of the lyrics. Not all electro features rapping; vocals processed through a vocoder is a common element and instrumental tracks are more prominent than in related genres of electronic and hip hop music. In recent years it has become common for electro artists to perform using only laptop computers, this way emphasizing the technological theme of the music.

Concept albums are common in electro with Kraftwerk pioneering entire albums in technological or futuristic themes such as robots, computers or nuclear science. Many artists are entirely devoted to sci-fi subjects of this kind.

History

Bronx, NY based artist Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock (1982) is one of the first electro records, using elements of Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express and "Numbers" (from the Computer World album). Bambaataa and artists like Juan Atkins' group Cybotron, Planet Patrol, Jonzun Crew, and Newcleus went on to influence the genres of detroit techno, ghettotech, drum and bass and electroclash.

Subgenres
Los Angeles artists Egyptian Lover and Arabian Prince gave birth to electro hop, a less funky, more bass-heavy West Coast sound, similar to 2 Live Crew and the Miami Bass scene. Other artists in this style include Chris "The Glove" Taylor and World Class Wreckin' Cru.

Detroit also has a unique style sometimes called Techno Bass which is a fusion of Detroit Techno with Miami Bass. On the East Coast and especially in Miami, electro spawned freestyle, a soulful, Latin-centric variant.

Contemporary electro
Although the early 1980s were electro's heyday in the mainstream it enjoyed a popularity increase in the late 1990s with artists such as Anthony Rother, DMX Krew, Mr Velcro Fastener and Japanese Telecom. Some current artists making music in this style have embraced the pseudonyms of Detroit techno pioneers. The renewed interest in electro, though influenced to a great degree by Detroit and New York music, is primarily taking hold elsewhere with electro club nights becoming commonplace again. The newfound popularity has influenced other electronic dance music genres such as EBM, as well as mainstream hiphop.

Modern day Electro has progressed into a type of house music that is less focused on a simple 4x4 bass line. The main focus lies in the grinding sounds created by synthesizers like the micro Korg. The tempo tends to range from 120-130 beats per minute. The grinding basslines become more pronounced than the hard snappy bass of traditional house music. For examples refer to the work of DJ's like Trentemoller and Sebastion Ingrosso.

From Wikipedia.com

[MissYasuri]

Way to go HomerJ!

[HomerJ]

House Music

House music is a style of electronic dance music, the earliest forms of which originated in the United States in the early- to mid-1980s. The name is said to derive from the Warehouse nightclub in Chicago, where the resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles, mixed classic disco and European synthpop recordings. Club regulars referred to his selection of music as house music. However, since Frankie was not creating new music at that time, it has been argued that Chip E. in his early recording "It's House" defined this new form of electronic music and gave it its name. However, Chip E himself claims the name came from methods of labelling records at the Importes Etc record store he worked at in the early eighties. People would come in looking for music Knuckles played at the Warehouse, so eventually a sign was put up that said "As Heard At The Warehouse". Eventually it was shortened to simply "The House", and the name became the vernacular.

The common element of house music is a prominent 4/4 beat (a prominent kick drum on every beat, also known as four-on-the-floor) generated by a drum machine or other electronic means (such as a sampler), together with a continuous, repeating (usually also electronically generated) bassline. Typically added to this foundation are electronically generated sounds and samples of music such as jazz, blues and synth pop, as well as additional percussion. As new recordings adhering to this general style emerged, the house genre divided into a number of subcategories, some of which are described below.

House Music also refers to the recorded music played while a theater audience takes their seats before a performance, or, in live music venues, the recorded music played before the live music begins. Well-known live acts can demand their choice of house music, or that there be none at all. Such demands are made in the technical rider to their contract (the same document that specifies what items must be present in the dressing room)

Notable Acts and Music Releases influencing the development of House Music

* Donna Summer - "I Feel Love" (1977)

Written by Giorgio Moroder, featuring both the machine rhythms and erotic vocal sound bites in which one recognises a germination of house music - the union of disco and electronic. Its bassline has been sampled on numerous electronic dance records.

* Kraftwerk - "Trans-Europe Express" (1977)

Played in New York discos in the late 70s, inspiring house, electro and techno DJs alike in the 80s, this track has made way for future house music and its techno off-spring.

* New Order - "Blue Monday" (1983)

Frequently considered the missing link between disco of the 1970s and house of the 1980s. Importantly, it bridges the gap between electronic dance music and UK indie music fans in the post-punk 1980s. It has been sampled, remixed and covered by electronic dance producers all over the world.

* Lime - "Lime 3" (1984)

Continuous-mix album by Lime (Denis and Denyse LePage) - no less important than the work of New Order. Lime's HiNRG music was a gradual evolution that took the sounds of Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk and moulded them into epic club records with catchy beatbox programming and numererous "breakdown sections" that were often reprised throughout the mix. It's impossible to nail down a moment in time when Lime started sounding like a kissing cousin of House Mix. Most would agree that by the time 1984's "Angel Eyes" single had hit the clubs, they had one foot in the house. "Angel Eyes" contains a programmed drum fill that is very similar to that used in "Blue Monday" by New Order, though not on the kick, as New Order's had been. Lime would always have too many ornate and symphonic electronic elements to be considered House, but their influence on the genre cannot be overstated.

* Jesse Saunders - "On and On" (1984/1985)

Considered the first house record pressed and sold to the public. A major presage of later electronic dance music. With original, mantra-like stripped-down synths (including a 303 and minimal vocal), this record was early house music revealing itself as more than the sum of its parts. On and On showed the more trance-like shamanistic side that would develop into acid house.

* Mr Fingers - "Can You Feel It?"/"Washing Machine"/"Mystery of Love" (1985)

In late 1984, Jazz-influenced Larry Heard developed three lush, 'over-engineered' sounding tracks in one sitting, eeked out of equipment such as a Roland TR-707 and Juno 6. Heard's landmark work would set the trend for the Deep house genre that continued early house's atmospherics and (compared with later music) slow beat, 110-125 bpm.

* Chip E. - "It's House" (1985)

Written by Chip E. and featuring keyboard work by Joe Smooth, this release is often considered as the definition of Chicago House Music. The first self-referential "house music" record. The simplistic referential lyrics go "It's House, It's House" in varying pitch, to a driving bassline and percussion.

* Marshall Jefferson - "Move Your Body (House Music Anthem)" (1987)

The second self referential "house music" record. The referential portion of the lyrics goes: "Gotta have House Music all night long... With that House Music you can't go wrong..."

* Phuture - "Acid Trax" (1986)

The first acid house song ever made. Made almost accidentally during 303 experimentation by DJ Pierre, Spanky J and Herbert in Chicago and gave birth to the whole acid house movement.

* Steve 'Silk' Hurley - "Jack Your Body" (1987)

The first real House track to reach No.1 in the UK Top 40 pop chart in January 1987 - and was also the first to register more than half its sales on the 12" vinyl format.

* S'Express - "Theme from S'Express" (1988)

An acid house classic. Obviously disco-influenced, combined with funky acid 303 baseline. Samples Rose Royce's classic "Is it Love You're After". Reached Number one on the UK charts.

* Technotronic - "Pump up the Jam" (1990)

Probably the first house record to break the top 10 on the US pop charts.

* Madonna - "Vogue" (1990)

Close behind "Pump up the Jam" and produced by perennial New York DJ Shep Pettibone, this record marked the absolute commercial breakout of House in the United States. Went to number one on charts worldwide. Became the highest selling single on WEA up to that time, beating Chic's 1978 hit "Le Freak".

* Leftfield - "Release the Pressure" (1995)

The first group to truly mix house music with external influences such as dub and reggae. Also credited with the creation of progressive house music.

Musicology

House music is uptempo music for dancing and has a comparatively narrow tempo range, generally falling between 118 beats per minute (bpm) and 135 bpm, with 127 bpm being about average since 1996.

Far and away the most important element of the house drumbeat is the (usually very strong, synthesized, and heavily equalized) kick drum pounding on every quarter note of the 4/4 bar, often having a "dropping" effect on the dancefloor. Commonly this is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts (aka breakdowns). Add to this basic kick pattern hihats on the eighth-note offbeats (though any number of sixteenth-note patterns are also very common) and a snare drum and/or clap on beats 2 and 4 of every bar, and you have the basic framework of the house drumbeat.

This pattern is derived from so-called "four-on-the-floor" dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially the 1970's disco drummers. Due to the way house music was developed by DJs mixing records together, producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a larger-than-life sound, filling out the audio spectrum and tailoring the mix for large club sound systems.

Techno and trance, the two primary dance music genres that developed alongside house music in the mid 1980s and early 1990s respectively, can share this basic beat infrastructure, but usually eschew house's live-music-influenced feel and black or Latin music influences in favor of more synthetic sound sources and approach.

From Wikipedia.com

[SpiceGirl]

My fave genres are house and techno, I like mostly the club music, commercial...with lyrics!!

[HomerJ]

Jungle/Drum N Bass

Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to as DnB, drum n bass and drum & bass) is a type of electronic dance music also known as jungle.

Its most recognizable features are fast tempo (160-180 BPM) broken beat drums with loud intricate basslines.

In spite of its specific characteristics which would appear to limit its variety, drum and bass is a very varied musical style, ranging from laid back jazzy tracks like Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" to radio friendly dance track's like Shy FX's "Shake Ur Body" to ragga influenced rude bwoy tracks like Chase & Status' "2 Tone Sound" to atmospheric and moody tracks like 4 Hero's "Mr Kirk's Nightmare" to extremely fast, forbidding & aggressive techstep tracks like Technical Itch's "Stealth". This is only a sample of its variety, which could be compared to that of jazz.

It began as an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene and came into existence in the early 1990s. Over the first decade of its existence, drum and bass saw many permutations in style, incorporating everything from reggae, hiphop, jazz, techno, house, funk and metal to trance.

Drum and bass evolved from the acid house period in late 1980s Britain which laid the foundations for both hardcore and jungle. Key tracks were Renegade Soundwave's 'The Phantom' and 'Ozone Breakdown' (both 1988), Meat Beat Manifesto's 'Radio Babylon' (1989), 808 State's 'Cubik' (1990), and Humanoid's 'Stakker Humanoid' (1988); all are examples of acid-era experimentation with breaks and bass. In addition, the bleep techno (or Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass) sound of 1989 - 1991 would prove hugely influential, featuring bass-heavy cuts by acts such as Unique 3, Nexus 21, Nightmares on Wax and LFO, and spearheaded by Sheffield's Warp Records. The third immediate and direct influence on drum and bass' existence was the 'Belgian Techno' sound, actually an internationally-created fusion of hardcore, house and techno, pioneered by Joey Beltram, LA Style, Frank De Wulf, CJ Bolland, Richie Hawtin and others. This scene existed briefly from approximately 1989-1990 to 1992 at the very latest, during which period there was much cross-pollination with the UK hardcore sound. This sound did survive in various forms in its mother countries - primarily Belgium, Holland and Germany - beyond 1992, but the general scenes in these countries had shifted over to trance, house, industrial techno or gabba (or happy hardcore / hard house, in UK terms).

Jungle vs. drum and bass

Nowadays the difference between jungle or oldschool jungle and drum and bass is a common debate within the junglist community. There is no universally accepted semantic distinction between the terms "jungle" and "drum and bass". Some associate "jungle" with older material from the first half of the 1990s (sometimes referred to as "jungle techno"), and see drum and bass as essentially succeeding jungle [24]. Others use jungle as a shorthand for ragga jungle, a specific sub-genre within the broader realm of drum and bass. In the U.S., the combined term "Jungle Drum and Bass" (JDB) has some popularity, but is not widespread elsewhere. Probably the widest held viewpoint is that the terms are simply synonymous and interchangeable: drum and bass is jungle, and jungle is drum and bass.

"At the end of the day I am an ambassador for Drum and Bass the world over and have been playing for 16 years under the name Hype... To most of you out there Drum and Bass will be an important part of your lives, but for me Drum and Bass/Jungle is my life and always has been... We all have a part to play and believe me when I say I am no fucking bandwagon jumper, just a hard working Hackney man doing this thing called Drum and Bass/Jungle." DJ Hype[25]

[brightparis]

I love listening electronic music and i never bother to go in to so much deep.