Introduction

House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago in the early to mid-1980s. House music is strongly influenced by elements of the late 1970s soul- and funk-infused dance music style of disco. House music takes disco's use of a prominent bass drum on every beat and developed a new style by mixing in a heavy electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb- or delay-enhanced vocals.

Musical Elements

The common element of house music is a prominent kick drum on every beat (also known as a four-to-the-floor beat), usually generated by a drum machine or sampler. The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts. The drum track is filled out with hihat cymbal patterns on the eighth-note offbeats, and a snare drum or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar. This pattern is derived from so-called "four-on-the-floor" dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially the 1970s disco drummers. Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a more complex sound, filling out the audio spectrum and tailoring the mix for large club sound systems.

House music is uptempo music for dancing and has a tempo range of between 118 and 135 bpm. Producers use many different sound sources for bass sounds in house music, from continuous, repeating electronically-generated lines sequenced on a synthesizer such as a Roland TB-303 to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from whole stereo recordings (from classic funk tracks or any other song). Electronically-generated sounds and samples of recordings from genres such as jazz, blues and synth pop are often added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House songs may also include disco or soul-style and gospel vocals and additional percussion. Techno and trance, which developed alongside house music, share this basic beat infrastructure, but they usually eschew house's live-music-influenced feel and Black or Latin music influences in favor of more synthetic sound sources and approach.

History

House music is the descendant of the 1970s dance style of disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, salsa, rock and pop with a progressive, pro-diversity message. In the late 1970s, disco songs began incorporating electronic sounds, such as Giorgio Moroder's landmark production of Donna Summer's hit single "I Feel Love" from 1977. In the same year, Kraftwerk's albumTrans-Europe Express began being played in New York discos; this album contains a number of the elements and samples that later appeared in techno and drum and bass.

In 1984, Lime released an album with a style dubbed "HiNRG", which moulded the late 1970s sounds of Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk into a catchy club style with beatbox programming and breakdown sections. M and M's club mixes and Jesse Saunders - "On and On" (1984/1985) had many elements of electronic dance music that developed into the house music sound, such as synths (including the 303) and minimal vocals. On and On was the first recognised house release to be pressed and sold to the general public and often cited as the 'first house music record'.^[1][2] House music also incorporated other influences, such as New Wave, Reggae, European synthpop, industrial and punk as well as the emerging hip hop style. House music DJs experimented with new editing techniques and electronic instruments, such as remixing, sampling, synthesizers, and sequencers.

Etymology

The origins of the term "house music" are disputed. The term may be derived from the name of a club called the The Warehouse, which was one of the nightclubs that became popular among the teenagers living in the Chicago area in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay black and Latino men,^[3] who came to dance to DJ Frankie Knuckles' mix of classic disco, European synthpop, new wave, industrial, and punk recordings. Knuckles released his dance tracks and mixes on the Traxx record label, which became known as house music. The legendary club gained considerable fame in the mid 70s and grew tremendously towards the end the 70s. Knuckles production's increased at that time, and his song "Your Love" is considered by many the track that was the launching pad for house.

Chip E.'s recording "It's House" may also have helped to define this new form of electronic music. {{{title}}}. ISBN 978-0752219868. ^{[citation needed]} Chip E. claims the name came from methods of labelling records at the Imports Etc record store, where he worked at in the early 1980s.^{[citation needed]} Music that DJ Knuckles played at the Warehouse nightclub was labelled "As Heard At The Warehouse",^{[citation needed]} which was shortened to simply "The House". Larry Heard, aka "Mr. Fingers", claims^{[citation needed]} that the term "house" reflected the fact that many early DJs created music in their own homes, using synthesizers and drum machines, including the Roland TR-808, TR-909, and the TB 303 Bassline synthesizer-sequencer. These synthesizers were used to create a house music subgenre called acid house. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music

I Love House Music Too!

House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago in the early to mid-1980s. House music is strongly influenced by elements of the late 1970s soul- and funk-infused dance music style of disco.

House music takes disco's use of a prominent bass drum on every beat and developed a new style by mixing in a heavy electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb- or delay-enhanced vocals.