Chicago House Music ~ DancefloorResolutions.blogspot.com

Monday, February 2, 2009

Chicago House Music

Chicago house is the earliest style of house music. House music originated in North America at a Chicago, USA, nightclub called The Warehouse. While the origins of the name "house music" are unclear, the most popular belief is that the term "house music" can be traced to the name of that club. DJ Frankie Knuckles originally popularized house music while working at The Warehouse.

House music was developed in the houses, garages and clubs of Chicago initially for local club-goers in the "underground" club scenes, rather than for widespread commercial release. As a result, the recordings were much more conceptual, longer than the music usually played on commercial radio. House musicians used analog synthesizers and sequencers to create and arrange the electronic elements and samples on their tracks, combining live traditional instruments and percussion and soulful vocals with preprogrammed electronic synthesizers and "beat-boxes".

Main stream record stores often did not carry these 12 inch vinyl singles, as they were not available through the major record distributors. In Chicago, records stores such as Importes Etc., State Street Records, JR’s Music shop and Gramaphone Records were the primary suppliers of this music. The record-store Importes Etc, is believed to be where the term “house” was introduced as a shortening of "Warehouse".

The music was still essentially disco until the early 1980s when the first stand-alone drum machines were invented. House tracks could now be given an edge with the use of a mixer and drum machine. This was an added boost to the prestige of the individual DJs. Underground club DJs like Ron Hardy and radio jocks The Hot Mix 5 played Italo Disco tracks like "Dirty Talk" and the "MBO Theme" by Klein M.B.O., Early B-Boy Hip Hop tracks such as Man Parrish's "Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)" and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force's Planet Rock and Looking for the Perfect Beat as well as electronic music by Kraftwerk; these genres were influential to the Chicago genre of House.

Electronic Music

Is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology.Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar. Purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the Theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer.

Electronic music was once associated almost exclusively with Western art music but from the late 1960s on the availability of affordable music technology meant that music produced using electronic means became increasingly common in the popular domain.

Electronic dance music is a broad set of percussive music genres that largely inherit from 1970s disco music and, to some extent, the experimental pop music of Kraftwerk. Such music was originally borne of and popularized via regional nightclub scenes in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, the presence of electronic dance music in contemporary culture was noted widely and its role in society began to be explored in published historical, cultural and social science academic studies.It is constructed by means of electronic instruments such as synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, and generally emphasizes the unique sounds of those instruments, even when mimicking traditional acoustic instrumentation. It sometimes encompasses music not primarily meant for dancing, but derived from the dance-oriented styles.

Today electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music.

Deep House Music

Deep house music is a style of house music which fuses elements of Chicago house, disco, 80's soul, jazz-funk and Detroit techno. The Jazz influences of deep house are most frequently brought out by chords using more complex than simple triads (7ths, 9ths, 13ths, suspensions, alterations) which are held for many bars, which give the tracks a slightly dissonant feel. The Disco music sound is a heavy influence in Deep House. The use of vocals is also more common in deep house than in many other forms of house music.

Techno Music

Techno music is a form of electronic dance music (EDM) that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, USA during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.

The initial take on techno arose from the melding of synthesizer-based music with various African American styles such as Chicago house, funk, electro, and electric jazz. Added to this was the influence of futuristic and fictional themes that were relevant to life in American late capitalist society—particularly the book The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. Pioneering producer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" as inspiring him to use the word to describe the musical style he helped to create. This unique blend of influences aligns techno with the aesthetic referred to as afrofuturism.

To producers such as Derrick May, the transference of spirit from the body to the machine is often a central preoccupation; essentially an expression of technological spirituality. In this manner: "techno dance music defeats what Adorno saw as the alienating effect of mechanisation on the modern consciousness".

Music journalists and fans of techno are generally selective in their use of the term; so a clear distinction can be made between sometimes related but often qualitatively different styles, such as tech house and trance. "Techno" is also commonly confused with generalized descriptors, such as electronic music and dance music.

Minimal Techno Music

Minimal techno music is a form of dance music (EDM) that is considered a minimalist subgenre of techno. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, and understated development. This style of dance music production generally adheres to the motto less is more; a principle that has been previously utilized, to great effect, in architecture, design, visual art, and Western art music. The tradition of minimalist aesthetics in Western culture can be traced to the German Bauhaus movement (1919 to 1933). Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell.

Monday, February 2, 2009