Genre Research

   Genre Research- Electro House

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to African-Americans and Latino Americans in Chicago circa 1984, then in other locations such as New York City, New Jersey, Toronto, Montreal, London, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami. It then reached and began to influence popular music in Europe, with chart hits such as House Nation by House Master Boyz and the Rude Boy Of House (1987) and Doctorin' The House by Coldcut (1988). Since the early to mid-1990s, house music has been infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide.

 

Early house music was generally dance-based music characterised by repetitive 4/4 beats and rhythms centered around drum machines,off-beat hi-hatcymbals and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, it was more electronic and minimalistic,and the structured music's focus around a repetitive rhythm was more important than the song itself. House music today, while keeping several of these core elements, notably the prominent kick drum on every beat, varies a lot in style and influence, ranging from the soulful and atmospheric deep house, to the more minimalistic microhouse. House music has also fused with several other genres creating fusion subgenres, such as Euro house and tech house.

 

House music, after enjoying significant underground and club-based success from the early 1980s onwards, emerged into the UK mainstream pop market in the mid to late 80s. Popularity quickly followed in Europe, from the late 80s to early 90s, and it became a global phenomenon from the mid 90s onwards.It proved to be a commercially successful genre and a more mainstream pop-based variation grew increasingly popular. Artists and groups such asMadonna,Janet Jackson, Björk, and C+C Music Factory incorporated the genre into their work. After enjoying significant success in the early to mid-90s, house music's popularity started to decline by the latter part of the decade; nevertheless, the genre still remained popular and fused into other subgenres which were popular. In Europe, the genre remained highly popular into the 2000s, with groups and artists such as Daft Punk and Justiceperforming in the genre, and obtaining commercial success and critical acclaim.In the 2000s, a house subgenre known as electro house achieved popularity. Today, house music remains popular in both clubs and in the mainstream pop scene.

Origins Of The Term House Music

The term "house music" may have its origin from a Chicago nightclub called The Warehouse which existed from 1977 to 1983.The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay black men,who came to dance to disco music played by the club's resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles, and then followed him to his new club, The Power Plant, in 1983.In the Channel 4 documentary Pump Up The Volume, Knuckles remarks that the first time he heard the term "house music" was upon seeing "we play house music" on a sign in the window of a bar on Chicago's South Side. One of the people in the car with him joked, "you know, that's the kind of music you play down at the Warehouse!", and then everybody laughed.South-Side Chicago DJ Leonard "Remix" Roy, in self-published statements, claims he put such a sign in a tavern window because it was where he played music that one might find in one's home; in his case, it referred to his mother's soul & disco records, which he worked into his sets.Farley Jackmaster Funk was quoted as saying "In 1982, I was DJing at a club called The Playground and there was this kid named Leonard 'Remix' Roy who was a DJ at a rival club called The Rink. He came over to my club one night, and into the DJ booth and said to me, 'I've got the gimmick that's gonna take all the people out of your club and into mine - it's called House music.' Now, where he got that name from or what made him think of it I don't know, so the answer lies with him."

 

Chip E.'s 1985 recording "It's House" may also have helped to define this new form of electronic music.However, Chip E. himself lends credence to the Knuckles association, claiming the name came from methods of labelling records at the Importes Etc. record store, where he worked in the early 1980s: bins of music that DJ Knuckles played at the Warehouse nightclub were labelled in the store "As Heard At The Warehouse", which was shortened to simply "House". Patrons later asked for new music for the bins, which Chip E. implies was a demand the shop tried to meet by stocking newer local club hits.

 

Larry Heard, a.k.a. "Mr. Fingers", claims 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 subgenre called acid house.

 

Juan Atkins, an originator of Detroit techno music, claims the term "house" reflected the exclusive association of particular tracks with particular DJs; those tracks were their "house" records (much like a restaurant might have a "house" salad dressing).

Influences Of House Music

Disco,which blended soul, R&B, funk, was heavily adorned with celebratory messages about dancing, love, sexuality, and drugs all underpinned with repetitive arrangements and a steady bass drum beat. Some disco songs incorporated sounds produced with synthesizers and drum machines, and some compositions were entirely electronic; examples include Giorgio Moroder's late 1970s productions such as Donna Summer's hit single "I Feel Love" from 1977, Yellow Magic Orchestra's synth-disco-pop productions from their self-titled album (1978) and Solid State Survivor (1979),several early 1980s disco-pop productions by the Hi-NRG group Lime, and Charanjit Singh's Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat (1982) which anticipated the sounds of acid house music (though not a known influence on the genre).

 

Disco was an influence on House, which was also influenced by mixing and editing techniques earlier explored by disco DJs, producers, and audio engineers like Walter Gibbons, Tom Moulton, Jim Burgess, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, M & M and others who produced longer, more repetitive and percussive arrangements of existing disco recordings. Early house producers like Frankie Knuckles created similar compositions from scratch, using samplers, synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines.

 

The hypnotic electronic dance song "On and On", produced in 1984 by Chicago DJ Jesse Saunders and co-written by Vince Lawrence, had elements that became staples of the early house sound, such as the 303 bass synthesizer and minimal vocals. It is sometimes cited as the 'first house record',although other examples from the same time period, such as J.M. Silk's "Music is the Key" (1985) have also been cited.

Musical Structure Of House Tracks

House is uptempo music for dancing, although by modern dance-music standards it is mid-tempo, generally ranging between 118 and 135 bpm. Tempos tended to be slower in the early years of house.

 

The common element of house is a prominent kick drum on every beat (also known as a four-on-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 hi-hat cymbal-patterns that nearly always include a hi-hat on quaver off-beats between each kick, and a snare drum or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar. This pattern derives from so-called "four-on-the-floor" dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially from the 1970s disco drummers. Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a more complex sound, and they tailor the mix for large club sound-systems, de-emphasizing lower mid-range frequencies (where the fundamental frequencies of the human voice and other instruments lie) in favor of bass and hi-hats.

 

Producers use many different sound-sources for bass sounds in house, from continuous, repeating electronically generated lines sequenced on a synthesizer, such as a Roland SH-101 or TB-303, to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from whole stereo recordings of classic funk tracks or any other songs. House bass-lines tend to favor notes that fall within a single-octave range, whereas disco bass-lines often alternated between octave-separated notes and would span greater ranges. Some early house productions used parts of bass lines from earlier disco tracks. For example, producer Mark "Hot Rod" Trollan copied bass-line sections from the 1983 Italo disco song "Feels Good (Carrots & Beets)" (by Electra featuring Tara Butler) to form the basis of his 1986 production of "Your Love" by Jamie Principle. Frankie Knuckles used the same notes in his more famous 1987 version of "Your Love", which also featured Principle on vocals.

 

Electronically generated sounds and samples of recordings from genres such as jazz, blues, disco, funk, soul and synth pop are often added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House songs may also include disco, soul, or gospel vocals and additional percussion such as tambourine. Many house mixes also include repeating, short, syncopated, staccato chord-loops that are usually composed of 5-7 chords in a 4-beat measure.