| Electronic Music FAQ |
[Dec. 28th, 2007|11:28 am] |
Lot of people have asked me what is the difference between Electronic, Trance, House and Funk? I've tried to explain but without much data at hand, So, here I'll try to cover as much as I know.
To say that electronic music is music that uses electronic equipment to create music does not mean much today as all forms of music contain some electronic sounds. To understand this more, take a look at the various types of electronic music:
* Ambient
* Electro
* House
* Techno
* Trance
The above is not a comprehensive list, I'm not going to talk about Synth and Industrial as I've not heard much of either and don't have much to say about it either.
Ambient
Ambient music is a style that has a focus on various sounds with a respect to space rather than melody, the music might not follow rules or set patterns but is intentionally created to be used as background music and at the same time as music to listen to if the listener wishes to pay attention. 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.It was the beginning of ambient music. It has come to be regarded as a sort of masterpiece.
Eno wanted to make music that would support reflection and space to think. Eno did this by creating music that was beautiful, did not 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."
Ambient music influenced countless artists. Ambient music itself was influenced by french artist Pierre Schaeffer and would later be influenced by early albums by Pink Floyd.
Electro
In the mid 70s a German band created a sound that combines a driving rhythm section with catchy, synthesized melodies and harmony; song lyrics were sung through a vocoder or generated by computer speech software. The Kraftwerk sound was revolutionary for its time.
Kraftwerk was heavily influenced by Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix and other minimalist and R&B acts of the time, Replacing drums and guitars with synthesized pulses and programmed beats, Kraftwerk expertly diverted the Velvets' speed rush into the metronomic rhythm. They directly influenced Elecro as it came to be an electronic style of hip hop.
The Electro sound essentially is the use of drum machines as the base of a track and use syncopated rhythms. often experimenting and creating completely new electronic sounds.
House
House music took 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.
House came to existence in mid-1980s in the U.S. House music is essentially quick tempoed with a prominent 4/4 beat, with a kick drum on every beat, altered sounds and samples of recordings from jazz, blues or pop are added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. But, the beat almost never changes, which, in my opinion makes house extremely boring.
Techno
Techno like House is usually a regular 4/4 beat, sometimes faster, but rarely slower. A classic techno drum pattern features a kick drum sample on beats 1 and 3, a snare-like sound on beats 2 and 4 and a highhat on each upbeat; a kick drum is usually also present on alternate beats.
Techno and trance, which developed alongside house music, share this basic beat infrastructure, but they usually leave out house's live-music-influenced feel. Techno came into prominence in the States in the mid 80s. Techno roots in funk(James Brown) and soul music and at the same time is influenced by, Electro and House Techno. Techno were to leak into Europe, where it'd find it's true home. Moby and Laurent Garnier are few of the Techno DJs that I like.
To use techno to refer to the whole class of electronic music is blasphemy, Electronic music has many forms, one of which is techno.
Trance
Trance traces its genes to the Acid house movement, Acid house emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic style, with spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's characteristic electronic "squelch" sounds were developed with the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. Trans is usually a 4/4 signature with faster beat phases than House.
Characteristics of a true trans sound are kick drum on every downbeat and a regular open hi-hat off-beat and lengthy snare rolls. Sounds are created mainly via synthesizers, rapid arpeggios and minor scales are common. The song would use one central melody which runs through almost the entire song, the song would be heavily loaded with reverb and delay effects on the synthesizer sounds, there is no need for anything to sound anything like a "real" sound.
Progressive
The new cool is Progressive, you can even sell horseshit by calling it Prog shit, don't believe me? Try it. To understand Progressive House, Progressive Trans, Psytrance and Progressive Psytranse(can things get worse)we must take a look at the fountain, Prog Rock.
I'm going to get a lot of flame for this from many fanboys but, Pink Floyd did well to bring back almost dead Prog rock back. Don't believe me? listen to "A momentary lapse of a reason" and "Dark side of the moon." Neo-progressive as it was called would later influence a lot many.
Progressive rock leaves the blues inflections behind and denies rules of song structure by extending sections and experimenting between song sections and inserting instrumental sections devoted to instruments or sounds (ringing bells, telephone anything) never used in classic rock. The "progressiveness" of progressive music stems from the use of contrapuntal melodies, unusual or shifting time signatures, offbeat sound effects and a general tendency to create music as different as possible from mainstream pop.
Progressive Trance would not focus on the "central melody" but more on what you do with it. And in the case of progressive house, the term "progressive" can refer to bringing new sounds to House, sounds which are normally not used within the style.
Goa Trance and Psytrance
Goa Trance is a phenomenon without any clear goal if I were to be so rude. Goa trance has clear influences by Techno, but, It is a mixture of so many different things that it's hard to say. This maybe the reason of it's downfall.
Goa trance led to Psychedelic Trance, which, has a more distinct sound, PsyTrance is usually way faster than Techno and uses constant bass beats, overlaying the bass with varying rhythms, many different sounds are added and removed from the peice during the course of the song. A buildup will happen till a climax is reached, and then the song will break down and start a new rhythmic pattern over the constant bass line.
Woah! |
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