House

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 4/4 beat (a prominent kick drum on every beat, also known as four-to-the-floor) generated by a drum machine or other electronic means (such as a sampler). The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts. The drum sound is filled out with hihat cymbals 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 larger-than-life 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 Roland 303 to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, to 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 then added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House songs may also include soaring, reverb-drenched 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

Precursors
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. One of these nightclubs, 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.

Chip E.'s recording "It's House" may also have helped to define this new form of electronic music.[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.
2000s
House music declined in popularity during the 2000s, due to a combination of factors. The original house fans were getting older, and club fees were rising, and ever-cheaper computer software made electronic music less novel. In the early 2000s, there were still some house-oriented clubs in operation. In 2004, the Montreal club Stereo, co-owned by David Morales and party aficionado Scott Lancaster, celebrated its sixth year in operation and in 2006 The Guvernment in Toronto (with Mark Oliver) celebrated its 10th anniversary. Stereo, opened in 1998, was modeled after the New York City club Paradise Garage.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley acknowledged Chicago's role as the birthplace of house by proclaiming August 10, 2005 to be House Unity Day in Chicago in celebration of House Music's 21st anniversary. DJs such as Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Paul Johnson and Mickey Oliver celebrated the proclamation at the Summer Dance Series event organized by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs. Two newer forms of house called Ghetto House and Jacke (named after the dance Jackin' "Footworkin'" dance style have been developing in Chicago. [1]

As time marches on, house developes and forgets many subgenres, often absorbing sounds from new styles while leaving others behind. Currently, much of house appears in minimal flavors, retro variations or classic remixes. House is extremely durable, lasting through many stages of popular music. Today more than the past, house tracks are easily obtainable to the international market through MP3 sites, allowing consumers to dodge the constraints and exclusivity of record availability. This revolution in distrubution has revived some of the classics and introduced new international influences to the sounds of house.