BTEC Music Performance Unit 43:

Section 2The development of electronic music style

since the 1970’s

This presentation serve as an overview to the way that electronic music styles have evolved since the 1970’s, and in the following presentations I will be showing how they have been incorporated into other music genres and I will also be providing artists that are synonymous with the genres.

Audio and video examples will be provided sperateley

Overview

I am using Kraftwerk as a starting point to my presenation as to my knowledge Kraftwerk weren’t the first to experiment with sound in the way that they did but they were the first ensemble to use theses kind of synthesized sounds within mainstream music. Throughout the early 1970’s and 80’s Kraftwerk’s sound was revolutionary though compared to modern artists they sound simplistic and somewhat dull. Despite this throughout their career, Kraftwerk continuously pushed the boundaries of technology and audio by using techniques and self made instruments such as a custom made vocoder which was used on their albums ‘Ralf und Florian’ and ‘Autobahn’.

Kraftwerk

The early 1980’s brought House Music which originated in Chicago, USA (hence the name ‘Chicago House’). It was initially popularized within Chicago in 1984 however in 1985 it started to pan out and take the world by storm, popularizing in cities such as Detriot, New York City, Boston, it even became popular in the UK in cities such as London and Manchester.

House music tends to share a large amount of characteristics with the 70’s Disco genre in the sense that it has similar drum patterns and a lot of emphasis on bass. The typical drum beat of house music consists of a four to the floor (4/4) kick with off beat closed hi-hats and a snare or a clap which tends to play on every second kick. This also tends to be a typical disco beat however house music tends to focus more on using drum machines and synthesized hit samples instead of live drummers.

House Music: Chicago House

A good example of early house music would be ‘Inner City – Good Life’.

As with house music, Electro also emerged around the 1980’s and was once again directly influenced by the use of the ‘Roland TR-808’ drum machine. Also along with house, electro stems from 70’s disco however classic/early electro tends to use more funk sampling than house music does.

There are a number of difference between the two genres however, one of which being the way that the drum beats are structured. Where house music tends to hollow a standard 4/4 kick beat, electro tends to focus more on syncopated kicks and snares which can be related more with breakbeat genres than disco.

Electro

A good example of early electro music would be the track ‘Riot in Lagos’ from the 1980 album ‘B-2 Unit by Ryuchi Samamoto’.

Drum and Bass (DnB) originated in the UK around about the 1990’s. Like electro genres drum and bass heavily consists of syncopated/broken beats however with drum and bass they are sped up to a much higher tempo.

Drum and bass is thought to have stemmed from the UK rave scene and garage genres which also heavily consist of syncopated beats. Drum and bass was originally popular as a form of underground music mostly played on pirate radio stations and at underground raves.

Orignally drum and bass was quite a minimal form of music as mostly focused on percussive elements however as the music became more experimental more elements such as dub basslines and vocal sample were introduced as it evolved into the modern fast paced, bass heavy genre that can commonly be heard as a mainstream genre today.

Drum and Bass

A good example of modern bass heavy drum and bass would be ‘Tachycardia – Seamless’.

Dubstep is a bass heavy form of electronic music that is a favourite with bedroom producers everywhere for its somewhat simplistic production techniques and its modern mainstream credibility.

Dubstep originated in South East London, England and it emerged in the late 1990’s. It is heavily related with styles such as dub and reggae for bass elements and breakbeat and 2-step garage for the percussive side to genre. Hence the page title (dub+2-step=Dubstep).

Despite the obvious focus on syncopated beats, original Dubstep had a lot emphasis on sine wave sub-bass with the use of detuned saw wave chord stabs which can be related to British underground garage /rave scene.

Though it’s origins are firmly based in the UK, Dubstep gained a lot of mainstream influence in the USA with artists such as Skrillex (PO‘Dubsteps Poster Boy’ who can be somewhat held responsible for the ridiculous commercialisation of the genre and who also appears to be modern precedent of every Dubstep, or general EDM track created,PO), who fused the standard conventions of Dubstep with sounds such as ‘Formant’ and ‘Neuro’ bass to give the genre and overall aggressive tone.

Dubstep (Dub+2-step=Dubstep).

The track more modern track ‘Retourne’ by the artist ‘Jaql’ (pronounced ‘Jackal’) can be used an example of a more original Dubstep sound.

This should conclude this section of the basis of electronic music genres as I will cover more in the presentation for:Section 3: Hybrid and Subgenres

Also it should be noted that the information underlined and starting/ending in PO is solely (Personal Opinion), and though it may seem quite cynical, it should not be taken seriously as a reference to the history of the music style or the genre itself.