House Music

Overview
House Music is a form of electronic dance music, and is most commonly referred to as EDM. This genre of music gained its popularity in dance clubs during the late 1970’s and early 1980s in cities such as Chicago, New York, and Detroit  The term “house” is known as originating from Dj Frankie Knuckles, based on the club at which he used to perform at. The first and most prominent fan base during that time was gay African Americans. A few years later during the mid to late 1980’s, house music gained its popularity in the club scene throughout Western Europe This expansion eventually started the trend of today’s popular rave culture. Recently, over the past decade house music and many other forms of EDM have increased popularity among the younger generation across the world through the increase use of mainstream technology and the growing popularity of music festivals such as Ultra music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Tomorrowland, etc. Originally, house music gained its influence from the elements of disco music, which was in style at the time, along with the components of many cultural sounds. Today, there are many more influences and elements that come together to create this genre and produce many diverse types of house music such as deep house, soulful house, acid house, tribal house, gospel house, etc. These great works come from some of the world’s most famous house djs of the decade such as, Daft Punk, Rodger Sanchez, Ben Watt, Gavin Hardkiss and many others.

Origin
This genre was first introduced by Frankie Knuckles, often referedd to as the "godfather of house music", who was the DJ at a club named "The Warehouse" during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was an after-hours, alcohol-free club for teens. The atmosphere consisted of young, gay, and mulitcultural people. Knuckles agreed to play at The Warehouse under one condition, if the club allowed him to be in-control of the tracks played. They agreed and Frankie started experimenting with what is now considered House music. Using samplers, synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines, he played popular R&B artists, however, he would play the B sides of records and mix in underground orchestral disco and place obscure artists into the play list here and there. The type of music caught on and was dubbed "House", being based off of the club that Frankie DJed in. After The Warehouse closed down in 1983, Knuckles continued playing house music at a club that he opened, called The Power Plant. By the late 1980's house music had spread all the way to Europe, where both the muci and DJ Frankie Knuckles became very popular among that crowd. All in the while, house music continued to grow in the America.

Defining features
House music is characterized by having 4/4 measures ranging from 120 to 140 BPM. The backbone that makes up a House beat is a bass drum that sounds on every down-beat, a snare that hits on the 2nd and 4th beats, and an open hi-hat sound on in-even intervals (the off beats; one AND two AND...) between the bass drum and the snare that ranges in pace. The combination of these with syncopated rhythms produces a funk impulse that frames an open sonic canvas. Over time, house has evolved into being (typically) denser, (often) slower, and (sometimes) has moodier styles. Presently, it now has a darker sound than other genres of electronic music and is designed to make people dance.

Drums
Artists use different kits when creating their tracks. The kits used are either created on their own or are already located on the program they use to create their music. There are two ways that artists will create their own drum kits. One way is to record the drum itself and input the sound of all the different parts onto the computer and then edit them to not sound like a recording. The other is to create a digital kit from scratch by editing one sound and making it sound like the different parts of the drum, creating a truly, from scratch, digital drum kit. An artist will then place the audio into the track to create whatever rhythm/beat they want.

Bass
The bass in the track is a main part. It usually consists of a dark tone and is either a straight tone or the pitch bends up and down from the original tone.

Vocals
Vocals vary immensely between all tracks, and unlike most genres of music, vocals do not play a key role. The vocals are usually only included in the chorus. Artists will pick specific singers who's voices can match the mood of the song.

The Music
The music does not change much throughout the track. An artist will come up with a certain melody and then repeat it over and over. The only times it changes is when a different part of the track comes along.

Structure
To start off there is an intro which includes just the main beat of the track. Sounds are added onto this beat as it goes on. After this is usually when the vocals come into play. Sometimes there are actual lyrics and other times it is just a phrase that is repeated throughout this part. Then after the vocals are done the track goes back to it's main beat yet has sounds added which makes it have more of an impact than in the beginning. The vocals then come back in and are usually the same exact as before, and then once they are done this time, the plain beat of the song is played again but this time to make the outro.

These songs have long intros and outros in order to make mixing easier. House music is played at many dance events and the longer intros and outros help the DJ transition from one song to the next with ease.

Effects
What makes the song is not only the instruments used but the effects that are added to them. These include using the equalizer, compressing the track, noise gating, echo, reverb, the chorus effect, and also the phasing effect. In House music, when effects are used, they are very faint and not used much.