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Musical Genres

During my sets I mix in alot of different genres depending on how the dancefloor is reacting to it. For a bit of an explanation, see the descriptions below.

House Music [taken from marbsradio.com]

Vocal deep house music is a name derived from deep house recognizable by a strong presence of vocals, original low-pitched vocals. On January 1, 2012, this term was first used by Mainroom Warehouse. Vocal deep house is not a music genre but a description of deep house music with many vocals.

To understand Vocal Deep House music you have to go back in time. Deep House music is a descendant of House music. House music originated in 1977, not 1980, in the club The Warehouse. The owner of this club Frankie Knuckles mixed disco classics with new Eurobeat pop. The Warehouse was also called The House and that’s how House music has got its name.

What does deep mean? American house music DJ Ron Trent explains: “That [deep house] was just a phrase we used back in the day to describe the music that Frankie Knuckles and Ronnie were playing … disco and jazz and underground stuff, the non-accessible stuff.”

Deep House was created by DJ, record producer, and musician Larry Heard in early 1980 in Chicago by giving it deep elements. Larry Heard made House music deep by introducing a musical and emotional complexity that allowed to stand along side with jazz, disco, and R&B.

‘So Glad‘ by Mr Fingers is a true Deep House song.

But, everything changed with time, including the music. The definition of Deep House today consists of chill vibes, soulful vocals with a steady 4/4 rhythm basic fundamental, just like early House music.

The most logical reasoning is to say Vocal Deep House music is a subgenre of Deep House but Vocal Deep House is not an officially recognized genre … House wasn’t a music genre either end 70s.

The characteristics of Vocal Deep House music is Deep House with the accent on the vocals, mostly pitched down vocals.

For an example of Deep House music,  Watch and listen to the 2017 GIG of the American Deep House DJ and record producer Kerri Chandler.

People complain that sites such as Beatport, people, DJs, producers, and record labels mislabel Deep House. “Everyone just throws that tag on their track … I’m even buying tracks at the moment and a lot of what is tagged as deep house simply isn’t.”

Breakbeat [taken from electronicmusic.fandom.com]

Break beat (sometimes break-beats or breaks) is a term used to describe a collection of sub-genres of electronic music, usually characterised by the use of a non-straightened 4/4 drum pattern (as opposed to the steady four on the floor beat of house). These rhythms may be characterised by their intensive use of syncopation and poly rhythms. Traditionally, a ‘break’ is considered to be the part of a funk or jazz song during which the melody “breaks” to let the rhythm section, or soloist, play unaccompanied. Break beat (or funky break beat or broken beat) may also refer to the music of bands who play funk and soul music with an emphasis on the elements that became popular in hip-hop and later breaks-based music. This sound is characterised by slower tempos (80-110 bpm) and organic, “human” rhythms. It is sometimes differentiated by the term “broken beat”.

A particular drum loop that contributed to the beginning of the genre and is frequently used is the so-called “Amen break”, sampled from a 1969 recording of a song named “Amen Brother” by a soul group named The Winston. This four-bar drum loop contains a characteristic dotted-note timing variant in the snare drum in the third bar, which leaves the third beat of the bar un-played and surrounds it with a syncopation. Early turntables used a slowed-down recording of the song on two turntables and rocked both back and forth alternately to create a variety of complex patterns that were more interesting than an unchanging 4/4 beat, but still dance able. Mixes and variations have subsequently appeared on many sample packs and CD’s, and the break has been used in a huge number of songs in this and other genres.

My personal favorite style of Breakbeat is New-Skool breaks pioneered by such artists as Adam Freeland, ils and Alex Metric.

Electro [taken from passionforedm.com]

Each electro house track (song) has some characteristics. However, a characteristic is not a requirement so we can have an electro house track without having all the characteristics. For example, we can have such a track without having melodic elements.

Here follow some electro house characteristics, which I gave a number so I can reference each of those characteristics:

1. A tempo between 125 and 135 beats per minute (BPM).
2. Has a heavy bass, and such basses often sound buzzing. Furthermore, a method by which we can use to make such bass is to use sawtooth waves (with a synthesizer or as a sample) and place distortion after it (can be in the synthesizer or with a plugin).
3. Has large sounding bass drum (kick) sounds in a four-on-the-floor pattern (a kick on the start of every beat). Such kicks are longer in duration compared to kicks in many other genres.
4. It sometimes sounds in a way a lot like tech house.
5. Melodic elements.
6. Has samples en synthesizer sounds influenced by the not EDM genre electro (also known as electro-funk)The history of the electro house genre is in a way pretty unknown. The genre has an extreme amount of tracks, which we can order on release date by which we get a history of released tracks. However, it is not that simple.There were also electro house tracks released before they were called electro house. Those tracks have the house genre label, but they have electro house characteristics in such a way that they are electro house. Maybe there are even electro house tracks that didn’t have the house genre label.As far as I know, the first officially labeled electro house track is unknown. Also, the first not labeled electro house track, but yet is, is also unknown.There are at least three tracks that we can see as early examples of the electro house genre and are labeled correctly, these tracks are:
   • Arrivers – Dark Invader. Released in 1996.
   • Basement Jaxx – Raw S*it. Released in 1997.
   • Mr. Oizo – Flat Beat. Released in 1999.

   There were are least three electro house tracks that made the genre way more popular, these tracks are:

   • Released in 2002: Benny Benassi – Satisfaction. Because of this track, many people see the Italian DJ Benny Benassi as one of the first who brought electro house to the mainstream.
   • Released in 2005 or 2006: Bodyrox Feat. Luciana – Yeah Yeah (D. Ramirez Radio Edit). In the UK top 40 singles charts, this track was on spot number one and spot number two.
   • Released in 2006: Fedde Le Grand – Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit

   After the three tracks mentioned tracks above, there came new electro house producers. Such producers are: Afrojack, Knife Party, Feed Me, The M Machine, Yasutaka Nakata, Porter Robinson, and Dada Life.

Trap [taken from runthetrap.com]

Trap music is a genre that is starting to gain quite a bit of momentum through the ever growing sub-genres of dance music culture. Although this new found hype towards trap music, or EDM Trap Music as some may call it, has recently emerged, there is a history behind the origin of the Trap genre that is all but new.

Trap music fist emerged coming primarily from the south, a genre filled with a hard attitude that you can feel in the sound of the brass, triangle, triplet hi hats, loud kicks, snappy snares and low end 808 bass samples that are used when composing tracks. The percussion samples of choice when making trap music are usually originate from the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine.  When speaking of the “originators” in the trap music game, southern rappers like Waka Flocka Flame, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, Three 6 Mafia, and Manny Fresh come to mind. As well as some of the iconic trap music producers like Lex Luger, Zaytoven, and up and comer Young Chop.

However, the new “trap music movement” or “EDM Trap” genre that is evolving has seen the use of techno, dub, and dutch house like sounds incorporated with the inclusion of the original Roland TR-808 drum samples and vocal samples used by the originators. A number of stylistic offshoots of trap developed, which in the latter half of 2012 gained a rise in viral popularity and made a noticeable impact on dance music.

To simply break it down, Trap music would be best described as a combination of:

• 1/3 hip hop (tempo and song structure are similar, most tracks are usually between 70 -110 bpm) – with vocals sometimes pitched down
• 1/3 Dance Music  – High pitched Dutch synth work, Hardstyle sampling, as well as a plethora of trap remixed of popular EDM songs
• 1/3 dub (Low frequency focus and strong emphasis on repetitiveness throughout a song)

Modern producers of the new trap music genre that have been emerging above the rest include artists RL Grime, TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke x Lunice), Flosstradamus, Baauer, DJ Sliink, Heroes x Villians, UZ, LOUDPVCK, gLAdiator, and Luminox. And the Trap Music genre continues to evolve as it progresses.

Reggaeton [taken from cs.mcgill.ca]

Reggaeton (also spelled with the Spanish accent as Reggaetón, and sometimes as Reguetón in Spanish) is a form of dance music which became popular with Latin American (Latino) youth during the early 1990s and spread to North American, European, Asian, and Australian audiences during the first few years of the 21st century. Reggaeton blends Jamaican music influences of reggae and dancehall with those of Latin America, such as bomba and plena, as well as that of hip hop. The music is also combined with rapping (generally) in Spanish. Reggaeton has given the Hispanic youth, starting with those of Panama and Puerto Rico, a musical genre that they can consider their own. The influence of this genre has spread to the wider Latino communities in the United States, as well as the Latin American and Central American audience.

While it takes influences from hip hop and Jamaican dancehall, it would be wrong to define reggaeton as the ‘Hispanic’- or ‘Latino’- version of either of these genres; reggaeton has its own specific beat and rhythm, whereas Latino hip hop is simply hip hop recorded by artists of Latino descent. The specific rhythm that characterizes Reggaeton is referred to as “Dem Bow”. The name is a reference to the title of the dancehall song that first popularized the beat in the early 1990s. An overwhelming majority of reggaeton songs share the same beat and for the most part, are indistinguishable from one another aside from their lyrics.

Reggaeton’s origins represents a hybrid of many different musical genres and influences from various countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States. The genre of Reggaeton however is most closely associated with Puerto Rico, as this is where the musical style later popularized and became most famous, and where the vast majority of its stars originate from.

Reggaeton lyrics tend to be more derived from hip hop than dancehall. Like hip hop, reggaeton has caused some controversy, albeit much less, due to a few of the songs’ explicit lyrics and alleged exploitation of women ; supporters claim this criticism is misplaced due to most reggaeton songs having completely clean lyrics, as well as non-violent lyrics. Further controversy surrounds perreo, a dance with explicit sexual overtones which is associated with reggaeton music.