Can anyone explain electronic music to me?

I don't listen to much of any electronic music and I know that most of you don't either, but I want to know if anyone can help me understand how to tell the differences between the main genres of electronica.

Like how do you define:
House
drum and bass
jungle
techno
and whatever.

I don't want to start any debates about the merits of any type music, I'm just curious about how a non-fan can learn to differentiate between them all. Can anyone help?

you know if you hit me up on the email... and I send you my phone # I could explane this over the phone in like 15min...

electoric music is set up to exclude you at first... thare is a mad luring curve...

here is the breef

House is the 4 to the fore stuff you mostly here in clubs... it's the most populer dace music out thare... just think thum thum thum

Jungle and Drum and Basse are the same thing...(thare is more to this sotry but not for now)
it's the brakes fom old sole songs plaed at 45 insted of 33... think of the drums from a old jams brown song plade fast wiht new basse lines lade over it...
thare is alot more too this but... agen too mush for a post here...

Tecno... hit up minamlisum... for the mad dicripton of teckno.. I'm not so good on this one..

Grage/2step a mix of DnB and House... verry undergournd in the US at the moment

IDM is the expermantal stuff

brakes is like DnB but the beets from james brown are plad at thare nomal speed...

hummmmm this should get you started... thare is alot to know... but don't let that stop you from finding somting in it that you like...

you don't need to know what it is to like it...

Transe is the supper ero chazzzy stuff you here it's some times called progressive now... it's a verry wite music.. and for me has no sole...

good luck

check this electronica music primer out. then download some mp3s just so you can get a feel. i think in the beginning it will be easiest for you to pick out what drum n bass and house sound like, so you might want to consider starting to familiarize yourself with those two. and, of course, call dr_h

i like underworld

this site is tremendously useful for this sort of thing

http://www.allmusic.com

My two scents...

To confuse you further... I personally consider "electronica" to be top 40 techno (Prodigy,Chemical Brothers,Underworld)... Not that this music isn't good... but the term didn't exist until those bands became popular... thank you MTV!

I also consider jungle and drum and bass to be slightly different... in my mind... jungle is a bit more chopped up and less driving of beats... where as drum and bass is pretty powerful with distinct grooves...

IDM is definitely my favorite... much more cutting edge so to speak... make sure you check out Aphex Twin... he has led electronic music for the past 10 years or so... at least in my opinion... but I guarantee that in 50 years... he will be the one in music theory classes who's music is being picked apart... one of the greatest composers of our time...

Another genre worth mentioning is electro... which is kind of like 80's style break beats with modern electronics... hella funky and smooth at the same time... imagine old break dancing music with a modern polish...

Word...

To start by trying to understand the three main genres is probably your best bet.

House is in my opinion the modern version of disco. It has a straight four four rhythmn and is usually acompanied by the more organinc instruments such as piano, organ, sax, and vocals. The tempos in house are a tad bit slower then techno. Ranging from 118 - 130 bpms.
see also: Danny Teneglia, Junior Sanchez. Junior Vasquez, Lil' Louie Vega.

Techno has a weird connotation to most people when they here the word. They automatically think of the commercial crap that is played on the radio friday nights by some shitty dj who sold his soul to get on the air. True dirty down techno is pioneering musical fontiers as we speak. The artists that make pure underground techno strive to create very original non organic sounds that truely cannot be described. Yes, we start with the same four to the floor kick drums as house music, but that is where the similarity ends. The tempos are stepped up to 130 - 145- bpm, the purcussion is defiantly aggressive, the basslines raw, and the melodies although simplistic, use only what is essential to drive the track. I would be happy to send you off a copy of my cd so that you can hear what I trying to explain with words. If it's not pushing new boundries it bores me.
see also: Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Samuel L Session, Surgeon.

Jungle, Drum and Bass, is another style that really makes an effort to head in new directions all the time. That's why there's constantly so many new sub genres being invented. The rythmns are not unlike sped up hip hop beats. But they have a funk all their own. Faster, looser, and constantly in your face. The basslines are killer, deep and analog. The samples make the tune. Sometimes utilizing raggae vocals, sometimes etheral female divas.
see also: Dara, Odi, DJ Seen, Omni Trio.

That's the basics of it. Once you get the main ideas down you'll then see there are so many variations on the themes that it'll make your head spin. You'll find something that strikes your fancy for sure though.

Good luck. Drop me and email for the cd if you'ld like.

Eeeep. I can't believe there have been so many posts and no one has mentioned Orbital. Go and listen to some Orbital.

Let him get his feet wet before you throw him in.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who's lost by these terms...

I had a chance to get in the game fairly early. A friend taped me In the Key of E back in 1988 and I dug the shit outta it. "Acid Poke", "Where's Your Child?",
that song about Jack and his house (that someone put all the lyrics to on here a few days ago)...

problem was, ALL of the other compilations I bought at the time were garbage. I also checked out a couple mainstreamish album of the time, Baby Ford, Inner City, a couple others....didn't do it for me...

One thing I had been doing lately is just checking out music clips on Amazon. You just look up the info on weird CDs you like, see what CDs are linked to them by 1) those lists of what else customers who bought that CD have bought, 2) those "So You'd Like To..." lists....which are VERY opinionated and are therefor fun, if not reliable...

...in this case, a person could look up CDs by Aphex Twin or whoever ( I dunno if his name is gonna offend anybody as being uncool or square...hell, I don't know enough about the genres to predict that) and see what CDs that stuff is linked to...

All right, I just got home, I'm drunk as fuck, this is a lot to take in right now, but thanks guys, I'll look it over in the morning...

Ok so I just spent an hour gettin all educated and shit about this shit. Thanks everyone. There's still so much I don't know, but I think everything fits together in my head a little better.
In SF its like impossible to walk into a bar without there being some dj doin his thing. Even at this crappy sports bar by my work they have a dj on Thursdays (and the only people who dance are crazy homeless street people who listen through the big open windows. Its kind of funny actually)
Anyways, now when I talk to people I think I'll understand better. That electronica primer listed above is a great history.

okay, well since i feel like such an expert on the matter of music that involves electronic bloops bleeps and sampled real instruments i'll help in the matter

house:normally a repettitive loop of the same synth pattern just played in a different pitch for 8 minutes long at 162 bpm with a steady beat you can dance frantically to

drum and bass is just that, music made strictly by drum loops and bass (mostly synth bass)

jungle is more frantic version of house music, with a lot more percussion and whacked out beats, but still steady enough for you to dance to it. tends to be faster than 162 bpm (for the record bpm means beats per minute)

techno is just a catch all umbrella term for electronic based dance music with normally no vocals... also known as "that techno-fag shit" by people with big muscles and small penises/ brains

you were doing so well until you started typing.

Ok, Ive got some more questions

- - I know that in a lot of drum and bass, theres a fast succession of snare drum sounds, like machine-gun fast, is there a name for that?

-- What exactly is a break, as in break beats, break dancing, etc?

-- Does 'four on the floor' mean four kick drum beats in 4/4 time (for some reason I thought it was an automotive term; another topic I don't know much about)

-- in hip-hop, I hear the term 'the beats', as in 'the beats on that song is phaaat, yo' My understanding is that that refers to the non-rapping part of the song, the underlying combination of drums, sample, etc. Is that true?

--what does IDM mean - for some reason I always sorta thoght it stood for Industrial dance music.

--ok, a more technical question: What is a sine wave, I hear it reffered to all the time in the context of sythesizers. What does it sound like (a link would be nice.)


Sorry if these questions sound stupid, its just that lately I've been feeling like I should catch up a little on the terminology,

Thanks for the help

idm = intelligent dance music. here you will find the elitist fans.

think aphex twin + autechre

I see alot of miss info jsut by scimming this all redy...

good luck...

geesh...

plese...

blaaa

NO

if there is a term for the hyper fast snare beats, i haven't heard one... but it's also commonly used in digital hardcore and industrial

IDM is for yes, intelligence dance music, however, there's nothing intelligent about it...

and a break is just shorthand for breakbeat, which is basically a drum machine fill being carried on as a regular beat... listen to anything from alec empire, and you'll find prime examples of this in it's best forms

I'm not trying to be a dick but thare is some bad info here...

I have respect for those I corected but I jsut can't let you spred misinformation about this stuff....

buy thay way you ask some of these questions makes me fell like we are being tested...

More corrtions...

agen... plese don't think I'm an asshole I jsut don't want bad info passeed on...

agne respect to anewyone I had to correct... it's allbout sharing correct info...

fell free to correct me If you think I'm worong...





also DnB was invedted to rename jungle wich was getting a bad name in the clubs in the UK due to the fackt that OG jungle rude boys were staring bad fights at Jungle clubs back in the day.... some times jungle falllowres were called Yeadrys also...

this is taken form the old dub soundsistum days ware thay would thow partys out in a Yeard and the heads that came to it were called Yeardys... in the UK club goeres are some times called Yeardays. Espuly in the nuse paper is thare is vionlenc at a club in the the head like would read Yeardys... shooting behind club etc....


I know I can't spell but I do know this shit...

I know DnB verry well and the info here looks relly good to me... so if my misspellings make your head explode... I fell like this link that the lovly 37 posted is good...

Yeah I guess it sounds like im testing. Most of this stuff I sort of understand, but want clarification. I realize the boundries in these things can be fuzzy. For some reason I've been unusually interested in this stuff for the last few days and finally decided I should just ask someone.

-when I asked the snare drum 'gun' question I really did not know the answer, but it makes sense...

The junglebreaks site was kind of interesting. Now I actually do get what a breakbeat is. People sample the drumming from the middle of a song and loop it to create the song. I always assumed most of that stuff was created on a drum machine.

I'm doin better already.

Looped/cut up and reprogramed/layerd/on and on...

the prdution of drums are verry conplacated...

some times you would just stell the HH sound from one brake... the basse drum from another.. and combline the snares form anohter... etc...

it's mad experamental...

everything is stolen and every thing is new... it's a cycle that will go on and on crating new janras over and over agen till the end of time...