Techno music

Techno is a form of electronic music that emerged in the mid-1980s and primarily refers to a particular style developed in and around Detroit and subsequently adopted by European producers. "Techno" is also a informal and misleading term often used in North America, and perhaps elsewhere, to describe all forms of electronic dance music.

Musicology

Techno features an abundance of percussive, synthetic sounds, studio effects used as principal instrumentation, and a fast, regular 4/4 beat usually in the 130–140 bpm range. Some techno compositions have strong melodies and bass lines, but these features are not as essential to techno as they are to other dance genres, and it is not uncommon for techno compositions to deëmphasize or omit them. Techno is also very DJ-friendly, being mainly instrumental, and produced with the intention of being incorporated into continuous DJ sets wherein different compositions are played with very long, synchronized segues. Although several other dance music genres can be described in such terms, techno has a distinct sound that aficionados can pick out very easily.

Related Topics:
Synthetic - DJ

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There are many ways to make techno, but a typical techno production is created using a compositional technique that developed to suit the genre's sequencer-driven, electronic instrumentation. While this technique is rooted in a Western music framework (as far as scales, rhythm and meter, and the general role played by each type of instrument), it does not typically employ traditional approaches to composition such as reliance on the playing of notes, the use of overt tonality and melody, or the generation of accompaniment for vocals. Some of the most effective techno music consists of little more than cleverly programmed drum patterns that interplay with different types of reverb and frequency filtering, mixed in such a way that it's not clear where the instrument's timbres end and the added effects begin.

Related Topics:
Sequencer - Western music

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Instead of employing traditional compositional techniques, the techno musician, called a producer, treats the electronic studio as one large, complex instrument: an interconnected orchestra of machines, each producing timbres that are simultaneously familiar and alien. Each machine is encouraged to generate or complement continuous, repetitive sonic patterns that come relatively 'naturally' to them, given the capabilities and limitations of early sequencers — such sequencers, especially those built-in to old drum machines, tend to encourage the production of repeating 16-step patterns with a limited number of instruments being playable at once, yet they also allow sounds to be arranged in any order, regardless of whether live musicians could easily reproduce them. Rather than just mimicking arrangements playable by live musicians, the techno producer is free to prominently feature unrealistic combinations of sounds. Most producers, however, strive to achieve a listenable, dancefloor-friendly balance of realistic and unrealistic arrangements of mostly synthetic, semi-realistic timbres, rather than a demonstration of machine-powered extremes.

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Depending on how they are wired together, the machines sometimes influence each other's sounds as the producer builds up many layers of syncopated, rhythmic harmonies and mingles them together at the mixing console.

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After an acceptable palette of compatible textures is collected in this manner, the producer begins again, this time focusing not on developing new textures but on imparting a more deliberate arrangement of the ones he or she already has. The producer "plays" the mixer and the sequencer, bringing layers of sound in and out, and tweaking the effects to create ever-more hypnotic, propulsive combinations. The result is a deconstructive manipulation of sound, owing as much to Debussy and the Futurist Luigi Russolo as it does to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream.

Related Topics:
Debussy - Futurist - Luigi Russolo

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The techno producer's studio can be anything from a single computer (increasingly common nowadays) to elaborate banks of synthesizers, samplers, effects processors, and mixing boards wired together. Most producers use a variety of equipment and strive to produce sounds and rhythms never heard before, yet stay fairly close to the stylistic boundaries set by their contemporaries.

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