Everything about Techno totally explained
Techno is a form of
electronic dance music (EDM) that emerged in
Detroit,
Michigan,
USA during the mid to late 1980s. Many styles of techno now exist, but
Detroit techno, a
genre in its own right, is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.
The initial take on techno arose from the melding of
Eurocentric synthesizer-based music with various
African American styles such as
Chicago house,
funk,
electro, and
electric jazz. Added to this was the influence of
futuristic and fictional themes that were relevant to life in American late
capitalist society: most particularly the novel
Future Shock by
Alvin Toffler. Techno music pioneer
Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" as inspiring him to use the word
techno to describe the musical style he helped to create. This unique blend of influences aligns techno with the
aesthetic referred to as
AfroDiasporic Futurism. To producers such as
Derrick May, the transference of spirit from the machine to the body is often a central preoccupation; essentially an expression of technological
spirituality. In this manner: "
techno dance music defeats what Adorno saw as the alienating effect of mechanisation on the modern consciousness".
Music journalists and fans of techno are generally selective in their use of the term; so a clear distinction can be made between sometimes related but often qualitatively different styles, such as
tech house and
trance. "Techno" is also commonly confused with generalized descriptors, such as
electronic music and
dance music.
History
Detroit origins
The template for the Detroit techno sound was primarily developed by four individuals,
Juan Atkins,
Kevin Saunderson,
Derrick May (the so-called Belleville Three), and
Eddie Fowlkes, all of whom attended school together at Belleville High, near Detroit, Michigan. By the close of the 1980s, the four had operated under various guises: Atkins as
Model 500, Flinstones, and Magic Juan; Fowlkes simply as Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes; Saunderson as Reese, Keynotes, and Kaos; with May using the aliases Mayday, R-Tyme, and
Rhythim Is Rhythim. There were also a number of joint ventures, the most commercially successful of which was the Atkins and Saunderson (with
James Pennington) collaboration on the first
Inner City single,
Big Fun.
Prior to achieving notoriety, the budding musicians,
"mix" tape traders, and aspiring DJs found inspiration in
Midnight Funk Association, an eclectic five-hour late-night radio program hosted on various Detroit radio stations, including
WCHB,
WGPR, and WJLB-FM from 1977 through the mid-1980s by DJ Charles "
The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson. Mojo's show featured heavy doses of electronic sounds from the likes of
Giorgio Moroder,
Kraftwerk, and
Tangerine Dream alongside the funk of
Parliament and the new wave sounds of the
B-52s. Atkins has noted that:
Despite the short-lived disco boom in Detroit, it had the effect of inspiring many individuals to take up mixing, Juan Atkins among them. Subsequently, Atkins taught Derrick May how to mix records, and in 1980 the pair started working together as a DJ duo called Deep Space Soundworks, or just Deep Space. In 1980 or 1981 they met with Mojo and proposed that they provide mixes for his show, which they did end up doing the following year.
The music was initially conceived as party music that was played on daily mixed radio programs and played at high school club parties in Detroit. Late 1970s/early 1980s high school clubs such as Brats, Charivari, Ciabattino, Comrades, Gables, Hardwear, Rafael, Rumours, Snobs, and Weekends created the incubator in which techno was grown. These young promoters developed and nurtured the local dance music scene by both catering to the tastes of the local audience of young people and by marketing parties with new DJs and their music. As these local clubs grew in popularity, groups of DJs began to band together to market their mixing skills and
sound systems to the clubs in order to cater to the growing audiences of listeners. Locations like local church activity centers, vacant warehouses, offices, and
YMCA auditoriums were the early locations where underage crowds gathered and the musical form was nurtured and defined.
Of the four individuals responsible for establishing techno as a genre in its own right, it's Juan Atkins who is recognized as the originator. Indeed, in 1995 American music technology publication
Keyboard Magazine honored Atkins as one of "12 Who Count" in the history of keyboard music. At that time, Detroit techno was still relatively unknown in the United States despite its notoriety in Europe. In the early 1980s Atkins began recording with musical partner
Richard "3070" Davis (and later with a third member, Jon-5) as
Cybotron. This trio released a number of
electro-inspired tunes, the best known of which is "Clear." According to a recent bio on MySpace, Atkins "...coined the term techno to describe their music, taking as one inspiration the works of
Futurist and author Alvin Toffler, from whom he borrowed the terms 'cybotron' and 'metroplex.' Atkins has used the term to describe earlier bands that made heavy use of synthesizers, such as Kraftwerk, although many people would consider Kraftwerk's music and Juan's early music in Cybotron as electro."
Eventually, Atkins started producing his own music under the pseudonym
Model 500, and in 1985 he established the record label
Metroplex. In the same year, he released a seminal work entitled "No UFOs," one of the first Detroit techno productions to receive wider attention and an important turning point for the music. Of this time, Atkins has said:
The music soon attracted enough attention to garner its own weekend club, the Music Institute (MI), which opened at 1315 Broadway in downtown Detroit in mid-1988. The venue was secured by George Baker and Alton Miller. D. Wynn and Derrick May were the regular Friday night DJs, and Baker and Chez Damier played to a mostly gay crowd on Saturday nights. The club closed on
November 24,
1989, with Derrick May playing "Strings of Life" along with a recording of clock tower bells. Though short-lived, MI was known internationally for its all-night sets, its sparse white rooms, and its juice bar stocked with "
smart drinks" (the Institute never served liquor).
Relatively quickly, techno began to be seen by its originators and up-and-coming producers as an expression of
Future Shock post-industrial angst. It also took on increasingly high-tech and
science fiction-oriented themes.
]
Following the release in 1988 of an album compiled by Neil Rushton (an
A&R scout for
10 Records) and Derrick May, titled
Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Detroit, the music press began to characterize techno as Detroit's relatively high-tech, mechanical brand of
house music, as it retained the same basic structure as the soulful, minimalist post-
disco styles that were forged in
Chicago and
New York City at the start of the decade. The music's producers, especially May and Saunderson, admit to having been fascinated by the Chicago club scene and influenced by house in particular. May's 1987–88 hit "
Strings of Life" (released under the nom de plume
Rhythm Is Rhythm), for example, is considered a classic in both the house and techno genres. At the same time, there's evidence that the Chicago house sound developed as a result of
Frankie Knuckles' using a drum machine he bought from Derrick May. Juan Atkins claims that: Atkins also believes that the first
acid house producers, seeking to distance house music from
disco, emulated the techno sound.
Detroit sound
In merging a European
synth-pop aesthetic with the sensibilities of
soul,
funk,
house, and
electro, the early producers pushed dance music into unchartered terrain. The initial pioneers of the emerging genre melded the beat-centric styles of their
Motown predecessors with the music technology of the time to create characteristically intense grooves and percussive basslines. The resulting Detroit sound exerted an influence on widely differing styles of electronic music but also maintained an identity as a genre in its own right, one commonly referred to as "
Detroit techno." Derrick May famously described the sound of techno as something that's
"...like Detroit... a complete mistake, it's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company."
With time, the sound became more refined, and was given added sophistication with the addition of
jazz-tinged colors. Arguably, it was
Manchester (UK)-based techno act
808 State that fueled this development, with tracks such as
Pacific and
Cobra Bora, taken from the 1989 release
Ninety. In Detroit, a producer heavily influenced by said jazz sensibilities at this time was Detroit's
Mike Banks, a demonstration of which can be found on the influential
Underground Resistance release
Nation 2 Nation (1991). By 1993 Detroit acts such as
Model 500 and
UR had made explicit references to the genre, with the tracks
Jazz is the Teacher (1993) and
Hi-Tech Jazz (1993), the latter from the groundbreaking
EP Galaxy 2 Galaxy. This lead was followed by a number of techno producers in the UK who were evidently influenced of both jazz and
UR,
Dave Angels'
Seas of Tranquility EP (1994) being a case in point.
Proto-techno
A number of commentators have attempted to redefine the origins of techno, by incorporating musical precursors to the Detroit sound as part of a wider historical survey of the genres development. This results in a chronologically distinct point of origination being removed. To support this view, they point to examples such as "Sharevari" (1981) by A Number of Names, the earliest compositions by
Cybotron (1981),
Donna Summer and
Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), Moroder's "From Here to Eternity" (1977), and the more dance floor-oriented selections from
Kraftwerk's repertoire (1977–83).Juan Atkins has acknowledged that his earliest enthusiasm was for Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, particularly Moroder's work with Donna Summer and the producer's own album
E=MC2. Atkins also mentions that
"...around 1980 I'd a tape of nothing but Kraftwerk, Telex, Devo, Giorgio Moroder and Gary Numan, and I'd ride around in my car playing it." Derrick May has also identified the influence of Kraftwerk and other European synthesizer music in commenting that "
it was just classy and clean, and to us it was beautiful, like outer space. Living around Detroit, there was so little beauty... everything is an ugly mess in Detroit, and so we were attracted to this music. It, like, ignited our imagination!"
It seems apparent that certain electro-
disco and European synth pop productions share with techno a dependence on machine-generated beats and dance floor popularity. However, for some, the comparisons remain contentious, as do the efforts to regress further into the past to find antecedents. The logical extension of this rationale entails a further regression to the sequenced electronic music of
Raymond Scott, whose "The Rhythm Modulator," "The Bass-Line Generator," and "IBM Probe" are considered early examples of technolike music. It is also noteworthy that the possible influence of electronic music found in American
sci-fi movie soundtracks, such as the work of
Louis and Bebe Barron for the film
Forbidden Planet, appears to be unconsidered.
Developments
As the original sound evolved it also diverged to such an extent that a wide spectrum of stylistically distinct musics was being referred to as techno. This ranged from overtly pop oriented acts such as
Moby to the distinctly anti-commercial sentiments of the appropriately named
Underground Resistance. By the late 1980s and early '90s, the original techno sound had garnered a large underground following in the
United Kingdom,
Germany, and
Belgium. Its popularity in Europe was largely due to the growth of a free party scene, known as
rave, and a thriving club culture. In America, apart from regional scenes in Detroit,
New York, and Chicago, interest was limited. Producers from Detroit, frustrated by the lack of opportunity in their home country, looked to Europe for their future livelihood. This so-called first wave was soon joined by a number of up-and-coming artists, including
Carl Craig, Jay Denham, Kenny Larkin, and Stacey Pullen, with
UR's Jeff Mills,
Mike Banks, and
Robert Hood pushing their own unique sound. A number of New York producers were also making an impression at this time, notably
Frankie Bones, Lenny Dee, and
Joey Beltram. In the same period, close to Detroit (
Windsor, Ontario),
Richie Hawtin, with business partner
John Acquaviva, launched the influential imprint
Plus 8 Records.
Arguably, it was developments in American-produced techno between 1990 and '92 that fueled the expansion and eventual divergence of techno in Europe, particularly in Germany. In
Berlin, following the closure of a free party venue called UFO, the club
Tresor opened in 1991. The venue was, for a time, a standard bearer for techno in Europe and played host to many of the leading Detroit producers, some of whom relocated to Berlin. There were a number of other techno producers building on the Detroit sound at this time, but there was also an abundance of EDM derivatives beginning to emerge. Some drew heavily upon the Detroit aesthetic, while others fused components of preceding dance music forms. This led to the appearance (in the UK, initially) of what was inventive new music, much of which bore little, if any, relation to the original techno sound—
Breakbeat hardcore and the initial
jungle (
drum and bass) excursions being primary examples, their origins having more in common with
hip-hop, soul, and
reggae, than with the EDM from Detroit and Chicago.
As EDM continued to transmute a number of Detroit producers began to question the trajectory techno was taking. One response came in the form of so-called
minimal techno (a term producer
Daniel Bell found difficult to accept, finding minimalism in the artistic sense of the word, too "arty"). Another Detroit based producer credited with ushering the emergence of the minimal strain is one time member of UR, Robert Hood. Hood describes the situation in the early 1990's as one where techno had become too
"ravey", with increasing tempos leading to the emergence of
gabber. Such trends saw the demise of the
soul infused techno that typified the original Detroit sound leading Hood and others to redefine the music as
a basic stripped down, raw sound. Just drums, basslines and funky grooves and only what's essential. Only what is essential to make people move. Hood explains that
As the mid-1990's approached, the term "intelligent dance music" (
IDM) had gained common usage in an attempt to differentiate the increasingly sophisticated takes on EDM from two other strands of techno that had emerged: one being a harder, faster, industrial sounding variant known as
Schranz; and the other, an overtly commercial strain that was simply referred to as "
cheese." The
Warp Records compilation
Artifical Intelligence is credited as the record that ushered the rise of IDM and
electronica. Of this time, Warp founder and managing director Steve Beckett has said that
Divergence
With an increasing diversification (and commercialisation) of dance music, the collectivist sentiment prominent in the early
rave scene diminished, each new faction having its own particular attitude and vision of how dance music (or in certain cases, non-dance music) should evolve. Some examples not already mentioned are
ambient techno,
trance,
industrial techno,
breakbeat hardcore,
acid techno, and
happy hardcore. Less well-known styles related to techno or its subgenres include the primarily Sheffield (UK)-based
bleep techno, a regional variant that had some success between 1989 and 1991, and a scene that was responsible for putting Warp Records on the map (largely as a result of its fifth release,
LFO's self-titled 12″). More recent offshoots are
nortec,
wonky techno, and
ghettotech (a style that combines some of the aesthetics of techno with
hip-hop and
house music). Other niche scenes include
nu jazz,
speedcore,
breakcore,
broken beat,
digital hardcore,
glitch, and so-called no-beat techno.
Commercial exposure
Whilst techno and its derivatives only occasionally produce commercially successful mainstream acts—
Underworld and
Orbital being two better known examples—the genre has significantly affected many other areas of music. In an effort to appear relevant, many established artists, for example
Madonna and
U2, have dabbled with dance music, yet such endeavors have rarely evidenced a genuine understanding or appreciation of techno's origins. The mainstream music industry has been responsible for the growth of a huge
remix industry. This is largely a drive to gain exposure for artists that are not identified with club styles such as house, techno, and drum & bass. Many club acts and dance DJs have made very successful careers out of remixing alone,
Armand Van Helden being a good example.
More recently,
contemporary R&B has taken a significant foray into the dance genre, thanks largely to
club scene remixes such as
Freemasons' recent interpretations of
Beyoncé and
Kelly Rowland, and whilst some criticise this as indicative of the music industry's seeking greater exposure for its big-act roster, it can also be viewed as a natural part of the process of musical evolution. One R&B artist,
Missy Elliott, inadvertently exposed the popular music audience to the Detroit techno sound when she featured material from Cybotron's
Clear on her 2006 release "Lose Control"; this resulted in
Juan Atkins' receiving a
Grammy Award nomination for his writing credit. Elliott's 2001 album
Miss E... So Addictive also clearly demonstrates the influence of club culture.
In recent years, the publication of relatively accurate histories by authors Simon Reynolds (
Generation Ecstasy aka
Energy Flash) and Dan Sicko (
Techno Rebels), plus mainstream press coverage of the
Detroit Electronic Music Festival, have helped to diffuse the genre's more dubious mythology.
Even the Detroit-based company
Ford Motors eventually became savvy to the mass appeal of techno, noting that "
...this music was created partly by the pounding clangor of the Motor City's auto factories. It became natural for us to incorporate Detroit techno into our commercials after we discovered that young people are embracing techno." With a marketing campaign targeting under-35s, Ford would choose Model 500's "No UFO's" to underpin its November 2000
MTV television advertisement for the
Ford Focus. In attempting to sum up the changes since the heyday of Detroit techno, Derrick May has since revised his famous quote in stating that “
Kraftwerk got off on the third floor and now George Clinton’s got Napalm Death in there with him. The elevator’s stalled between the pharmacy and the athletic wear store.”
Music production practice
Stylistic considerations
In general, techno is very
DJ-friendly, being mainly
instrumental (commercial varieties being an exception) and is produced with the intention of its being heard in the context of a continuous
DJ set, wherein the DJ progresses from one record to the next via a synchronized
segue or "mix." Much of the
instrumentation in techno emphasizes the role of
rhythm over other musical parameters, but the design of
synthetic timbres, and the creative use of
music production technology in general, are important aspects of the overall
aesthetic practice.
The main drum part is almost universally in
common time (4/4); meaning 4
quarter note pulses per bar. In its simplest form,
time is marked with kicks (
bass drum beats) on each quarter-note pulse, a
snare or clap on the second and fourth pulse of the bar, with an open
hi-hat sound every second eighth note. This is essentially a
disco (or even
polka) drum pattern and is common throughout house music and its derivatives (of which techno is one). The
tempo tends to vary between approximately 120
bpm (quarter note equals 120 pulses per bar) and 150 bpm, depending on the style of techno.
Much of the
drum programming employed in the original Detroit-based techno made use of
syncopation and
polyrhythm, yet in many cases the basic disco-type pattern was used as a foundation, with polyrthythmic elaborations added using other
drum machine voices. It is this syncopated-feel (
funkiness) that distinguishes the Detroit strain of techno from other variants; indeed, this is a feature that many DJs and producers still use to distinguish their music from commercial forms of techno, the majority of which are devoid of syncopation. Derrick May has summed up the sound as 'Hi-tech Tribalism': something
"very spiritual, very bass oriented, and very drum oriented, very percussive. The original techno music was very hi-tech with a very percussive feel... it was extremely, extremely Tribal. It feels like you're in some sort of hi-tech village."
EDM tends to be produced with the aid of instruments (synthesizer keyboards) that are designed with the
Western musical tradition in mind. However, techno doesn't always adhere to conventional
harmonic practice, and such strictures are often ignored in favor of timbral manipulation alone. The use of
motivic development (though relatively limited) and the employment of conventional musical frameworks is more widely found in commercial techno styles, for example
Euro-trance, where the template is often an
AABA song structure.
Compositional techniques
There are numerous ways to create techno, but the vast majority depend upon the use of loop-based
step sequencing as a compositional method. Many techno musicians, or "
producers," rather than employing traditional
compositional techniques, will work in an
improvisatory fashion, often treating the electronic music studio as one large instrument. This assemblage of devices will include units that are capable of producing unique timbres, but technical proficiency is required if the technology is to be successfully exploited. The equipment will be
synchronised using a hardware or a computer-based
MIDI sequencer; this enables the producer to combine, in one arrangement, the sequenced output of many devices. A typical approach is to create successive layers of material until a suitable mix is achieved. Once a usable palette of material has been generated, a producer may then focus on developing a
temporal framework, a process of dictating how the work will unfold in time. Some producers achieve this by adding or removing layers of material at appropriate points in the mix. Quite often, this is achieved by physically manipulating a
mixer, sequencer, effects,
dynamic processing,
equalisation, and
filtering while recording to a
multi-track device. Other producers achieve similar results by using the automation features of computer-based
digital audio workstations. Some techno consists of little more than cleverly programmed rhythmic sequences and looped motifs combined with
signal processing of one variety or another, frequency
filtering being a commonly used process.A more idiosyncratic approach to production is evident in the music of artists such as Twerk and
Autechre, where aspects of
algorithmic composition are employed in the generation of material.
Retro technology
Instruments utilized by the original techno producers based in Detroit included classic drum machines like the Roland
TR-808 and
TR-909, devices such as the Roland
TB-303 bass line generator, and synthesizers such as the
Roland SH-101, Kawai KC10,
Yamaha DX7, and Yamaha DX100. Much of the early music sequencing was executed via
MIDI using hardware sequencers such as the Korg SQD1 and Roland MC-50, and the limited amount of
sampling that was featured in this early style was accomplished using an
Akai S900.
Technological advances
In recent years, as computer technology has become more accessible and
music software has advanced, interacting with music production technology is now possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional
musical performance practices: for instance,
laptop performance (
laptronica)and
live coding.
In the last decade a number of software-based virtual studio environments have emerged, with products such as Propellerhead's
Reason and
Ableton Live finding popular appeal. These software-based music production tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in
microprocessor technology, it's now possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances have, for better or for worse, democratized music creation, leading to a massive increase in the amount of home-produced music available to the general public via the internet. Artists can now also individuate their sound by creating personalized software synthesizers, effects modules, and various composition environments. Devices that once existed exclusively in the hardware domain can easily have virtual counterparts. Some of the more popular software tools for achieving such ends are commercial releases such as
Max/Msp and
Reaktor and
freeware packages such as
Pure Data,
SuperCollider, and
ChucK. In some sense, as a result of technological innovation, the
DIY mentality that was once a core part of dance music culture is seeing a resurgence.
Noted artists
Bibliography
Anz, P. & Walder, P. (eds.),Techno, Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1999 (ISBN 3908010144).
Barr, T., Techno: The Rough Guide, Rough Guides, 2000 (ISBN 978-1858284347).
Brewster B. & Broughton F., Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, Avalon Travel Publishing, 2000 (ISBN 978-0802136886).
Butler, M.J., Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music, Indiana University Press, 2006 (ISBN 978-0253218049).
Cannon, S. & Dauncey, H., Popular Music in France from Chanson to Techno: Culture, Identity and Society, Ashgate, 2003 (ISBN 978-0754608493).
Collin, M., Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House, Serpent's Tail, 1998 (ISBN 978-1852426040).
Cox, C.(Author), Warner D (Editor), Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2004 (ISBN 978-0826416155).
Fritz, J., Rave Culture: An Insider's Overview, Smallfry Press, 2000 (ISBN 978-0968572108).
Kodwo, E., More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction, Quartet Books, 1998 (ISBN 978-0704380257).
Nelson, A., Tu, L.T.N., Headlam Hines, A. (eds.), TechniColor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life, New York University Press, 2001 (ISBN 978-0814736043).
Pesch, M. (Author), Weisbeck, M. (Editor), Techno Style: The Album Cover Art, Edition Olms; 5Rev Ed edition, 1998 (ISBN 978-3283002909).
Reynolds, S., Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Pan Macmillan, 1998 [alsopublished in abridged form as Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, Routledge, New York 1999] (ISBN 978-0330350563).
Savage, J., The Hacienda Must Be Built, International Music Publications, 1992 (ISBN 978-0863598579).
Sicko, D., Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk, Billboard Books, 1999 (ISBN 978-0823084289).
St. John, G., Rave Culture and Religion, Routledge, 2003 (ISBN 978-0415314497).
St. John, G.(ed.), FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor, Common Ground, Melbourne, 2001 (ISBN 978-1863350846).
Toop, D., Ocean of Sound, Serpent's Tail, 2001 [newedition] (ISBN 978-1852427436).
Watten, B., The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics, Wesleyan University Press, 2003 (ISBN 978-0819566102).
Filmography
High Tech Soul - Catalog No.: PLX-029; Label: Plexifilm; Released: 2006-09-19; Director: Gary Bredow; Length: 64 minutes.
Technomania - Released: 1996 (screened at NowHere
, an exhibition held at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, between May 15th and September 8th 1996); Director: Franz A. Pandal; Length: 52 minutes.
Tresor Berlin: The Vault and the Electronic Frontier - Pyramids of London Films; Released 2004; Director: Michael Andrawis; Length: 62 minutes
Universal Techno - Label: Les Films à Lou; Released: 1996; Director: Dominique Deluze; Length: 63 minutes.
WE CALL IT TECHNO! - A documentary about Germany’s early Techno scene and culture - Label: Sense Music & Media, Berlin, DE; Released: June 2008; A film by Maren Sextro & Holger Wick.Further Information
Get more info on 'Techno'.
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