What is 'house music'?

Subject: What is 'house music'?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 09:47 AM

Having clicked on one of the Google banner ads on Mudcat, I see quite a number of references to "house music". What in the world is this, please?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 09:50 AM

IS that the groaning you hear when the house settles after dark? I dunno!! :>)

A

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 10:38 AM

I think its another label for loud tuneless electric Rock/Pop stuff-
The genre is worse for meaningless labels than FOLK

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 10:51 AM

House music is like techno and incorporates such unfathomable sub-genres as acid house and techno house. It has roots right here in good ol' Motown (the city, not the style). House music has very little in common with a house concert which is, you know, a concert in a house. I suppose one could present a house concert of house music, but you wouldn't catch me there.

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Ivan
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 11:08 AM

I was going to say what I thought it was but then I read the "Degradation of language" thread so I went and looked it up in a dictionary of UK slang instead. So here it is:

house         Noun. A contemporary dance music epitomised by its 4/4 beat and use of 'samples'. Vocals and melodies tend not follow the verse / chorus tradition, as they are just 'samples' which need to be fitted into the 4 bar repetitive base structure. It is a descendant of disco music born in North America. Sub-genres of house include tribal, deep, Italian etc.

Not really the kind of music usually discussed here. But there are some folk acts who include an element of this in their music and some folk music does gets sampled in house music so it's not completely irrelevant.

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 12:27 PM

Any idea why it's called "house"?

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 01:32 PM

My guess would be it comes from the phrase "so and so's in the house" or "we're rockin the house tonight". I could be way off base however.

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: treewind
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 02:10 PM

I'd like to see a family tree of all the styles which I generically call 'techno', (though that may not be the best generic name either)

house, garage, industrial, ambient, tribal, er, etc...

What's the difference?

Anahata

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 02:34 PM

There's kitchen - that's folk, though (As in

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Dave4Guild
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 02:54 PM

House music is wot you have learnt well enough to be allowed to play in the house. Garage music is that music which, being not that well learnt, is not allowed in the house, but is allowed in the garage.
Shed music is the latter, but on the banjo, fiddle, or pipes.
Precise definitions of the category of the music depends entirely upon the taste of "the Missus", a non-mythical deity who resides within earshot and whose word is"Law"!!!

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 04:47 PM

way back in the late 60s or early 70s Im not sure, my memory of those times are vague... I had an album... a big plastic thing by a band called Godz. I think it was their second album as it was called "Godz 2" but then again perhaps not. Anyway it was billed as "organic tribal body music". I dont know what it sounded like ..as I said things were a bit vague back then!
Anyone know what I am talking about????

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: SeanM
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 04:57 PM

I've always preferred the overarching label of "electronic" music - music created usually without traditional musical instruments beyond keyboards. It's a huge label, rather the same as "orchestra music" and the like.

Rather than disparage it, I prefer to think of it as just another form of music. Some will like it, some don't. My personal weakness in electronic music tends towards deeply layered "trance", named for the fairly constant slower "trance like" beat and sound patterns.

It can be fascinating, if you're into it. Of course, some say heavy drugs help. But then again, half my friends into the trance scene say that you can't like folk without being a pothead.

M

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 09:04 PM

This link gives an explanation - basically it's from a particular place in Chicago where they played a particular type of music, and it was called the Warehouse - Origins of the Word House

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 10:03 PM

It is the...new MC-google, sell-out...

<"Caahhh-ching, Caaahh-cling, Caaah-CASH!!!!" CRASH

Which slows your machine, annoys your nerves, and makes the pricipal payment on Max's new house.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 10:07 PM

Seriously, ask ANYONE under age 30, and you will find house to be the "club/dance" music....with a "live-mixing DJ" which has begun to transition out of the "happening-scene"...and is being replaced by the likes of JET.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: Grab
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 02:04 PM

House music started in the late 80s as the next step in dance music from disco, generally using turntablism, sampling and electronics instead of regular instruments. For a good example of early house music, try "Theme from S-Express". From there, it's mutated into every type of dance music around today.

Graham.

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 02:10 PM

Dave4Guild -
I heard some techno recently on the late night ABC - melodic techno" or "minimilist techno" - I actually liked it as it HAS a melody, and is not swamped by all that other noise - funny, it sounded like simple folk music.... it all goes round I suppose... :-)

Robin

Subject: RE: What is 'house music'?
From: SeanM
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 04:16 PM

Might have been some of the experimental "ambient" that I've been hearing lately. It's almost heading towards Philip Glass-esque structure.

Personally can't stand the 180 bpm "candycore", but nice, complex melodic trance is a definitely good thing to have on hand for the end of a long day while stuck sitting in traffic...

M