Originally submitted as a paper for coursework for Popular Music in the Mass Media, Swansea University, Wales (Spring 2005).

What role did technology play in the development of contemporary dance music in America and Britain?

“Technology is making the creative process democratic”
~DJ Spooky

Throughout the history of electronic music and eventually dance music, the main creative drive has been through experimentation and not through pure intentional composition. Composition almost never involves writing down anything on paper and is done through interacting with technology. Little ‘performance’ is involved in the recording and production of dance music. Performances are composites (Gilbert 116). It is the mechanics of the production that preoccupy composers of electronic music and not just composition (Holmes 9). The dance musician is now producer, performer and engineer in one (Gilbert 118). In some ways the technology has always been the bane of the producer, some obstacle for the composer to overcome to achieve the final recorded product. Some music purists see technology as ‘murder’ of music as living creature (Gilbert 112). But dance music producers have never felt that way. There has always been a sense of embracing the technology and seeing it as a form of empowerment. Dance pioneers have always asked ‘what more can be done with this?’ and this sense of curiosity is what has driven dance music pioneers for the last 30 years. From the moment Jaime Principle produced ‘Your Love’ in 1984 (Pump Up the Volume) House music was no longer about recycling disco, it was about something new, something changing.

Some of the early house music was really affected by the way in which it would be used, which for all dance music is essentially dancing. The composition of early dance music reflects the fact that it was made for DJs to use in their sets. The long 12” mixes were made with long intros and outros which allowed more time to mix and more of each song to overlap. So in fact much of the technology that affected DJs affected how records were composed and produced. The turntable obviously became quite a tool for Hip-hop DJs like Grandmaster Flash who used concepts of scratching and record manipulation to create many of their records even though it was far less influential for up-tempo dance styles.

The 12” mix began with Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ in the mid-1970s. Making use of the 45RPM single, ‘I Feel Love’ truly popularized the full recording time of the record disc. Giorgio Moroder, co-writer and producer, gave life to Summer’s vocals and stretched the mix to over 15 minutes which was unheard of at the time (and still fairly rare today). Made strictly for the dance floor, this mix set a new tone for production and style for dance music. The middle six minutes of the track have most of the elements of later Techno and House music with no vocals and heavy beats and sequencers (Prendergast 367). Minimalism, similar to that in ‘I Feel Love’ became almost a complete standard for many later forms of dance music, especially the up-tempo styles designed for the dance floor. Because DJs had now brought beat-matching and blending into their repertoire through the use of the turntable, other DJs and producers began to respond and make music that may not function on its own, but fit perfectly into a DJ set. Jeff Mills, a Techno DJ, makes entire sets out of songs that are purposefully minimalist by combining them into more complex structures (Gilbert 127).

Reggae, though not considered modern dance music, has however influenced many dance sub-genres such as Jungle, Drum and Bass, and Hip-hop (which led to Trip-hop) as well important House artists such as Leftfield and Masters at Work (Pump Up the Volume). Jamaican Reggae music was the first music to create alternate versions of songs. Reggae sound-systems used old tape machines to begin to play with the music they were blasting to better tailor it to their audience. The sound-systems began to create ‘versions’ or ‘dubs’ which would be instrumental versions of Reggae songs that would allow the deejays to ‘toast’ over, that is, put their own lyrics in through rapping, singing, or talking (Brewster 127). Later artists in all forms of dance music would make it a standard to create alternate versions of songs that would target certain audiences. Remixes, dub versions, dance mixes, club versions, whatever it is called it came from the ideas originally formed in Jamaican Reggae. In the early ‘90s House group Masters At Work began producing dubs of older pop songs, giving them a House beat and making them popular on the dance floor, where before they had only been popular on the radio (Pump Up the Volume). Masters At Work did not invent the remix by any means, it was Jamaican Reggae that began the tradition. But the ‘Masters’ did bring remixing into a whole new territory, and because of the popularity of their work, the idea of remixing became much more popular. The ultimate result can be seen in any record store today. Take a look at any single, especially dance music singles, and there may be up to six or seven remixes of a single song all on the one disc, each done in a different style and designed for a different style of dance.

Many dance artists record their music electronically by using recording equipment that writes directly to tape, disk or other medium. In fact, many do not do record live whatsoever because, with the exception of some vocals, all other instruments and sounds can be reproduced digitally with synthesizers and samplers. The studio became a place that had everything you needed where sound quality would be higher and the potential for production would be greater. However, given the right resources, successful results could eventually be achieved at home. Not having to rent studio time could allow groups to concentrate on more creative uses with different technologies, “groups who have their own means of production can choose to extend the scope of the writing process into the development of new sounds and timbres” (Gilbert 117). For a home studio, all you needed was your own equipment and you could record you music just as you would in a professional studio. The only hindrance to this do-it-yourself (DIY) philosophy was that many technologies were quite expensive, but with the rise of personal computers production technologies grew significantly cheaper. Many of the developments in technology opened the market for inexpensive equipment giving rise to the DIY culture of dance music.

The Moog synthesizer was one of the first innovations in electronic music. Created in the mid 1960s, the first Moog synths offered a significant size reduction from previous synthesizers making it significantly more portable than others. New component design allowed not only the reduction in size but an increase in signal stability within the synthesizer increasing the reliability of sounds created. Controls were redesigned finally giving it ease of use that was crucial to musicians. Settings were now controlled by voltage control as opposed to the older method of adjusting AC levels. The Moog synthesizer, with its expanded features, became popular and helped expand the synthesizer market (Holmes 161). Synths became increasingly affordable which allowed some artists to bring the recording into their home studios. Moog made the synthesizer a household name and spawned the very beginnings of DIY culture in electronic styles of music. Dance music would later rely on innovations like the Moog synthesizer to make music production more affordable and allow unlimited time for creativity at home. Artists such as Daft Punk, with their release Homework, and Orbital, with their single ‘Chime,’ showed how in the early 1990s successful dance records could be made from cheaper equipment in home studios (Gilbert 118).

The sequencer early on became an important tool for electronic music producers, especially producers of dance music. The first sequencer was enormous: a ‘Wall of Sound’ measuring 6’high and 30’ long. It was made in the early ‘50s by Raymond Scott (Kettlewell 178). Since then the technology has become ever more sophisticated and compact. A sequencer more advanced than the ‘Wall of Sound’ could fit in your pocket. A sequencer is “storage device that stores predetermined control voltages, which correspond to notes and pitches” (180). It stores information from the synthesizer including all the specific data about pitch, accent, length. Electronic producers could now automate certain rhythms or ‘loop’ a series of specific notes or steps making the composition process incredibly more diverse. Artists can program patterns and play quick, repetitive rhythms, though with analogue sequencers only one note was possible in a given moment. With the development of digital sequencers, multiple notes could be programmed at once and performances could be saved to disk for future playback. Artists were given a whole new range of diverse composition possibilities and gave birth to a new way of composing. Longer mixes that contain repetition of parts were now infinitely easier to create with the help of a sequencer. Moroder would never have been able to produce ‘I Feel Love’ without the use of a sequencer; it would have been impossible.

Samplers became a prominent technology as well. Even though they came around much later, their impact is no less great than sequencers. Digital samplers store high-quality sounds digitally which are then replayed when triggered. The samples can be altered by changing pitch, length, or timing while in the sampler. Commonly artists loop samples for production, but pitch shifting opened even more possibilities. Any sound you could record could be shifted to correspond with any note, effectively creating a new voice for the synthesizer out of whatever sound was recorded (Kettlewell 198) or replicating sounds made by musicians (Gilbert 112). The first samplers before 1984 cost around $25,000, whereas after 1984 they cost $8000 which was still much too expensive for many studios, and certainly out of the range of DIY artists working at home. Yet samplers were still popular despite the price and in 1986 Akai made the S612 which cost only $895; samplers had finally become affordable (Kettlewell 199). Once affordable, artists everywhere began using samplers in their works. The sampler hailed a new approach to composition when artists began to use complex layers of original samples. The sequencer may have allowed House music to take flight from disco with complex synthesizer rhythms, but samplers allowed even more styles to develop out of the original forms of dance music. Micheal Cretu of Enigma, began a brief movement of Spiritual House with the release of ‘Sadeness’ in 1990. ‘Sadeness’ was created with computer sampling techniques applied to a diverse group of sources including Gregorian chants and Andean pipes: proof that House music is pushing music diversity to a new level (Prendergast 405). Spiritual House did not have a particularly significant impact on House music today, but Enigma’s popularization of older music sampling is a perfect example of the many types of House music that were affected by the affordability and popularization of sampling technology.

Artists such as the KLF and the Orb pioneered the style of Ambient House with their definitive albums Chill Out and Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (Prendergast 369). Specifically, it was the Orb that began a revolutionary use of the sampler that eventually defined the genre. The Orb’s hit ‘Loving You’ (1989) takes its main sample from the 1975 Minnie Ripperton original. ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ (1990) as another example of heavily sampled works became an even bigger hit than ‘Loving You.’ ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ contains many types of sounds (synths whoops and stabs, bells, house beat) but more prominently a long sample of musical artist Rickie Lee Jones reminiscing about natural beauty. It set a precedent for sampler use in the world of House and Ambient House became a style of incredibly complex composition. The Orb used 24-track recording and supposedly a Cyclosonic panner to make 3D mixes (Prendergast 408). Alex Paterson of the Orb was “interested in natural sounds going through samples in a rhythmic way” (Prendergast 409).

A track called ‘Star 6 & 7, 8, 9’ (also on Adventures) included samples of a bumble bee, birds and a motorcycle. “Open[ing] all music to the liberating democracy of the sampler,” the Orb made Ambient House a popular way to reinterpret the House genre (Prendergast 407).

The MIDI digital communication protocol was created in 1983 in an effort to standardize the language used between electronic music devices. Its main goal was compatibility, which was achieved with great success, but it made it much easier to create music by streamlining the process between machines (Kettlewell 178). Now that machines could communicate with each other, the composers and producers no longer had to convert mediums between machines: “MIDI sequencing software revolutionized the music industry” (178). Addition of MIDI to the producers’ arsenal did not particularly influence any particular styles, but it did eventually allow for quicker composition and ultimately an incredible revolution in music production: compatibility with personal computers. As personal computers have become more and more affordable, production technology (through integration with computer software) has become an affordable and quality alternative to professional studios or expensive equipment. After the combination of MIDI technology and the personal computer it became easier for everyone to make music (178). With greater accessibility and more user options, DIY music production became more common than ever by creating a larger market of users who could not necessarily afford studio equipment (Kettlewell 205). Artists like The Chemical Brothers have used MIDI technology combined with popular sequencing software, CUBASE (Prendergast 468). Moby, an influential Techno artist, produced his album Play (1999) by using sophisticated Yamaha SY synthesizers in combination with CUBASE sequencing on Apple Mac computers. The introduction of MIDI into music production brought even more capabilities to producers and allowed even more affordable options especially when combined with the more affordable nature of personal computers. MIDI has now become a standard that has allowed simplicity of the music production process, allowing more and more new composers/producers to make their own recordings.

Dance music was influenced particularly by many technologies, old and modern. In addition to synthesizers, sequencers, and samplers, a long list of technologies helped influence dance music including ‘arpeggiators,’ multi-track and hard-disk recording. The new features of these technologies allowed experimentation which developed into new styles of composition and in some cases new and popular forms of dance music. Features were important and allowed new possibilities, but another influential aspect of new technology was that it grew cheaper and allowed more artists to record in their homes giving them more flexibility to work with the new technology and become more expressive and creative. This accessibility really drove the DIY culture within dance music and House in particular.

From the beginnings of house music, some of the innovations in technology that led to the evolution of music styles were not in the making of higher quality machines with more features but instead finding new uses for old machines. Because of the strong DIY culture of House music, access to affordable equipment was incredibly important for the producers. Some of the cheaper technology that began dance music were outdated at the time and had been nearly forgotten. The TB-303 Bass Line synthesizer, as a perfect example, was never made for electronic music production. Roland created the TB-303 in 1982 as a partner to the TR-606 drum-machine to create an automatic rhythm section musicians (especially guitarists) could use for live gigs. By 1985 the TB-303 became outdated and unsuccessful, but also particularly cheap. At this time, Marshall Jefferson, a noted House producer, began working with DJ Pierre and acquired an old Roland 303. The two randomly started “messing” on the “acid machine” and they just “came up with [the] pattern” (Toop): a pattern which sparked the eventual release of ‘Acid Tracks’ by DJ Pierre’s group Phuture (Gilbert 125). The name came from Jefferson’s comment about how the sounds coming from the TB-303 reminded him of “LSD trippy music” (Prendergast 380). Phuture’s ‘Acid Tracks’ pioneered the use of the 303 in dance music and began the word association that would ultimately result in the term Acid House. Because of ‘Acid Tracks,’ the Roland TB-303 soon became a standard tool of experimentation for artists of all dance music. The early Trance group Hardfloor heard ‘Acid Tracks’ and “vowed to seek out the machine responsible” (Prendergast 461). The even more influential Techno group Orbital used a TB-303 to mash out the bass for their hit ‘Chime’ in 1989 that would go on to become a popular rave anthem (403). William Orbit also experimented “with the snaky sound of the Roland 303 bass box” (Prendergast 429). Roland’s 303 had an effect on dance music since its first use on ‘Acid Tracks.’ Not only did the 303 become popular in a completely different style than rock music as it was originally intended, but also as a tool of production instead of live performance. It was experiments with these technologies that helped transform and create new dance music styles.

Much later, in the more recent history of dance music, Alexander Coe a.k.a. DJ Sasha, began to pioneer a new approach to production and DJing. He began working on a new Progressive House album by taking a new sequencing software, Ableton Live, and combining its features with already well known composition software on an Apple Mac computer. The new album, Involver (2004) became quite a hit among DJs and home listeners alike. Sasha’s album is not strictly a remix or artist album, or even a mix compilation; it is rather a combination of all three. He has taken tracks from other artists, remixed them and then strung them together in an intricate continuous mix. In an interview in DJ Times, Sasha admitted that “this project wouldn’t be possible without [Ableton Live] software” (DJ Sasha). ‘Live software seems to be a step forward in sampling software “allow[ing] auditioning on the fly” and has allowed Sasha a new range of creativity and flexibility. “Ableton live allows me to more spontaneously throw a round of things in.” However, many new artists have been able to bring new benefits of different computer production software. More revolutionary is his use of the Ableton software during his DJ sets, “I use ‘Live as a third deck to loop and play samples over my DJ set.” The result is an intricate sounding DJ set with no gaps and perfectly smooth transitions. Because of the software, Sasha has played parts of up to six distinct tracks all at one time. He has brought much of the production technology of composition into the club and has made it more of a live experience. “You can pull records apart and re-edit a song when you’re in a club” which allows more spontaneity and complexity in DJ sets. Sasha is not the first person to ever adapt a kind of recording technology into his DJ set, but this is first time any computer software set-up has been used to arrange the music live. Unlike the Phuture with the 303, Sasha is taking production technology and moving it from the production studio into a live setting, and not the other way around. But in both cases the DJs have taken technologies and experimented with them outside of their understood use. Phuture and Sasha have pushed their technologies outside of the norm to produce unique sounds which in the past have given rise to completely unique styles of dance music.

Styles in dance music are numerous and in some ways almost uncountable. Many artists have their own kind of sound and may mix many different styles or create a whole new style. With technology, combining styles becomes much simpler because the technology allows immediate creativity in composition. The House tune ‘Can You Feel It’ by Larry Heard “merged Chicago House with Detroit Techno” (Prendergast 379). Trip-hop was created by a group called Massive Attack with heavy influence from one of its members, Tricky, and combines Hip-hop with Ambient music. Other groups including Portishead became interested in Trip-hop and looked to work with “turntables, keyboards, analogue synthesizers, soundtrack music and blues music” (Prendergast 371). Goldie was obsessed with contrasting fast and slow elements utilizing time stretched or compressed samples (Prendergast 372). Drum and Bass music emerged when Goldie took the Hardcore style and added extensive chopping, looping and reversing resulting in ‘Inner City Life’ (Pump Up the Volume). Trance has been considered “the ultimate hybrid of slick Techno, Ambience, and House” (Prendergast 460). As it developed, it was influenced by heavy computer sampling with plenty of synthesizer riffs, drum machine rolls, and long, suspenseful build-ups. Paul Van Dyk, now an international Trance superstar, was originally influenced by the English Electro of Manchester’s New Order (Prendergast 463). ATB took his sampler and MIDI software and came up with the incessant ‘9PM (Till I Come)’ in one day, later going on to sell over one million copies and reaching no.1 in the UK charts in late 1999 (Prendergast 373). The Chemical Brothers approached Techno music from the structures of Rock music (Prendergast 373). Made with Akai samplers and an Apple Mac computer, Dig Your Own Hole was released in 1997 marking the beginning of Big Beat music. The group took from many different influences, especially Rock, and to cross styles even further, the track ‘Out of Control’ included vocal by New Order’s Bernard Sumner and guitars by Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie (Prendergast 469). The Chemical Brothers used heavy sampling and used “up to a dozen drum samples were used to create one huge beat” (Prendergast 468). Chill-out, a relaxed and down-tempo form of House, became popular in part to the success of artists like Air from France who mixed “Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, and Trip-hop” (Prendergast 373). In just a short list it is easy to see how complicated classifying dance music can be and how natural it was that “music transformed like fractal geometry through a plethora of genres” (373). Technology opens artists to the ‘democracy of dance music,’ allowing anyone to put what they want into it; everyone has a say in where the music is going. You are not restricted to any types of sounds and are allowed ultimate creativity.

There are so many separate styles and styles that make it difficult to really describe exactly what you are hearing. Of course, technology has made all of this possible by providing an infinite amount of possibilities. Sonic vistas are limitless and undefined; the sound resources available are unlimited and can be constructed from scratch. Producers now create not just the music, but the sounds themselves (Holmes 9). New technology gives artists ideas. The new technology is toy for them to play and discover with. The more production technology available, the more possibilities are available and the more styles are crossed and combined both inside and outside of dance music. Styles are being altered in the same way the rhythms and melodies are being altered within the music. As tracks are stretched, redefined, composed, or thrown together at random, so are the styles that define them. And with the increasing affordability, artists with lower incomes will more and more be able to express themselves in dance music. DIY culture will continue to thrive and music will become more and more diverse as artists of all influences and backgrounds ‘make their voices heard.’

Bibliography

• Brewster, Bill and Broughton, Frank. Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey. Headline: London. 1999.
• DJ Sasha. ‘The Anatomy Of An Album’, interview with Emily Tan, DJ Times. June 2004, Volume 17 – Number 6. http://www.ableton.com/pages/user-area/artists/sasha/djtimes.html
• DJ Spooky. interview with Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix, November 28 – December 5, 1996. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/music/reviews/11-28-96/DJ_SPOOKY.html (as found in Holmes’s Electronic and Experimental Music, p. 271)
• Gilbert, Jeremy and Pearson, Ewan. Discographies: Dance Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound. London: Routledge, 1999.
• Holmes, Thom. Electronic and Experimental Music. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Kettlewell, Ben. Electronic Music Pioneers. Vallejo, California: Pro Music Press, 2002.
• Prendergast, Mark. The Ambient Century: Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. New York: Bloomsbury, 2003.
• Pump Up the Volume (Multiple Parts), Channel Four video, viewed in April, 2005
• Toop, D. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1991, p. 38. (as found in Gilbert’s Discographies, p. 125)