Explore the comprehensive history of electronic music. Learn the names of prominent electronic music artists, and all the different sub-genres of electronic music.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Electronic Music | Overview, Types & Artists
Table of Contents
- What is Electronic Music?
- A History of Electronic Music
- Electronic Music Artists
- Types of Electronic Music
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the progenitor of electronic music?
While no one person is responsible for the creation of electronic music, the German band Kraftwerk are considered to be the forefathers of modern electronic dance music. They have inspired countless artists and spawned many genres of electronic music.
How many types of EDM are there?
There are many kinds of electronic dance music, and new forms emerge every year. House, techno, trance, and drum and bass are some of the most popular.
Who invented electronic music?
While no one person is responsible for the creation of electronic music, the genre has been developing since the early 20th century. Italian Futurists, French composers, German rock bands, and African-American experimenters have all contributed to the development of the genre.
What are some electronic genres?
There are many genres of electronic music. House, techno, dubstep, and hip-hop are some of the most popular and enduring forms.
When did electronic music develop?
Electronic music really started in the early 20th century. However, it took off after World War II and the development of the tape recorder.
Table of Contents
- What is Electronic Music?
- A History of Electronic Music
- Electronic Music Artists
- Types of Electronic Music
- Lesson Summary
Electronic music is music that is made with electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, computers, or other music technology. It is comprised of both music made using electronic and electromechanical means (electroacoustic music). It also includes any music involving electronic processing, such as recording and editing on tape, and whose reproduction involves the use of loudspeakers. Because of the ubiquitous nature of electronic music, and the influence and prevalence of digital processing in contemporary music, it has grown increasingly difficult to define what electronic music is. Jazz music, long considered an acoustic genre, has incorporated electronic instruments like electric pianos and electric basses for years. Most music is recorded and processed on what is called digital audio workstations, making most contemporary music digitally processed.
Now that it's been established that any kind of music can feature electronic instruments or be processed through digital means, the question still remains: what is electronic music? Electronic music refers both to the method and means by which the music is produced, but also the genre of music and the historical context in which the music is created. Music genres like hip-hop, techno, and house music have traditionally been made solely through electronic means. So intention is just as important as creation. For instance, as a jazz musician composes music to be played by a quartet, or a classical musician creates music for a symphony, an electronic musician creates music using electronic instruments within an pre-established electronic framework.
Electronic music first emerged at the end of the 19th century with what came to be the predecessor to modern-day synthesizers. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments began to be incorporated into compositions and performances shortly after they were invented. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape was introduced. Magnetic tape was special in that it allowed musicians to record sounds and change them by changing the tape speed, direction, and pitch. Subsequently, in France and Egypt, these innovations led to the emergence of electroacoustic tape music in the 1940s. Musique concrete, created in Paris in 1948, was based on splicing together recorded fragments and tape loops of natural and industrial sounds. Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was also created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. Computers using algorithms to create music emerged during the same time.
During the 1960s, digital computer music came to the forefront. Advancements in live electronics made their way to consumers and musicians, spearheaded by Japanese electronic music companies. In the early 1970s, Moog synthesizers and Japanese drum machines were incorporated into popular music and electronic music became more prevalent in the music industry. The emergence of genres such as disco, krautrock, new wave, synth-pop, hip hop and EDM, all created through electronic means, made electronic music a household name. In the early 1980s mass-produced digital synthesizers, such as the Yamaha DX7, became popular, and MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was developed. During the 1990s, music technology became more affordable and electronic music production became standardized, both in the industry and the marketplace.
 |
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
You must cCreate an account to continue watching
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Create Your Account To Continue Watching
As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed.
Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons.
Try it now
It only takes a few minutes to setup and you can cancel any time.
Already registered? Log in here for access
BackResources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons
& teaching resources‐all
in one place.
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Back
Your next lesson will play in
10 seconds
The first person to successfully create sounds using electronic equipment was an American named Thaddeus Cahill. Cahill assembled rotary generators and telephone receivers and figured out a way to convert electrical signals into sound. Cahill dubbed it the telharmonium. He started to build it around 1895 and made various improvements to it over the years. Because amplifiers and speakers had not been invented yet, the device was not able to produce sounds with any magnitude. Regardless, Cahill had the right idea. Essentially Cahill had created the forerunner to modern-day synthesizers.
The Italian Futurist painter Luigi Russolo was another visionary. After building several experimental musical instruments called Intonatumori, he wrote a treatise on the creation of new instruments in a manifesto called "The Art of Noises" in 1913. Often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers, he performed several concerts of "noise music" concerts in 1913 to 1914 and in Paris in 1921. Unfortunately, Russolo's innovative instruments and most of his compositions apparently vanished during the tumult of World War II.
The history of modern electronic music begins with the introduction of tape, as both a medium and a creative tool. The tape recorder was invented in the 1950s and immediately became a new and exciting musical instrument. Because of early support from European governments, which helped fund initial experiments into tape, as well as helped establish early recording studios, Europeans were among the first to work in the medium. In 1948 two French composers, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, and their colleagues at Radiodiffusion-Television Francaise in Paris, started to produce tape collages by cutting small sections of tape and combining them. The result created a collage-like soundscape which they called musique concrete. This small group of innovators are responsible for developing the foundation for tape and sound manipulation and modern day music sampling. These techniques, in some form or fashion, have been used by artists from Miles Davis to Public Enemy. Some of these innovations included speed alteration, playing tapes backward, and signal feedback loops.
Tape music eventually led to other composers developing different techniques, but these were students of classical music who approached composition from a European perspective. In regards to what we now know as electronic music, its development cannot be discussed without examining the nightclubs and discotheques in Europe and the United States. Electronic instruments such as synthesizers had already been incorporated into popular music through genres like jazz fusion, and more popularly disco. Disco during the 1970s was a cultural phenomenon, launching a global dance culture that found people all over the world crowding into their favorite clubs every weekend. As disco began to decline in the United States in the late 70s, it still maintained a high level of popularity in Europe. In Italy in particular, a new scene of Italian DJs (disc jockeys) started making their own disco-inspired records. Italo disco, as it came to be known, often features electronic sounds, electronic drums, drum machines, melodies, vocoders, overdubs, and English lyrics. By 1983, Italo disco's instrumentation was predominantly electronic. Along with love, Italo disco themes commonly deal with robots and space, sometimes combining all three, like in the song "Robot Is Systematic" by 'Lectric Workers and "Spacer Woman" by Charlie.
 |
Discussing the history of modern electronic dance music (EDM) must first involve a look at the German band Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk is a German band started in Dusseldorf in 1969 by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation which included synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Kraftwerk was a huge inspiration for hip-hop music, and their single "Trans-Europe Express" served as the inspiration behind the seminal hip-hop/electro song "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. Then in the early 1980s, Chicago radio jocks The Hot Mix 5 along with club DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played various styles of dance music. These included older disco records; electro funk; newer Italo disco; B-Boy hip-hop music by Man Parrish, Jellybean Benitez, Arthur Baker, and John Robie; and electronic pop music by Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Some made and played their own edits of their favorite songs on reel-to-reel tape, sometimes mixing in effects, drum machines, and other rhythmic electronic instrumentation.
As electronic music was at first solely designed for nightclubs, these places became where electronic music got its wings. In places like Paris, Rome, and New York City in particular, nightclubs were where electronic records were field tested for an eager public. Between 1977 and 1987, the Paradise Garage was one of the most important and influential clubs in New York City with a devoted patronage comprised of sexual and ethnic minorities (primarily African-American gay men). With resident DJ Larry Levan and other DJs as the center of attention, it influenced dance, music, and culture both nationally and internationally as the birthplace of the modern nightclub.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
- Kraftwrerk- Considered to be the first electronic group, Kraftwerk's signature sound has influenced the creation of hip-hop, electro, techno, house, and every subsequent genre of electronic music.
- Afrika Bambaataa- Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" was the first shot in the revolution that is hip-hop music. One of the earliest and most successful electro songs, it singlehandedly put hip-hop on the map.
- The Belleville Three- The Detroit trio of Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson are the three men solely responsible for the creation of techno music. Their early work into techno eventually inspired Europeans to take to their drum machines and create their own brand of techno.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
- House-House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 to 130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture in the 1980s, as DJs from the subculture began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat and deeper basslines.
- Techno- Techno is a genre of electronic dance music that is predominantly characterized by a repetitive and hard four-on-the-floor beat, which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set.
- Jungle- Jungle is a genre of dance music that developed out of the UK rave scene and sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterized by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and synthesized effects. These were combined with the deep basslines, melodies, and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip-hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.
- Dubstep- is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. It is generally characterized by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged as an offshoot of UK garage, drawing on a lineage of related styles such as 2-step and dub reggae, as well as jungle, broken beat, and grime. In the United Kingdom, the origins of the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party scene in the early 1980's.
- Trance- is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo lying between 125-150 bpm repeating melodic phrases and a musical form that distinctly builds tension and elements throughout a track often culminating in one to two "peaks" or "drops". Although trance is a genre of its own, it liberally incorporates influences from other musical styles such as techno, house, pop, chill-out, classical music, tech house, and ambient and film music.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Electronic music is music that is made with electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, computers, or music technology. While any music can use electronic music, the term "electronic music" refers to specific genres of music that are primarily created through electronic means. Drum machines, synthesizers, and computers are all used to make such music. Electronic music started with tape recorders and first found a fertile ground for experimentation in Europe, but really took off with release of albums by German band Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk inspired many subsequent genres of electronic music, including hip-hop, trance, techno, and house.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Video Transcript
What Is Electronic Music?
Electronic music is everywhere in 21st century America. It can be found in massive, multi-day festivals like the Electric Daisy Carnival, on top-40 radio, and in a myriad of commercials. Electronic music has a complex history that spans everything from obscure avant-garde art music to glittering disco ballrooms.
Electronic music is exactly what the name suggests: music made with electronic instruments. The category of electronic music can best be understood in contrast to the categories of acoustic or traditional music, like classical, jazz, or folk. However, because musical traditions like classical, jazz, and folk are frequently recorded using digital technology, amplified using microphones, and distributed over the internet, it may be difficult to distinguish the distinction between electronic and non-electronic music in the 21st century.
With this in mind, we can understand the concept of electronic music as emerging out of the 20th century's remarkable revolutions in computing, electronics, and digital technology. Throughout the 20th century, pioneering engineers, inventors, and musicians built machines that could produce music in ways that had previously been unimaginable.
Early Electronic Music
The Russian musician and inventor Leon Theremin invented the theremin in 1920. The theremin is an instrument that creates electromagnetic fields that create sounds at different pitches when the musician moves his or her hands around the theremin. Theremins create a high, warbling sound most famous for its use in 1950s horror and science fiction movies.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, numerous inventors developed different versions of what would come to be the synthesizer. These electronic instruments were originally intended to mimic the sounds of organs or other traditional instruments but would soon come to be seen as unique music-making tools in their own right. The avant-garde musical movement known as musique concréte used electronic instruments during the 1940s in a way that would be very influential to later styles of electronic music.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the highly creative Canadian musician Bruce Haack started making electronic music that was originally intended for children, appearing several times on the Mr. Roger's Neighborhood TV program with his various gadgets. In the 1960s Robert Moog began producing his famous line of synthesizers that would revolutionize the field of electronic music. Moog synthesizers are still widely used today.
Musical Machines & the Birth of Disco
Beginning in the late 1960s, electronic music enjoyed an explosion of creativity, technological advancement, and popularity. This period of advancement would in many ways mirror the technological advancements in other branches of technology like personal computers and video games. After relocating to Germany, the Italian-born musician Giorgio Moroder became a deeply influential proponent of what would become electronic dance music, in particular the subgenre known as Italo disco. Germany was a hot bed of musical experimentalism during the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in the field of electronic music. Groups like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, and Suicide used synthesizers and other electronic instruments to transform rock music into new forms, inspiring many people across the world to experiment with electronic music.
As the ethnographer and cultural theorist Sarah Thornton has observed, the space in which electronic music was experienced by fans in the 1970s was just as important as the music itself. The discotheque, later shortened to disco, was a place where new electronic dance records were played by a DJ and fans could dance to the music. This was a space freed from the constraints and expenses of having a live band where technology reigned supreme. These dance-centered environments were the forerunner of what would become rave culture and club culture.
By the mid 1970s, disco music was enjoying a peak period of popularity. Electronic synthesizers were combined with drum machines to create a dance-friendly style of music that gained popularity throughout the world. The European version, spearheaded by Giorgio Moroder, was very futuristic sounding and synthesizer-based. The American version of disco was much more rooted in funk, soul, and other African-American genres. In the United States, disco experienced a sudden drop in popularity in the early 1980s fueled, as some have argued, by homophobia and racism.
House, Techno, & Beyond
Not everyone lost interest in disco in the early 1980s. In Chicago, many DJs continued to experiment with new ways of mixing old disco records. Using two turntables and a mixer, Chicago DJs would manipulate disco records in order to play the parts that audiences liked and to create an open-ended, remix friendly style of music. This genre came to be called house music, after the warehouses in which the dance clubs were often located.
In Detroit, three friends - Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson - stated making electronic music that was inspired by Chicago house, but that was colder, starker, and more futuristic. This Detroit style came to be known as techno. Repetitive, minimalistic, and inspired by synthesizer-driven European music, techno would often be played in the abandoned factories that could be found throughout the post-industrial landscape of Detroit in the 1980s.
Although both house and techno music were products of urban African-American culture, these styles would enjoy much of their popularity by the late 1980s in the U.K. and Germany. In the U.K., parties would be held in large open fields out in the countryside. The new drug ecstasy became a popular element to the house and techno parties of this era, along with other psychedelic drugs like LSD. These parties acquired the name raves and quickly became famous throughout the world for their wild Dionysian, utopian vibes.
In Europe, the U.S., and eventually throughout the world, house and techno music would spawn uncountable numbers of subgenres. Today, electronic dance music (better known as EDM) is one of the most celebrated and widely distributed forms of music on earth, though what's typically thought of as EDM peaked in the early 2010s before dropping off in popularity. Electronic music, in various forms, continues to push the boundaries of what's possible musically, challenging traditional notions of musicality, being incorporated into almost every single genre of music that exists now, whether through the use of synthesizers or simple aspects of an album's production.
Lesson Summary
All right, that's definitely a lot, so let's take a moment or two to review the important information that we learned in this lesson. Electronic music should be understood as any music made principally with electronic instruments. We learned about the origins of electronic music with the Russian musician and inventor Leon Theremin, who invented the theremin in 1920. The first electronic instrument, the theremin is an instrument that creates electromagnetic fields that create sounds at different pitches when the musician moves his or her hands around the theremin.
From there, we learned that the genre was pioneered in avant-garde circles, also known as musique concréte and that it became most famous for its use in electronic dance music, beginning with disco music in the 1970s. From there, we learned about house music, in which Chicago DJs would manipulate disco records in order to play the parts that audiences like and to create an open-ended, remix-friendly style of music; and techno music, which was characterized by repetitive, minimalistic sounds and beats, inspired by synthesizer-driven European music. While electronic music has been saddled with some negative reputations, namely the drug culture that's become synonymous with rave culture, it's a force to be reckoned with in the 21st century, with various aspects infiltrating almost every other genre in existence.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Unlock Your Education
See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com
Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a MemberAlready a member? Log In
BackResources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons
& teaching resources‐all
in one place.
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Back
Electronic Music | Overview, Types & Artists
Related Study Materials
Explore our library of over 88,000 lessons
Browse by subject