House Music is not Techno

Having played house music in Providence for the last 3 years and a few years before in France, I have noticed there is still to this day a high level of confusion as to what "house music" really means.The most common misconception is when one will put all forms of electronic music, including house, under the label “techno”

House music is not techno.

The origins of House music trace back to Chicago, and most notably the club “Warehouse” back in the mid 80 s when Frankie Knuckles introduced the first house beats using the Roland TR-707 drum machine. It’s a direct descendant of disco, and one can’t help notice the first elements of house by listening to Donna summer’s “I feel love” track from 1977.

Techno on the other hand originates from Detroit and the later part of the 80s, developed by the Belleville four, and most notably founder Juan Atkins. The essence of techno was heavily influenced by futiristic and fictional themes, and is profoundly inspired by the idea of a deep relation between man and machine. But while techno originally sounded close enough to house as they both merged euro-synth aesthetic to funk, house would gradually take a very unique and much more organic course of its own. While techno continued to explore pure electronic patterns, house gradually became a vehicle to incorporate all sorts of musical genres such as soul, gospel, jazz, afrobeat, latin music, brazilian, and transform them to become a new form of universal dance music. Djs and producers such as “Little” Loue Vega started to incorporate live recordings of percussion and brass ( with legends such as Tito puente) to mix in with their beats creating a series of tracks called “elements of life". House by then had given birth to Deep House, a more sophisticated genre of house that tells more of a story , focuses more on deep grooves than dance beats, priveleges musical nuances and even lyrics ( well ok it will never be poetry either) . Later
house exported all across the world, each country taking it s own twist, most notably in France and the creative French touch of the late 90s but also the UK, Italy, Germany and even South Africa.

House music is actually so diverese in its sub categories that anyone can find something they can relate to when dancing to house. Whether it's an african chant, a Bob Marley sample, a saxophone solo, most often people won't realize they are dancing to house, they will just be dancing to music.

I could go on and on talking about house and all its virtues, the best way to get a clear idea, at the end of the day, is to listen to it. And you don’t even have to travel to Boston or NY, right here in Providence you can get your own fix of house music. Here are some selected nights: