It then reached Europe, and since the early to mid-1990s, it has been infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide. The Best Source To Stay Connected with the House Music Scene! House is uptempo music for dancing, although by modern dance-music standards it is mid-tempo, generally ranging between 118 and 135 bpm. Tempos tended to be slower in the early years of house. The common element of
house is a prominent kick drum on every beat, usually generated by a drum machine or sampler. The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts. The drum track is filled out with hi-hat cymbal-patterns that nearly always include a hi-hat on quaver off-beats between each kick, and a snare drum or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar
Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a more complex sound, and they tailor the mix for large club sound-systems, de-emphasizing lower mid-range frequencies in favor of bass and hi-hats. Though many in America seem to eye house music fans with a wary eye -- as though they must all be closeted hardcore ravers who spend their weekends in fur-covered boots, sucking on pacifiers and popping pill after pill of god-knows-what -- house music, which was born in Detroit and Chicago, is American again. Better put, American music -- be it the sugar pop of Ms. Spears or the hip hop of Kanye and Jay-Z -- has been indelibly taken over by the hard-hitting electro style that has dominated the European dance scene for years. Of course, like most trends that bubble up to the sightline of major label A&R, this isn't new. American house festivals such as the Electric Daisy Carnival series, Monster Massive, Together As One and the unmatchable Winter Music Conference regularly draw crowds of more than 100,000 would-be clubgoers. Every club in Vegas (or at least every club in Vegas with a line outside of it) plays house music, flying in DJs from Armin Van Buuren to Steve Angello to Calvin Harris to Kaskade to... the list goes on. But until now, house music has been the music of the party, of the "let's have a night to remember but not talk about it with our coworkers" scene. It's on the radio, it's at the pool party, it's at small, downtown bars and clubs. It's even causing "riots" in Hollywood. Through a series of interviews with top producers and DJs and reviews of live house shows in the New York area, The Huffington Post set about discovering how music that started in our very own Detroit before monopolizing Europe's party scene careened back to the States so quickly. A smattering of late-late nights and phone calls later, this is what we found. -Huff Post (Culture)
