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Disco music gets a bad rap. People decry the genre as a plastic, soulless, producer-driven music fad that deserves scorn for being empty and unfulfilling. Many music fans were happy to see disco die in 1980, but the truth is that disco never passed on. It spawned a new generation of dance music that branched out and evolved into the global phenomenon known as house music. So how exactly did disco give birth to house music? Here’s the story.

So a gay guy and a black dude walk into a warehouse….just kidding! Well, actually that’s not too far off. Here’s the short version.

Larry Levan started spinning disco records together at those crazy Paradise Garage parties in New York.
Soon after Disco Demolition Night (when white kids killed disco at a White Sox game), Chicago started developing a new, electronic, drum-machine happy sound.
Frankie Kunckles brought his gay-friendly crate of thumping disco tracks to Chicago and the kids got into it. Stuff like “Let No Man Put Asunder” from First Choice rocked the Warehouse in 1983.
Soulful, bangin’ disco tracks collided with what-the-hell-sounding beats from Jesse Saunders, Farley Jackmaster Funk and a bunch of other DJs, remixers and record producer types in Chicago.
All the kids wanted to buy the records that were playing at the Warehouse in Chicago, and after some abbreviating — the house music label was born.
In Detroit, Juan Atkins (/Cybotron), Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson originated a techno touch alongside the Chicago house music sound.

If you want to learn more, there’s a video on it — Pump Up the Volume. This documentary outlines the history of house music’s muddied origins. From swinging disco tracks to squelching, experimental knob-turning, to the base kick of techno’s first producers, this three-part video has it all.

Pump Up The Volume – History of House Music – Part 1

Part 1 starts with Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage and goes through the early house music scene in Chicago.

In Part 2, you can learn about how Brits got hold of the stuff and used their Northern Soul infrastructure and connections in Ibiza to club the music out to the Euro masses. Detroit’s take on house also gets attention.

Part 3 takes you through some of the more recent house music scenes, you know — all that splinter faction definition label stuff. Anything Goldie says is hilarious, and Armand Van Helden seems like a pretty chill dude.

Sure, these Google vids don’t offer the best presentation. And yeah, some of the music you’ll hear is a bit wack, but this documentary from 2001 is a bridge that connects the house music of today to the disco classics of yesteryear. Understanding the details of this evolution will give you a greater appreciation for the ever-evolving history of dance music.

This house music production article is written for the same reason you are reading it, and that is to take my skills to another level and get even better at what I do best, producing house music. With this guide I want to help you learn how to get your producing skills sound really bona fide. It may sound very simple in theory but it can be a pain to make a dope house track, and as always, in order to understand it you need to listen to it.

The favorite kick drum for house music production is the Roland TR-909. The main reason would be that, it has got a great low end power. The pattern for the kick is mostly a 4/4 beat, but you don’t have to leave them straight because they will sound robotic. Propellerhead Reason 4 has got a new feature called the Re-Groove to steer clear of that.

You can even do this manually by shifting individual notes (in your software midi editor) and changing the level of certain notes. Another way is to apply a 16th note swing quantization. If you are producing your tracks digitally, you must make sure that you give them a human feel and soul to you track, make it sound as if it was performed by a live band.

House music uses a lot of synthetic sounds such as the Omnisphere by Spectrasonics, Jupiter-8V by Arturia, Massive by Native Instruments, Sylenth1 and many more. The Arturia MiniMoog is my favorite VST instrument for bass sounds.

The Hi-Hats patterns are mostly on the eighth-note and open hats on the offbeat pattern. For percussion, most producers use loops, but you are more than welcome to program your own. Playing the riffs and chords with a midi controller is better than programming them using a mouse. You can double your chords with another instrument to have enough body, if needed.

If you have a vocal feel free to play around with it, chop it or even create great effects from it. Try not to make the track repetitive, your song needs to have dynamics (loud and soft parts). Always keep in mind that house music is all about making people dance. You can also use automation to keep the song moving, automate the vst instrument knobs (especially the filter) to create a sweep sound.

This can also work well with effects such as delay and reverb to make the chorus part sound bigger than the verse. The snare and claps must be punchy with a short reverb (preferably room reverb) and mostly on an offbeat pattern.

House music is a form of electronic dance music. It originated in what one might call post-disco America. House is a relative of disco music. Some may say that house evolved from disco music. It was also influenced by soul and funk.

Frankie Knuckles was one of the founding fathers of house. He was a DJ at a club in Chicago known as The Warehouse. Some people say that house music takes its name from The Warehouse where primitive house began. Frankie Knuckles would mix disco, Philly soul, European pop, synthesized drum beats, and sound effects to make his music. Later artists would use synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, mixers, electronic drum machines, vocals, and other effects to make the first original house records.

A genre of music known as garage house also became popular around the same time in New York City. Larry Levan was a DJ at the Paradise Garage from which garage house gets it name.

I had a friend named Mark who introduced me to house during my college days in the late 1980s. Mark was from the Chicago area so it’s no surprise that he was familiar with the genre. He used to play a lot of house and other dance music. He made me a few a mix tapes, some of which were recordings of WBMX and WGCI radio programs. I had never heard anything quite like Chicago house music before.

Some of house music’s popular songs contained the word jack. Jacking was the word used by Chicago club-goers to describe the frenzied body of a dancer when dancing to the Chicago house sound. Larry Heard uses the word jack in the opening of his song “Can You Feel It?” He says, “In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove. And, from this groove came the groove of all grooves. And, while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldly declared, “Let there be HOUSE!” and house music was born.”

Some Names Associated with House:

Frankie Knuckles

Larry Levan

Marshall Jefferson

Todd Terry

Farley “Jackmaster” Funk

Ralphi Rosario

Jesse Saunders

Tyree Cooper

Chip E.

Adonis

Steve “Silk” Hurley

Phuture

Lil’ Louis

J.M. Silk

Ron Hardy

Kevin Saunderson

Some of My Favorite House Songs:

1. Can You Feel It? – Larry Heard (a.k.a. Mr. Fingers)

2. Jack it All Night Long – Bad Boy Bill

3. Rhythem Method – Mink

4. House Nation – House Master Boyz

5. Whatever Turns You On – Mario Reyes

6. Pump Up Chicago – Mr. Lee

7. Used By DJ – MKII

8. Jack Me ’til I Scream – Julian Jumpin’ Perez

9. Can You Party? – Royal House

10. Can U Dance – Fast Eddie Smith and Kenny “Jammin” Jason

11. Can’t Stop the House – Thompson and Lenoir

12. How to Play Our Music – Reese and Santonio

13. Don’t Make Me Jack (Tonite I Wanna House You) – Paris Grey

14. Pump Up the Volume – M/A/R/R/S

Other songs I heard on WBMX or WGCI mixes that were house or dance music:

Big Fun – Inner City

Good Life – Inner City

American Soviets – C.C.C.P.

Baila – Raz

Rock This House – Mark Imperial and Dennis Ramirez

Bass Line (The Gemini Rap) – Mickey Oliver Project featuring M.C. Taste

I Want to Be Your Property (Street Latin Wolff Mix) – Blue Mercedes

I’m So Hot For You – Bobby Orlando

Birthday Suit (House Mix) – Johnny Kemp

Some different styles of house music include deep house, acid house, and ambient house.

An interesting genre related to house is hip-house. Hip-house is a blend of hip-hop and house components. Hip-house was extremely popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Some hip-house songs may include:

I’ll House You – Jungle Brothers

Pump Up the Jam – Technotronic

Groove is in the Heart – Deee Lite

Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) – C&C Music Factory

Strike it Up – Black Box

Everybody Everybody – Black Box

The Power – Snap!

Vogue – Madonna

Yo Yo Get Funky – Fast Eddie

It Takes Two – Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock

House continues to have a presence in contemporary times. My favorite is Chicago house from the 1980s. Trax Records and DJ International Records pressed many of the Chicago house songs onto vinyl. Some of these songs can be heard at online video websites. Compact discs can be found online and even some classic vinyl records are for sale as well.

I’m glad that my friend Mark introduced to me to house. I hope you enjoy it too.