What makes techno techno?

[Armadillo]

M'Snah....... I heard your tune.
If you want to make Techno, stop using chords. Well, only use one anyway. As soon as you start talking about chord progression then it'll end up in the cheesy category.
I'm not sure who the big Techno artists are these days, but perhaps pick up some albums of the artists mentioned on Ishkur for inspiration.

[choochcat]

I usually divide music in two:
1) Shite
2) Other

Aye

...and some music in the 'other' category has been described to me as techno. Underworld, for instance.

Nah. Not nearly Detroity enough for me. Techno is a consciously machiney sound. Like Carl Craig, Underground Resistance, B12, some of the German stuff.

[M'Snah]

M'Snah....... I heard your tune.
If you want to make Techno, stop using chords.

uh oh.. thanks. that should be a good and inspirational challenge, since I always do a lot with chords and harmonies. And I'm up for that challenge.

Re: Idols: I'm over 40, look older and out-of-shape, wear reading glasses... (and not female), so not the right type for Idols or other talent-hunting progams.

[superhousemouse]

aloha ...

I find the discussion actually redundant. I explain my opinion. Music is for me the acoustic perception, which is to shift me into a specific tendency. Music is a creative process many small fragments to contain can. one could argue also in such a way. When is a picture a picture? It is nevertheless like that, which a painter many colors mixes and brings these into its selected form. There are no definite statements about a category. The borders exist only into attempts at explanation. How does one want which to define, which is so incomprehensible? Where does the universe end and where begin which does new? One can ask 100 humans, what her by Techno to understand. It will give always different opinions. That is the search for the holy Gral.

german:

aloha ... ich finde die diskussion eigentlich überflüssig. Ich erkläre meine meinung. Musik ist für mich die akustische Wahrnehmung, die mich in eine spezifische Stimmung versetzen soll. Music ist ein kreativer Prozess der viele kleine Fragmente beinhalten kann. man könnte auch so argumentieren. Wann ist ein bild ein Bild? Es ist doch so, das ein Maler viele Farben mischt und diese in seine gewählte Form bringt. Es gibt keine definitiven Aussagen über ein Genre. Die Grenzen existieren nur in Erklärungsversuche. Wie will man was definieren, das so unfassbar ist? Wo endet das Universum und wo fängt was neues an? Man kann 100 Menschen fragen, was sie unter Techno verstehen. Dabei wird es immer unterschiedliche Meinungen geben. Das ist die Suche nach dem Heiligen Gral.


greets ... superhousemouse ...

[M'Snah]

Nicht überflussig. Vielleicht für dich, aber es hilft mir neuen Genres zu verstehen und viellicht auch selbst zu componieren. Nicht weil ich nur das eine Genre machen will, wann du meine Musik anhörst, dann weisst du das die meisten Songs eine Mischung sind von verschiedene Genres. Aber aus dieselbe Grund das ich einige Jahre zurück mehr wollte lernen über Minuette und Rondos, will ich jetzt Techno usw lernen.

[kmonkey]

Just wondering... Listening to a lot of 'new' music lately, but I find it hard to distinguish some of the styles. So... what makes techno techno?

buy some tunes from Jeff Mills. For example "The other day"album. You will find some great songs inside. From experimental down to party songs. Then buy some tunes from The Advent. Then listen some non techno and you will find what is different with ease Those two are real techno producers with among others

[M'Snah]

I found some demo songs from The Advent on the internet... clearly very different from much other stuff that was labelled techno. Thanks for the references.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

Kraftwerk invented techno, and they used plenty of chords...

[Bonteburg]

My humble opinion...

Good techno needs to sound like a marching band on amphetamines (minus the brass section). The more melodic content the further it's away from the real deal. I agree that the boundaries are kind of fuzzy.

Structure is of the essence - anything following a traditional song structure with verse, chorus, middle eight etc by my definition cannot possibly be techno, no matter how hard it oonts-oontses and how 'techno' the sounds are.

At it's very best, techno is essentially 8 bars that are so mesmerizing and cleverly done that you can listen to them over and over for 8 minutes with only minimal variation.

In my opinion techno at it's best is very dadaist and devoid of meaning, like recording a newsreader off the radio, trim it so it's exactly half a bar at 140 bpm and put a kick on top and enjoy the emerging textures

Don't bother to call any of the above uninformed bullshit or other names, I'm aware that it's highly subjective and 'im not a music critic either ..

Marco

[Bonteburg]

Your German is quite excellent Hans

[Armadillo]

Kraftwerk invented techno, and they used plenty of chords...

Kraftwerk invented Electro. Techno came out of Detroit a few years later with artists like May, Atkins and Saunderson being the driving force.
But I would also have thought we were talking about 2006 Techno and not 1986 Techno which sounds quite different.

[Tux]

It's called Electro House now don't you know....
Put Your Hands Up For Detroit!

[M'Snah]

But I would also have thought we were talking about 2006 Techno and not 1986 Techno which sounds quite different.

But for Blues it doesnt really make a difference which year you take .

Thanks a lot for all the input and discussion. It's enlightening, and also shows (me) that it's not pure techno that I was after, but maybe more techno-industrial fusion...

[Chuck E. Jesus]

Kraftwerk invented techno, and they used plenty of chords...

Kraftwerk invented Electro. Techno came out of Detroit a few years later with artists like May, Atkins and Saunderson being the driving force.
But I would also have thought we were talking about 2006 Techno and not 1986 Techno which sounds quite different.

well, we called it techno back in the day, techno pop, etc...some kids came up with electro later i suppose...in chicago there was house, and the techno made with the 303's and such sounded more like Kraftwerk so everyone called it techno, like Kraftwerk...i still call it techno, call it anything you want...

[DWb]

I think that techno, as with a lot of 'genres', is actually more about a tradition than about specific small set of sonic signifiers. A techno tune is one that sounds right in a techno DJ set and works in a techno club - beyond that there are techno tunes that break more or less any musical rule you try to think of - for instance, tunes that use non four-to-the-floor beats or have big chord progressions. And if you try to produce techno by asking for a bunch of parameters to work within, you'll probably end up producing something that sounds almost like techno but somehow wouldn't quite work. Which is no bad thing but isn't techno.

IMO, the only way to write really music that really fits in that tradition is to listen to a whole lot of tunes[1] and DJ sets and go out to some clubs and really get an idea of what techno feels like, and then write more or less whatever you want to write with that feel.

[1] there've been a few threads recently about techno recommendations - the Tresor compilations might be a good start.