Techno was created in the mid 1980’s in Detroit, Michigan. Techno is the daughter of house music, electronic dance music, disco, and industrial music. Techno is usually represented with repetitive instrumental music. You would typically hear techno music when the DJ plays a continuous set of the same music. Techno came about when Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May was playing around and intertwined African American music with Chicago’s electric jazz, house, and funk music. Although techno began in the mid 1980’s, techno became popular in Europe in the late 1980’s and made its big come back in America for the white population in the 90’s.
There are four main elements to Techno music. The first element is breakbeats. Break beats are beats from an old record broken down and put in a loop. The next element is the percussion rhythm; which incorporates a common time (4/4) with fast tempo beats up to 150 bpm. The third element to Techno music is electric instruments. Electric Instruments consist of drum machines and computers. The computers is what allows the music to be put in a loop. The last element to Techno music is the emphasis on the back beat (more emphasis on the second and fourth beats of each measure).
What made techno different from the other genres of African American music? Techno was different because this was the period of time that technology was starting to take over the world. In this period of time, technology was starting to help advance society. Technology was taking jobs from hard working citizens. Techno music gave African Americans the chance to show society that they were worth something. Techno also had a great influence on Hip-hop music.
