Electronic music: history and genres

In short: Electronic music is created through electronic sound generation or processing instead of purely acoustic instruments. From early experimental studio work to today’s global club sounds, it has grown into a vast, diverse universe of genres.

In more detail: Early pioneers used tape splicing and synthesizers to create entirely new sounds that weren’t possible with acoustic instruments.

In detail

• Early pioneers: Composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen were already experimenting with electronically generated sounds in the studio in the 1950s.
• Synthesizer development: Analog synthesizers from the 1960s onward let musicians shape sounds directly electronically rather than recording them.
• Disco and early club music: In the 1970s, electronic elements increasingly merged with dance music, paving the way for later genres.
• Techno and house: In the 1980s, genres emerged in cities like Detroit and Chicago that still shape club culture worldwide today.
• Digital production: Computers and software synthesizers made producing electronic music accessible to many people starting in the 1990s.
• Genre diversity: From ambient to drum and bass to EDM, an enormous range of styles exists today, each with its own listening habits and communities.
• Live performance: DJs and live electronic artists often use hardware like sequencers and controllers to reinterpret studio productions on stage (audioformate-mp3-flac-und-co).