Drum & Bass History
  > Electronic Music History > Drum & Bass History
    ELECTRONIC MUSIC                
    > Late 19th cent. early
    20th cent.
    > 1940s to 1950s
    > 1960s to late 1970s
    > Late 1970s to late
    1980s
    > 1980s to early 2000s
   
     
  The breakbeat is what loosely speaking defines the music as drum and bass. Generally speaking, this rhythm stripped down to its raw bones is played using a kick drum sound and a snare, the tempo being at around 160 - 180 beats per minute with the beats on the 1, 3, 6, 7 quaver (or half) beats, alternating between the kick and the snare.  
   
   
   
  Drum and bass is also known as Jungle, a moniker stemming from a rough area in Kingston, Jamaica originally known as Concrete Jungle. It was likely named after this area due to the harshness or roughness of the beats and rhythm. By the mid-1990s, the term Jungle on the British scene had come to refer to a rougher, darker style of drum and bass influenced by the raggamuffin dance hall tradition and favouring ragga-style MCs, repetitive sampled drum loops and distorted bass (rather than the melodic vocals, programmed drums and floaty synthesizer ambience common in so-called 'intelligent' drum and bass). Modern 'dark' drum and bass showcases highly programmed and complex beats running between 160 and 180 BPM, with synth leads that strongly emphasize the sub-bass frequencies, and frequently make use of various cuts and breaks in order to keep the dancing audience from becoming bored and losing energy.  
     
     
     
ELECTRONICA
   
    > Post-rave fusions
    > Growing commercial
    interest
   
   
     
     
AMBIENT
   
    > Styles of ambient :
    music
   * Organic ambient music
   * Nature inspired
     ambient music
   * Isolationist ambient
     music
   * Ambient electronic
     music
   * Ambient dub
   * Ambient groove
  There are many views of what constitutes "real" drum and bass as it has many scenes and styles within it, from heavy pounding bass lines to liquid funk and downright 'chilled out' elevator music. It has been compared with jazz where the listener can get very different sounding music all coming under the same music genre, because like drum and bass, it is more of an approach, or a tradition, than a style. Drum and bass, however, progresses at a rapid pace, tunes sounding old and of dated style after only a few years.  
   
   
   
   
   
     
  Relationship to other electronic music styles  
     
    Recently the drum and bass genre, evolving in the same manner as other electronic music sub-genres such as house, and Goa trance, has become much more specific as a genre and minimal. For example, whereas many rhythms and samples were utilized in older drum and bass (such as the "amen break"), most modern drum and bass features exclusively what is known as the funky drummer rhythm, and distorted bass lines with less melodic elements.  
     
DRUM & BASS
   
    > History
    > Musicology
   
   
    Intelligent dance music (also known as "IDM"), popularized by Aphex Twin, features many of the same types of rhythms used in drum and bass and is generally focused on complexity in programming and instrumentation. Amongst its main proponents include Squarepusher.  
     
         HOUSE MUSIC    
    > Late 1960s to early
    1980s
    > Early 1980s-Late
    1980s : Chicago years
    > Late 1980s-Early
    1990s : British
    Connection
    > Social aspects of
    raves
    > Late 1980s to early
    1990s : United States
    > Early 1990s to mid 
    1990s : " Summer Love"
    > Mid-1990s & beyond
    > The rise of the UK
    "superclub"
   
   
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
       
             

TECHNO

           
    > History
    > Musicology
           
           
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