Styles of Trance Music

Acid Trance

Acid trance came from acid house and is one of the earliest forms of trance, combining the hard, abrasive sound of that acid house with the hypnotic pulsing beats of early trance. While most trance is often described as uplifting and melodic, acid trance is little of either. Instead, it's more beat-driven and less emphasis is placed on the vocals, creating a darker and heavier sound.

Progressive Trance

Progressive trance is the opposite of acid, which is a little surprising, considering it's an offshoot of that genre. Everything is smoother and more melodic, the rhythm is further back in the mix and the beat is less constant and pounding. Of all the trance subgenres, progressive is one of the most pop-friendly. While it is still created for the dance floor, many progressive trance artists are more focused on creating solid albums of music than dance singles.

Uplifting Trance

Also called "anthem trance" (although some would say the two are different genres), uplifting trance is just that--inspiring. While other subgenres of trance build their songs slowly to create a climactic peak at the end designed to get everyone moving, uplifting trance is almost nothing but peaks.

Vocal Trance

Vocal trance is kind of self-explanatory. While other trance subgenres may have vocals, the emphasis here is solely on the singing. Vocal trance almost has the same structure as pop music, and even some pop songs have been covered by vocal trance artists to wide mainstream appeal.

Goa Trance

Goa trance takes its name from a region of India known for its intense drug-heavy club scene. It has a strong psychedelic bent, no doubt because of the heavy usage of LSD in the scene from which it came. Because of its region of origin, it's not uncommon to hear Indian instruments such as the sitar mixed in with the electronic sounds and samples.

Psychedelic Trance

Related to Goa but still a genre of its own, psychedelic trance is less melodic than goa and features a harder sound reminiscent of acid trance. However, the beats in psychedelic trance tend to be faster than in acid, and the sound can be described as more "sci-fi," with space-themed tracks not uncommon.

Euro Trance

A central, neutral form of trance which is probably the simplest to understand. Euro trance is often very uplifting, it is usually around 140 - 145 bpm and has a lot of big rifts. The bass is generally quite heavy and it will often have a female vocal. Due to the big rifts, breakdowns and vocals this style of trance can also be referred to as commercial trance. This form of trance definitely falls into the instant "feel good" category - for many trance-heads, this is how it all started. Currently much harder edged Euro Trance is being referred to as "Hard Trance", in many ways it is similar to Euro, with big, but usually not so "euphoric", rifts and a bit faster, usually around 145 - 150 bpm, often using acid lines.

Hard Trance

Hard Trance, as the title suggests, blends traditional trance sounds and structure with harder elements more reminiscent of Acid and Techno. The tempo is generally increased to between 145 and 155 and the kick drum and bass is usually a focus for a clubbing audience.

Ambient Trance

The precursor to Progressive Trance, Ambient Trance is a dreamy, hypnotic and intelligent style of trance, mostly German, that utilizes atmospheric pads, epic melodic progressions and occasionally symphonic arrangements. It is not to be confused with commercial, mainstream trance from artists such as ATB or Darude. At times borrowing elements from the earlier acid movement, such as rezzy 303 leads and minimal percussion, but based more on the spiritual experience that Goa Trance has since trademarked, Ambient Trance is an often-forgotten but extremely influential style that took rave music to a higher and more profound level. Sometimes called "Oldschool Trance" because it has since been left behind for the harder styles popular today.

Tech Trance

Tech-Trance is a sub-genre within Electronic Dance Music that draws upon the Techno and Trance genres as the name suggests. Tech-Trance focuses more on the Techno elements, incorporates traditional elements of Techno, with its repetitive nature and strong 4/4 beat, while deriving the melodic elements from Trance. Tech-Trance compositions tend to have a tempo of around 135-150 Beats per minute. Tech-Trance tends to utilize a more driving sound while commonly using distortion as an effect on the melodies. Commonly, the melody containing strings and pads will begin once the beat has completely stopped, playing by itself much like a Trance breakdown. This melody will suddenly stop, leaving the drums and a completely different synth to begin, whereas Trance songs would generally continue with the same melody. The synths are short, repetitive and contain less note changes than Trance, often having the same note played in an interesting sequence. For an example, see Sam Sharp's "Deep". While breakdowns and builds within a song are important elements of many electronic genres, they are less prevalent in Tech-Trance. As a result, more abrupt stops and starts are used to increase the effect of sudden changes within the music. Vocals are also quite rare within the Tech-Trance genre, with only short phrases or single words normally incorporated. Tech-Trance is currently quite an underground genre, but is growing in popularity due to its hard-edged nature and growing list of producers.

Styles of House Music

House music has many sub-genres :

* Acid house: A Chicago derivative built around the Roland TB-303 bassline machine. Hard, uncompromising, tweaking samples produce a hypnotic effect. ex: Adonis, L.A. Williams
* Ambient house (see ambient music): Mixing the moody atmospheric sounds of New Age and ambient music with pulsating house beats. ex: The Orb etc.
* Baltimore House: A form of house music in Baltimore, Maryland Interchangeably referred as Baltimore Breaks built off of old samples drawing from a variety of genres of music and including heavy call and response and 'jingles' (singable choruses). Club music is still evolving in Baltimore, and has gone through periods of being driven by samples of popular music sped up and layered over existing loops from old house songs, to shouting out local neighborhoods and much more.
* Bassline house: A sub-genre of UK garage that began to emerge into the mainstream in the UK in late 2007. It is an evolution of UK garage but with more emphasis on bass. The scene started in 2002 at the Niche nightclub in Sheffield, which lends an alternative name for the genre.
* Bay Area House: Notable for its blend of Jazz, Funk, Soul, Deep and Disco vocal. It is often light and fun sounding. It is comparable to Chicago House, as Mark Farina has been a major influence on the scene. It is unlike house in that it is rooted in the Californian music scene, where it draws reference to its influences (Downtempo, Hip-Hop, Soul, Funk). Bay Area House often incorporates minimal jazz and funk riffs to carry the beat, and also includes sampled jazz and funk solos layered over its house rhythm. See Lance Desardi, Derrick Carter, JT Donaldson, and Andy Caldwell. Bay Area House record label pioneer is known to be OM Records, http://www.om-records.com.
* Blog house: Generally considered a pejorative term, Blog house is a catch-all for dance music primarily distributed through music blogs. Blog house breaks many of the established rules of house; abandoning the buildup-breakdown-buildup formula in favor of chaotic arrangement, including collaborations with rappers, and remixes of indie rock. It is often considered to be mainstreamed, and commercial. Its scene is more parallel to Rock & Myspace culture than it is to House Music Culture. It is not considered to be a true form of house music. The term was coined by Hollerboard user Baghdaddy, who later went on to form Nacho Lovers. It is more a form of the mashup/electro genres. ex: Justice, MSTRKRFT, Steve Aoki, Van She, etc.

* Chicago house: Simple basslines, driving four to the floor percussion and textured keyboard lines are the elements of the original house sound. ex: Jamie Principle, Steve Silk Hurley, Mr. Fingers, Nitro Deluxe, Farm Boy, Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Jungle Wonz, Chip E. etc.
* Deep house: A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm sometimes hypnotic melodies. ex: Gemini, Glenn Underground, Kevin Yost.
* Dream house: An oriented instrumental melody with relaxing beats. ex: Robert Miles, Nylon Moon.
* Disco house: A more upfront variant of house that relies heavily on looped disco samples. ex: Dimitri from Paris, Jordan Fields, DJ Sneak, Paul Johnson, Modjo, and Stardust, Stupid Disco, Shapeshifters, Freemasons.

* Dutch house: A Style of House music from the Netherlands. It has a more harder and elecronic edge, sound & beat. ex:Quazar, Dano, The Prodigy, Eq Lazer, Booming Support, Human Resource, Speedy Joe, Hardwell, Switch Krookers etc.
* Electro house: A style of dance music which has rapidly increased in popularity since the early 2000s. A common misconception is that electro house is influenced by early 80s Electro, when in fact it has a lot more in common with Electroclash, Synthpop and Italo disco. ex: Steve Angello, D. Ramirez.
* Fidget house: A style of house music that incorporates other dance music styles including rave, breakbeat and UK garage. ex. Switch and Hervé.
* Freestyle house: A Latin variant of NY house music, which began development in the early 1980s by producers like John Benitez. Seen by some as an evolution of electro funk.
* French house: A late 1990s house sound developed in France. Inspired by the '70s and '80s funk and disco sounds. Mostly features a typical sound "filter" effect. ex: Daft Punk, Alan Braxe, Le Knight Club, Synthique
* Funky house: Funky house as it sounds today first started to develop during the late 1990s. It can again be sub-divided into many other types of house music. French house, Italian house, Disco house, Latin house and many other types of house have all contributed greatly to what is today known as Funky house. It is recognizable by its often very catchy bassline, swooshes, swirls and other synthesized sounds which give the music a bouncy tempo. It often relies heavily on black female vocals or disco samples and has a recognizable tiered structure in which every track has more than one build-up which usually reaches a climax before the process is repeated with the next track. ex: Axwell, Kid Creme, Seamus Haji, Martin Solveig, Basement Jaxx, Uniting Nations The Original, Bob Sinclar, ATFC etc.
* Garage: This term has changed meaning several times over the years. The UK definition relates to New York's version of deep house, originally named after a certain style of soulful disco played at legendary club the Paradise Garage. It may also be called the Jersey Sound due to the close connection many of its artists and producers have with New Jersey such as the legendary Shep Pettibone and Tony Humphries at Zanzibar in Newark, NJ. There is also Garage House which is a style of US Garage. ex: Blaze, Colonel Abrahams, Phase II, Jomanda, NYC Peech Boys, etc. Not to be confused with speed garage or the British style nowadays called UKG or UK garage.
* Ghetto house: A derivative of Chicago house with TR-808 and 909 driven drum tracks. Usually contains call-and-response lyrics, similar to the booty music of Florida. ex: DJ Godfather, DJ Deeon, DJ Milton, DJ Funk, DJ D-Man
* Glitch House: House music mixed with Glitch music. ex: Oval etc.
* Groovin House: House Music with Groovy tempos, with a jazzy and uplifting rhythm.
* Handbag: A form of uplifting vocal house music mainly from around the mid 1990s and played in more commercial-orientated dance music venues. Takes its name from the notion of groups of girls dancing around a pile of their handbags on the dancefloor. Examples include Loveland, Nush, etc.
* Hardbag House: A darker & more harder version of Handbag House.

* Hard House: A style of house dating back to the early nineties, Hard House is defined by its aggressive sounds and distorted beats. One of the most recognizable of these is the Hoover sound, invented by Joey Beltram and recently re-popularized by groups like The Bloody Beetroots, leading to a small Hard House revival another of one of the most popular Hard House tracks is Felix- Don't You Want Me, 1992.
* Hi-NRG: Called "high energy". Derived from Dance music and Happy hardcore, you could say what happyhard is to techno, is what HI-NRG is to dance, it usually has female voices with natural pitch, its tempo is also around the same as techno, eg: DJ Nick Skitz, Miquel Brown, Kristine W, Paul Lekakis etc.
* Hip house: The simple fusion of rap with house beats. Popular for a brief moment in the late 80s. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers "Girl I'll House You." Other Hip-House artists include Mr. Lee, The Outhere Brothers, 2 in a Room, Ya Kid K and Freedom Williams.
* "House-pop": House-pop is more also known as "commercial dance" music as it is not strictly House nor strictly Dance-pop. House-pop is

the first cousins of Dance-pop. It usually features 4/4 beats and deep bassline as House and the incessantly catchy melodies of Dance-pop. ex: Krush, Bomb The Bass, Coldcut., Yazz, Madonna, Danni Minogue, Penthouse 4 etc.

* Pumpin House: A Style Of House Music that grew in popularity that relies on steady pumped up rhythms ex: Eric Prytz, The Housecrushers ect.
* Italo house: Slick production techniques, catchy melodies, rousing piano lines and American vocal styling typifies the Italian ("Italo") house sound. A modulating Giorgio Moroder style bassline is also a trademark of this style.
* Latin house: Borrows heavily from Latin dance music—Salsa, Brazilian beats, Latin Jazz, etc. It is most popular on the East Coast of the United States, especially in Miami and the New York City metropolitan area. Another variant of Latin house, which began in the mid 1990's, was derived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and is based on more Mexican-centric styles of music such as Mariachi. Artists include Artie The One Man Party (known best for "A Mover La Colita") and DJ EFX (known best for his remix of "Volver Volver").
* Leftfield house: Another House music sound from the Early Rave Scene. ex: Leftfield, Rhythmatic etc.
* Merenhouse: Merenhouse is the combination of Merengue and House music, particularly Garage/House or House-pop. This style is most popular in the same places Latin House is most popular.
* Microhouse: Is A derivative of Tech house & Glitch House with sparse composition and production. ex: Akufen, Gamat 3000, etc.
* Minimal House: House music mixed with Minimal. It has a very futuristic House sound. ex: Egotronic, Todd Sines, Alton Miller, etc.
* New York house: New York's uptempo dance music, referred to simply as club music by some. This type of house is popular in the extreme East Coast in areas like New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, New England, Boston, Philadelphia, and sometimes Baltimore and Washington DC.
* Rave House: The biggest of all Rave House music ex: 808 State, Altern8, Cola Boy, Liquid Oxygen, Shut Up& Dance, Bay Ford, Fast Eddie, Lil Louis etc.
* Piano house: Piano House is the cousin of Italo House. However, Piano House is filled with electronic Piano Strings. ex: baffa, Electric Choc, Liberation[disambiguation needed], Denno Lenny, System etc.

* Progressive house: Progressive house is typified by accelerating peaks and troughs throughout a track's duration, and are, in general, less obvious than in hard house. Layering different sound on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement. Some of this kind of music sounds like a cousin of trance music.
* Technohouse: House music with Techno that was popular in the Early Rave Scene. ex: Bizarre Inc., Tricky Disco, Forgemasters, Neux 21, Orbital, The Hypnotist, Cubik22, R&V, MK, Space Opera, Real 2 Real, Chubby Chunks, Basstonik, Man With No Name, Model 500 Unique 3, etc. It is not to be confused with Tech house, which is a latter version of Technohouse.
* Tech house: House music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation. ex: Benny Benassi, Dave Angel
* Tribal house: Popularized by remixer/DJ Junior Vasquez in New York, characterized by lots of percussion and world music rhythms.
* UK hard house: In the US, a harder, more aggressive form of Chicago house. Sometimes contains elements of Ghetto house, Hip house. ex: CZR, DJ Bam Bam, Abstract Beating System. In the UK, hard house was what is now known as Hard dance

* Vocal house: Composed of soulful vocals and often jazz loops.