Theorising EDM (Electronic Dance Music) Composition Knowledge

This research project will develop a theoretical framework for the composition and production of techno, a genre of electronic dance music (EDM).

The research problem this project will address is the lack of research into the musical and production techniques that govern electronic popular music in general and techno specifically.

Techno is consistently the highest selling EDM genre on Beatport and producing EDM is an activity pursued by millions of enthusiasts.

The pandemic has increased the number of people writing their own electronic music at home using digital technology, but the techniques of advanced approaches to techno production remain the domain of a small number of professionals whose activities do not include to educate enthusiasts.

Music theorists and musicologists have so far covered only a few isolated topics and explored fragmented specific examples of EDM production.

The project consists of four principal objectives: identify a range of techniques, and map their hierarchical stratification, that professional artists use to produce techno tracks that are popular on the dancefloor and/or commercially successful; map the decision making process and creative strategies that can underlie the professional production of a techno track; organise the various musical aspects of techno production in a comprehensive theoretical framework; explore the affordances of spatialisation in techno production and performance.

By employing musicological analysis, spectromorphological analysis, qualitative interviews and practice-led/based research to explore techno production praxis, this project will synthesise a theoretical framework that will make a significant contribution to the fields of record production, creative process studies, popular music studies and 21st century music practice.

This theoretical framework will provide researchers and producers with powerful new understandings of popular music in general and techno production in particular.