House music is strongly influenced by elements of the early to mid 1970s soul- and funk-infused dance music style of disco. House music takes disco's use of a prominent bass drum on every beat and developed a new style by mixing in a heavy electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb- or delay-enhanced vocals.

House music is the descendant of the 1970s dance style of disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, salsa, rock and pop with a progressive, pro-diversity message. In the late 1970s, disco songs began incorporating electronic sounds, such as Giorgio Moroder's landmark production of Donna Summer's hit single "I Feel Love" from 1977. In the same year, Kraftwerk's album Trans-Europe Express began being played in New York discos; this album contains a number of the elements and samples that later appeared in techno and drum and bass.In the early 1980's, DJs in Chicago first started to experiment with house music by mixing double copies of disco music together at the same time. By using this double copy technique, DJs could repeat verses, skip bridges and extend choruses, making essentially a remix of the original disco track. This double-copy remixing eventually led to producers creating their own beats for djs to spin, as opposed to remixing old disco tracks.

House music was developed in the houses, garages and clubs of Chicago and Detroit, and it was produced for local club-goers in the "underground" club scenes, rather than for widespread commercial release. As a result, the recordings were much more conceptual, longer than the music usually played on commercial radio. House, techno, electro and hip-hop musicians used analog synthesizers and sequencers to create and arrange the electronic elements and samples on their tracks.

House music "humanized" the new electronic instruments by combining live traditional instruments and percussion and soulful vocals with preprogrammed electronic synthesizers and "beat-boxes".

Main stream record stores often did not carry these 12 inch vinyl singles, as they were not available through the major record distributors. In Chicago, records stores such as Importes Etc., State Street Records, JR’s Music shop and Gramaphone Records were the primary suppliers of this music. The record-store Importes Etc, is believed to be where the term “house” was introduced as a shortening of "Warehouse".

The music was still essentially disco until the early 1980s when the first stand-alone drum machines were invented. House tracks could now be given an edge with the use of a mixer and drum machine. This was an added boost to the prestige of the individual DJs. Underground club DJs like Ron Hardy and radio jocks The Hot Mix 5 played Italo Disco tracks like "Dirty Talk" and the "MBO Theme" by Klein M.B.O., Early B-Boy Hip Hop tracks such as Man Parrish's "Hip Hop Be Bop" and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force's Planet Rock and Looking for the Perfect Beat as well as electronic music by Kraftwerk; these genres were influential to the Chicago genre of House.

"House music." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 Sep 2008, 16:44 UTC. 18 Sep 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=House_music&oldid=239322024>.