One day a guy dies and finds himself in hell. As he’s wallowing in despair, he has his first meeting with a demon…

Demon: Why so glum?

Guy: What do you think? I’m in hell!

Demon: Hell’s not so bad. We actually have a lot of fun down here. Are you a drinking man?

Guy: Sure, I love to drink.

Demon: Well you’re gonna love Mondays then. On Mondays all we do is drink. Whiskey, tequila, Guinness, wine coolers, diet tab and Fresca… we drink till we throw up and then we drink some more!

Guy: Gee that sounds great!
Demon: You a smoker?

Guy: You know it!

Demon: All right! You’re gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world and smoke our lungs out. If you get cancer – no biggie- you’re already dead, remember?

Guy: Wow…that’s…awesome!

Demon: I bet you like to gamble.

Guy: Why, yes I do.

Demon: Wednesdays you can gamble all you want. Craps, blackjack, Roulette, Poker, Slots, whatever… If you go Bankrupt…well, you’re dead anyhow.

Demon: You into drugs?

Guy: Are you kidding? Love drugs! You don’t mean?…

Demon: That’s right! Thursday is drug day. Help yourself to a great big bowl of crack, or smack. Smoke a doobie the size of a submarine. You can do all the drugs you want; you’re dead who cares! O.D.!!

Guy: WOW !! I never realized Hell was such a cool place!!

Demon: You gay?

Guy: No….

Demon: “Ooooh, you’re gonna hate Fridays.”

Here’s some of the most ridiculous complaints made by holidaymakers to their travel agent, taken from research by Thomas Cook and ABTA.

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel “inadequate”.

A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she’d been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

“The beach was too sandy.”

A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.

“Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women.”

“We bought ‘Ray-Ban’ sunglasses for five euros (£3.50) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake.”

“No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.”

“It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home.”

“My fiance and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

“I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends’ three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller.”

“The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the accommodation’. We’re trainee hairdressers – will we be OK staying here?”

“There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners.”

“We had to queue outside with no air conditioning.”

“We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white.”

“We had to queue outside with no air conditioning.”

“I was bitten by a mosquito – no-one said they could bite.”

“I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”

“It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ’siesta’ time – this should be banned.”

“On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food at all.”

“We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels.”

I heard about this story few months ago, but I was skeptical about the claim so I didn’t give it a lot of attention. But few days ago, Fox news and many other news agencies, published the story because they believe they have trusted information about the claim.

A holy man in India claims that he didn’t eat or drink for 70 years. He claims to have been blessed by a goddess when he was 8-years-old, which has enabled him to survive without sustenance. But who is going to believe that right? Normally, people die within days if they didn’t eat or drink, how this person could survive all these years without essential minerals and water?

To test that claim, over 30 specialists and doctors in India put the holy man to test. The long-haired and bearded yogi is under 24-hour observation in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Two cameras have been set up in his room, while a mobile camera films him when he goes outside, guaranteeing round-the-clock observation.

Since the experiment began on April 22, Jani has had no food or water and has not been to the toilet. This tells us that the claim is correct, and this man has really some kind of un-natural power.

“The observation from this study may throw light on human survival without food and water,” said Dr. G. Ilavazahagan, who is directing the research. “This may help in working out strategies for survival during natural calamities, extreme stressful conditions and extra-terrestrial explorations like future missions to the Moon and Mars by the human race.”

This is still un-solved mystery, and the researchers are still evaluating Jani’s situation to learn more about how the body functions without food.

The following questions were set in last year’s GCSE examination in England

These are genuine answers from 16 year olds, not very bright, but entertaining, 16 year olds. 

Q. Name the four seasons
A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink
A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists

Q. How is dew formed
A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire

Q. What causes the tides in the oceans
A. The tides are a fight between the earth and the moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins the fight

Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on
A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed

Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections
A. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election

Q. What are steroids
A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs

Q. What happens to your body as you age
A. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental

Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty
A. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery

Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes
A. Premature death

Q. What is artificial insemination
A. When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow

Q. How can you delay milk turning sour
A. Keep it in the cow

Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorised (e.g. The abdomen)
A. The body is consisted into 3 parts – the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I, O and U

Q. What is the fibula?
A. A small lie

Q. What is the most common form of birth control
A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium

Q. Give the meaning of the term ‘Caesarean section’
A. The caesarean section is a district in Rome

Q. What is a seizure?
A. A Roman Emperor.

Q. What is a terminal illness
A. When you are sick at the airport.

Q. What does the word ‘benign’ mean?
A. Benign is what you will be after you be eight

Q. What is a turbine?
A. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head

Burj Al Arab – one of the world’s most luxurious hotels – aside from all the mystique and wealth it’s known for, also has the highest tennis court in the world. Its space, located at 210 metres of altitude can also become a heliport for emergency landings or guest traffic.

Another extravagance from this sumptuous hotel, in Dubai, to which very few mortals have access. I confess, even if I was given access to it, I would have some difficulty in running around after a tennis ball at 210 metres above the ground.

Here are some pictures of the interior of this piece of heaven on earth.

The Divje Babe flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was found at the Divje Babe archeological park located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. It has been suggested that it is the world’s oldest known musical instrument, but this is in dispute. The continuing dispute notwithstanding, the artifact remains on prominent public display as a flute in the National Museum of Slovenia (Narodni Muzej Slovenije) in Ljubljana. The museum’s visitor leaflet maintains that manufacture by Neanderthals “is reliably proven”.

Divje Babe (pron. Deew-yeh Bah-beh) is the oldest archaeological site in Slovenia. The site is the location of a horizontal cave, 45m long and up to 15 m wide. It is located 230m above the Idrijca river, near Cerkno, and is accessible to visitors. Researchers working at this site have uncovered more than 600 archaeological finds in at least ten levels, including 20 hearths, the skeletal remains of cave bears, and have studied climate change during the pleistocene. According to the museum, the alleged flute has been associated with the “end of the middle Pleistocene” and the time of Neanderthals, about 55,000 years ago

In 1995, Ivan Turk found an approximately 43,100 year-old juvenile cave bear femur at the Divje Babe site, near a Mousterian hearth. Because it has characteristics of a flute, he has called it the “Neanderthal flute”.Whether it is actually a flute created by Neanderthals is a subject of debate. It is broken at both ends, and has two complete holes and what may be the incomplete remains of one hole on each end, meaning that the bone may have had four or more holes before being damaged. The bone fragment is the diaphysis of the left femur of a one to two year-old cave bear, and is 113.6 mm in length. The maximum diameters of the two complete holes are 9.7 and 9.0 mm. The distance between the centers of the holes is 35 mm^.

Soon after its publication, the status of the object as a musical instrument came under scrutiny by taphonomist Francesco d’Errico (et al., 1998), Holderman and Serangeli (1999), and Chase and Nowell (1998, 552), all of whom suggest it is more likely to be the result of carnivore chewing than Neanderthal construction. The bone has been damaged on all sides by the chewing of a carnivore.

If the bone is a flute it would be evidence of the existence of music 43,000 years ago, and of the making of music by Neanderthals. Thus Ivan Turk has asserted that whether the holes are of “artificial” (made by Neanderthals) or “natural” (punctures from a carnivore bite) origin is the “crucial question.”

Despite the disagreement about the bone’s markings, the bone has become a noted attraction in its Slovenian museum, publicized on official Slovenian websites and is a source of pride for the country. In the West, paintings were made, models constructed, and musicians such as Biology Professor and flautist Jelle Atema have played them publicly.

The arguments for one or the other interpretation are based on the available taphonomic evidence derived from direct study of the artifact, as well as related studies of Neanderthal tools and of carnivores of the time period.

An ancient script that’s defied generations of archaeologists has yielded some of its secrets to artificially intelligent computers.

Computational analysis of symbols used 4,000 years ago by a long-lost Indus Valley civilization suggests they represent a spoken language. Some frustrated linguists thought the symbols were merely pretty pictures.

“The underlying grammatical structure seems similar to what’s found in many languages,” said University of Washington computer scientist Rajesh Rao.

The Indus script, used between 2,600 and 1,900 B.C. in what is now eastern Pakistan and northwest India, belonged to a civilization as sophisticated as its Mesopotamian and Egyptian contemporaries. However, it left fewer linguistic remains. Archaeologists have uncovered about 1,500 unique inscriptions from fragments of pottery, tablets and seals. The longest inscription is just 27 signs long.

In 1877, British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham hypothesized that the Indus script was a forerunner of modern-day Brahmic scripts, used from Central to Southeast Asia. Other researchers disagreed. Fueled by scores of competing and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to decipher the script, that contentious state of affairs has persisted to the present.

Among the languages linked to the mysterious script are Chinese Lolo, Sumerian, Egyptian, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Old Slavic, even Easter Island — and, finally, no language at all. In 2004, linguist Steve Farmer published a paper asserting that the Indus script was nothing more than political and religious symbols. It was a controversial notion, but not an unpopular one.

Rao, a machine learning specialist who read about the Indus script in high school and decided to apply his expertise to the script while on sabbatical in Inda, may have solved the language-versus-symbol question, if not the script itself.

“One of the main questions in machine learning is how to generalize rules from a limited amount of data,” said Rao. “Even though we can’t read it, we can look at the patterns and get the underlying grammatical structure.”

Rao’s team used pattern-analyzing software running what’s known as a
Markov model, a computational tool used to map system dynamics.

They fed the program sequences of four spoken languages: ancient
Sumerian, Sanskrit and Old Tamil, as well as modern English. Then they gave it samples of four non-spoken communication systems: human DNA,
Fortran, bacterial protein sequences and an artificial language.

The program calculated the level of order present in each language.
Non-spoken languages were either highly ordered, with symbols and structures following each other in unvarying ways, or utterly chaotic.
Spoken languages fell in the middle.

When they seeded the program with fragments of Indus script, it returned with grammatical rules based on patterns of symbol arrangement. These proved to be moderately ordered, just like spoken languages.

As for the meaning of the script, the program remained silent.

“It’s a useful paper,” said University of Helsinki archaeologist
Asko Parpola, an authority on Indus scripts, “but it doesn’t really further our understanding of the script.”

Parpola said the primary obstacle confronting decipherers of fragmentary Indus scripts — the difficulty of testing their hypotheses
— remains unchanged.

But according to Rao, this early analysis provides a foundation for a more comprehensive understanding of Indus script grammar, and ultimately its meaning.

“The next step is to create a grammar from the data that we have,”
he said. “Then we can ask, is this grammar similar to those of the
Sanskrit or Indo-European or Dravidian languages? This will give us a language to compare it to.”

“It’s only recently that archaeologists have started to apply computational approaches in a rigid manner,” said Rao. “The time is ripe.”

There were plenty of newsworthy events in the year 1930, but which do we still talk about today? Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul, the planet Pluto was discovered, and Agatha Christie’s first full-length Miss Marple novel rolled off the presses, for example. Oh yes, and world football as we know it came into being with the inaugural FIFA World Cup™ in Uruguay.

Qualifying was as yet unheard of. A grand total of 13 teams accepted invitations to compete, four from Europe, eight from South America and a team representing the United States. The draw for the group stage was left until all the teams had safely arrived in Uruguay. Once underway, the tournament produced football at its contemporary best. By the end, the host nation won through and became the first team to lay hands on the coveted trophy, then known as Victory or simply as the World Cup.

By the time of the second edition in Italy four years later, interest in the global showdown had soared. Thirty-two countries took part in a qualifying round to determine the 16 finalists – and once again, the hosts carried off the honours.

If all good things really come in threes, hosts France should have won the third FIFA World Cup finals. But it was not to be: the French made it to the quarter-finals but were beaten by holders Italy. TheSquadra Azzurri duly went on to claim the world crown for the second time in a row, cementing their enduring reputation as formidable exponents of the game.

Brazil emerge
The grim events of the Second World War meant a 12-year gap until the cream of the world game gathered again in 1950. It later emerged that Dr. Ottorino Barassi, the Italian vice-president of FIFA, hid the trophy in a shoe-box under his bed throughout the war, intent on preventing it falling into the hands of occupying troops. In 1946, the trophy was officially renamed in honour of then FIFA President Jules Rimet, who had worked tirelessly to preserve the spirit and structures of the game during the years of conflict.

The starting field in Brazil for the 1950 finals again numbered just 13 nations. Following a league-based preliminary round, Brazil, Sweden, Spain and Uruguay played off for the trophy. A Seleçãoneeded just a point from their meeting with Uruguay to seal the title, but a crowd officially recorded as 199,954 – estimates vary from 174,000 to as many as 205,000 – watched in mounting horror as theMaracanazo (The Maracana Disaster) unfolded. One of the biggest upsets in footballing history ended with the Uruguayans sealing a second triumph.

The next shock outcome rapidly followed. Germans refer to the events of four years later as ‘The Miracle of Berne’, as Sepp Herberger’s West Germany went to Switzerland in 1954 and beat the seemingly invincible Hungarians 3-2 in the Final. In terms of innovation, the 1954 tournament was the first time fixed squad numbers were assigned to all players.

It was also easily the biggest event of its kind thus far, with a new record number of nations embarking on qualifying. The Asian Confederation was founded that very year and entered teams from Japan and Korea, with Egypt representing Africa in the first truly global edition of the event. Sixteen teams earned the right to compete in Switzerland, and this was the size of the starting field right through until the 1982 finals in Spain, when it rose to 24.

O Rei illuminates Sweden and Mexico
In 1958, the show in Sweden belonged to a certain 17-year-old by the name of Pele, a major contributor to Brazil’s maiden FIFA World Cup triumph. Just Fontaine of France scored 13 goals at the tournament, a record which still stands today, and the finals witnessed a first-ever goalless draw, a meeting between England and Brazil. Sweden 1958 was also the first FIFA World Cup to be broadcast around the world on TV.

Brazil retained the world crown in Chile four years later, but 1966 finally saw a host nation triumph once again, as England defeated West Germany 4-2 in a thrilling and controversial final at Wembley.

The Brazilians were back to the sublime best for the 1970 finals in Mexico, sweeping aside the competition and taking home the Jules Rimet trophy in perpetuity in honour of their third triumph. For the second and last time since 1950, no player was sent off during the tournament. The finals also saw the first use of substitutes, and the introduction of yellow and red cards. Viewers at home could tell the difference too: the FIFA World Cup was broadcast in colour for the first time.

At the tenth edition of the finals in 1974, the honour of becoming the first recipients of the new FIFA World Cup Trophy fell to the West German hosts, although the tournament is often fondly remembered for the startling and revolutionary Total Football practised by beaten finalists the Netherlands, featuring all-time legends Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens.

Another of the great footballing nations finally registered a maiden triumph in 1978, as Argentina hosted and won the event. It was to prove the end of the road for a great Dutch generation, runners-up for the second time in a row, and then not present at all for the first 24-team finals in Spain four years later. That tournament was won by a resurgent Italy.

Diego and Zizou excel
As Pele is to Brazil, so is Diego Maradona to Argentina. The diminutive midfielder led La Albiceleste to their second world crown at Mexico 1986, and also featured in a re-run of the final against West Germany at Italy 1990. But on that second occasion, Franz Beckenbauer’s side exacted revenge and the Germans drew level with Brazil and Italy on three FIFA World Cup triumphs apiece. The Argentinians earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first team not to score in a FIFA World Cup final – and also of losing two players to red cards during the match.

Ahead of the 1994 finals in the USA, a record 147 nations started out on the qualifying road. For the first time in history, the Final was decided on penalties, Brazil defeating Italy in the decisive shoot-out to secure a fourth triumph.

The records continued to tumble in the years that followed. The 1998 tournament in France was comfortably the biggest-ever event of its type, with a starting field of 32 and a total of 64 matches played. The name of Zinedine Zidane will forever be associated with the hosts’ victory.

Brazil’s triumph at the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, the first time the event was held in Asia, meant the South Americans could claim the distinction of winning the famous trophy on every continent which had staged the finals up to that point. And in 2006, Italy beat hosts Germany in the semi-finals to settle the clash between two three-time winners in their favour. Fabio Cannavaro and Co went on to beat France on penalties in Berlin and earn a fourth star for the national jersey.

And what of 2010? New records and fresh milestones look a formality, as the world’s biggest single sporting event decamps to yet another new continent. Can Brazil pull further clear with a sixth triumph, or will the Italians retain the trophy and draw level on five? Or could an African side open a new chapter in the long and exciting history of the game? The footballing world can hardly wait for the action to start.

(FIFA.com) Sunday 6 June 2010

House music is a style of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino, and gay communities, first in Chicago, then in New York City and Detroit.  It eventually reached Europe before becoming infused in mainstream pop & dance music worldwide. House music is strongly influenced by elements of soul- and funk-infused varieties of disco. House music generally mimics disco’s percussion, especially the use of a prominent bass drum on every beat, but may feature a prominent synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb- or delay-enhanced vocals.

►Musical Elements

House music is uptempo music for dancing, although by modern dance music standards it is mid-tempo, generally ranging between 118 and 135 bpm. Tempos were slower in house music’s early years.
The common element of house music is a prominent kick drum on every beat (also known as a four-to-the-floor beat), usually generated by a drum machine or sampler. The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts. The drum track is filled out with hi-hat cymbal patterns that nearly always include an open hi-hat on eighth note off-beats between each kick, and a snare drum or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar. This pattern is derived from so-called “four-on-the-floor” dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially the 1970s disco drummers. Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a more complex sound, and they tailor the mix for large club sound systems, de-emphasizing lower mid-range frequencies (where the fundamental frequencies of the human voice and other instruments lie) in favor of bass and hi-hats.
Producers use many different sound sources for bass sounds in house music, from continuous, repeating electronically-generated lines sequenced on a synthesizer, such as a Roland SH-101 or TB-303, to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from whole stereo recordings of classic funk tracks or any other songs. House bass lines tend to favor notes that fall within a single-octave range, whereas disco bass lines often alternated between octave-separated notes and would span greater ranges. Some early house productions used parts of bass lines from earlier disco tracks. For example, producer Mark “Hot Rod” Trollan copied bass line sections from the 1983 Italo disco song “Feels Good (Carrots & Beets)” (by Electra featuring Tara Butler) to form the basis of his 1986 production of “Your Love” by Jamie Principle. Frankie Knuckles used the same notes in his more famous 1987 version of “Your Love”, which also featured Principle on vocals. Electronically-generated sounds and samples of recordings from genres such as jazz, blues and synth pop are often added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House songs may also include disco, soul-style, or gospel vocals and additional percussion such as tambourine. Many house mixes also include repeating, short, syncopated, staccato chord loops that are usually composed of 5-7 chords in a 4-beat measure. Techno and trance, which developed alongside house music, share this basic beat infrastructure, but they usually eschew house’s live-music-influenced feel and Black or Latin music influences in favor of more synthetic sound sources and approach.

►History

Precursors

The Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City -
House music is a descendant of disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, with celebratory messages about dancing, love, and sexuality, all underpinned with repetitive arrangements and a steady bass drum beat. Some disco songs incorporated sounds produced with synthesizers and drum machines, and some compositions were entirely electronic; examples include Giorgio Moroder late 1970s productions such as Donna Summer’s hit single “I Feel Love” from 1977, and several early 1980s disco-pop productions by the Hi-NRG group Lime. House was also influenced by mixing and editing techniques earlier explored by disco DJs, producers, and audio engineers like Walter Gibbons, Tom Moulton, Jim Burgess, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, M & M and others who produced longer, more repetitive and percussive arrangements of existing disco recordings. Early house music producers like Frankie Knuckles created similar compositions from scratch, using samplers, synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines. The hypnotic electronic dance song “On and On”, produced in 1984 by Chicago DJ Jesse Saunders, had elements that became staples of the early house music sound, such as the 303 bass synthesizer and minimal vocals. It is sometimes cited as the ‘first house music record’, although other examples from the same time period, such as J.M. Silk’s “Music is the Key” (1985) have also been cited.

Etymology

The origins of the term “house music” are disputed. The term may have its origin from a Chicago nightclub called the The Warehouse which existed from 1977 to 1982. The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay black and Latino men, who came to dance to disco music played by the club’s resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles. Although Knuckles left the club in 1982 and it was renamed Music Box, the term “house”, short for Warehouse, is said to have become popular among Chicagoans as being synonymous with Knuckles’ musical selections as a DJ before becoming associated with his own dance music productions, even though those didn’t begin until well after the closure of The Warehouse. Chip E.’s 1985 recording “It’s House” may also have helped to define this new form of electronic music. However, Chip E. himself lends credence to the Knuckles association, claiming the name came from methods of labelling records at the Importes Etc. record store, where he worked in the early 1980s: bins of music that DJ Knuckles played at the Warehouse nightclub was labelled in the store “As Heard At The Warehouse”, which was shortened to simply “House music”. Patrons later asked for new music for the bins, which Chip E. implies was a demand the shop tried to meet by stocking newer local club hits. Larry Heard, aka “Mr. Fingers”, claims[citation needed] that the term “house” reflected the fact that many early DJs created music in their own homes, using synthesizers and drum machines, including the Roland TR-808, TR-909, and the TB 303 Bassline synthesizer-sequencer. These synthesizers were used to create a house music subgenre called acid house. Juan Atkins, an originator of Detroit techno music, claims the term “house” reflected the exclusive association of particular tracks with particular DJs; those tracks were their “house” records (much like a restaurant might have a “house” salad dressing). This last reference goes in hand with the idea that as disco music began to lose popularity many club DJ’s or ‘House DJ’s’ replaced the originals with these newer stripped down versions of disco hits, still incorporating the high energy elements to create this new sound.

►House music Styles

• Acid house : A Chicago derivative built around the Roland TB-303 bassline machine. Hard, uncompromising, tweaking samples produce a hypnotic effect.

• Ambient house : Mixing the moody atmospheric sounds of New Age and ambient music with pulsating house beats.

• Chicago house : Simple basslines, driving four-on-the-floor percussion and textured keyboard lines are the elements of the original house sound.

• Deep house : A slower variant of house (around 120 BPM) with warm sometimes hypnotic melodies that originated in San Francisco.

• Epic house : A variant of progressive house featuring lush synth-fills and dramatic (some would say pretentious) beat breakdowns.

• Freestyle house : A Latin variant of NY house music, which began development in the early 1980s by producers like John Jellybean 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. e.g. Daft Punk

• 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, although the original Garage sound was much more of an eclectic mix of many different kinds of records. The UK version is pronounced “ga-raaj”. 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. Not to be confused with speed garage or the British style nowadays called UKG pronounced “garridje”.

• Ghetto house : A variation from Chicago that features minimal, 808 and 909 drum machine driven tracks, and profane (sometimes sexually explicit) lyrics.

• Hip house : The simple fusion of rap rhymes with house beats. Mainly popular for a brief moment in the late 80s. Most famous record is Jungle Brothers “Girl I’ll House You.”

• Hard house : House music on the harder side, leaning more towards aggressive ‘hoover’ type sounds. The style was generally fast tempo.

• Hi-NRG : Called “high energy”. Popular in the gay scene, sometimes reminiscent of freestyle house.

• 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 Salsa and Brazilian beats, most notably in ” Brazil over Zurich.” This style was perfected and proliferated by DJ Reyna J in Chicago’s underground scene in the late 1990s.

• Minimal House : (or Microhouse) Simple, 4/4 beats (usually around 125-130 beats-per-minute) usually only barely accompanied by sparse, percussive effects, synthesizer work, and simplistic vocals.

• New York house : New York’s uptempo dance music, referred to simply as club music by some.

• Pop house : The use of house production styles to make traditional pop artists more acceptable on the dancefloor results in the pop house phenomenon.

• 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.

• Pumpin’ House : Developed in the late 90′s and related to French house, Pumpin’ House also often samples disco, rock, jazz, and/or funk loops (sometimes creating dense layered textures) and usually makes extensive use of filters, but gains its appellation from its heavy use of compression, which makes tracks surge and pulse. It is characterized by intense, up-front drum programming, heavy funk influence, and very emphasized basslines, often sampled from live players. Famous producers include Olav Basoski ( Holland), Grant Nelson ( UK), and Monkey Bars ( US). Typical BPM range is 127-133.

• Sexy house : Sexy house draws its sounds from soul and funk with a 4/4 beat, and is sometimes confused with an acid jazz sound. Sexy house doesn’t feature as much synthesizer sounds (but does occasionally use cheesy 1980s synth samples) as other genres, but typically features horn sections, electric pianos and congas, but it is less jazzy or downtempo as trip-hop. Typical beats per minute are 125~128. The melody of this style is inspired from 1970s black soul and funk, and it features strong bass drum sound, with a softer higher frequencies. It is found played in bars and restaurants.

• Tech house :  Tech substitutes typical booming house kickdrums with shorter, often distorted kicks, smaller hi-hats, and noisier snares. House’s funky jazz loops are replaced with techno-sounding synth lines. Closely related to microhouse.

• Tribal house : Popularized by remixer/DJ Junior Vasquez in New York, characterized by lots of percussion and world music style rhythms.

• Ultra house : Extremely fast house beats typically 160 to 220 beats per minute, the same speed as “jungle” music.

•Electro house : Sometimes resembles tech house, but often influenced by the “electro” sound of the early 1980′s, aka breakdancing music, via samples or just synthesizer usage.
Electro house is a subgenre of house music that rose to become one of the most prominent genres of electronic dance music today. Stylistically, it combines the four to the floor beats commonly found in house music with harmonically rich analogue basslines, abrasive high-pitched leads and the occasional piano or string riff. The tempo of electro house ranges approximately from 120 to 130 bpm. Dirty house is a derivative of electro house, which is often much more commercial in its appeal and in general features more vocals. Electrotech is a darker variation of electro house mixed with the sound of tech house.

The use of the word “electro” to describe this style of modern house music is contentious, and creates an ambiguity between electro house and classic electro, with which it bears little resemblance.

can you feel it? turn up the volume!!! make some noize!!!!!

Coming Up – An Interesting Article About House Dancing