History - Precusors

House music is a descendant of disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, salsa, rock and pop 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.

Other stylistic influences include New Wave, Reggae, European synthpop,industrial and punk, hip hop, and the sparse electronic music of kraftwerk — Trans-Europe Express was played in New York discos in 1977.

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.