Electronic and experimental music has been in working progress since the 1800's. In its' most basic form, electronic music is created through the generation of sound waves by electrical means; and this is done by using computers, synthesizers, and other music technologies. Electronic music can be made through either digital or analog synthesis; and the difference lies in the way electricity is controlled. The music synthesizer is a device used to create electronic sounds by analog or digital means.

Never before was music so infinitely limitless in possiblity and at the same time so incredibly easy to make. The digital synthesizers of the 1970's made available a medium that allowed its' users to manipulate different tones and beats with amazing precision. Sound resources available to electronic music are unlimited and can be constructed from scratch, it's in the hands of any musician who wants to give it a try to make a complete tune/melody.

Just to name a few musicians involved on the Techno music evolution we find;

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1880s-1910s), a french composer who didn't use electronics either, but whose use of arbitrary key changes, impressionism, and dissonance unchained music from traditional european tonality and set the stage for everything from ambient music.

THADDEUS CAHILL (1890s-1910s), the ambitious american inventor who built some of the world's first electronic instruments, including the telharmonium in 1906, which occupied several floors of a warehouse (remember, this was before amplification!) and was meant to provide citizens with pleasant, piped-in, environmental music (not unlike muzak)

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1890s-1950s), a german composer who didn't use electronics at all, but who turned to the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do of the diatonic scale inside-out (it had been used and exhausted by western composers for nearly 200 years); replacing it instead with a system of twelve tones that do not 'rest' in any key and still sound harsh to western ears; all of which unwittingly opened the door for the exploration of non-western scales (such as those found in the indonesian gamelan and japanese flute music) and the atonality of noise music…

LUIGI RUSSOLO (1910-20s), the italian futurist painter who wrote an explosive pamphlet called "the art of noises" in 1913, championing the musical use of all sounds heard in our increasingly-industrialized and noisy world…

LEON TERMEN ('10s-'90s), whose own electronic instrument, invented around 1919, (called the theremin, controlled by subtle hand motions in the air), was the first electronic instrument to be readily used by composers. by the 30s and 40s, CLARA ROCKMORE ('30s-'90s) had become the premier theremin virtuoso, but the severe difficulty of playing the instrument relegated it to 'spooky' sounds for horror and science-fiction movies: among the best including forbidden planet (featuring the first all-electronic score, by LOUIS & BEBE BARRON), and lost weekend (1948, by MIKLOS ROSZA) MAURICE MARTENOT ('20s-'70s), whose eerie-sounding electronic instrument (called the ondes martenot) was the most widely accepted early electronic instrument, and now has vast repertoire of compositions (including several important pieces by OLIVIER MESSIAEN)

JOHN CAGE ('30s-early '90s), whose influence is hard to underestimate, opening western composition to zen ideals such as arbitrariness and chance (such as 1953's "4.33," which is 'performed' by a pianist who simply sits silently at a closed piano for 4 minutes, 33 seconds…so the ambient noise of the audience is the composition); whose 'prepared' pianos -- created by placing unusual objects under the mallets of a normal piano -- allowed one keyboard to have many different, percussive sounds ('proto-samplers,' in a way), and who experimented in the '30s and '40s with variable-speed tape players and amplification…not to mention his many other unusual musical ventures (often in the spirit of dada and 'serious' fun); such as the use of ordinary objects as instruments: flowerpots, electric buzzers, blenders, radios, spoons, etc (inspired in turn by RUSSOLO's futurist "art of noises" and ANTHEIL's 'junk' compositions of the '20s) MUSIQUE CONCRÈTE (late '40s-present), a movement begun in france by PIERRE SCHAEFFER and PIERRE HENRY in which natural sounds were recorded onto vinyl or magnetic tape, then drastically manipulated and arranged into compositions, resulting in a collage of the 'real' (strongly presaging digital sampling and the possiblities of today's technology)

EDGARD VARÈSE ('10s-early '60s), whose "poéme electronique" (a 1958 tape manipulation which was the culmination of the composer's entire 40-year career) changed the face of academic music forever, and who throughout the '20s-'30s composed some of the most influential works of the 20th century; such as 1931's "ionisation," scored solely for percussion, which had rarely been explored in western music; and who had also long predicted the 'liberation of sound' through technology… The recently-departed IANNIS XENAKIS (early '50s-00s), whose dense, forbidding works were an attempt to fully integrate music with mathematical concepts such as calculus and probability, and who turned the entire process of composition itself on its head by utilizing computers to calculate impossibly complex compositions

KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN (early '50s-present), whose large-scale, multimedia events from the late '60s-present are still among the most challenging works ever presented (including a 1994 performance for violin players and helicopters), and whose radical works of the '50s (including 'pure' sinewave compositions such as "electronic study no.1" and the harsh and chaotic "mikrophonie I," for percussion & microphone noise) were among the first to exploit the nearly limitless possibilities of the new music. VLADIMIR USSACHEVSKY & OTTO LUENING (early '50s-early '90s), who were the two pioneer US electronic composers of the early '50s (using mainly tapes), and who later established the COLUMBIA-PRINCETON ELECTRONIC MUSIC CENTER in 1958 (with MILTON BABBITT); a crucial nexus for the acceptance of 'serious' electronic music in the academic/composing world, whose well-equipped studio continued to be an important focal point for electronic experimentation for many years. WENDY CARLOS/ROBERT MOOG (early '60s-present), whose composer/keyboard-designer collaboration produced deliberately 'synthetic' versions of BACH and BEETHOVEN (see a clockwork orange from 1971 or switched-on bach from 1968), proving that electronic music could be accepted by the general public (look in thrift stores for switched!)

MILES DAVIS (late '60s-early '90s), whose seamless incorporation of electronic elements into the older, improvisatory art form of jazz was surprisingly organic, showing that electronic sounds could be just as soulful as 'real' ones (check in a silent way from 1968, bitches brew from 1969, or inspired albums by his collaborator HERBIE HANCOCK, with THE HEADHUNTERS)

SUN RA and his ARKESTRA (mid '50s-'90s), whose spaced-out jazz was some of the most innovative and experimental music ever made; whose space get-ups and claim of saturnian origins were a metaphor for the 'otherness' of african-american identity -- an escape to the 'outer realms' of white domination, and a strategy questioning the very nature of 'reality;' and who was also one of the earliest artists (in any field) to use a synthesizer, (the first recorded was a solovox organ, in 1953!)

JAMES BROWN (late 50s-present), 'the hardest working man in show business'; whose raw, driving funk of the '60s was the catalyst for early breakdancing (among other things) and was the major influence on KRAFTWERK (as well as a billion others), and who as a result is probably the most-sampled artist ever.

LA MONTE YOUNG (late '50s-present), whose minimalist, droning compositions set the stage for much of the work of TONY CONRAD, PHILIP GLASS, TERRY RILEY, STEVE REICH, and MEREDITH MONK (all early '60s- present); later, JOHN ADAMS and INGRAM MARSHALL (both '70s-present); establishing repetition as a key compositional motif (sound familiar? and don't forget APHEX TWIN's "icct hedral," a collaboration with GLASS); while YOUNG's wife MARIAN ZAZEELA creates ambient light shows that accompany many of his performances.

STEVE HILLAGE/MIQUETTE GIRAUDY (late '60s-present, now called SYSTEM 7 or 777), who created ambient soundscapes for art installations, including the most influential one which was released as rainbow dome musick in 1979…The japanese synthesizer virtuoso ISAO TOMITA (early '70s-present), whose electronic versions of classical compositions put the older works in a totally new and exciting context.

GEORGE CLINTON (early '70s-present), whose 'space funk' ideas from the early '70s-present influenced later technophile PRINCE and gave birth to electronic R&B.

LAURIE ANDERSON (late '70s-present), whose extravagant multimedia performances in the late '70s-early '80s (such as the epic 1983 work, united states) truly expanded the vocabulary available to electronic composition.

The japanese keyboard company ROLAND, whose little 'music boxes' (which came out from 1978-1986 and are called the 101, 202, 303, 505, 606, 707, 808, and 909) are still being figured out and tweaked, way beyond the original intent of the designers.

The 'industrial' scenes of late '70s-'90s europe and north america, whose music utilized both the primitive and the hyper-technological as important compositional tools (see THE YOUNG GODS, SKINNY PUPPY, THROBBING GRISTLE, early CABARET VOLTAIRE, EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN and CHRISLO HAAS -- among others -- for creative uses of electronics, found noise, sampling, etc…

A spate of techno-influenced releases by new producers in 1991-92 resulted in a rapid fragmentation and divergence of techno from the house genre. Many of these producers were based in the UK and the Netherlands, places where techno had gained a huge following and taken a crucial role in the development of the club and rave scenes. Many of these new tracks in the fledgling IDM, trance and hardcore/jungle genres took the music in more experimental and drug-influenced directions than techno's originators intended.

Detroit and "pure" techno remained as a subgenre, however, championed by a new crop of Detroit-area producers like CARL CRAIG, KENNY LARKIN, RICHIE HAWTIN, JEFF MILLS, DREXCIYA and ROBERT HOOD, plus certain musicians in the UK, Belgium and Germany.

The club/rave scene of late '90s-present in england THE LIBERATOR'S, LAWRIE IMMERSION, DDR and D.A.V.E THE DRUMMER, THE GEEZER, CARL HENDRICKSE amongs others which formed BACK TO THE PLANET; the mid '80s club scene in chicago (especially FRANKIE KNUCKLES' club THE WAREHOUSE, from which 'house' got its name); the mid '70s-early '80s breakdance/hip-hop scene in new york (perhaps the first underground scene to accept a totally electronic music), the '70s 'discotheque' and the beginnings of club culture (in the lounged-out '50s-'60s); the 'sound-systems' of '50s-'60s jamaica ('proto-raves' with turntables, djs, and toasters/rappers)The roots of techno go much deeper; into areas outside of music altogether…to issues of race, gender, economics (capitalism, commercialization, and the economic marginalization of entire cultures -- which, ironically, is often the catalyst for new musical forms), technology (somebody had to design all those keyboards and gadgets) these things are all essential towards a deeper understanding of techno and all music!

Information taken from Wikipedia and product of various musicians interviews