Can techno music be an academic subject? Is it worthwhile to engage in scientific debate about this art form, which is now over 40 years old? Is techno even art – and how and according to what criteria can this be assessed?

These questions seem outdated and antiquated today. And yet, in musicology – a discipline that has existed since the 19th century and claims to be able to provide information about music from all eras and worlds – academic research on techno still leads a shadowy existence. While social scientists have long discussed techno as a social phenomenon, journalists, fans and DJs themselves have published accounts of their experiences, and even theologians have attempted to explain their community’s enthusiasm for techno, musicology remains too caught up in its old-fashioned concepts of art: According to this view, music is art if it is notated in sheet music and thus fixed for all time, originates from an artistic genius, and has been consumed and canonised by the educated middle classes. Author, work and reception thus follow clear patterns.

And for all music to which this does not apply, such as techno, the path to the academic world is, if not difficult, then at least rocky.

From the club to the lecture hall: Focus on techno teaching in Heidelberg

Just a few years ago, lecturers who offered lectures or seminars on techno were met with disdain. “Yuck. You don’t listen to that music, do you?” a university president asked me in 2010 after I told him how much I enjoyed both formats and how enthusiastic the students were about them. Such opinions are much less common today, but neither the scepticism nor the gaps in research have disappeared. An important step towards recognition was the designation of techno as a cultural asset worthy of protection and intangible cultural heritage by the UNESCO Commission.

At least Berlin’s techno culture has thus received the highest social recognition in the cultural sphere, and hopefully others will follow – and thus also attract the attention of the sciences.

This summer, Germany’s oldest and most traditional university will also discover how rewarding it can be to engage with techno:
This semester, Heidelberg will host its first ever lecture series entitled “Man – Machine – Music. The Phenomenon of Techno in its Beginnings and Foundations” and a seminar entitled “Techno Parades from the Beginnings to Today” will be held in Heidelberg this semester, both of which I will have the privilege of leading.

The focus here is not on party or drug culture, nor on other contexts, but rather on discussing the musical processes, aesthetic ideas, performative practices and (natural) religious connotations of the music.

Knowledge in the bass flow: science meets techno practice

The lecture focuses in particular on the beginnings of techno culture, its origins, its protagonists and early ideas, and traces the common thread that has run through the genre from the very beginning: creative musical discourse with machines of all kinds. The advanced seminar examines the phenomenon of moving music and discusses selected examples of modern techno parades from the last 35 years.

The highlight: an excursion to Rave the Planet in Berlin on 12 July 2025, where we will not only watch, but also – thanks to the support of Ellen Dosch-Roeingh – actively participate as helpers and take several looks behind the scenes of Rave the Planet.

A highlight of the lecture so far was the visit of Dr. Motte, founder of Rave the Planet (formerly Love Parade), together with Ellen Dosch-Roeingh to our Heidelberg lecture on 20 May 2025.

They provided exciting insights into the history, present and future prospects of the legendary techno parade and were then available to answer many questions from the students. What could science wish for more than this direct, productive exchange, in which we learn from each other and understand each other better?

This first visit will not be the last to Heidelberg, I am sure. And I am excited to see what else we will discover together: Rave on!