or even those that just listen to music, what's the difference between "trance" and "techno"?

or is it just a generational thing (techno came out a while back)

 

My take on the difference:

Techno has vocals (singing or rapping), trance does not.

 

Try this link
http://www.eurodancehits.com/dict.html

BTW trance with vocal is usually called vocal trance or hi-nrg trance.

 

Techno 10-20 years ago was the general term for all music which is now usually called electronica. Nowadays techno is just another genre of electronica. Very little techno actually has vocals despite what was posted above. There are a few sub-genres of trance that are very heavy on the vocals though. A lot of melodic and anthemic trance tracks use them and of course, duh, vocal trance.

http://www.ishkur.com/features/music/guide.htm Just don't pay much attention to the commentary, but the descriptions and examples are pretty on base. Probably more than you'd ever want to know.

 

Guess I'm a bit behind on the "scene"

My philosophy is to just listen, why waste your energy categorizing?