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Electronic Music

posted by the MusicMan, June 9th 2008

Electronic music refers to music that emphasizes the use of electronic musical instruments or electronic music technology as a central aspect of the sound of the music. Historically, electronic music was considered to be any music created with the use of electronic musical instruments or electronic processing, but in modern times, that distinction has been lost because almost all recorded music today, and the majority of live music performances, depend on extensive use of electronics. Today, the term electronic music serves to differentiate music that uses electronics as its focal point or inspiration, from music that uses electronics mainly in service of creating an intended production that may have some electronic elements in the sound but does not focus upon them.

Contemporary electronic music expresses both art music forms including electronic art music, experimental music, musique concrète, and others; and popular music forms including multiple styles of dance music such as techno, house, trance, electro, breakbeat, drum and bass, synth pop, etc.

A distinction can be made between instruments that produce sound through electromechanical means as opposed to instruments that produce sound using electronic components.

Examples of electromechanical instruments are the telharmonium, Hammond organ , and the electric guitar, whereas examples of electronic instruments are a Theremin, synthesizer, and a computer.

History

Late 19th century to early 20th century

Before electronic music, there was a growing desire for composers to use emerging technologies for musical purposes. Several instruments were created that employed electromechanical designs and they paved the way for the later emergence of electronic instruments. An electromechanical instrument called the Teleharmonium (or Telharmonium) was developed by Thaddeus Cahill in the years 1898-1912. However, simple inconvenience hindered the adoption of the Teleharmonium, due to its immense size. The first electronic instrument is often viewed to be the Theremin, invented by Professor Leon Theremin circa 1919–1920. Another early electronic instrument was the Ondes Martenot, which was most famously used in the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen as well as other works by him. It was also used by other, primarily French, composers such as Andre Jolivet.

[Post-war years: 1940s to 1950s

The tape recorder had been developed in Germany during the early 1930s. Whereas Wire recorders had been in use since 1898, the first practical tape recorder was called the Magnetophon (Angus 1984.)[citation needed] It wasn't long before composers used the tape recorder to develop a new technique for composition called Musique concrète. This technique involved editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds. The first pieces of musique concrète were written by Pierre Schaeffer, who later worked together with Pierre Henry. Karlheinz Stockhausen worked briefly in Schaeffer's studio in 1952, and afterward for many years at the WDR Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music, on two occasions combining electronically generated sounds with relatively conventional orchestras—in Mixtur (1964) and Hymnen, dritte Region mit Orchester (1967). Stockhausen stated that his listeners had told him his electronic music gave them an experience of "outer space," sensations of flying, or being in a "fantastic dream world" More recently, Stockhausen turned to producing electronic music in his own studio in Kürten, his last work in the genre being Cosmic Pulses (2007). The first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in America was completed by Louis and Bebe Barron in 1950.

The score for Forbidden Planet, by Louis and Bebe Barron, was entirely composed using custom built electronic circuits in 1956.

Two new electronic instruments made their debut in 1957. Unlike the earlier Theremin and Ondes Martenot, these instruments were hard to use, required extensive programming, and neither could be played in real time. The first of these electronic instruments was the computer when Max Mathews used a program called Music 1, later users were Edgard Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis. The other electronic instrument that appeared that year was the first electronic synthesizer. Called the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, it used vacuum tube oscillators and incorporated the first electronic music sequencer. It was designed by RCA and installed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center where it remains to this day.

In 1957, MUSIC, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music, was created by Max Mathews at Bell Laboratories.

The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now known as the Computer Music Center, is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in 1958 by Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening who had been working with magnetic tape manipulation since the early 1950s. A studio was built there with the help of engineer Peter Mauzey (Luening 1968, 48) and it became the hub of American electronic music production until about 1980. Robert Moog developed voltage controlled oscillators and envelope generators while there, and these were later used as the heart of the Moog synthesizer.

1960s to late 1970s

One of the first major public demonstrations of computer music was a pre-recorded national radio broadcast on the NBC radio network program Monitor on February 10, 1962. In 1961, LaFarr Stuart programmed Iowa State University's CYCLONE computer (a derivative of the Illiac) to play simple, recognizable tunes through an amplified speaker that had been attached to the system originally for administrative and diagnostic purposes. An interview with Mr. Stuart accompanied his computer music.

The first of these synthesizers to appear was the Buchla. Appearing in 1963, it was the product of an effort spearheaded by musique concrète composer Morton Subotnick. In 1962, working with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Subotnick and business partner Ramon Sender hired electrical engineer Don Buchla to build a "black box" for composition.

The theremin, an exceedingly difficult instrument to play, was even used in some popular music.

One influential pioneer and artist in this period was Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who added a keen musical ear to mere technological prowess.

Late 1970s to late 1980s

Throughout the seventies bands such as the Residents and Can spearheaded the electronic music movement. Can were one of the first bands to use tape loops for rhthm sections and the residents created their own custom built drum machine.

In 1979, UK recording artist Gary Numan helped to bring to electronic music into the wider marketplace of pop music with his hit "Cars" from the album The Pleasure Principle. Other influential artists in the 1970s and early 80s, who composed primarily electronic instrumental music and managed to reach beyond the academic sphere and into the popular realm, were Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Yello and Art of Noise.

Recent developments: 1980s to early 2000s

The beginning of the eighties saw analogue hardware gradually replaced by midi and digital hardware. In the late '80's, Derek May and other producers started the Techno and house movement. This blossomed in the late 80s with Acid House music. This music was usually made with an Atari ST and sound modules. As the early nineties came about new genres such as Trance and Drum and Bass developed. Towards the end of the nineties drum machines, synth modules and midi gradually became replaced by programs such as Cubase, Reason, Rebirth and Fruity Loops, all of which produced sounds within the computer without the need for external hardware. Whilst the ease of attaining this software and the growth of the internet has meant that it is easier for artists to get their music out there it also means there are many electronic music producers of a low standard. Throughout this period there has also been a growth of experimental and electro acoustic music as well. Artists like the Aphex Twin have also pioneered new genres such as Glitch.

Circuit Bending

Circuit bending is the creative short-circuiting of low voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects, children's toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators. Emphasizing spontaneity and randomness, the techniques of circuit bending have been commonly associated with noise music, though many more conventional contemporary musicians and musical groups have been known to experiment with "bent" instruments.

Overview

Genres

Electronic music, especially in the late 1990s fractured into many genres, styles and sub-styles, too many to list here, and most of which are included in the main list. Although there are no hard and fast boundaries, broadly speaking we can identify the experimental and classical styles: electronic art music, musique concrète, acousmatic music from approximately 1945 to the present; the industrial music and synth pop styles of the 1980s; styles that are primarily intended for dance such as italo disco, techno, house, trance, electro, breakbeat, drum and bass (aka jungle), electronic jazz (aka Nujazz) and styles that are intended more as experimental styles or for home listening such as electronica, glitch, Breakcore and trip hop.[citation needed] There is also another genre known as minimal, as a result there is a fusion of minimal and techno defined as minimal techno. Minimal techno is a minimalist sub-genre of techno music, is characterized by a stripped-down, glitchy sound, a fairly steady rhythm (usually around 120-135 BPM), repetition of short loops, and subtle changes.[citation needed] This kind of electronic music is popular at clubs and parties. The proliferation of personal computers and the MIDI interface beginning in the 1980s brought about a new genre of electronic music, known loosely as chip music or bitpop. These styles, produced initially using specialized sound chips in PCs such as the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST among others, grew primarily out of the demoscene.

Notable record labels

Until 1978 and the formation of Mute Records, there were virtually no record labels that dealt with exclusively electronic music. Because of this dearth of outlets, many of the early techno pioneers started their own. For example, Juan Atkins started Metroplex Records a Detroit-based label, and Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva started their hugely influential Plus 8 imprint. In the United Kingdom, Warp Records emerged in the 1990s as one of the pre-eminent sources of home-listening and experimental music.