Electronic Music When electronic techniques first came to be used for musical purposes, the experimental field was fully contained within the term "Electronic music". Many of these early electronic compositions drew widespread interest, but little enthusiasm. Beginning in the 1960s, however, electronic techniques and instruments were embraced by popular musicians, eventually leading to more mainstream styles that also came to be embraced under the umbrella of "electronic music". Although both forms are still referred to as "electronic music" by their respective adherents, the term "art music" is generally used to specify the less mainstream of the two branches. History Electronic musical instruments date from the late 19th century. The futurists, Russolo and others, made crude electronic sound generators that were operated with hand cranks. Yves Klein, Marcel duChamp and other early 20th century surrealist artists experimented freely and publicly with electronic and unconventional musical works. During the 1920s, at public demonstrations of the Theremin Clara Rockmore frequently used the instrument to play violin parts for popular classical pieces. But it was not until the 1940s that they were adopted as a tool for the creation of non-traditional music. The foundations of modern electronic "art" music (hereinafter referred to simply as "electronic music") lie in the developing musical sensibilities of early 20th century symphonic music. Perhaps the most direct lineage can be drawn from the music of composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, who felt that contemporary music had begun to exhaust its potential, and that musicians would have to break away from the constraints of tradition before the art could advance. This belief was widely adopted amongst the musical avante-garde, and led to the exploration of atonality as a means to exceed the limits of classical harmony. Although atonality was refined to a great degree, some musicians felt that the simple use of traditional symphonic instruments was a serious limitation. It was the development of the tape recorder and musique concrète that alerted the musical community to the potential of electronic music as a means to surpass the limitations that were imposed by the use of traditional musical instruments. Concrete itself can be compared to a sonic collage, in which various natural and man-made sounds are spliced, mixed and looped on the tape recorder to form an integrated "piece". One notable characteristic of Concrete that drew strong interest was that with Concrete, the final product and the musical "score" are one and the same. As a result, there are no additional layer of abstraction and interpretation (such as a musical score, musicians or a conductor) between the composer and the "orchestra". This concept intrigued many experimental composers, many of whom soon adopted the technique. Much electronic music composition of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was accomplished at American and European universities, where large, expensive, state of the art electronic synthesizers and music systems were installed. Whilst composers like Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass explored repetitive minimalism, other composers produced odd assemblages of noises that were highly unusual, even startling, but very alien to traditional melodic, rhythmic, and organizational concepts. Blurps, beeps, squawks, rumblings, gurglings, almost cartoonish types sounds were common fare and could not be classified as "songs" or "concertos" in any conventional sense. These mid-20th century electronic compositions do not bear much resemblance to most electronica, rave, techno, trance, or chill musics developed since the 1980s. However much modern electronic music in these areas has been influenced deeply by this mid-20th century works, even if they sound nothing like them. Near cousins of this highly experimental electronic music might be the "industrial noise" music of bands like Lt. Caramel, Zoviet France, dadaist art ensembles and some of the more experimental musicians working in IDM and glitch music areas such as Autechre. Notable electronic art musicians Mario Davidovsky |
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