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Electronic music is any music whose primary
sound-sources are either electronically generated or electronically
reproduced. Composers use these methods to create sounds not
otherwise available, to synthesize the sounds of acoustic
instruments, and to achieve complex rhythmic combinations
that might otherwise be unperformable.
Interest in sound experimentation was evident during the 19th
century, when such devices as the Componium, the Electromechanical
piano, the Electroharmonic piano, and the Tonametric instrument
were invented. In 1906, Thaddeus Cahill introduced the 200-ton
Dynamophone or Telharmonium, which produced sounds by AC-current-operated
dynamos. The celebrated pianist, composer, and aesthetician
Ferruccio BUSONI was sufficiently impressed by this device
to write favorably about it in his Sketch of a New Aesthetic
of Music (1907).
Electronic instruments of the 1920s included the Theremin,
the Ondes Martenot (later used by Olivier Messiaen) and the
Trautonium (used by Paul HINDEMITH). Interest in such devices
continued. Early in 1948, Pierre Schaeffer, a radio engineer
and broadcaster in Paris, conceived the idea of basing a musical
work on taped train sounds. The result, Etude aux chemins
de fer (Railroad Etude), was completed in April of that year.
It was the first piece of musique concrete: music in which
tape manipulation is applied to natural and mechanical sounds.
Schaeffer rapidly created four more etudes; the complete set
was broadcast over French radio on Oct. 5, 1948. This "concert
of noises" was the first public presentation of musique
concrete. Two years later, Schaeffer teamed with Pierre Henry
to produce the dramatic Symphonie pour un homme seul (One-Man
Symphony).
Meanwhile, a different technique, studio-produced composition
of pure electronic music, was being tried in the United States
and Germany. It may never be known who composed the first
purely electronic piece using no outside sound-sources. Herbert
Eimert and Robert Beyer produced such music as early as 1953
in the studio of Northwest German Radio, Cologne, West Germany.
A widely publicized concert of this music was presented there
in 1954. Later, a leading figure at this studio was Karlheinz
STOCKHAUSEN, who became internationally famous for his controversial
works and personality.
On Oct. 28, 1952, the first U.S. public concert of tape music
took place at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. It
included Vladimir Ussachevsky's Sonic Contours and Otto Luening's
Low Speed, Invention, and Fantasy in Space. Luening and Ussachevsky
were responsible for the establishment of the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center (Columbia University, New York City,
and Princeton University, N.J.).
The Olsen-Belar Sound Synthesizer, Mark I, with sound sources
that consisted of oscillators that produced wave forms containing
all possible harmonics, was developed in 1955 by RCA. An improvement
on this instrument, the Mark II, was obtained by the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center in 1959. Some composers who worked
with it, besides Luening and Ussachevsky, were Milton BABBITT,
Mario DAVIDOVSKY, Charles WUORINEN and Bulent Arel.
Later, smaller synthesizers were developed. The portable keyboard
models are ideal for concert or home use. They are especially
popular in ROCK MUSIC, Some early synthesizers were the Moog,
the Buchla, and the ARP. Some well-regarded current makes
are the Roland, the Casio, and the Yamaha. Today's electronic
laboratory includes synthesizers, recording equipment, often
some acoustic instruments, and computers.
At first the notation of electronic music was a problem; often
graphic symbols were used to approximate the sounds. Written
scores had to be produced to secure copyright. Since sound
recordings can now be copyrighted, notation is often unnecessary,
unless it is preferred by the composer or unless it is required
for live performances.
Today there are as many types of electronic music and performance
as there are types of listener and performer. Produced during
the first few decades of electronic music's history have been
tape pieces based on animal sounds, such as cats (Dika Newlin,
Purr) and pigs (Loran Carrier, Swine Lake; classical studio
electronic music (Stockhausen, Gesang der Junglinge; Babbitt,
Composition for Synthesizer); music for tape and live performers
(Robert Ashley, The Wolfman; Luening and Ussachevsky, Rhapsodic
Variations for Tape Recorder and Orchestra); music for synthesized
voice sounds (Charles Dodge, Speech Songs); transformations
and extensions of a solo instrument (Meyer Kupferman, Superflute,
for flute and recorded flutes); "realizations" of
classical works by electronic means (Walter/Wendy Carlos,
Switched-On Bach); tape loops going out of phase with each
other (Steve REICH, Come Out); music designed to be heard
only through recordings (Morton Subotnick, Silver Apples of
the Moon); and many more. The composer's (and performer's)
imagination is the only limitation of future possibilities.
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