The 1950s witnessed an increasing number of composers exploring electronic tape as an expressive medium. Their primary goal seemed to be experimenting with its technical possibilities such as reverberation and modulation.
At this time, there was an upsurge in interest for innovative electronic musical instruments such as Leon Theremin’s theremin and Friedrich Trautwein’s Ondes martenot and trautonium, designed respectively.
Composition
Electronic sound-producing equipment was quickly adopted as an active compositional technique by composers in various ways, producing works with vastly differing styles. Some early tape pieces were entirely composed by their composers themselves under improvisational conditions; most however were composed as traditional musical compositions then processed digitally – as with any form of music, artistic merit for these early tape compositions was determined primarily by what musical ideas they embodied and how well these were implemented in formal compositional structures.
As electronic instruments became more widespread for composing music, many composers began writing pieces tailored specifically for electronic use. Stockhausen composed Gesang der Junglinge (1958; Song of the Angel), written for tape and instruments, while Luciano Berio composed several notable compositions such as Differences (1958-60; Soundscapes) and Thema-Omaggio a Joyce (Hommage to Joyce; 1959).
Not content to experiment with sounds and record them onto tape, many composers employed special devices designed to alter the sounds of musical instruments through electronic means. These included reverberation, echo and frequency modulation devices controlled by simple oscillators generating basic waveforms like sine or square waves; others were managed through computer installations or microprocessors.
Emergence of these devices was certainly an important turning point in modern music’s development. At that time, 20th-century composers sought to break free from Classical-Romantic tradition of tonality by building new systems based on Neoclassicism or atonal/12 tone music techniques.
While some composers were aware of the limitations of electronic equipment, others worked improvisedly and anticipated its medium. Two notable works by Varese (Deserts and Poeme electronique for Philips Pavilion at 1958 Brussels World’s Fair) and Cage (1939; for RCA test records and percussion) that anticipated live electronic music were Deserts and Poeme electronique for Philips Pavilion as well as Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No 1 were works which foresaw its future evolution.
Electronics
Electronic music’s birth coincided with the advent of new technical resources. Audio frequency technology–such as sine and sawtooth wave generators, amplifiers and filter circuits–enabled composers to produce a wide array of sounds by manipulating its duration and intensity in fundamental frequency range, as well as its harmonic overtones.
The new equipment enabled composers to record and store sounds – whether electronic or microphoned; alter them singly or collectively using various techniques like modulation, reverberation or noise gating; replay and rerecord these altered sounds to produce rich musical structures of unprecedented complexity.
Early composers explored these possibilities by writing music that utilized a tape recorder. Work was most prevalent in Europe, where studios equipped for tape composition were commonly found within government-supported broadcast facilities. Meanwhile in the US there were only two prominent composers using tape composition regularly, Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky being two prominent examples.
These experimental composers were also concerned with a number of other issues, such as the collapse of Neoclassicism (a 20th-century style that combined classical and popular idioms); atonal 12-tone music; neo-expressionism pointillism intellectualism as well as other trends such as pointillism were all part of these composers’ concerns.
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio later adopted a more conceptual approach to using electronic instruments. Stockhausen utilized additive synthesis for his Gesang der Junglinge (1959-60, Song of the Young). Here sine waves are combined together into more complex waveforms using addition. During this same time frame, other inventors created an incredible variety of electronic musical instruments that offer new timbres not available with traditional instrumental acoustic systems. Some instruments, like the theremin (created in 1920 by Russian scientist Leon Theremin); ondes martenot (designed in 1928 by French musician and composer Maurice Martenot); and trautonium (created by German engineer Friedrich Trautwein in 1930), have become iconic due to being featured in major compositions written for them.
Technology
In this unit, you will explore the principles employed in contemporary electronic music production. Through various applied and analytical exercises utilizing Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology you will develop both practical and conceptual understandings of its use in music production, synthesiser- and sample-based virtual instrument technology being among them, in addition to analysing specific artists/music producers production techniques in depth.
Modern musical instruments can be traced back to early experiments with electronic sound-producing devices. At first, composers experimented with using these machines to produce new sounds by recording and manipulating recorded ones, often creating complex compositions whose aesthetic value depended upon how their components came together into a whole.
One of the more noteworthy developments was the invention and widespread deployment of electrical audio-frequency equipment that came into general use during the 1950s. At this point, basic circuits for sine, sawtooth, and square wave generators as well as amplifiers and filter circuits had been established – these instruments allowed composers to record electronic sounds via microphone as well as mic’d sounds; combine or combine montages of sounds together and edit or rerecord until reaching desired compositional result.
Tape music compositions of the 1950s were not only responses to technical possibilities of tape music but often times, also responses to the prevalent social conservatism at that time. Avant-garde composers took advantage of new electronic equipment available at this time to produce many memorable tape works with historical significance that still survive today.
Modern electronic music’s most direct ancestor was the invention and development of electromechanical and electrical musical instruments to emulate and replace existing musical instruments, most notably Laurens Hammond’s electric organ, first patented in 1934 and using additive synthesis (sine waves added together in various proportions to produce sound waveforms), its harmonic structure lent itself well to many great compositions such as those by Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Performance
Create and perform contemporary electronic music requires an array of creative techniques and approaches, as well as fluency with current technologies. In this unit you will gain an understanding of the principles involved in dance and pop music production using MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). You will gain both practical and conceptual experience producing beats, bass lines, melody parts and harmony parts for dance production or songwriting using this format.
Thaddeus Cahill made one of the earliest significant efforts at electrically producing musical sounds in the late nineteenth century with his creation of the Telharmonium (an instrument using rotary generators and telephone receivers to convert electrical signals to audible sounds). It served as an early precursor for electronic instruments like synthesizers.
In the 1920s, several developments that would later shape modern electronic music emerged. These included creating basic circuits for sine, square, and sawtooth wave generators; amplifiers; and filter circuits. Furthermore, mechanical acoustical recording was replaced by electrical recording that allowed for more detailed capturing of various sound waves.
Composers were fascinated with the capabilities of tape during the 1950s, leading them to produce early works of recorded electronic music. Many works employed tape as an expressive medium; other compositions focused more heavily on technical concerns and sound manipulation.
In the 1960s, electronic music was an immensely influential form of entertainment. Professional electronic bands emerged and offered musicians new opportunities for creating expressive and challenging musical structures. Furthermore, this genre prompted greater interest in conceptual aspects of electronic art which led to significant experiments in experimental music and noise during this era.