At UC Santa Cruz, students take several different electronic music courses. Not all are music majors – some come from fields as varied as engineering or the arts.
Frost Electronic Music Ensemble (FEME) is an innovative collective of Frost School of Music undergraduate and graduate students that is committed to pushing the limits of traditional composition and performance by exploring analog and digital technologies. Their works incorporate everyday objects, musical instruments and toys, live electronics, fixed media installations and performance installations – as well as everyday items found around home such as everyday objects for daily life use or performance installation pieces.
Courses
UCSC offers both undergraduate and graduate classes in Electronic Music at both undergraduate and graduate levels, typically within a music composition context, to take advantage of technology to amplify composers’ creative works. Students are encouraged to experiment with various electronic equipment provided, supported by faculty with expertise in this area. In addition, there are state-of-the-art facilities for both live media as well as fixed media production available at the university.
Electronic music first made its debut during the early to mid-20th century. Pierre Schaeffer became one of the pioneers of this form in 1948 when he experimented with studio realizations and musique concrete, using equipment like disc cutting lathes, four turntables, multichannel mixers, filters and an echo chamber in his work.
In the 1970s, musicians started using synthesizers in their bands and recordings. By the late 1980s, synthesizers had become common in bands – often alongside guitarists, bassists, and drummers – enabling bands to add keyboardists for synth-pop influenced tunes like traditional pop/rock music, yet creating new sounds to expand musical vocabulary and extend musical lexicons.
Recently, advanced computer technology has allowed musicians to experiment with new ways of engaging with music production technologies. Laptronica performances have gained in popularity and a culture of circuit bending has developed around modifying electronic instruments. Furthermore, digital audio workstations provide endless opportunities for electronic music creation.
UCSC’s Electronic Music program is one of the most comprehensive in its field. This degree program incorporates instruction in sound design, computer-based music generation and electronic/electro-acoustic/intermedia performance with traditional musical studies to give graduates a thorough grounding. Graduates leave this degree prepared for advanced studies as well as careers as composers or performers.
Students enrolled in an Electronic Music course typically learn to utilize various hardware and software tools, including analog and digital oscillators, samplers, sequencers and acoustic processing units. Furthermore, these devices can be interacted with using computer-based programming languages, and knowledge gained is applied towards producing original works – be that one piece of music, concert performances or installation art projects.
Studio Facilities
No matter your musical endeavors – from learning a new instrument to creating multimedia pieces – the School of Music provides cutting-edge facilities that will enable your success.
UCSC’s Experimental Music Studios (EMS) are among the world’s most advanced, featuring seven studio spaces dedicated to research, creation and production of electroacoustic music. Equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software solutions, access is restricted to undergraduate Music Majors studying Composition or Music Technology or CS+Music; graduate students studying Composition; as well as active participants enrolled in an EMS course.
EMS Composition Studios and classroom are carefully acoustically optimized to allow for exploration of computer technology in musical composition, featuring double-block walls, floating floors, special lighting systems and mazed ventilation. Each composition studio contains digital and analog recording equipment as well as modular synthesizers ranging from classic analog models to the most modern MIDI gear – with special attention paid to double-block walls and floating floors, special lighting systems and mazed ventilation.
An adjacent room serves as classroom instruction in audio-video editing, while a multichannel production studio allows students to compose, mix and produce electronic music. EPD studios feature various consoles and control surfaces as well as industry standard microphones and output processing hardware. A machine room houses racks of computers and servers containing the software required for studying electronic production and design.
STRUM’s large composition, production and recording studio features three well-equipped Mac Pro workstations designed specifically to meet each student’s specific requirements. Additionally, there are classic analog modular synthesisers as well as contemporary MIDI synths, along with microphones and outboard processors for outboard processing needs. A closed circuit video system enables teachers to demonstrate equipment and software effectively to classes as large as 25 students simultaneously; student feedback indicates this helps them quickly understand how to operate all equipment faster.
Performance Opportunities
Electronic music encompasses an expansive range of techniques and instruments. Beyond computer-based composition and recording, electronic music includes live performances using synthesizers and other instruments (guitars, turntables and vocalists) controlled by digital signal processing; performances may include improvisatory group interaction, fixed media or performance installation works; students interested in this area can join various ensembles or workshops dedicated to exploring these different modes of performance, as well as concerts that showcase student works experimental nature as well.
Twentyth-century concert pieces span from simple arrangements of traditional popular melodies to avant-garde experiments with electronic devices, and from simple arrangements of traditional popular melodies to complex multimedia effects. There has also been an impressive body of experimental theatre and film scores, tape or other acoustic recordings as well as works with elaborate multimedia effects.
Between World Wars I and II, electronic music first began making significant advances. By the early 1920s, basic circuits had been designed for sine, square and sawtooth wave generators as well as amplifiers and filter circuits; mechanical recordings were gradually replaced by electrical recordings, making it possible to create music that could be transmitted over radio or television broadcasts and heard through speakers.
At the same time as modern electronic music was developing, its founding principles were also being explored by pioneers of musique concrete (or acousmatic art). Pierre Schaeffer utilized a disc cutting lathe to cut vinyl disks for his Cinq etudes de bruits piece, while Edgard Varese experimented with studio realizations and tape parts.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, synth-pop became a wildly popular form of music, popularised by pioneering acts such as Yazoo, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club Talk Talk Japan Eurythmics among many others. This style can be distinguished by repetitive rhythms with high repetition rates as well as electronic devices to generate sound patterns using synthesizers and other electronic synthesisers to produce distinctive soundscapes.
Since the early 1990s, personal computer development has inspired an upsurge in interest in modular synthesizers. These sound-synthesis systems enable musicians to craft their own instruments and produce sounds themselves rather than downloading prefabricated tracks off the Internet. Furthermore, this trend has contributed to a new form of electronic performance known as laptop/desktop music which features genres like glitch, dubstep, dance-punk music in nightclubs as well as on dance radio stations; all can be heard anywhere between nightclubs and radio stations!
Graduate Programs
At all levels – bachelors, masters, and doctorate – musicians have access to an intensive curriculum that integrates scholarship with performance. While the emphasis lies primarily in Western art music studies, students also explore world music cultures across both art and vernacular traditions. A world-class performing faculty provides private instruction.
Comprehensive program offering graduate degrees for advanced studies in composition, musicology, ethnomusicology and history of musical styles as well as electronic and experimental music. A doctoral degree requires original research in some area of study.
In the 1950s, electronic musical instruments began to emerge and electronic composition techniques made their debut appearances. By the end of this decade, basic circuits for sine, sawtooth, and square wave generators as well as amplifiers, filter circuits, loudspeakers were readily available. Magnetic tape technology enabled users to edit together fragments of natural and industrial sounds from recorded tape recordings into musique concrete that first emerged in Paris 1948 followed by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Elektronische Studie I and II by 1953.
Computers were an instrumental force during this era of electronic music. Lejaren Hiller produced Illiac Suite for String Quartet and MUSIC I, one of the earliest computer-assisted composition programs that utilized algorithmic methods for musical creation, in 1956; during that same year John Cage wrote his legendary composition I Am Changing with the Wind in a room filled with fans and mechanical equipment.
Frost Electronic Music Ensemble at UCSC comprises undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds who explore experimental techniques using everyday objects, music instruments and toys, live electronics and fixed media. Each semester the group hosts a concert featuring works composed by its members as well as composers spanning all musical genres.
In the music department’s graduate degrees are awarded on the basis of a written portfolio which must include both a dissertation or creative project and public performances. Students must fulfill at least 60 course credits prior to receiving their degrees – these credits must include courses related to: