Electronic music
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Electronic art music |
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Industrial music |
Synth pop |
Techno music |
House music |
Trance music |
Drum and bass |
Electronic music is a loose term for music created using electronic equipment. Any sound produced by the means of an electrical signal may reasonably be called electronic, and the term is sometimes used that way -- in music where acoustic performance is the norm, even the introduction of electronic amplifiers may touch off discussions of electronic music (jazz and folk music, for example, have gone through a good deal of argument about the topic).
As a category of criticism and marketing, however, electronic music refers to music produced largely by electronic components, such as synthesizers, samplers, computers, and drum machines. Theoretically, the music could include any of an array of other "instruments".
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2 Recent developments 3 References |
The earliest purely electronic instrument was the Teleharmonium or Telharmonium, developed by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. Simple inconvenience hindered the adoption of the Telharmonium: the instrument weighed seven tons and was the size of a boxcar. The first practical 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 used in the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen
In the years following World War II, Electronic music was embraced by progressive composers, and was hailed as a way to exceed the limits of traditional instruments. Modern Electronic composition is considered to have begun in force with the development of Musique concrete and tape recorders in 1948, only to rapidly evolve with the creation of early analog synthesizers. The first pieces of Musique Concrete were written by Pierre Schaeffer, who later worked alongside such avant garde classical composers as Pierre Henry, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen has worked for many years as part of Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music combining electronically generated sounds with conventional orchestras. Other well-known composers in this field include Edgar Varese and Steve Reich. (See the main article on Electronic art music for more information.)
At the Radiophonic Workshop, the sound special effects unit of the BBC, Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire created one of the first electronic signature tunes for television as the theme music for Doctor Who. A short OGG file sample of this can be found .
Although electronic music began in the world of classical (or "art") composition, within a few years it had been adopted into popular culture with varying degrees of enthusiasm. In the 1960s, Walter Carlos (now Wendy Carlos) popularized early synthesizer music with two notable albums The Well Tempered Synthesiser and Switched On Bach, which took pieces of baroque classical music and reproduced them on Moog synthesizers.
As technology developed, and synthesizers became cheaper, more robust and portable, they were adopted by many rock bands. Examples of relatively early adopters in this field are bands like the United States of America, The Silver Apples and Pink Floyd, and although not all of their music was primarily electronic (with the notable exception of The Silver Apples), much of the resulting sound was dependent upon the synthesised element. In the 1970s, this style was mainly popularised by Kraftwerk, who used electronics and robotics to symbolise and sometime gleefully celebrate the alienation of the modern technological world; to this day their music remains uncompromisingly electronic.
In jazz, amplified acoustic instruments and synthesizers were mixed in a series of influential recordings by Weather Report. Joe Zawinul, the synthesizer player in that group, has continued to field ensembles of the same kind.
Musicians such as Brian Eno, Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, the Japanese Isao Tomita, Kitaro and Tangerine Dream also popularised the sound of electronic music. The film industry also began to make extensive use of electronic music in soundtracks; an example of a film whose soundtrack is heavily dependent upon this is Stanley Kubrick's film of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange. Forbidden Planet had used an electronic score in 1956 and, once electronic sounds became a more common part of popular recordings, other science fiction films such as Blade Runner and the Alien series of movies began to depend heavily for mood and ambience upon the use of electronic music and electronically derived effects. Electronic groups were also hired to produce entire soundtracks, in the same way as other popular music stars.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a great deal of innovation around the development of electronic music instruments. Analogue synthesisers largely gave way to digital synthesisers and samplers. Early samplers, like early synthesisers, were large and expensive pieces of gear-- companies like Fairlight and New England Digital sold instruments that cost upwards of $100,000. In the mid 1980s, this changed with the development of low cost samplers. From the late 1970s onward, much popular music was developed on these machines. Groups like Heaven 17, Severed Heads, The Human League, Yaz, The Art of Noise, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and New Order developed entirely new ways of making popular music by electronic means.
The natural ability for music machines to make stochastic, non-harmonic, staticky noises led to a genre of music known as industrial music. Some artists, like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, and Severed Heads, took some of the adventurous innovations of Musique Concrete and applied them to mechanical dance beats. Others, such as Test Department, Einstürzende Neubauten, took this new sound at face value and created hellish electronic compositions. Meanwhile, other groups (Robert Rich, :zoviet*france:, rapoon) took these harsh sounds and melded them into evocative soundscapes. Still others (Front 242, Skinny Puppy) combined this harshness with the earlier, more pop-oriented sounds, forming Electronic Body Music (EBM).
The development of the techno sound in Detroit and house music in Chicago in the early to late 1980s, and the later UK-based acid house movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s all fuelled the development and acceptance of electronic music into the mainstream and to introduce electronic dance music to nightclubs. Electronic composition can create rhythms faster and more precise than is possible using traditional percussion. The sound of electronic dance music often features electronically altered sounds (samples) of traditional instruments and vocals. See dance music.
The falling price of suitable equipment has meant that popular music has increasingly been made electronically. Artists such as Björk and Moby have further popularized variants of this form of music within the mainstream. In the 1990s, a Turkish electronic musician, Murat Ses, published his electronic works, which incorporated original Levantine, Central Asian, Anatolian musics in a so-called trilogy with the concept: "The Timeless and Boundariless Context of Culture and Civilization".
A source for dissemination of information about electronic music is the London-based magazine The Wire, a monthly publication which covers the whole scene extensively. Other magazine sources include the San Francisco-based XLR8R, Urb and Grooves.
History
Recent developments
Genres
See List of electronic music genresNotable artists and DJs
See List of electronic music artists and DJsNotable record labels:
See List of electronic music record labelsReferences
See also
Bibliography
External links
