Talk:Electronic Art Music/Archive 1

Introductory paragraph

"The first quarter of the 20th century was often referred to as the Mechanical Age, which overlapped and shifted into the Electronic Age. The last quarter of the 20th century marked the beginning of the revolutionary Computer Age, in the throes of which we now find ourselves." is this paragraph even necessary? i'm deleting it, if anyone cares enough to save this grandiose tripe go ahead and revert

the beatles

The Beatles begun using electronic techniques a year before to issuing the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". By april, 1966, when starting to record songs for the album "Revolver" they begun using vari-speed recording desks, filtering, extreme compressing, sound modulation (Leslie speaker), loops, backwards tapes, reverse envelopes, feedback, and tapes from sound libraries. They used all those electronic techniques on the song "Tomorrow Never Knows". By 1968, John Lennon had had some mail correspondency with Stockhausen, and paid homage to him by composing "Revolution 9" (assisted by producer George Martin, who was trained in classical music) which has many similarities to "Hymns" by Stockhausen. The "number nine" in Revolution 9 is very similar to "neuf the nine" in Stockhausen's Hymns. I don't know any other pop musician of that time who was making electronic music as well as pop music.

jean michel jarre

i think jean michel jarre should be added to the list. he is one of the most significant electronic music artists, he took electronic music to a new level, has inspired many other artists and much more. i think it's unfair that he's not on the list. i'd done this by myself but english isn't my native lang, and i don't want to make any mistakes.

He's a pop musician who happens to use synthesizers. He does NOT belong on this page. He has the compositional skills of an 8 year old, at best. (And I love the guy, don't get me wrong - but we need to keep a clear head here.)

electroacoustic

there is a merge notice on electroacoustic suggesting it should be integrated with this page. i'd disagree with a merge because, although it can be argued to be a subgenre of electronic art music, "electroacoustic" is a well known term in it's own right and deserves it's own article. maybe a mention somewhere on this artile regarding it would do to tie the two together? --MilkMiruku 15:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I also disagree with the merge, and will remove the merge notice. ∴ here…♠ 07:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Electroacoustics, defined

I propose that the definition of electroacoustics be "sound from loudspeakers". This creates the metacategory for the entire discipline.

Part of the discussion is about whether instrumental emulation is in the same field as concrete poetry or soundscaping for example. Electroacoustics (ea) as here proposed allows for the easier development of sub-catogrizations based upon a number of (overlapping) criteria.

I feel that there is / was an initial confusion introduced when "electroacoustic music" was categorized as being "a language". Possibly in the broadest sense of the word this is true, but is at the universal level of "the language of film and video". Film and video share the capturing and quantization of image, but the contents run from MTV to home films, to animation, to surveillance cameras, to commercial film and video releases etc.

The broad definition of electroacoustics provides an umbrella under which one can find sound design, soundscaping, audio design for games, radiophonic art, sound for installations, web-based sound, algorithic and interactive processes, and will include recording (live, edited, studio. synthesized) and all of the other 'implications' of the uses of technology for the production, storage and distribution of sound.

For continued discussion, please join the email list: cec-conference http://cec.concordia.ca/cec-conference/index.html

70.81.100.209 02:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC) Kevin Austin, Nov 27, 2005 21:15 EDT Montreal

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Yes, but there is information relevant to this subject which has not been highlighted. Apologies, but this is a rather sketchy overview [refering to the original entry] of 'electronic art music'. Also, the suggestion to redefine 'electroacoustic music' is not required; a specific term for 'music presented over loudspeakers' already exists, namely, acousmatic. There is a historical lineage that can be traced from - what would probably be best described as - electroacoustic music, through to acousmatic art; via electronic music, musique concrete, and computer music. This should not be overlooked, or for that matter, understated. It is probably worth amalgamating all of the above areas under a separate entry such as 'contemporary art music' or 'sonic art'. If I find time I will contribute but people should research a little better before submitting entries. Please see the following: Chadabe J.,1997, Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music, Prentice Hall, NJ. Emmerson S.,1986, The Language of Electroacoustic Music, Macmillan Press, London. Roads C., 1996, The Computer Music Tutorial, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Griffiths Paul, 1995, Modern Music and After: Directions Since 1945, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Regarding the above unsigned entry … The proposed definition is for electroacoustics, not for electroacoustic "music". (Please note the number of uses of the word "music" in the previous two entire.) A reading of the literature (mostly French) on acousmatics reveals that this sub-genre is a language constraint (definition of allowable sources and types of transformations), and limitations on presentation (multiple loudspeakres, no live performers). The historical lineage of electroacoustics predates harnessing electricity, and includes the Edison acoustic cylinder recordings. The importance of the presentation of sound through loudspeakers had been felt for more than half a century before musique concrete was invented.

Discussions of bringing electroacoustics as a discipline into the category of being a sub-set of "music" is, IMV, a failure to acknowledge that not all sound from loudspeakers is "music" (in a non-metaphysical sense). And I would agree completely that people need to research well before submitting entries.

70.81.101.153 00:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Montreal, 2006 - I – 12 (19:35)

Notable Electronic Art Musicians

Why is the list gone?

Why does the post war entry fail to mention Stockhausens work at Studio for Electronic Music WDR Cologne?

Why have we renamed Electronic Music to Electronic Art Music?

Why isn't this article called Electronic Music? It talks about Electronic Music, but has changed the historic name of it!

How to rename it to its genuine name?

Naming

The term "electronic music" (e. m.) has many facetes, may be too many. If I buy an electronic doorbell with "21 popular melodies", is this performing e. m.? We have some difficulties to deny this as long as we stick to the simple defintion that e. m. is "music produced with electronic devices".

One of the first theorists of e. m. saw this problem very clearly. The vinyl LP was available and the use of electronic means to produce trivial music was absolutely certain. Therefore Werner Meyer-Eppler stated in

[Winckel, Fritz, (Hsg.), (1955), Klangstruktur der Musik, Neue Erkentnisse musikelektronischer Forschung, Verlag für Radio-Foto-Kinotechnik GMBH]

that the transfer of allready known musical structures or the imitation of mechanical instrument sound is not sufficient in order to call a piece e. m. In other words: he required that the composer of serious e. m. must be able to show that the compositorial structure absolutely depends on the usage of electronic means. Two examples will clarify this: 1) pop music is mostly electronically made today. But the trivial compositorial structures of these "works" could be as well performed by mechanical instruments, drums, piano etc. The sound will be different, the music will still be recognizeable. 2) Stockhausens "Gesang der Jünglinge" uses tape loops with hundreds and thousends of little tape pieces, spliced together and sometimes played with incredible speed. It is impossible to realize these structures with mechanical instruments. It is also impossible to do the voice-speech transformations. These are part of a complex composition structure. It is impossible to realize this structure with mechanical means. So we have genuine e. m. here.

Many people tried to escape of the ambiguity by using the term "electro acoustic music". I think this is a complete failure, since any music is by it´s very nature acoustic. Without acoustic sound wave propagation we can not hear anything. I think this comes from the misunderstanding that mechanical instruments like guitar or xylophone are called "acoustic" in certain circles.

Electronic Art Music is therefore not such a bad move.

m.c.

We're not supposed to make up a new name for the music in this article. It's called Electronic Music. There are other things called Electronic Music too, yes, that is right. Wikipedia is not supposed to change the name to Electronic Art Music, because that is changing history. I think that this article must be renamed to Electronic Music. e.l.y. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.83.157.3 (talk • contribs) 09:57, November 20, 2006

See and edit the existing Electronic Music. ∴ here…♠ 21:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

German Contributions

I understand that some of the important texts regarding the German developments in e. m. are unavailable and if available -well- in German language. I have access to such texts and I will share information.

A meeting took place on the 18th October 1951 in Cologne, Germany. NWDR director Hartmann was listening to the proposals of Werner Meyer-Eppler, Herbert Eimert and others. The minutes of which I have a reproduction state that "a studio for electronic music (such as demonstrated by Dr. Meyer-Eppler) shall be established". The minutes say also in a straightforward way: " If we do not act today, we will be confronted by results from the US of A by next year". Acting was not such a difficult task, some small rooms were available in the broadcasting studios and together with the usual broadcasting equipment of that time things started rolling (literally, tape recorders, sine, pulse and noise generators, filters). It took some time, but in 1952/1953 some pieces of e. m. were made by Eimert and Robert Beyer. They were "performed" at the "Neuen Musikfest 1953" on the 26th May 1953

http://www.musik.uni-osnabrueck.de/lehrende/enders/lehre/koelner_schule/em_koeln.htm

This made an end to the somewhat strange situation of a new music that was theoretically demanded in 1949/50 but could not offer a single work.

For the first time in history a new concept of sound was realized. It was not playing back some records, be it test recordings, recordings of mechanical instruments or the sounds of locomotives, or randomly using radio programmes. It was the attempt to create new sounds out of nothing, following the score of the composer. Since then the composer could also compose sounds.

The very first attempts could not really follow the theory. Instead, existing tape demonstrations from Meyer-Eppler had to be used as basic material, perhaps due to initial shortage of equipment (we should not forget that Germany was still suffering from heavy war damage). So really a kind of sophisticated musique concrete came out, if you consider a reel of prerecorded tape (perhaps with Melochord sounds) as concrete material. But the visitors of the "Neuen Musikfest" and the radio listeners could also witness independend pieces, made with said generators and filters following the theory.

m.c.

Where are the British?

So we have developments in France, in the US of A and in Germany. Where are the British? It is hard to believe that the beginnings of electronic music did simply not happen there. I have just seen a translation of F.C. Judd, director "center of sound" in London, but could find no further trace.

m.c.

A New section. Possibly.

http://www.iua.upf.es/mtg/reacTable/?related

Just ran across this page...these tabletop devices sorta seem like a next step, or a new theremin. I'd consider writing a section on this. Does anyone, after looking at this link and this kind of software, see this as a candidate for a new section? let me know.