Electronic Music

1. Electronic Music • Includes a great variety of forms – arguably very little is now unaffected by electronic as recording is every present. • A broad spectrum from fully synthetisied sound to Music Concrete to electro-acoustic music to music that is predominated performed but to which some electronics have been added to alter the effect (e.g. delay, timbre changes, etc.)

2. Precursors • Back to beginnings of recording age. Thadius Cahil’s Telharmonium. • Early electronic instruments – Theremin, Ondes Martinet, etc. • Recordings developments in year wars and development of tape in 1940s. • Early Electronic music of Varese, Cage, and others – developing from art of noise of futurists.

3. Musique Concrete • Developed in the 1950s first with a set of mainly French composers working in recording studios cutting and splicing tape to create compositions that involved no performers. Loud speakers are the prime medium of transmission. • Created in Paris in 1948 by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. Composer working directly with sound material. Sources of sound material may be pre-existing recordings or recordings made specifically for the purpose. Sounds should be appreaciated for abstracft quality – little attempt at first at conventional musical organisation.

4. Electro-Acoustic Music • Became the preferred term in the 60s to better accommodate in the medium the combination of live performance and prepared tape along with tape music. • In 1970s synthesizers developed hugely to open the arena up to amateurs and pop musicians particularly. • In late 80s `sonic art’ adopted as a term to situate electro-acoustic music in a wider framework. Openness to all types of sound.

5. Acousmatic Music • Exists only in recorded form and is designed for loudspeaker listening, the listener perceives the music without seeing the sources of causes of the sounds. • Changes notion of reception of music. • Sound in space is important here – also the finer details of sound quality and utmost flexibility in combining any and all sounds – juxtaposing and superimposing sounds from any sources.

6. Live Electronics • 1. Sound produced by performers us modified electronically at the time of production in a manner controlled by the instrumentalist or someone else. • 2. With development of digital technology, sampling and synthesizing sound, in the 80s the computer musician working in real time as a performance artist has become a reality.

7. Combination of tape and live performance • In 1980s the type of composition became popular among young composers – using a prepared and notated tape in combination with a live performer who performed from a fully notated score. • The tape was often of live sounds, recorded and manipulated using computers and samplers.