Music in which the sound is generated by electronic instruments (especially synthesizers), processed by means of tape recorders heard through loudspeakers. Influential studios include those at Cologne (West German Radio), Brussels (Studio de Musique Électronique), Paris (Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique), and the ColumbiaPrinceton Center in New York City.
Electronic music is a term for music created using electronic devices. Working from this definition, distinction can be made between instruments that produce sound through electromechanical means as opposed to instruments that produce sound using electronic components. Examples of an electromechanical instrument are the teleharmonium, Hammond B3, and the electric guitar, whereas examples of an electronic instrument are a Theremin, synthesizer, and a computer.
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Late 19th century to early 20th century
Before electronic music, there was a growing desire for composers to use emerging technologies for musical purposes. Several instruments were created that employed electromechanical designs and they paved the way for the later emergence of electronic instruments. The first 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-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen and also by other, primarily French, composers such as Andre Jolivet.
Post-war years: 1940s to 1950s
The tape recorder was invented in Germany during World War II. Frequently, composers used sounds that were produced entirely by electronic devices not designed for a musical purpose. Stockhausen has worked for many years as part of Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music combining electronically generated sounds with conventional orchestras. The first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in America was completed by Louis and Bebe Barron in 1950.
Two new electronic instruments made their debut in 1957. The first of these electronic instruments was the computer when Max Mathews used a program called Music 1, and later Music 2, to create original compositions at Bell Laboratories. CSIRAC in Australia was a computer which played music in real time much earlier than this (1950 or 1951) and it was similarly difficult to program, but musical developments stalled and it was not used to develop new computer music, instead playing popular tunes. The other electronic instrument that appeared that year was the first electronic synthesizer. Called the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, it used vacuum tube oscillators and incorporated the first electronic music sequencer. It was designed by RCA and installed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center where it remains to this day.
The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now known as the Computer Music Center, is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. A studio was built there with the help of engineer Peter Mauzey and it became the hub of American electronic music production until about 1980.
1960s to late 1970s
Because of the complexities of composing with a synthesizer or computer, let alone the lack of access, most composers continued exploring electronic sounds using musique concrète even into the 60s. That search led three independent teams to develop the world's first playable electronic synthesizers. Moog had met Deutsch the year before, heard his music, and decided to follow the composer's suggestion and build electronic music modules. Then, by a stroke of luck, Moog was invited that September to the AES Convention in New York City, where he presented a paper called "Electronic Music Modules" and sold his first synthesizer modules to choreographer Alwin Nikolais. Smith, who headed the electronic music studio at the city's American Academy, with a proposal to build a small playable synthesizer for the academy's studio.
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. One of the first electronic signature tunes for television was the theme music for Doctor Who in 1963.
In the late 1960s, Wendy Carlos popularized early synthesizer music with two notable albums Switched-On Bach and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, which took pieces of baroque classical music and reproduced them on Moog synthesizers. The theremin, an exceedingly difficult instrument to play, was even used in some popular music.
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 electronic (with the exception of The Silver Apples), much of the resulting sound was dependent upon the synthesiser although it usually merely substituted for an organ. In the 1970s, the electronic style was revolutionised by the Düsseldorf band Kraftwerk, who used electronics and robotics to symbolise and sometimes gleefully celebrate the alienation of the modern technological world. To this day their music remains uncompromisingly electronic. In Germany particularly electronic sounds were incorporated into popular music by bands such as Tangerine Dream, Can, Popol Vuh and others.
Some of the leading jazz pianists, most notably Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul (Weather Report) and Jan Hammer (Mahavishnu Orchestra) started to use synthesizers on their fusion recordings during the years 1972-1974.
Musicians such as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Brian Eno, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel Jarre, Ray Buttigieg, as well as the Japanese composers Isao Tomita and Kitaro, also popularised the sound of electronic music. The film industry also began to make extensive use of electronic music in soundtracks. Once electronic sounds became more common in 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, just like other popular music stars.
Late 1970s to late 1980s
In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a great deal of innovation around the development of electronic music instruments.
From the late 1970s onward, much popular music was developed on these digital machines. Groups and artists such as Ultravox, Gary Numan, The Human League, Landscape, Visage, Daniel Miller, Pete Shelley, Heaven 17, Eurythmics, Severed Heads, John Foxx, Thomas Dolby, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Norman Iceberg, Yazoo, The Art of Noise, Yello, Depeche Mode and New Order developed new ways of making popular music by electronic means. Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey) is cited by some as the father of electronics in New Wave, although Ultravox, The Normal (Daniel Miller), The Human League, and Cabaret Voltaire, all released electronic singles before Fad Gadget.
The new kinds of electonic noise that synthesizers could create contributed to the formation of the genre of industrial music, pioneered by groups such as Throbbing Gristle in 1975, Wavestar and Cabaret Voltaire. Artists like Nine Inch Nails in 1989, KMFDM, and Severed Heads, took the innovations of musique concrète and applied them to dance and rock music. Others, such as Test Department, Einstürzende Neubauten, took this new sound and created noisy electronic compositions. Still others (Front 242, Skinny Puppy) combined this harshness with pop and dance, creating electronic body music.
During this time, dub musicians such as industrial-funk outfit Tackhead, vocalist Mark Stewart and others on Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound record label in the 1980s integrated the aesthetics of industrial and noise music with tape and dub production.
Recent developments: 1980s to early 2000s
The development of the techno sound in Detroit, Michigan and house music in Chicago, Illinois in the 1980s, and the later UK-based acid house movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s fueled the development and acceptance of electronic music into the mainstream and introduced electronic dance music to nightclubs. Electronic composition can create faster and more precise rhythms than is possible using traditional percussion. The sound of electronic dance music often features electronically altered sounds (samples) of traditional instruments and vocals.
Overview
Genres
Electronic music, especially in the late 1990s fractured into many genres, styles and sub-styles, too many to list here, and most of which are included in the main list. Although there are no hard and fast boundaries, broadly speaking we can identify the experimental and classical styles: electronic art music, musique concrète; the industrial music and synth pop styles of the 1980s; The proliferation of personal computers and the MIDI interface beginning in the 1980s brought about a new genre of electronic music, known loosely as chip music or bitpop. The latter categories such as IDM, glitch and chip music share much in common with the art and musique concrète styles which predate it by several decades.
Notable artists and DJs
With the explosive growth of computers music technology and consequent reduction in the cost of equipment in the late 1990s, the number of artists and DJs working within electronic music is overwhelming. The genre of cosmic electronic music was formed at the turn of the 1970s in Germany by Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Commercially successful artists working under the "electronica" rubric such as Fatboy Slim, Faithless, Fluke, The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, The Crystal Method, Massive Attack, The Prodigy, Orbital, Propellerheads, Underworld, Björk and Moby continue to release albums and perform regularly (sometimes in stadium-sized arenas, such has the popularity of electronic dance music grown). They perform for hours on end mixing their music into pre-recorded singles. The critically acclaimed Autechre and Aphex Twin continue to put out challenging records of (mostly) home-listening music.
Notable record labels
Until 1978 and the formation of Mute Records, there were virtually no record labels that deal with exclusively electronic music. In the United Kingdom Warp Records emerged in the 1990s as one of the pre-eminent sources of home-listening and experimental music.
Electronic music press
United States magazine sources include the Los Angeles based Urb, BPM Magazine and San Francisco based XLR8R and other magazines such as e/i and Grooves. British electronic music sources include the London-based magazine The Wire (a monthly publication), DJ, Mixmag, Knowledge, Sound on Sound, Computer Music, Music Tech Magazine and Future Music.
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