Electronic Music

[Beresford]

OP: You could try the "Unsound Festival" recordings on Soundcloud and elsewhere. They veer towards the Dance/Rap genre more than I like, but they show some ways that electronic music is developing, and you can't usually hear such stuff on the radio.
And then there is Eliane Radigues, whose music, originally all synths but now similar sounds with live musicians, I am starting to explore.

[Bryn]

There is some good stuff available to hear and download on the Avant garde Project.
Of the bits I dabbled in, the Francois Bayle was among the music that I enjoyed the most.

http://dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/AvantGardeProject/agp75/index.html

He seems to me to have a very direct voice.

It's most unfortunate that the incredibly low-priced 15 disc Bayle 50 ans d'acousmatique set appears to have been withdrawn from QOBUZ.

[Richard Barrett]

It's most unfortunate that the incredibly low-priced 15 disc Bayle 50 ans d'acousmatique set appears to have been withdrawn from QOBUZ.

Not before I purchased it though! The same label also brought out similarly extensive editions of work by Pierre Schaeffer, Bernard Parmegiani and Luc Ferrari (the latter being a name I should have included on my list).

[Bert]

As I've not long posted on the What Classical Music are You Listening to thread, I don't know much (about) electronic music, and would like to know more. I mean, I've checked out some by Xenakis and Stockhausen, some Spectral music, obviously it features in a few other figures music I know, and have read a bit by Paul Griffiths (though not his book dedicated to this topic). Other than that - do people have any suggestions about whose music to check out in this realm? And is Griffith's book any good, is there another book which describes the kind of trajectory this music has taken over the years?

Definitely check this out ........ especially if you also like 60s Psychedelic music, too

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for that long post, RB. Dave seems intent on a cast-iron definition of 'Electronic Music'

Well, I don't like to pull rank, but even in these days where ignorance is so often treated as equivalent to knowledge I would hope that my track record of engagement in this field & being a professor of music specialising in electronic composition might count for something!

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, I don't like to pull rank, but even in these days where ignorance is so often treated as equivalent to knowledge I would hope that my track record of engagement in this field & being a professor of music specialising in electronic composition might count for something!

Seriously though, thank you so much, Richard, for your exposition above. As regards differentiating acoustic from electronic musics, I would venture to suggest that there was a time when it was important to distinguish the one from the other - and that was the period from roughly 1948 to the mid-sixties when those who were drawn to electronic media were so by virtue of radical new approaches to composition that called on them by necessity - because these new media offered new sounds unavailable to older composers, as Varese had complained in the 1930s, as well as otherwise unrealizeable structures subsequently to impact on mainstream compositional thinking. How far was it possible to have total control over one's means of composition was a question addressed, both seriously and whimsically, by Cage in Silence, and by Stockhausen in his demarcation of scales of controllability and spontaneity which confronted the age-old questions of "inspiration" and "spontaneity". For this reason I might be more dogmatic in distinguishing between electronic and acoustic music in considering music from that period, than subsequently, for all the reasons so intelligibly explained by Richard above.

[Joseph K]

Definitely check this out ........ especially if you also like 60s Psychedelic music, too

Thanks, will do.

Well, I don't like to pull rank, but even in these days where ignorance is so often treated as equivalent to knowledge I would hope that my track record of engagement in this field & being a professor of music specialising in electronic composition might count for something!

Indeed! Thanks again.

[Richard Barrett]

the period from roughly 1948 to the mid-sixties when those who were drawn to electronic media were so by virtue of radical new approaches to composition that called on them by necessity - because these new media offered new sounds unavailable to older composers, as Varese had complained in the 1930s, as well as otherwise unrealizeable structures subsequently to impact on mainstream compositional thinking.

That's true. Regarding spontaneity, it's interesting that many of the earliest advocates of free improvisation (for example AMM and Nuova Consonanza) were also pioneers in the transfer of those radical new approaches from studio to live performance. Also Luc Ferrari's ("iconic" ) 1967 piece Presque rien was regarded as an "electronic composition" because it was composed on tape heard over loudspeakers, but it contains not only no electronically generated sounds but indeed no intentionally "musical" ones, consisting of recordings made of everyday life in a Croatian fishing village one summer, carefully chosen and edited to give the impression of not having involved any compositional intervention at all.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's true. Regarding spontaneity, it's interesting that many of the earliest advocates of free improvisation (for example AMM and Nuova Consonanza) were also pioneers in the transfer of those radical new approaches from studio to live performance. Also Luc Ferrari's ("iconic" ) 1967 piece Presque rien was regarded as an "electronic composition" because it was composed on tape heard over loudspeakers, but it contains not only no electronically generated sounds but indeed no intentionally "musical" ones, consisting of recordings made of everyday life in a Croatian fishing village one summer, carefully chosen and edited to give the impression of not having involved any compositional intervention at all.

Ways in which "the natural" or non-purified sound were re-legitimized by practices in improvised music from the late 60s (Nick Coudry is good on this, ref, extended instrumental and vocal techniques, found and homemade instruments) is interesting, I would argue, from the perspective of jazz input. The one thing that probably alienated classical music devotees from respecting it, was jazz's embrace of vocal techniques considered "primitive" from the point of view of classical vocal technique. There would undoubtedly have been a racist element involved here too. Jazz had varied in its attitude to vocalised techniques as applied to instrumental sonority - "Tricky" Sam Nanton's growling, use of wah-wah mutes etc. - possibly in proportion to the emphasis granted to harmonic expansion in the bebop period, when note choice - which still obsesses many jazz musicians and fans - took precedence over timbre. Stories of Ronnie Scott and his colleague wracking their brains over an Albert Ayler recording, trying to make something musically logical out if it by trying playback at different speeds, have a bearing here. Clearly the emotional outpouring invested in much free jazz improvising, post-Ornette, brought back with it a renewal of the vocal expressionism of the old blues singers, which some of the latter had injected into their guitar sound, and which in turn aided the development of electric guitar sound people like Hendrix took to new levels. What can fascinate is how a player such as Evan Parker (well particularly Evan Parker) can operate in both this world of hyper-expressive free jazz and improv - going "beyond" the actual pitches (as he himself has said*) and at the same time in the world of electronic music, in which relatively "pure" sounds, or at any rate sounds thought of as pure by a good many classical devotees, can be fragmented into their constituent overtones - which is effectively what Evan is best known for doing. I often wonder if Evan has considered this "twin heritage" in his approach to sound: the worlds of split sounds in common between the old blues croakers and the tone (de)generators!

*(I once had the nerve to "challenge" Evan over his assertion of the primacy of timbre over note-choice in his playing, telling him (!) that I thought that the actual choice of pitches was probably of equal importance to the musical integrity and coherence displayed in his improvising as their articulation. He just smiled!)

[Bryn]

Not before I purchased it though! . . .

As did I. I seem to recall I had trouble with downloading 1 'track'. I will investigate and report back.

[Dave2002]

That's true. Regarding spontaneity, it's interesting that many of the earliest advocates of free improvisation (for example AMM and Nuova Consonanza) were also pioneers in the transfer of those radical new approaches from studio to live performance. Also Luc Ferrari's ("iconic" ) 1967 piece Presque rien was regarded as an "electronic composition" because it was composed on tape heard over loudspeakers, but it contains not only no electronically generated sounds but indeed no intentionally "musical" ones, consisting of recordings made of everyday life in a Croatian fishing village one summer, carefully chosen and edited to give the impression of not having involved any compositional intervention at all.

Is part of the problem that we assume that prefixing an adjective, such as "electronic" before the word "music" gives an adequate description of whatever it is? There may have been a time when this made sense, but nowadays perhaps it doesn't add much or even describe much to many people. Just stringing words together is not, perhaps, always useful. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, though the phrase may give rise to interesting - or possibly uninteresting - discussion.

Many people use emotive adjectives before the word "music" - such as "happy", "sad", "fierce", "calm", "restless" - but that can be and has been called out before now. However, context and shared experiences may mean that for some people such a juxtapostion of words conveys meaning to them. Are there adjectives which would give no significant meaning at all? Possibly - though, I've not found really good ones yet. Colours have been used as prefixes, but what do they add or mean? Some composers have had synaesthesia. To them "purple" might mean something, though that would not necessarily be shared by listeners.

So maybe "electronic" music - a concept which perhaps seemed clear some while back - is now not a useful description of a category of sounds. Conversation and descriptions are sometimes difficult. Sometimes sequences of words only make sense to some, but not all, of those participating in discourse - maybe for contextual reasons.

Language may become tribal.

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

`Exactly so,' said Alice.

`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

Hatter engaging in rhetoric

`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

`It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.

We could also question what we mean by the word "music", and before we know where we are we'll be wondering about walking and talking ducks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C6XlF_2VrQ

[cat]

Artists like Rowland the Bastard make electronic music, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be encompassed by this thread. I think the term needs some tweaking if it's meant to denote some sort of subset of classical music.

[Dave2002]

Artists like Rowland the Bastard make electronic music, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be encompassed by this thread. I think the term needs some tweaking if it's meant to denote some sort of subset of classical music.

Indeed - your mother wouldn't like it .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAW86bVLy7s

[Richard Barrett]

I think the term needs some tweaking if it's meant to denote some sort of subset of classical music.

No it isn't supposed to denote such a thing. (Whatever "some sort of subset of classical music" means!) Free improvisation and Luc Ferrari's field recordings have already been mentioned, which should be a clue. The problem is that the term "electronic music" has been hijacked somewhat, so that probably to most people who use it, it denotes some sort of subset of popular music. I would prefer to reclaim it to be used in a more general sense - although, as has been said, without enclosing it inside strict boundaries. That would seem to reduce it to a "genre" when it's actually an area with infinite possibilities. So no "tweaking" is necessary I think.

[Richard Barrett]

I thought that the actual choice of pitches was probably of equal importance to the musical integrity and coherence displayed in his improvising as their articulation

Something an improviser like Evan has in common with many electronic music practitioners is a sense of mobility between precision and dissolution where pitch is concerned, and I'm sure this is what drew him towards collaborations with electronic performers in the first place, especially since his earlier collaborations with people like Walter Prati and Joel Ryan involved "live processing" of his sound. The original EP Electroacoustic Ensemble involved the Parker-Guy-Lytton trio shadowed by a trio that could take one or more of the outputs from the acoustic players and transform it in real time. (Worth recalling here also that Barry Guy had form in this area, in the version of Paul Rutherford's Iskra 1903 that featured Philipp Wachsmann and a fairly rough-and-ready live electronic setup operated by the trio themselves.) Nowadays Evan's ensembles involve much more varied and fluid relationships between electronic and acoustic sounds, with a generation of electronic performers (like myself!) whose approach to their computer-instruments is directly influenced by his approach to the saxophone.