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The Birth of Electronic Music
fm6 writes "NPR has a story up about the first musicians to compose electronic music. In 1947, Louis and Bebe Barron received an early tape recorder as a wedding present. About the same time, Louis Barron became interested in Norbert Wiener's book Cybernetics and its thesis of common elements in living and artificial systems. This led the Barrons to create a new kind of music using electronic circuits and painstakingly edited magnetic tapes. The Barrons music was featured in various avant-garde records and movies, and finally reached a mass audience in the Science Fiction classic Forbidden Planet."
Electronic music has been around for longer than that... we all know that
And we all know that Jean Michel Jarre is the father of medern electronic music.
digital music is great. Where would we be without it? Those techno clubs just wouldn't be the same.
There exists some positive integer N that you are the Nth person to read this signature.
The claim that electronic music is all post-war seems a little hard to sustain. Theremin?
Ondes Martineau?
ian
Amazon referrer ID is still in that address - somebody's going to become very rich tonight...
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
In the jazz club, down the road
When people first used electronics to make noises they certainly made some fucked up ones (Electronic Musical Instrument 1870 - 1990)
I bet they'd be pissed to learn that the fruit of their endeavors would be making backing tracks for "pop stars" (though I reckon they'd be stoked about SquarePusher)
Leo Theremin is often cited as a godfather of electronic music. He was responsible for creating for one of the earliest electronic instruments back in 1917.
You can read about him here
listen a little closer. electronic music is a vast, complex maze of styles.
here are some names to check out (many of whom will NEVER hit the big time):
-fabrice lig
-thomas brinkmann
-drexciya
-underground resistance
-larvae
-matthew dear
-ricardo villalobos
-akufen
-needle sharing
-mkb
I am not conversant with theremin's musical literature, but any original compositions for this instrument would predate the composers mentioned in the article by several decades.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleharmonium
who fact checks for NPR? someone from CBS?
.cig
I was thinking the same thing. The Theramin was invented before 1921.
People in the Dada movement were creating mechanical music (or rather, un-music and noisy stuff) before 1920. Dada has had a pretty heavy influence on the modern industrial scene...
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
I dunno what that was, but it made Philip Glass' music sound like full blown orchestral scores with complex melodies...
Can't find much information skimming through that link. Are you sure you don't mean the futurists? Luigi Russolo for example.
-mkb
This is hardly the first electronic music. That honour goes to some American chaps in the late 1890's, who devised a giant machine that played the Victorian equivalent of lift music. The concept was to pipe this music over wires into restaurants and clubs all over town, to save the venues the cost of maintaining house bands.
They even had a successful rollout, with mellow, unoffensive tinkelings broadcast citywide. However, the exercise was doomed to failure because it was extremely costly to keep running. Ultimately, it shut down.
Electronic Musician ran an article on this a few years back. I'd quote you reference but I am currently around 14 hours flight from my home.
All the best electronic music seems to come from Europe.
:-)
Aphex Twin
Kraftwerk
Squarepusher
-Ziq
The REPHLEX label
stuff like that
And do not forget that HP started when Hewlett and Packard built an electronic sound generator for Disney in '39
Paul B.
Some other groups definately worth mentioning that have been around since around the 60's:
Tangerine Dream
Kraftwerk
Isao Tomita
Vangelis
What are the new movements going on in the electronic music world that the mainstream has yet to become aware of?
Forget the "Hi NRG European Techno" and the crud they play in movies. The repetative beats got old real quick.
For electronic music that is different, here are a couple places to check out. These may not be to your taste, but they definately different then your "unS unS unS unS unS unS unS unS WooooooooOOOOOT WoooooooooOOOOOT! 'Smack my Bitch Up!' unS unS unS unS unS unS unS unS":
Warp Records has released their entire catalog online. I recommend Plaid, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher
Here a couple nice stations playing a range of electronic music:
http://www.live365.com/stations/after_party
http://www.live365.com/stations/mrs_emma_peel
http://somafm.com/listen/
Oh, how I miss MusicForHackers!
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
some other stuff (some of it FOR FREE mind you)
-another mp3 store
-ANOTHER mp3 store
-unfound sound, netlabel
-thinnerism/autoplate, TWO netlabels
-Archive.org's netlabel page, more techno than you could possibly consume in a lifetime!
-313 discussion list
-who is what and who
-mkb
Hahaha. Leave it to slashdot to produce people who think they know EVERYTHING that has to do with anything technologically related. Have you ever stepped out of your house and went out? DJ's, like it or not, are still dropping electronic beats in one of HUNDREDS of unique 'styles'. Many of these DJ's then become producers &/or remixers.
Electronic isn't dead; it never will be. Perhaps you mean that electronic/dance music isn't being pushed into the U.S.public (as much), which would be partially true. But to anyone in 'the scene', this is a godsend.
Oh, to support this, go look on ebay for some technic 1200's -- They are STILL selling like hotcakes and pulling much impressive prices.
And I hate to tell you, but not many people who simply listen to ole' fashion' records are going to be purchasing a MANUAL turntable; No, the people who are purchasing these manual turntables want to have direct manipulation.
Ala hip-hop or electronic. One could argue that both are the same, have you listened to rap/hiphop beats at all these days? Same ole drum machines, plenty of samplers, yadda yadda.
Electronic is alive & kicking, weather the un-informed public is aware or not.
There are numerous fan pages for her, which is truly remarkable for a person who barely got any mention before her death from cancer in her early 60s. Of course, now she's dead and can't enjoy her fame, she's a celebrity. There was even a play written with her as the focus.
I think it fair to say that electronic music has been born and reborn many times, but has yet to really reach the heights the true visionaries expected of it. Like NASA, electronic music has been mostly promise and far too little creative genius.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Oliver Messiaen recorded 'Oraison" in 1937, 10 years before these guys. It's quite nice, actually.
They were important and all, but they were hardly the first.
Heck, Lev Termin patented the Theremin in 1927, when the Barrons were little kids.
You can find a lot of this stuff on a 3-disc set called "OHM" variously "Early Gurus of Electronic Music" or "History of Electronic Music" but always OHM, afaik.
Here's a shameless plug for EAR-Rational Music, the guys i bought my copy from. google for 'em.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
John Cage {1912-1995) was another pioneer of electronic music. Interestingly his estate sued another composer, Mike Batt, claiming that his piece, one minutes silence, infringed on John Cages copyright for 4'33", another totally silent track.
I'm still laughing at the Stereo Review cartoon ca. 1975 with a radio announcer introducing a performance of a Stockhausen piece, performed on the original transistors, resistors and capacitors.
...the first electronic music experiment was done by Lev Sergeivitch Termen and his famus Theremin.
Also not true - the link you point to lists electronic instruments going back to 1876, forty years before the theremin. The Telharmonium (1897) was a pretty sophisticated instrument, but it weighed 200 tons, and vacuum-tube amplifiers hadn't been invented yet, so it wasn't very practical.
...be aware that the linked-to NPR story says nothing about the Barrons being 'the first' or any such nonsense; it only calls them 'pioneers', which seems a fair claim. They do say that Forbidden Planet was the first major motion picture with an all-electronic score, which is a more plausible and defensible claim, but the line about the Barrons being first is strictly the submitter's and not NPR's.
I believe the "first" that Louis and Bebe Barron hold is that they composed the first completely electronic film score. The theremin was widely used in film previously, probably most notably in The Lost Weekend, but the biggest sensation Forbidden Planet caused, was on Vine at the AFofM offices. Bebe told us this story several years ago, and its a fascinating chapter in how the unions stifled progress and ultimately won an agreement that exclusively electronic music would be a "one time only" exception. It is wonderful to see her referred to. She was battling cancer when we last saw her about 5 years ago. Looks like she won!
Ishkur's guide to electronic music recently added a funny but informative little section about the history of electronic music.
The page has samples from dozens of different genres, so if you've ever wondered about the difference between goa and psy-trance, it'll help you figure it out too.
-S
http://www.shitkatapult.com/
http://www.areal-records.com/
http://www.mego.at/
http://www.kompakt-net.de/
etc.,etc.,....
There's so much good electronic music out there, it's silly to make such a statement. Not all of these labels will necessarily be your cup of tea, but these are the first five or so that popped in to my head without looking on the back of any CD's. Check out some record store sites like:
http://aquariusrecords.org/
http://forcedexposure.com/
or a site like http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/
for new music releases from several genres. It's all out there for the listening!
I'll probably get a ton of hits this time -- but I can't picture a lot of Slashdotters wanting their own copy of Cybernetics or Forbidden Planet. Most will read the reviews on Amazon, then go to Netflix and/or their public library. If past experience is any judge, I'm more likely to make money from people who follow my links to Amazon, and then decide to pick up a video game while they're there!
I'll post results on my Slashdot journal in a couple days, in case anybody's interested.
The work of Jacob Markowitz at Allen Organ Company in 1939, the first electronic organ. See here for more. I always liked how they were using digital sampled sounds back in 1971.
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
As others have, and will continue to point out, electronic music is as old as electronics itself.
(Of course, determining what you call "music" is still very subjective...)
While I am no real expert on electronic music, I WAS in the rave scene for quite some time, and I don't mean as a kandy kid who just went to roll. I went for the music, and I can honestly say you will see some of the most innovative stuff in the rave scene. That is where the underground is.
Now as for styles, I recommend EVERYBODY check out Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. It gives an EXTREMELY comprehensive look at the different genres that exist, and even for someone as myself who thought I was familiar with them, I still found tons I never heard of. Plus, they give lots of samples of famous/definitive songs for each genre.
Personally, I think drum and bass is the next type of music that will go mainstream. We're already starting to see it happen as some of the more common beat samples get worked into some pop songs or trance songs, and I've also noticed quite a bit of it in commercials as well. So definitely going to say drum and bass, or possibly 2-step, since its really just R&B and hiphop with the 2-step beat, which will let it gain popularity quickly in the hip-hop scene which in turn seems to be whats affecting the mainstream nowadays.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I've heard that before, but as far as I can see, it's absolutely bogus. For example, FP has absolutely none of the web of pre-existing relationships (Antonio is the brother of Prospero etc) that are central to the Tempest. Nor does the Tempest have anything like the ancient tragedy of the Krell as a plot device.
"Forbidden Planet" stands quite well on its own as a story; the music is amazing.
Anyone who's interested in a sampling from the history of electronic music should check out a CD set called Ohm: The early gurus of electronic music.
. html
Well worth the price, I think.
Review here: http://www.classical-music-review.org/reviews/OHM
The sibling posts are a bit confused.
Sure the Theremin from the early 1920's (1919 on) was influential, but it was not the birth of electronic music. Electronic music was around long before the vacuum tube and radio electronics (which were the technologies of the Theremin era).
In some senses, the real birth of electronic music could be seen as Thomas Edison's invention of the "talking tinfoil device" in 1877 which he called the phonograph.
If you are talking synthesis for music instruments you could cite Elisha Grey's "musical telegraph" created in 1887. It had a one octave keyboard and was designed to play music directly to peoples homes over the telegraph lines. That is over 30 years before the Theremin, and 60 years before "the Barrons" (RTFA) recieved their first tape recorder!
I'm sure the Barrons were influential, especially if they were working with Cage, but this wasn't the birth of electronic music. Maybe "the birth of sampling" would have been more appropriate.
Read "Electronic and Experimental Music" (Thomas B. Holmes) if you want more information.
Y'all might be interested in reading Wolfgang Flur's book on his Kraftwerk years:
Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot
ISBN: 1860744176
Basically, (according to Wolfgang), he never received any royalties from the songs, because he was regarded as an employee of the band, and was on salary. Interestingly, one of the last chapters reveals that much of the Kraftwerk sound was the result of producer Conny Plank (who also worked with Brian Eno on the first Devo album).
Chip H.
Ishkurs Guide to music is far from definitive - while he identifies a lot of different sub-genres, he spends most of the time pontificating on each subgenre rather than actually informing the reader what exactly defines each genre. His guide is a start - but there's a big need for a resource that clearly defines each genre by a clear set of criteria - things like BPM, what chords are typically used, etc.
Ah, but it's not dead anymore...
http://www.intelligentdancemusic.com/
Look familiar?
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole