Electronic Music

Electronic Music is a term used to refer to music that might include:

• Musique Concrète

- Originally started by Pierre Schaeffer at the Studio d’Essai (1942), later

renamed Club  d'Essai  de  la  Radiodiffusion-­‐Télévision  Française  (1946) in
France.
- Main equipment involved is the Tape  machine,  which  was  used  to  record  and      
play  back  sound,  and  to  use  basic  tape  music  techniques  to  transform  pre-­‐
recorded  sound, called Found object (l’objet  trouvé).    
 
- Pre-recorded sound is the source of materials for musique concrète compositions.
Basic tape music techniques: cutting  and  splicing  (change  order  of  
sequence),  change  the  playback  speed  (changing  the  pitch  and  duration  of  
sound),  invert  the  sound  (playing  the  sound  backward),  tape  loop,  mixing.  
 

- Musical Examples: Pierre Schaeffer’s Cinq études de bruits (including Etude

aux chemins de fer) (1948), Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry’s Symphony pour
un homme seul (1949-50), Pierre Henry’s Le Voile d’Orphée (1953)

• Electronic Music (Electronische Musik)

- Started by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Herbert Eimert, Gottfried Michael

Koenig…etc. at the WDR Cologne Studio for Electronic Music in Germany
- Main equipment includes: signal  generators  (oscillators,  sine  wave/square  wave/  
sawtooth  wave  generator,  pulse  generator,  noise  generator),  filter, ring modulator,
echo and reverb chamber, audio mixer…etc.
 

- Has the advantage of having strict control over the makeup of any sound.
- Musical Examples: Stockhausen’s Elektronische Studie I & II (1953 & 1954)…etc.

• Computer Music
- Computer-Assisted (Algorithmic) Composition
- Example: Lejaren Hiller’s Illiac Suite (1956) for string quartet
- Computer Sound Synthesis
- Example: Max Mathews at the Bell Labs – Daisy Bell (1961, first computer to sing
and earliest attempt in speech synthesis)

• Voltage Controlled Equipment (Synthesizers) (mid-1960)

- Moog
- Buchla
- Harmonic Tone Generator (James Beauchamp at UIUC)
- Examples: Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach album (1968)

• Live Electronic Music

- Early Examples: John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939) and Cartridge Music
(1960), Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I & II (1964 and 1965) and Mixtur (1964)
- Pierre Boulez and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique), opened in 1977
Nowadays, the division described above doesn’t really exist anymore, which makes
talking about this genre of music more difficult. Other terms used to describe
electroacoustic or electronic music could be acousmatic music, mixed music (instrument
with electronics), tape music, fixed electronics, live or interactive electronics…etc.

Early Electronic Music Studios

France
* Pierre Schaeffer’s Studio d’Essai at the Radiodiffusion Nationale (1942) - renamed
Club d’Essai de la Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF) in 1946 where Groupe
de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) was formed

Associated Composers: Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, (Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz

Stockhausen), Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis

Germany
* WDR Cologne Studio for Electronic Music (1951)

Associated Composers: Werner Meyer-Eppler, Herbert Eimert, Karlheinz

Stockhausen, Ernst Krenek, György Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel, Gottfried Michael
Koenig

US
* Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (1958)

Associated Composers: Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt, Roger

Sessions, Wendy Carlos, Mario Davidovsky, Charles Wuorinen

* University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios (1958)

Associated Composers: Lejaren Hiller, Herbert Brün, Sal Martirano, James

Beauchamp, John Cage (visiting)

* Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music in Ann Arbor (1958)

Associated Composers: Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma

* San Francisco Tape Music Center (1962)

Associated Composers: Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Steve

Reich