THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC AND COMPUTER MUSIC

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY TILL TODAY

What is Electronic Music

Music created by electronic instruments and electronic technology. Electronic music is a vast field, comprising of techniques used to enhance sounds and give them a new shape altogether.

Birth of Electronic Music

The birth of electronic music took place in the late 19th century Great scientists like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell etc. laid the foundation principles for the development in electronic music Lee De Forest invented the triode auction tube, it was a vacuum tube capable of amplifying sound signals, broadcasting sound waves and it was able to do many other functions.

Triode Auction Tube

 Luigi Russolo in 1913 invented the Intonarumori. The Intonarumori were used to create a wild variety of sounds through ingenious mechanical means.

Electronic Music in the Early 20th Century

Inventions of tape recorder and primitive synthesizer. Tests on magnetic tapes were carried out extensively during this period. Composers in Paris developed a new technique for composition called Musique Concrte. The playback itself was the performance rather like a DJ set. The first Musique Concrete was assembled together by Pierre Schaeffer.

Pierre Schaeffer in his studio

 CSIRAC was the first computer to play music in 1951. In 1960, Max Mathews of Bell Labs invented MUSIC V, a direct digital synthesis language. In the late 1960s, pop and rock musicians, including The Beach Boys and The Beatles, began to use electronic instruments. In 1970, the Mini-Moog was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers.

MIDI
In 1980, the birth of MIDI marked a significant change. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It resulted from a collaboration between leading manufacturers initially Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Rolandand later, other participants that included Yamaha, Korg, and Kawai. MIDI is a simple way to control multiple electronic instruments at the same time. Using a single MIDI-enabled keyboard, for example, a musician can play audio on two or three synthesizers, a drum machine and a sampler.

Avant Garde Electronic Music

Avant Garde Electronic Music refers to Experimental Music. John Cage of USA was a pioneer in contributing to this genre. Cage promoted silence, altered instruments, sounds of nature, found sounds, the very movements of the performer, the collage of random noises, and even the background noise of the auditorium was given to the status of music. John Cage wrote the history of avant garde genres for the following 50 years, even though he didn't give it any masterpiece. Live electronic music was also pioneered by David Tudor (USA, 1926), notably with Rainforest (1973). Rainforest is an electronic music composition, in which he used various sounds ranging from animal to bird sounds.

 Tod Dockstader (USA, 1932), a self-taught sound engineer and sound-effect specialist who scored soundtracks for Hollywood cartoons. Igor Wakhevitch (France), a student of Pierre Schaeffer, blended electronic music, psychedelic rock and classical opera on his albums Logos (1970), Docteur Faust (1971) and Hathor (1973). David Rosenboom (USA, 1947) focused on computerenhanced chamber music: Future Travel (1981) for computer, electronics and acoustic instruments was one of the first albums composed almost entirely with a digital synthesizer.

Music Genres Arising Due to Electronic Music

Ambient Breakbeat Video Game music Disco Drum and Bass Dub Electronic Rock House music Techno

Influence of Electronic Music Today

Today we can hear mp3 files, watch videos, and do so many types of video and sound editing using computer softwares. Almost in any party, clubs or pubs, electronic music is used extensively. The industry that greatly developed from the avant garde electronic music researches is the DJ music. All the famous songs produced these days, use a lot of sound engineering techniques taken from the work done during the development of electronic music. Electronic music has given the world a very amazing musical instrument- the Electric Guitar

 Genres like Metal, Rock, Pop and many such others, mostly comprise of electric guitar music. All of this was possible because of the pioneering work done by the many great composers during the avant garde electronic music era.

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