OrdScape Kitchen

The idea for the Fort Ord soundscape spawns from a memory I had recently. I went out on a bike ride to explore about 10 months ago and ended up out in the abandoned barracks hidden in the hills of the old army base, right on the shore of Monterey Bay. These “caves” are 30’ wide, 50’ long, and a 20’ dome ceiling, giving it a tunnel shape that is closed on both ends. There are about ten of them and they are completely empty. I walked inside and clapped because I just knew it had to sound cool. I found that the room’s reverb lasts at least 10 full seconds with any decently loud transient. I instantly knew that when I went in there and heard the rooms sound, I wanted to record something there someday. The electronic music assignment of composing music from sounds recorded on Fort Ord was just the thing to use. The cave, and sounds from my kitchen on the fort as well, ended up being the perfect blend that I needed for sounds that I had imagined for this project. I wanted to capture the sound of my everyday life living on the fort. In my process not one musical instrument was used, and 22 non-musical sounds were voiced into musical instruments. Our main goal was to advance the unapparent rhythmic properties of non-musical found sounds. We followed Stockhausen’s process of Structured time, splitting sound, multi-layered spatial composition, and tonal equality. We also incorporated the 7 traits of electronic music. I wanted a truly industrial timbre with some of the snare drum sounds I was thinking of, inspired by Shaeffer and Stockhausen’s making sense of the world’s everyday industrial qualities. Inside this particular cave, there was what appeared to have been a piece of roof from and old shack, a wavy metal type roof. This piece was old and rusty. I grabbed a stick, hit it one time fairly hard and let it fully decay before making any unwanted noise that may be recorded. I also dropped it, and dragged it. These became the 2 industrial snare drums. I walked around and looked for other things to throw inside and came up with a rock, piece of tile, a heavy metal pipe, and a piece of animal bone. These were used as glitch noises. My footsteps were recorded in the building when moving around. The pigeons up at the top inside became unnerved, hooted and flapped. Both of those were used for spatial atmospheric effects. I cleaned off the grille of the mic with my hand and that was used as a record scratch sound. From the kitchen we used the dishwasher and garbage disposal, which are representative of industrial synth noises. Grains of rice and sugar were dropped on a metal cookie sheet and used as hi hats. The depressing and release of a toaster was recorded for a spring sound. The ignition on the stove was recorded as a click instrument. A microwave beep was put into Ableton Live in a sampler and spread out a MIDI controller. We backed off the attack to give it a soft hit, then added reverb and delay and played variations of a G major chord. My foot accidentally bumping into the oven and tapping my shoe on the ground became the kick drum sounds. Overall we recorded about 45 minutes of material and condensed it down to 4. We chose the best sounds, which were all one-take-wonders! So what we had was what we got, and I think it was used well. This piece of music definitely ended up capturing the soundtrack of my typical daily life here in Monterey… Awesome.

This week Garrett and I have made quite the progress on our Musique Concrete project. Here is a brief list of things we used to record and the sounds that we captured on and around Fort Ord:

Recording Fort Ord – Electronic Music Experiment

Recording in Logic 9 using 3 microphones:
-Shure Beta 52 large diaphragm dynamic kick drum mic
-Shure Beta 58A small diaphragm dynamic vocal mic
-Shure Beta 57 small diaphragm dynamic instrument mic

Sounds recorded inside the house on Fort Ord:

-Dish Washer

-Dropping Rice/ Sugar on a metal cookie sheet

-Hit cookie sheet with plastic stick

-Scraped cookie sheet with plastic stick

-Foot bumping into the oven

-Vacuum

-Stove Ignition click

-Microwave beep

-Stove Fan

-Garbage Disposal

-Toaster pushed down/release


Sounds recorded inside a 20x50ft cement half-cylinder army barrack out by Monterey Bay.

This tunnel has an awesome natural reverb, ranging 8-10 seconds in length!

-Pigeons hooting/flapping

-Various items thrown on the floor:
-Tile
-Wood
-Bone
-Metal pipe
-Firecracker

-Rusted sheet of metal scraped across the floor
-Footsteps on the floor


After getting the sounds captured in logic, I cut the sounds we wanted and edited them down a sample that could be placed into Ableton Live so we could line up the transient. After getting everything lined up and doing about half of the arranging in Ableton, we moved 18 stereo tracks back over to logic to be further manipulated and effected. Over the past few days I have been doing a ton of arranging/mixing and I cannot wait to show it in class. When I first heard early electronic music in this course, it was hard to make sense of. Now, after creating something like Cage and Shaeffer did back in the day, it is much easier for me to point out types of sounds and the ways they have been effected from their original state.

Cody and Bernie: MIDI

Midi is a communication protocol that sends control messages to computers. MIDI is capable of varying instruments, tempo, and key with a few clicks. File formats are small and universal. It is the most popular formats used to share compositions and arrangements. MIDI was introduced in 1984, and before then synthesizers couldn’t communicate with computers. MIDI was designed for connecting and controlling synthesizers, and linking computers to synthesizers. Data that computers can send to other computers, when it leaves the computer and goes into a drum module or keyboard with contained sounds in them. Dave Smith was the driving force behind the generation of MIDI in 1981. Connected the Prophet 600 to the Roland JP-6 in 1983 to demonstrate MIDI. 1991 General MIDI was created to make MIDI compatible with just about every interface and computer. MIDI software: Sibelius, Protools, Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer, and others.

Shaffer started out in 1943 collecting gear. He started recording with turntables and cutting records with a disc lathe at RTF studios. He recorded found sounds, in reverse, and using animal voices and natural sounds to give us a new perception of music. GRM was the first studio dedicated entirely to electronic music. Tape was a new medium at hand, and the audio fidelity was much improved. He experimented with variable speed tape machines.
John Cage got in with the Barrons in New York at their studio, and experimented and recorded with them, using homemade loudspeakers, oscillators, and sound wave generators.
Squarepusher is an electronic music artist, born in England in 75. He got tired of gigging and started buying DJ gear, including a sine wave generator and the Roland TB-303 - transistorized bass. He uses real tape machines with the software Reactor.

Will and Daniel: Piezo Pickups

Studied the effects of peizo electricity, led to smoke detectors, and sonar technology. Once the discovery was made it was very easy to make these, and American was secretive as compared to Japan, Piezo are used in the musical worlds’ in the 1960’s, before that instruments had to stand by a mic. Now pickups allows processing of sound right form the instruments, transducing vibrations into electrical current. Piezo pickups are good at natural sound reproduction, they are very small in size, and work by attaching to any sort of vibrating surface or instrument. They are resistant to feedback, Contact mics. Modern applications: amplifying guitarist violins, typically string instruments, and they can be alternative to mics. Piezos pick up sound differently than a mic. They respond to vibrations from contact with a surface, not by changes in atmospheric pressure. Non-musical uses, science and medicine to detect brain activity, door bells, smoke detectors.

Nick and Cynthia: Magnetic Tape

Mediums before tape: Grammophone and the phonograph. Plitzfreumer invented magnetic tape. Tape began with a plastic base with iron oxide coating to preserve recorded audio. New editing techniques and manipulation of sounds became possible. Tape changed performances and revolutionized the beginnings of broadcasting, and also led to digital recording. Wire recording was a low quality technology, and was non linear unlike tape. Tape recording allowed users to drastically manipulate sound with speed, reverse, echo, and delay. Tape thickness was eventually reduced over later developments. The Stancil Hoffman was the first magnetic tape recorder. Tape spawned developments of multi-track recorders. Ampex is the industry standard for tape and digital image processing. Tape enabled modern perspectives and processes of recording. Tape forever changed recording and editing audio. Introduction of tape made it possible to reverse and loop sounds. Ampex 4 track machine AG 440B, Line amplifiers on top correspond to a track Put tape on supply reel, and feed to take up reel. Tape effects are achieved with the use and manipulation of the playback, record, and erase head. We need to envision tape as occurring over time. Echo can be achieved by feeding the record head back into the input, and creating a distance between the playback and record head. Tape loops are possible by cutting and reconnecting the tape around a 3rd wheel. With tape, speed and pitch are linked, so slowing down a recording would result in everything detuned. Varispeed is voltage controlled. Tape is a physical medium, and cutting tape in different angles will create fades, blends, and or instantaneous entrances. Tape is subject to demagnetizing and can erode over time, losing the quality of the audio. Tape machines and their components need to be regularly cleaned, and machines would need proper calibration.



*All my Moog notes were not recovered when my computer died. I am having notes emailed to me so I can write on him...

Alex Vittum is a music composer, drummer of many styles, and an electro-acoustic enthusiast. He even teaches woodshop to elementary level kids. He studied free jazz, afrocuban percussion and handdrums. His most current project is called Prism, which is his solo electro-acoustic project for percussion. He uses the software MAX MSP to create software synth presets. These presets are triggered by the audio that is received from the microphones set up on the drum kit. On the drum kit on top of the bass drum, he had a board with FSR’s, force sense resistors. These pads are velocity sensitive, and send MIDI information to MAX MSP. He links his custom presets to these pads and triggers them throughout He has been studying this idea for a few years. In his ideas he sought 3 components to process from percussive elements: timbre, amplitude, and frequency or pitch. Today he used some small condenser mics. The two inputs split into 4 channels, allowing him to set any parameter to be affected by a delay or other modulation and record to those four channels. A certain section of the audio would loop on each track, and with a designated loop time. He works very closely with Don Buchla in creating and inventing hybrid modular synths. Being close to a city with a happening music environment really gave Alex perspective and relativity on what he wanted to do when he went to grad school at Mills. It is also important as a musician to surround yourself in a community of people with a wide range of backgrounds. The 3 pieces that he performed were amazing, and I am inspired to take my electro-acoustic interests and approach to the next level of processing.

Tape echo, reverb, tape loops, tape speed.

The song Rain by the Beatles was recorded with a fast tape speed, a higher tempo, and a higher key. They did this with the bass, drums, and guitar. Then they rewound and slowed down the tape and recorded to vocals over the slower version.

In the song When I’m 64, they recorded it slower, and in a lower key. The sped up John’s voice so he sounded younger.

Transistors:

These take the place of vacuum tubes, and they are about the size of a tictac. People have developed miniaturized electronic devices with very little weight. The process of making them is highly automated, and this makes them cheaper to buy because everything is done by computers and merchandise isn’t hand made. There’s no arm up period for transistors, they have a lower power dissipation, and put out less energy (heat) than say tubes. They are highly reliable, and have an extremely long life. Some transistors can last over 50 years and they are insensitive to mechanical shock and vibrations. They can be called microphonic tubes.

The RCA electronic music synthesizer: This synth was used to compose music. Then Olson and Belar began to use it for sound generating and modifications. It was used as a means for preprogramming basic properties of tone, pitch, timbre, amplitude, envelope, glide, frequency filtering and reverb. All these parameters were preprogrammed on a punch card. The synthesizer was called Mark I. The output was direct to loudspeaker or turntable lathe. The Mark II had 1700 vacuum tubes, weighed 3 tons, was 7 feet tall, and 20 feet long. Waveforms to choose from were saw tooth, triangle waves, envelope shapers, frequency filters and reverb.

The Buchla synth replaced the RCA in 65.

Timbre distinguishes sound from different instruments. The same note sounds different on a bass versus a trombone because of the harmonic overtone series.

Cage strived to extract the emotion out of the music and emancipate it from western theory concepts.

Cage determined 5 components of sound:
1. Frequency – how often vibrations repeat throughout the process of compression and rarefaction.
2. Amplitude – is measured in dB, and refers to loudness.
3. Timbre – how we perceive a waveforms complexity, and color.
4. Duration – instruments have a limited ability to sustain sound, but electric instruments have an infinite durations and their duration can be used as a key element in composition and arranging.
5. Envelope – the attack, decay, sustain, and release of any sound

Synths generate different types of waves: Sine waves contain no harmonics. They are a smooth waveform and produce one tone. Square waves and Triangle waves contain only odd harmonics, giving them a more buzz like tone. White noise is random signal, what sounds like static on your TV.

Electro acoustic music – music that integrates sound from the natural world, with audio processing as well as synthesized sounds. People put much research into acoustic electro music and some devote their whole lives to the study.

The multiple vibration phenomenon consists of partials overtones and harmonics.

Electronic music was the 3rd stage of the aesthetics of music (said by H.H. Stuckenschmidt) – 1. Vocals 2. Instruments 3. Electronic Music ...The production of sounds started to become further away from the body.

7 traits of electronic music:
1. sounds sources of electronic music are unlimited, you can sample, and also sine waves… composer can invent sounds that do not nautrally exist in nature, or radically alter sounds that are natural to crate new instruments

2. Electronic music can expand the perception of tonality, and relinquishes music from the western traditional rules. All sounds carry equal importance

3. Electronic music exists in a state of actualization. Stravinsky talks about potential music and actual music, Score vs the execution of a performance. Elec. Music usually defies scoring because it can be composed live. The other issue is there isn’t a formal way to score a piece of electronic music. Scores can be used for future performances, by either graphic or western notations.

4. el emus has a special relationship with the temporal nature of music. The plastic (flexible, elastic, compress) nature of elec mus allows a compoers to record all values associated with sound, Pitch timbre, and an evelope can be recorded taking b=place over time The ability to modify a sound by time and pitch is one of the most fun

5. Electronic music itself becomes a material of the composition. The type of composition allows users to delve into the physics of sound.

6. Electronic music does not breathe, it is not affected by the limitations of human performance. Complex rhythm and speed are not an issue.

7. Electronic music often lacks a point of comparison with the natural world. This provides a largely mental and imaginative experience. Electronic music is disassociation with the natural. Listening requires intellect and imagination to interpret what is heard, and provokes the listener to derive meaning from the re-interpretation of unnatural sounds.

Tape composition methods and techniques:

Most modern recording practice and techniques are rooted in the classic tape studio and are still very similar. Shaeffer, Henry, Cage, and Varese: this type of composition liberated them from scoring and notating parts, which is super time consuming. Tape embodies both space and time. You can see the physical space the sound requires to be produce and unfold. This resonates with our perception of time as humans. Technology levels all characteristics of the physics of sound, because you can speed up and slow down a sound on tape. Chords become rhythms, and rhythms become drones. Duration, pitch and color are now all interchangeable.
Since all rooms have a resonant characteristic, the room will highlight the particular frequencies, and the formants of the room are emphasized.

Exam 2 was this week… And I chose 3 questions to answer on John Cage, The Mellotron, and Musique Concrete. I studied for this exam by reading the chapter, and making notes of the key people and points. As I came across person, I would write down the year they were born, and a few key things that they did in their lifetime. After reading over the notes I took, I got together with Taylor and we quizzed each other on the facts,, asking the questions we thought might be on the test. I felt pretty prepared for this exam, and my study techniques really helped me understand and remember the material.

The Chamberlin vs. The Mellotron!

Originating in Berlin, these were the first keyboards to replicate the sounds of other instruments. The premature models started with the idea of the early organs, with a foot keyboard as well. Any sound could be reproduced and played. David Nixon was one of the guys that helped Harry Chamberlin, an organist and electronics enthusiast, develop the keyboard instrument known as the Chamberlin. Harry is the father of all modern sampling. Harry started by tape recording big band instruments holding out different notes for 8 seconds, and this is how he started developing the sounds that would go into the keyboard. Loops lasted for 8 seconds because that is quite a long time for a player to actually play a note on a brass instrument with only one breath. Harry knew that it was already easy enough to make loop playbacks, and wanted to figure out how these loops could have attacks. If they were just loops with no attacks, it would be extremely difficult to tell where you were in the loop or song. Being only a loop with no attack, the loop wouldn’t restart when a key was re-depressed. He achieved this by playing a single piece of tape that had a starting and ending point, and began applying the loops to drum machines early on. The Chamberlin was to be seen as a home entertainment device, and placed in salons as well. Some models of the Chamberlin were released in 1948, ’51, ’59, ’60, ’61, and ’62. A man named Bill Franson offered his services as a salesman for Harry and the Chamberlins. Being unethical, he stole 2 of them. He took them back to England and solicited the Chamberlin as his own creation, even replacing the emblem that said “Chamberlin” to “Franson”. Bradmatic was the company responded to Franson’s advertisement in the newspaper, and they didn’t ask for prints from the development of the instrument. Instead they were focused on capitalizing on it. They presented the Mellotron as a rich man’s toy to add appeal to the instrument for a sales kick. Harry didn’t hear from Franson for a year, and the people who ran the Mellotron corporation were shocked to find out (while attending the NAMM show and seeing the Chamberlin) that the originators of the so-called “Franson” were someone other than Bill Franson. They made a compromise with Harry. They would sell Mellotrons in Europe, while Harry would sell in America, and he would get a percentage of all of the sales. The Mellotron though had crappy action when it came to the attack of the key. The Chamberlin was much smoother on the initial attack. A convenient thing about the Mellotron is that it has replaceable sound cartridges, where you could buy a string, horn, piano, or many other instrument sound cartridges. The Chamberlin unfortunately had fixed cartridges, so users were stuck with the original sounds whether they liked them or not. People would want to find out where these sounds come from when they saw a performance live. They wanted to know what actual instruments were being used in the Mellotron. How the Mellotron works – when you press down on a key, there is a cartridge inside with a tape loop on it that would play over a playhead when the key was depressed. Sounds were credited as “Mellotron” sounds rather than the actual type of instrument that was sounding because that was the emblem seen on stage by the audience. Mellotron built their own custom monitoring systems, and the Chamberlins used an old radio preamp. The Chamberlin used a mechanical lever, while the Mellotron used push buttons to change tones and timbre. Mike Pinder, a tester for the Mellotron, and a member of The Moody Blues ended up using the Mellotron in the band. Pinder saw the Mellotron as a filler inbetween vocal lines. Rod Argent from The Zombies got hold of a Mellotron, that the Beatles had actually left onstage, and began using it in their band! That’s way awesome. Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick used the Mellotron to write orchestral arrangements, because he and pretty much no one wanted to shell out the money for an entire orchestra when all the parts could be recorded, and loaded onto a cartridge that would then be placed inside the Mellotron. In 1963, ’64, ’68, and ’75 various Mellotron models were released. The double keyboard model was the popular one in the 1960’s, and was actually one of the models that Franson had taken to England.
Brian Kehew, Don Lawson, Fabio Frizzi, Mattias Olsson, David Kean, and Geoff Unwinn are some other composers/producers that used the Mellotron. Al Kooper believes there are 2 reasons to buy a synth - to replicate the sounds of real instruments, and to play sounds that people can invent on. Patrick Moraz used the Mellotron like a sampler, and wasn’t concerned about pitch. He sampled his own loops in a sequence of half steps that determined the order. It is said the Mellotron has a more mid-FI characteristic than the Chamberlin, and artists claim it gives a creepier sound to the instrument. Prices were around three or four hundred dollars, and later in the 1990s you had to pay thousands for a Mellotron that may very well be in bad condition. Michael Penn (Sean Penn’s brother), believes that the Chamberlin is significant to how people make records today because much of the sampling originated from this instrument, and Harry Chamberlin himself. The instrument didn’t receive very much wide spread use, and it is similar to the Theremin in that it was partly created for recreating pieces written for orchestra. There is not much reliability in the mellotron. Motors would drone until the instrument warmed up. It was a tempermental instrument. It would go out of tune if too much power was already being used up and there wasn’t enough to feed it. The biggest problem seemed to be how the Mellotron was handled in transit and weather. On tour, it sits in a truck over night, condensation would build up on the tapes and there would be water on tapes for the next gig. They’d plug in the Mellotron and tapes were dysfuncional. The entrepreneurs really narrowed down the market because few people were interested in such a complicated home entertainment device. This is ironic because Harry made a great product but it didn’t do well in the market. Harry’s business never expanded because after it being around for 15-ish years, the business still remained in a small warehouse that still looked like a startup company. He should have looked to investors, and other people to update sounds regularly. The Musicians Union saw that since its invention, anyone could use the Mellotron regardless of their musical skill (or lack there of), in which this started to cause issues because it started to put string players out of work. It did not make a profit and didn’t sell enough, and supply was much greater than demand. Eventually they changed the name to Novatron. David Biro, in 1974, invented Birotron because he didn’t like the sound of the Mellotron, and also didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars for an unreliable instrument with sounds that he didn’t think sounded very good. He looked for an easier, smaller, cheaper way to create it. Only 17 Birotrons were made. David Kean was looking to buy out Mellotron, and needed the master tapes from the Chamberlin for the original sounds, and ended up getting them through Les who took part in running the Mellotron company. New synths were becoming polyphonic and that put the Mellotrons out of work because they were only monophonic. Tony banks replaced his use of the Mellotron with vocodors and other synths, because the Mellotron limited the fact that he had to play a whole set. The Mellotron weighed 450 pounds, was inconvenient for tour, and people eventually began to stop using Mellotrons because they were becoming the generic sound and everyone was using them. M-audio released the M-tron plug-in that includes the classic sounds of the Mellotron. Markus Retsch provided sounds for the modern day Nord keyboards made by Clavia. The Chamberlin and the Mellotron introduced and preceded the many synthesizer keyboards and sequencers we have available to us today. It’s pretty amazing to think that the very keyboard I have at my home, an M-audio Keystation Pro 88 MIDI controller with faders on it, back then could have been seen as a futuristic keyboard.

In January 1966, 10 artists and 30 engineers embarked on a technological journey to accommodate dance acts with a synchronized lighting show, using photoelectric cells and the interruptions of light beams to create electric signals and musical noises.
John Cage created one of the most innovative electronic music performances – Variations VII. He and his engineers were using new and innovative techniques to create sound. Miking electronic appliances with contact mics and the use of sine wave generators were incorporated to create the piece and perform it live at the same time. John drew a big part of his inspiration from chants. These artists went to the extreme with the manipulation of sounds, almost to the point of noise. The process is very technical, and an art form in itself. Most people would perceive theses sounds as noise. He never limited himself to accept to the rules of composing music in the traditional manner. Variations VII didn’t use any magnetic tape. All sounds were in the air or produced by oscillators. As sounds were being heard in the performance, that was also the very live creation of that sound. It is really interesting to think about. Sounds were produced as they were heard, ending up as a form of chance music. John Cage derived his ideas from the I Ching book, by tossing sticks and coins to determine where sounds would be placed. Billy Kluber was someone who was experimenting in the research division trying to get computers to communicate with each other, and also helped perform Variations VII. He assisted in the building of the special platform in front of the control room where they set up tables with household appliances and other equipment. The juicers, blenders, radios, and fans used contact mics. They manipulated the sounds by using photoelectric cells. When a person would walk past a light and interrupt the light flow to the cell, the sound would change. These lights were place under the tables where all of the equipment was. The telephones that they acquired from BELL labs were wired lines with magnetic pickups that were connected to pick up sounds from real places in real time. Telephones were placed in a restaurant, a sanitation department, an apiary, and a few other places and the signal was sent to the building where the performance was. John Cage began encouraging the audience members to come stand close and watch the performance. David Tudor was another engineer/performer that had is own separate table with a series of gadgets that made oscillator sounds that were out of control.
The space they used for 9 evenings had a 6 second reverb echo, which provided an environment that made these electronic sounds smoother, given that the decay was so long. Moog designed antennaes that would interact with dancers using photoelectric cells.
Terry Riley was a composer, and he was interested in turtles and had an aquarium. They used the phone to record the motor that circulated the water in the tank. They also recorded sounds from a newspaper print plant. John Cage was the intellectual idea behind the composition and performance. He composed variables, and a basic outline of the piece. As a composer, he set his engineers up as composers because their movement would affect the photocells, and control sounds. Performers could also be seen as instruments. They made things so interesting, and were going above and beyond, using everyday sources were reframed, and warped into new sounds. This performance challenges our notion of what an instrument, a song, and a composer is. Cage’s role in relinquishing control: He was very open minded and left it up to the gear and the performer to add the special elements to the performance. He set up an environment and a setting, and used chance to create a live composition. A big part of this piece was the acceptance of sounds from the world. How was this performance beyond just a music performance? It was multimedia presentation of sound. There were audience members watching the performance.

Pierre Schaeffer’s 4 delimitations:
1. Living animals voices sounds
2. Noises
3. Modified or prepared instruments
4. Conventional instruments

He used all 4 categories in non-traditional manners.

Schaeffer adopted 7 values:
1. Mass - organization of the sound in a spectral dimension.
2. Dynamics - measurable values of various components of the sound
3. Tone quality/Timbre - refers to tone
4. Melodic profile - temporal evolution of the total spectum of sound.
5. Profile of mass - spectral components of the sound mass low range to high rand and high range to low range
6. Grain - analysis of the irregularities of the surface of the sound
7. Pace - analysis of the amplitude dynamics of the sounds (how loud, how soft)

3 plans –
1. Harmonic Plan (material within the entire spectrum)
2. Dynamic Plan (affected the envelope ADSR)
3. Melodic Plan (pitch and tone, over time).

French vs. German
The French had a more organic approach to composition of electronic music.
The German approach was greatly influence by Serialism and 12-tone music – The German inventor Albert Schoenberg (1874-1951) and marked the beginning of serialism.

12-tone music (using the chromatic scale avoids a strong sense of melody, resolution, and cadences.

Tone rows – 5 general rules
1. 12 notes are organized in a different order or row
2. Each tone is given equal importance.
3. Row can be inverted or reversed, retrograde, forwards and backwards or combinations of directions
4. No repeats until all tones in a row are used
5. Can be manipulated to follow a ‘random’ pattern

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) was a German composer, and he was one of the most important and controversial composers of the 20th century. He is most well known for composing electronic music, tape loop music, aleatory music (controlled chance music), and musical spatialization. He started out by cutting and pasting music together in Schaeffer’s studio in 1952. The piece was called ETUDE.

The very nature of a piece of tape can be represented in time, and time makes the most sense to us as humans.
Duration can be controlled and manipulated in regards to a piece of tape by cutting, slicing or looping. He took the approach of serialized composition and applied mathematical analysis of tones to the generation, shape, editing of the tape-recorded sounds. To do this he used tone generators and tape.

Sine waves started to be manipulated on a tape. Serialism was used in tape creation to dynamics, attack, duration, and timbre. 1.92kHz is the average center frequency of the human voice. Stockhausen calculated what harmonics/overtones would be below and above and combined the pitches, defining the early form of additive synthesis.

“Studie II” in 1952 the first composition through sine waves. As the composition became a score, the piece had to follow a graphic representation, because the music would not appear to make any sense notated on a staff. The graphic representation, or score, consisted of a series of blocks to represent different tones, and lines drawn to represent the various manipulations of the sound envelopes, which include ADSR – the attack, decay, sustain, and release of a sound. Scoring this type of piece in this way takes the abstractness out of the music, as people are then able to follow along visually to this music that many people would view initially perceive as noise, not music.

Stockhausen’s process in the 1950’s consisted of 4 things.
1. Unified time structure
2. Splitting the sound
3. Multi-layering spatial composition
4. Equality of tone and noise

The organization of sound in this way liberated tones and music from the western traditional rules, and provided equality for music.
He is a big influence on the Beatles and Paul McCartney, for the Sergeant Pepper’s and White albums.

Turntablism

Turntablism had been around since the 1920’s, and it was now getting to a point where it was a possibility to change pitch and timbre, and manipulate recorded sounds. Exploitation of the turntable began to take place, and people started using the playback device as an instrument. Paul Hindemath, Varese, and Cage started using turntables in their compositions. Musique Concrete was a term for a type of music coined by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948, and it literally translates – music concrete, or real music – found sound. Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry were the most significant players of this type of electronic music. Schaeffer was a radio broadcaster and Henry was a percussionist. Schaeffer was able to borrow all kinds of professional gear and together they started created sounds that were unheard of. They started playing sounds backwards, slowing down and speeding up audio, and were beginning to use techniques that were not in people’s current vocabulary. Their compositions started referring to real world sounds that didn’t include a human instrument or interface. The goal of Musique Concrete was to enlighten humans to perceive these everyday, boring sounds in a new sensibility of what music could potentially be. Schaeffer’s original idea was to use any and all sounds apart from the traditional instrumentation. In his artistic development of sounds, he began warping them to sound like something completely different than the original. He invented what we know as sampling and looping. To record one of the most significant pieces, Etude De Bruits, they used a lathe disc, 4 turntables, 4 channel mixers, mics, audio filters and EQ, a reverb chamber, and previously recorded sounds. This was the official second era in the electronic music movement and for these reasons: It was an art form in which composing was happening through technological means. It used organic sounds, coming from non-musical sources. Their work could be replayed identically each time using mechanical means. The presentation of the music also did not require humans.

Leon Theremin

Leon Theremin lived from is the man responsible for creating a bond between music and electricity. He began creating electrical devices that that were under the basis of scientific and mathematical theory, for the purposes of psychological and physiological effects. He was interested in mechanical construction of music where music is created by electronic means, and when electronic technology was in only in it’s infancy. His ideas were so great, that he was able to create what people called performance art, where stages were built with lights that reacted to dancers’ movements.
With out an oscilloscope, he was able to use his ears when playing the Theremin, to generate aurally pleasing tones. Leon invented many things in his lifetime. He constructed an overhead motion sensor that would silently alert police if anyone set it off. The original idea started with the prevention of a thief attempting to lean over a cradle to steal a baby, which is quite interesting. Clara Rockmore didn’t like that the theremin was being looked at as a novelty and wanted it to be seen as more of a real musical instrument, much like how it emulates the timbre of a violin or cello when played correctly. One of his closest sisters died in the 1920s, changing Leon’s life. They worked closely in a group. Instead of spending time grieving the loss, he wanted to create an instrument that would revive her. Another thing that complicated his life was that he married a woman of a different race at a time when society did not approve of interracial marriage. People viewed Theremin as a very intelligent inventor, and didn’t think that his wife was of his caliber. A big life changing event occurred in 1938, when the Russians came and forcefully removed Theremin from his studio in Manhattan, and took him back to Russia. After this happened, there was question if Theremin was even still alive. Theremin was found again after Clara and her husband visited Russia. Ran into a man at the train station, who had said that he had lunch with him just the other day. The man arranged for them to meet Theremin in the subway. They found out he was in prison for 7 years in a lab, and forced to invent things for Soviet Intelligence: Worked in an ‘institution’ on electronics, then for an aviation company, then worked on the construction of streets. After work for the Soviet Union, his instruments were smashed with an axe and he was told by the conservatory administrator that electricity was for the electrical death sentence, and not for music. His inventions changed the course of Electronic music forever. Rock and roll was just getting started, synths were becoming experimental, and the civil rights movement and the media had a great effect on music and people’s creations. Theremin and Clara Rockmore eventually led to future artists like Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, who used the theremin on the Beach Boys Good Vibrations album. Robert Moog was a significant inventor and follower of Theremin’s ideas, and liked to build electronic projects. His father subscribed a magazine for electronologists, and Moog eventually wrote an article for the magazine on how to build a theremin. Moog wanted an endorsement from Clara to play his synthesizer, but she stated she has a tremendous amount of respect and loyalty to Theremin, and declined. Moog trained his ears to the Theremin and tone speeds and amplitudes, and in turn it aided in the creation of the synthesizers he imagined. Slonimsky believed Theremin was the prophet of the future of music, and it seems that no one was coming close to the adventurous, bold take on the direction of music in the coming century like Theremin had been doing. At one time, Albert Einstein and his wife who was a violinist, came to Theremin. He didn’t have too good of an ear but tried playing the Theremin in appreciation and respect for an invention.
If I could see a part of Theremin’s life, I would want to see the creation of the Rhythmicon and the era of the live performances. I’d want to be there when Leon first thought of the idea and how he was going go do it. Before world war II, electronic music was bound by live performance. In hearing everyday noise, John Cage expressed that we want to organize this noise into a musical sense, rather than a sound effect. Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch (1887-1964) began using the turntable as a musical instrument rather than a recording/performance mechanism. They created new music by slowing down the speed of already recorded music, and it created cool and weird sounds. Pierre Shaeffer (1910) and Pierre Henry (1927) were inspired by Hindemith, Toch, and Varese’s experimentation with turntable or gramophone music. They composed sounds of electronic signals, natural sounds, instrumental sounds, and sound recording tools and made a form of music called music concrete. This work led to more interest in electronic music and eventually electronic music studios.

Introduction to Electronic Music

There are 3 themes in the book Electronic and Experimental Music that we will be learning about:
1. The marriage of music and technology is inescapable and not always perfect.
2. The history of invention
3. The spread of electronic music into worldwide musical culture
Edgard Varese (1883-1965) was a French composer who worked closely with Leon Theremin, an inventor of many things that impact the electronic music world today.
German physicist Herman Von Helmholtz (1821-1894) published “On the sensations of tone for the physiological basis of music” and was interested the physics of perception. He invented the Helmholtz resonator.
Elisha Gray (1835-1901) invented a musical telegraph machine. Resistances were used to create different frequencies based on electromagnetic concepts.
Thaddeus Cahill (1867-1934) invented the Telharmonuim. His musical goal was to create individual sounds and combine them with other sounds, called additive synthesis. Crosstalk became a problem, and the amount of power required to amplify the signal was still needed. It used a tone wheel system. There we many challenges he faced: Method of tone generation, tuning, keyboard/interface, power supply issues, size, the mixing of sounds, amplification, controlled dynamics, funding issues, widespread use. This machine weighed tons, had to be transported with 30 flat-bed train cars, and required an enormous amount to function.
Busoni (1866-1924) wrote sketch of the aesthetic of music and was a futurist.
Russolo, a futurist (1885-1947) wrote “The Art of Noises” that focused on sounds that are low information/high redundancy. His approach was to organize the sounds of noise in a way that would make sense as art, or in the form of a story. He categorized noise into 6 categories sounds:
1. Roars thundering explosions hissing bangs booms
2. Whistling hissing puffing
3. Whispers murmurs muttering mumbling.
4. Screeching creaking rustling cracking
5. Noise from metal wood pottery
6. Voices of animals and people.
During the industrial revolution, the everyday world was becoming full of low information and highly redundant sounds, such as machines humming, cars, factories at work, and other noises that were sounding at a constant, cause humans to eventually start blocking out some of the sound. We begin to hear something so often that we then forget that it is even there, and only notice it when it is not present.
Lee De Forest (1873-1961) invented the vacuum tube, which takes a relatively low signal and amplifies it. The use of tubes led to modern radio broadcasting, amplification of instruments, microphones, television and recording equipment.
Leon Theremin was a Russian inventor. In 1928 a musical instrument called the Theremin was patented. The human body holds an electrical charge called capacitance. That charge disrupts the electromagnetic field around each antennae of the Theremin. The closer the hand gets, to the antennae, the greater the effect of sound and pitch. Laurens Hammond – invented modern portable organs with the tone wheel concept, and in a much smaller more compact design.
Thomas Edison invented discs and the phonograph, which could play and record audio.
Fritz Pfluemer invented celluloid tape with iron oxide, a medium that would store audio.
Maurice Martenot invented the Ondes Martenot, which was the same idea as the Theremin but left hand left hand pushes down on a lever and the right hand can slide back and forth, up and down using a finger ring to get vibrato and other effects.
Henry Cowell (1897-1965) asked Theremin to make a keyboard instrument and was called the Rhythmicon. Pushing a key down would produce a pitched rhythm and the instrument had polyphonic capabilities.