Pre '60s electronic music ?

[mute]

Thaddeus Cahill
Luigi Russolo
Edgard Varese
Pierre Schaeffer
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Raymond Scott
Hugh LeCaine

How'd you leave Iannis Xenakis off that beginner's who's-who list?

+ Pierre Henry
+ Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrete

[Sexor]

I thought Daft Punk invented electronic music?

Why would you think that? Even sarcastically? There's not a kid on the planet with that thought, and even if Daft Punk introduced a bunch of new kids to electronic music thanks to Tron or their live performances, then kick a*s. Stop trying so hard to sound like a grumpy old man.

As for the OP, why cut it off @ 1960? Do you already know alot about electronic music in the 60's? Most of them were limited to the tools that were available in the 50's etc. too. I'll assume you already know about the Silver Apples and their peers?

Haha, I guess my sarcasm didn't come through. I have a habit of making incredibly stupid jokes.

Stupid jokes aside, my main musical passion lies exactly in the early years of electronic music, up until the mid 70's or so. Jean-Jaques Perrey, Delia Derbishire, Clara Rockmore and all the others, they are gods to me. Nothing today sounds like it, and my own music is heavily influenced by these artists.

[Automatic Gainsay]

Thaddeus Cahill
Luigi Russolo
Edgard Varese
Pierre Schaeffer
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Raymond Scott
Hugh LeCaine

How'd you leave Iannis Xenakis off that beginner's who's-who list?

+ Pierre Henry
+ Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrete

I left lots off! I didn't want to go too crazy.

[Mr Knesh]

Moron.

As far as I can tell, he may have been an "electronic music theorist" as someone on here cited from the Wikipedia article, I can find no evidence in any of the writings from him or about him that suggest any of his music was performed or meant to be performed by electronic instruments. The most electronic thing I have ever heard from him was the use of a cylinder from a sonogram in a reproduction of one of his musical pieces. This counts as electronic, but anyone can guess as to whether or not Luigi Russolo actually intended the piece to be performed this way.

I appreciate the logical fallacy and ad-homonym argument that you project onto this board, but I had expected a little more from you. In the future I recommend citing sources that suggest a counter-argument to my statement, rather than attacking my intelligence.

[Automatic Gainsay]

Moron.

As far as I can tell, he may have been an "electronic music theorist" as someone on here cited from the Wikipedia article, I can find no evidence in any of the writings from him or about him that suggest any of his music was performed or meant to be performed by electronic instruments. The most electronic thing I have ever heard from him was the use of a cylinder from a sonogram in a reproduction of one of his musical pieces. This counts as electronic, but anyone can guess as to whether or not Luigi Russolo actually intended the piece to be performed this way.

I appreciate the logical fallacy and ad-homonym argument that you project onto this board, but I had expected a little more from you. In the future I recommend citing sources that suggest a counter-argument to my statement, rather than attacking my intelligence.

Listen. I have made a study of the history of electronic music since 1987. And by "electronic music," I'm not talking about pop bullshit or what has been hailed by techno artists and DJs from the internet. I'm not f**k around. If I cite goddamned Luigi Russolo as an important person in the history of electronic music, it's not because I'm just making names up. I'm sorry he wasn't involved with Kraftwerk or any of Donna Summer's tracks in the late 70s, but as far as Electronic Music is concerned, his views, his work, and his statements were important in the foundation of the pre-1960s artistic movement which gave rise to music and philosophy which led to the voltage controlled synthesizer. If you have any doubts, I'll be glad to send you extensive documentation, or even quotes of his viewpoints. I called you a moron because you were willing to make a face at my listing of his name without explaining exactly why.
"Electronic music theorist?" I mean, seriously. At the point at which Russolo was very specifically defining what electronic composers would come to want, THE TECHNOLOGY DIDN"T EXIST. Duh? Are you really saying that because YOU couldn't find evidence to suit YOUR VIEWS in a f**k WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE that he just isn't justifiable as a foundation of electronic music? How about if you OPEN A BOOK?

Okay, I'm getting too hot. You're right. If Juan Atkins didn't cite him as an influence, he can't possibly have any relevance.

[GuyaGuy]

:scurries over to Wikipedia to add Donna Summer to the Luigi Russolo entry:

[astroidmist]

Oh dear, someone on the internet is WRONG.

[madtheory]

Good list AG. As mentioned, the early BBC Radiophonics stuff is amazing, especially Maddalena Fagandini. John Baker did some incredible stuff too, right in to the seventies. Delia is over rated.

I came across a tape dude from the US recently, was active in the sixties and not widely known, but damned if I can remember his name...

In the future I recommend citing sources that suggest a counter-argument to my statement...

What "statement"? Oh, you mean this:

Luigi Russolo

>Electronic

No, sorry, that is not a statement, and it was treated with all due respect. If you wanted a discussion, you should have started one. But you're already wrong as AG has pointed out.

[chamomileshark]

Most of the BBC radiophonic stuff is I think in the 60s. Daphne Oram started there the end of the 50s(?). Her "Oramics" is well worth a listen, she had a system that used film to control stuff. There was something I saw about trying to restore her set up.

I think the Raymond Scott album I would recommend would tbe his Manhatten one.

Oh another one - there is a Harald Bode album out - I think some of it is modern but some is his own demos - that's interesting.

[Mr Knesh]

I am merely stating that his ideas founded many modern uses of both electronic music and sound design. His musical composition can be directly correlated to how composers of musique concrete came to make music during the earliest of tape eras. What I am suggesting is that his music is not electronic. In that he did not use any electronic means to produce his music. His inventions which were used to perform his compositions were entirely mechanical. I do not argue that Luigi Russolo did not have a major impact in how people thought about music.

I was also not attempting to compare Luigi Russolo's pieces to the electronic music produced during the early days of synthesizers either. I have in fact read a lot about Luigi Russolo, believe it or not. I have also read enough to use the wikipedia article as a poor example of conducting research. I was attempting to put forth that if the wiki article happens to say that his ideas founded a zeitgeist within the electronic music era which happened 20 years after the printing of "The Art of Noise" it does not mean that he himself was an electronic music composer. His not being an electronic composer does not diminish his character within the history of music.

Luigi Russolo is a wonderful person to read about, and to listen to modern reproductions of his music. It was not my intent to upset anyone.

I'm gonna go watch some more of AG's youtube videos...

[cornutt]

I haven't seen John Whitney's name tossed out yet. He had some electro-optical mechanisms that he was experimenting with in the '40s and '50s. One simple but devastatingly effective trick he did was to hand-draw waveforms on the optical sound track of a 16mm film.

[hyphen nation]

I always thought that Olivier Messiaen was kinda a grandaddy to a lot of the musique concrete work...I am blanking on a couple of my other significant french and italian guys that blew my mind in a music history class I took back in the day...I also remember having my face kind of melt when the professor brought in these walls of speakers into the auditorium and CRANKED Steve Reich and Glass [Einstein on the Beach]...

[Sexor]

Lighten up people, this could be a fun thread.

Since Olivier Messaien came up, I have quite a funny "connection" there. I bought my Rhodes 73 in the Netherlands from the son of a deceased Dutch composer who, apparently, was a student of Messaien. Decades and decades ago of course.

It sometimes truly amazes me how small this world actually is.

[Virgule]

I haven't seen John Whitney's name tossed out yet. He had some electro-optical mechanisms that he was experimenting with in the '40s and '50s. One simple but devastatingly effective trick he did was to hand-draw waveforms on the optical sound track of a 16mm film.

You mean like this:

[cornutt]

I always thought that Olivier Messiaen was kinda a grandaddy to a lot of the musique concrete work...

Sort of. He never did the tape studio thing as far as I know, but he was very into alternate tonal and rythmic systems. He also spent a lot of time studying birdsongs and transcribing them into music. He wrote and performed a few compositions for the Ondes Martenot in the '30s.