Jarre on Electronic Music and America misunderstanding: go!

[madtheory]

Seems to be argued about on every other forum but VSE...

http://www.konbini.com/en/entertainment ... interview/

[Virgule]

He lives in a fantasy world, disconnected from reality.

[ItsMeOnly]

He lives in a fantasy world, disconnected from reality.

says who exactly?

If you've read beyond the "shouting" tagline, he's pretty much correct with the statement in historical context, although he judges UK unfairly - the work of BBC Radiophonic Workshop alone made a large chunk of EM history.

[Virgule]

I wanted to edit to take back the disconnected part, only.

[Sweep]

Funny how Jarre thinks America had nothing to do with the development of electronic music, when Wendy Carlos has been such a massive stimulus to so many musicians right across the board, from Tim Blake to Benny Andersson. The interview even mentions Arthur C. Clarke, who was a friend of Wendy's for twenty years, and still the connection doesn't get made.

He has a very funny idea about Tangerine Dream as well.

[synthRodriguez]

I think what he meant was not that the US didn't have any influence on the genre, but that it wasn't a purely indigenous creation by Americans like jazz and the blues.

Although it could be argued that neither of those were exactly pure American creations either, but they certainly came to life when Americans got hold of them.

[madtheory]

Jarre is talking pre 1960, Wendy Carlos is post. He's talking mainly about Pierre Schaeffer. He did an incredible number of things in many disciplines.

[ItsMeOnly]

Jarre is talking pre 1960, Wendy Carlos is post. He's talking mainly about Pierre Schaeffer. He did an incredible number of things in many disciplines.

Agreed, he's talking about roots of electronic music, and he isn't that wrong.

[Sweep]

He mentioned Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream in the interview I read.

In fact, he says: "It has nothing to do with English-speaking countries, it was born in Germany with Stockhausen and in France with Pierre Schaefer, then with the Germans on one side, or me."

Stockhausen and Schaefer obviously refer to the early origins of electronic music, as his word `born' confirms, but his "then with the Germans on one side, or me" clearly refers to the later period. Later references to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream suggest a late sixties/early seventies context, but the reference to himself is absolutely clear about the time period he's referring to.

[madtheory]

I should've known that folks around here know their history

[synthparts]

Umm... Raymond Scott?

[Europanaut]

Hugh Le Caine comes to mind too. Canadian. He wasn't particularly prolific, but Dripsody is a pretty innovative piece from the 1950's.

[Virgule]

Personally, I don't see tape-manipulation experiments or techniques as having anything to do with computer or synthesizer based music.

This however, does...And how many more different examples exist outside of the whole 'musique concrete' world.







nothing new under the sun

[madtheory]

How you see it isn't the point. It was defined as electronic music at the end of WWII because it was made electronically, before computers or synthesisers were used in music. You can't redefine it now, because the definition was already established. Every American you can mention was following on from what was already established by Schaefer, Stockhausen Russolo etc. What those guys did informed everything from composing to how synthesisers are designed and how computers got used. Even John Cage- he was Schoenberg school right up to the sixties when he went composing electronically. Read beyond the attention grabbing headline, he makes a very good point about genres as well. Now we can argue about the influences in Jarre's own music, but that is not the point either.

That Russian stuff is very cool, but it's America that he's talking about. He even says it was non English speaking countries where it came from- so he's including Russia with that statement. Anyway Russia was totally isolated. That resulted in many parallel developments- Koletnikov with the sampling theorem for example.

[Virgule]

I was never one for controversy and I apologize for getting my own personal thoughts mixed with the topic.

My first comment on Jarre wasn't even made in relation to the article or his music. I didn't want to prove a point though it resulted in doing just that. I don't want to dispute his claims either wether they be right or wrong. That is all. Have a good day everyone.