Electroacoustic music

Started by Walt, May 12, 2008, 09:27:14 AM

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some guy

James,

We all learn to swim in our own way.

I thought that giving a list of (fairly) safe labels would give Walt something smaller than the whole ocean, though the whole ocean is pretty fun, come to think of it.

Anyway, to recommend specific people from the vast wealth on these discs (hmmm--it's not an ocean, it's a treasure chest) would tell everyone what I like. But not everyone likes the same things. Plus, if I left anyone off, I'd feel bad, and if I mentioned everyone good, all of you would simply skip my (unbelievably long) list.

So let's just leave out the middle man, shall we, and start out by skipping the list.

Michael

BorisG

Forget the ocean, it is electroacoustic baby steps for me. :-*

some guy

Electroacoustic music is 61 already. Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique is fifty this year.

Cage's Cartridge Music, which is an early if not the first example of what I like to call Tafelmusik, is 48.

And while Varèse and Cage are dead, along with Stockhausen and Luc Ferrari and Pierre Schaeffer, co-creator of the technique, many of the first generation are still alive and so still able to enjoy our enjoyment of their music. Pierre Henry, Schaeffer's co-creator, and Francis Dhomont, who experimented independently of those two around the same time--1946, 1947--are both alive and active. Beatriz Ferreyra, Denis Smalley, and Lars-Gunnar Bodin have all done and are doing really interesting work (very different from each other, too). Eliane Radigue and Michel Chion and Michèle Bokanowski and Christine Groult are all very active people in the 60 to 80 age range. They all live within a few streets of each other in Paris, too, so if you planned it just right, you could talk to all four in one day!

Jérôme Noetinger and Lionel Marchetti have often played live electronics together. If you ever have a chance to see them live (I'm not sure they play concerts together any more), do not miss them. They are fantastique. As are Christian Marclay and Zbigniew Karkowski and Francisco López. The latter two do both live and composed music. I think Christian only does live shows. He's the first (pretty sure) turntablist (from before that word was coined), and not only plays turntables as instruments but LPs as well, just the LPs, without any machines. I've seen a Marclay set, from back when he was first starting out. He was phenomenal. Is phenomenal.

But you were wanting more traditional electroacoustic, I'm guessing. So back to that, with Jon Christopher Nelson and Natasha Barrett and Elainie Lillios and Jonty Harrison and Trevor Wishart and Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram and Gilles Gobeil and Ludger Bruemmer and Gerald Eckert and Dirk Reith and Anna Clyne being a few, a very very very few of my personal favorites.

Walt

Thanks for each contribution! I really didn't meant this to be a discussion of type The very best of ... (well, some of that too) but more open conversation about music I feel is neglected here on GMG. I think of this community also as a knowledge base so I believe that everyones post is important. I already know some of the mentioned pieces and I also have much to discover.

W

bhodges

The piece I've been listening to a lot lately should be mentioned in this thread: Dark Waves by John Luther Adams, for orchestra and electronic sounds, which can be heard here (scroll down).  Adams later did a version for two pianos, also with electronics.

--Bruce

Monsieur Croche

Quote from: some guy on May 13, 2008, 01:46:30 PM
James,

We all learn to swim in our own way.

I thought that giving a list of (fairly) safe labels would give Walt something smaller than the whole ocean, though the whole ocean is pretty fun, come to think of it.

Anyway, to recommend specific people from the vast wealth on these discs (hmmm--it's not an ocean, it's a treasure chest) would tell everyone what I like. But not everyone likes the same things. Plus, if I left anyone off, I'd feel bad, and if I mentioned everyone good, all of you would simply skip my (unbelievably long) list.

So let's just leave out the middle man, shall we, and start out by skipping the list.

Michael

I understand, Michael, but for someone like me, who is unfamiliar with the genre and operates on a rather limited budget, the idea of making random purchases in the hope of striking gold is not at all an appealing one. Can you recommend a few discs that would serve as a good introduction to the beginner?

I am quite impressed by John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, which is about my sole encounter with electronic music.

some guy

Monsieur Croche, I understand the need to budget, though when I was exploring electroacoustic music back in the seventies, I simply bought any album that said "electronic" on it. That was back when American companies called everything "electronic."

But that's as may be. I was hooked in 1972 by the whole century's worth of music and just fed voraciously. Meant I got a lot of stuff I didn't like, but "Oh, well." I was hooked, so a few rotten eggs didn't particularly spoil anything for me. Not everyone's hooked. So for you, the best thing is probably the Canadian iconcerts website. (http://iconcerts.rien.qc.ca/) Here you can hear a lot of music for free, and make your own decisions about what you like.

Otherwise, a lot of people I know (including myself) started with Varèse's Poème électronique. And the two CD Chailly set on London has most of his music, including the Poème. If you like Adams, though, I'm the wrong person to recommend anything for you as I don't care for Adams. At a guess, I'd say you might like David Borden's synthesizer ensemble works (Mother Mallard) or Subotnick's various Buchla things. But that's only a guess. And none of that is as rich or various as what you'll find on the rien site.

jochanaan

Quote from: some guy on May 17, 2008, 04:10:32 AM
...Otherwise, a lot of people I know (including myself) started with Varèse's Poème électronique....
Yep, that was the piece that my high school band director introduced to me, thereby corrupting me for life... ;D
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Symphonien

Quote from: bhodges on May 14, 2008, 01:36:43 PM
The piece I've been listening to a lot lately should be mentioned in this thread: Dark Waves by John Luther Adams, for orchestra and electronic sounds, which can be heard here (scroll down).  Adams later did a version for two pianos, also with electronics.

--Bruce

Thanks for that Bruce! A fascinating piece - I'm listening to it now. Sounds sort of like a mix between Feldman and Ligeti's Atmosphères or Lontano.

Monsieur Croche

Quote from: some guy on May 17, 2008, 04:10:32 AM
Monsieur Croche, I understand the need to budget, though when I was exploring electroacoustic music back in the seventies, I simply bought any album that said "electronic" on it. That was back when American companies called everything "electronic."

But that's as may be. I was hooked in 1972 by the whole century's worth of music and just fed voraciously. Meant I got a lot of stuff I didn't like, but "Oh, well." I was hooked, so a few rotten eggs didn't particularly spoil anything for me. Not everyone's hooked. So for you, the best thing is probably the Canadian iconcerts website. (http://iconcerts.rien.qc.ca/) Here you can hear a lot of music for free, and make your own decisions about what you like.

Otherwise, a lot of people I know (including myself) started with Varèse's Poème électronique. And the two CD Chailly set on London has most of his music, including the Poème. If you like Adams, though, I'm the wrong person to recommend anything for you as I don't care for Adams. At a guess, I'd say you might like David Borden's synthesizer ensemble works (Mother Mallard) or Subotnick's various Buchla things. But that's only a guess. And none of that is as rich or various as what you'll find on the rien site.

Thank you, some guy, for the recommendations. I will check out the Varese disc you mentioned also. I don't like Adams all that much, for the record, but there are exceptions every now and then.

I have also been to the site and it looks excellent. However, I encountered a rather disturbing observation on my last visit there. When I clicked on one of the concerts, there was a message telling me that "the file is corrupt". Needless to say, I was highly intrigued by how censors have managed to incorporate this kind of content advisory into media content on the Net (Ah! The good old days of being young!), but this is a matter for another day; music must take precedence. Fearlessly I pressed on, clicking "OK", for I have seen much terrible things during the years that I walk the Earth. And then... nothing! Not even the tiniest sound is heard! If this were some experimental composer's concept art then I must say that I don't find it very amusing...

Can anyone tell me what happened? Could there be something sinister at play here?

What do you think, jochanaan?

some guy

Monsieur, not to trample all over your pun or anything, but I tried a half a dozen files from several concerts, and they all played fine.

The whole world is corrupt, but the files I tried were all pure.

12tone.

Here's a fairly new work you can hear online from Californian sound artist Steve Roden.  I've heard quite a bit from him.

Mostly field recording sounds, very little to do with 'electronic' sounds...though he does use them.


Monsieur Croche

Quote from: some guy on May 18, 2008, 11:44:05 PM
Monsieur, not to trample all over your pun or anything, but I tried a half a dozen files from several concerts, and they all played fine.

The whole world is corrupt, but the files I tried were all pure.

It seems the problem was with my browser, some guy. As a matter of fact at that time I couldn't play any media file from the Net (tried streaming some clips from Naxos... was told that "the source filter for the file could not be loaded"). But everything works fine now.

Quote from: 12tone. on May 19, 2008, 03:17:05 PM
Here's a fairly new work you can hear online from Californian sound artist Steve Roden.  I've heard quite a bit from him.

Mostly field recording sounds, very little to do with 'electronic' sounds...though he does use them.

Thank you! I'm listening to it right now!

12tone.

Let us know what you think of Roden's work!  :)

jochanaan

Quote from: Monsieur Croche on May 18, 2008, 07:00:46 PM
...Can anyone tell me what happened? Could there be something sinister at play here?

What do you think, jochanaan?
Varèse is "old news" by now; I'd think the Powers That Be would prefer to silence someone living... ;D
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Monsieur Croche

Quote from: 12tone. on May 19, 2008, 05:07:38 PM
Let us know what you think of Roden's work!  :)

Steve Roden's Amnesia is unlike everything I have ever heard before, so I have nothing to compare it to. Is this what is normally meant when the term "aural landscape" is used? It's a fascinating piece: I like the "unpitched" "percussive" passage at the start, which has a certain rhythmic complexity to it... When the "pitched" field sound is introduced and looped over again and again in a minimalistic way, I rather fancy that the composer would combine some of these sounds to give the passage a little "activity" (Only happens towards the end), but I suppose that is not what he intends to do. The overall effect is hypnotic and underwhelming. I can actually imagine listening to this piece to unwind... Am I crazy, 12tone?

Quote from: jochanaan on May 20, 2008, 07:44:55 AM
Varèse is "old news" by now; I'd think the Powers That Be would prefer to silence someone living... ;D

You make sense, jochanaan, but still I see no harm in being extra cautious... It has kept me alive all these years...

Ugh

Quote from: some guy on May 14, 2008, 09:00:54 AM
Electroacoustic music is 61 already. Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique is fifty this year.


Far older actually. I like to trace it at least back to Walter Ruttman's experimental film ohne bilder "Weekend" from 1930! A collage of sounds, no less.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgTYJZeyozA

Given the later distinction and at times rival sentiment between the Cologne (the pure electronic, synthetic music of Herbert Eimert et al) and Paris (the musique concrete phonograph and later tape experiments of field recordings etc of the Pierres Schaeffer and Henry et al) schools of electroacoustic music, I find it delightfully ironic that the first example of musique concrete was in fact created in Germany, not in France.
(as a sidenote, musique concrete was also "invented" independently in Sweden by Rune Lindblad in the 50's)
"I no longer believe in concerts, the sweat of conductors, and the flying storms of virtuoso's dandruff, and am only interested in recorded music." Edgard Varese

snyprrr

ah,...please don't confuse the snyprrr with 2 E/A Threads ;D...

some guy

Eugene, I'm good with starting with the Ruttman.

And 1930 was apparently the first turntable concert, too, put on by Hindemith and Krenek, I think. People have speculated that the 19 year old Cage might have attended that concert.

And Milan Knizak predates Marclay by about nine years.

San Antone

Daniel Osorio ~ Zikkus-F for flute and electronics (2008)

https://www.youtube.com/v/iMSqJ32NKCI