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Electronic music history lesson...
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Alexander



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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2006 2:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
Alexander wrote:
It adds to the fact that whatever I write about it, it better be good, the guy knows a lot of it by heart. Great teacher though!


Who is he? Please ... a name..!


Konrad Boehmer, he will retire the 30th of June, but had a long and imho good career!

http://www.kboehmer.nl/ (it's ok to link teachers online, isn't it..)

Thanks for motivating me, hahaha, feels like I have to get it done to post it here in time now!!

Great!
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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2006 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
it's ok to link teachers online, isn't it..


I am sure there is a law against it, most probably in South Carolina, USA.
Cool

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Alexander



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PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2006 5:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

As promised I'll post what I wrote...

...to be honest it's not even close to what I wanted, but I didn't know where to start or what to write about. I read the info on Stockhausen's terminology and it's you were write, it's not funny!
The info I read about Pierre Schaeffer was more fun and a lot more appealing to me, but I need more time to study his work. The books he wrote are in French and my French is as good as my Togo, so I have to wait till the translations to dutch are finished, which are being done by Konrad Boehmer!! Thumbs up for that!

Please take it easy with cracking the whip on this one, I know it's not very good, but I spent my time doing more usefull things!

Thanks again for the info, it's great stuff and I'm glad to be able to start studying it!!

Quote:

Foundations of modern European electronic music.

The history of electronic music as we define it today has its roots in both Paris and Cologne in the fifties around the time magnetic tape recording was invented. But even history has a past.
In the early twentieth century composers such as Arnold Schoenberg felt that contemporary music was losing potential and the only way to advance was breaking from traditional ideologies concerning compositional methods. The twelve tone method was presented in 1920 as a way for organizing 12 tones in a way that no tone was repeated before the cycle of twelve was finished. The series could be used in four ways: regular, inverted, reversed and reversed inverted. These four variants could be transposed to the eleven remaining pitches and this provided the composer using the twelve tone method a balanced palette of notes.
Schoenberg’s student Anton Webern further applied a form of symmetry to the series creating a higher form of symmetrical structure to the macro level of the composition. These further developments of the 12 tone method inspired the generation of serial composers that followed.

After WW II the 12 tone method was no longer applied to only the pitch organization , but also to the 3 other significant characteristics of tones, namely length, intensity and timbre. Leading to the term ‘serial music’ and breaking contemporary music free from a ‘precooked’ recipe for sound material and composition. Composers are now free to create their own material and thus achieving more freedom in composing.
In 1948 Rene Liebowitz published two books on ‘the school of Vienna’ which contain the above described methods. Olivier Messiaen was busy developing his theories on neo-modality and Herbert Eimert, who published a controversial book in the 20’s on that time’s atonal music, met Werner Meyer-Eppler and Robert Beyer. Their mutual views on contemporary music led to them giving lectures on “the world of sounds of the electronic music” at the Darmstadt composition courses in the summer of 1950.
The interest in electronic music was fueled at this convention and the year that followed Eimert managed to convince Hans Hartmann, director of the Cologne broadcast, to found the first studio for electronic music at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk radio station in Cologne.

1949, in Paris, Pierre Schaeffer meets Pierre Henry and together they founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) in 1951 they were recognized by ORTF, who provided them with their own studio and a magnetic tape recorder. This leads to a second significant studio in the early development of modern electro-acoustic music.
Pierre Schaeffer had his own views on composition and the use of sonic material, which were a world apart from what people were doing in Cologne. The philosophies and methods for creating contemporary music were labeled ‘musique concrète’ by Pierre Schaeffer and documented in the publication of ‘A la recherche d'une musique concrète’ (The Search for a Concrete Music) in 1952.
Schaeffer’s had a definition of musical objects, naming them found or concrete sounds, called the “pseudo instrument” where the object functions as a replacement for the traditional instruments. The sound objects were preferably recorded sounds; later on he used prepared and exotic instruments as well, to obtain the sound objects.
Besides defining the source material Schaeffer wrote about the way we listen, defining four ways, namely hearing, which in short means lending an ear to; listening to, meaning listening carefully to something; listening out for is a definition of our selective behavior when listening to sounds among other noises, the way we can listen to something while we filter out the background noises; and comprehending means we not only hear something, but we also define it and place it in context to what is actually happening and/or producing the sound.
Still he didn’t work with sounds produced by electronic means, but rather with techniques and machines used in a ‘modern’ studio. The difference being that so called found sounds in a contemporary musical composition lead to a less musical result. The difference between the two was also defined by Schaeffer, traditional composition going from the abstract (a composition) to the concrete, the performance. And concrete composition methods doing the inversed, starting off with the sound material and ‘sculpting’ the composition, thus going from something concrete to something abstract.
In the years to come Stockhausen, Boulez and Messiaen all worked in the studio bringing their serial techniques. Schaeffer didn’t approve with this tendency, but it did define the concrete sound synthesis. The atonal and surreal aspects of these methods were defined by Schaeffer as “two diametrically opposed categories of spirit”.

Although both ‘worlds’ have different points of view on composition techniques and varying aesthetics on electro-acoustic sound material, they are both part of the same history. The Cologne development of serial methods of composing electronic sound material and the Musique Concrete school opposing that with the use of ‘found’ sounds lead to exploring sound for it’s sonic qualities, such as envelope and timbre, things that become crucial in the further development of the synthesizer and all forms of sound synthesis to come.

Today we have the Cologne and Paris philosophies in two very influential machines, the sampler and the synthesizer. The synthesizer providing us with all sorts of subtractive and additive synthesis methods already pioneered in the Cologne studio from the fifties. The sampler being a machine Pierre Schaeffer could only dream of, he created the phonogene which could transpose a loop in twelve distinct steps using a keyboard, a predecessor for the mellotron keyboard. This principle is exactly the same in a modern sampler with a midi keyboard connected to it.
Not only in technical terms have we only continued the work of our precursors, but today we still see blueprints of both the Cologne and Paris schools in today’s contemporary electro-acoustic music. Artists such as Scanner use many concrete techniques in their compositions. And almost every form of contemporary electronic music has its roots in Cologne, because it gave birth to the various sound synthesis methods and was to first to actually record and thus give identity to the sounds we connect to electronic music today.

- Alexander Bolk

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FLechdrop



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PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2006 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
The info I read about Pierre Schaeffer was more fun and a lot more appealing to me, but I need more time to study his work. The books he wrote are in French and my French is as good as my Togo, so I have to wait till the translations to dutch are finished, which are being done by Konrad Boehmer!! Thumbs up for that!


Is he going to publish those or make them public in any way? I'd very much like to read them, my French is not all that good either...
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Alexander



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PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2006 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I know a lot of people are awaiting a translation, including myself. He hasn't said much about it, but it is coming soon, I guess in the form of a book. I'll ask him the moment I'll see him and tell him people are curious!
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PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2006 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Sounds good - thanks!

Alexander wrote:
But even history has a past.


Mr. Green

I like the text, although I can't quite judge if it would be deep enough.
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Wout Blommers



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, well, well, my little Alexander Wink

Just a remark, which is alwas forgotten in most texts about this subject.
There is a reason why Paris choose to work with sounds out of the reality and that is their way to look at art itself, all explained in the theory of Surrealism! This opposed the German way, Serialism, which is mentioned by you in your text. This thesis is not mine, but spoken out by Daniel Teruggi, the director of GRM in Paris. And most funny of all, Daniel is a complete look-alike from me (or reversed)... We're acting like twins, while I'm born in The Hague and Daniel in Brasil. Amazing and very surreal Smile

BTW I left the Dutch Synth Forum, as you probably noticed. Anyway, your text would be much to long for them Wink

Wout
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Alexander



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Left? Hmm.. haven't noticed it. Maybe reason for that is that I am trying to grow up a little and stop wasting my time as an ego hungry jerk online. I enjoy this forum for it's respect and it's calm and informative approach to online discussions.

I guess this article is behind me, since I am making big changes in the way I'm growing as a musician.. I'm focussing more on books and information and I have left sonology at this moment, to really dig in what I know, what I want to learn and where the hell I should be going, but I feel It's better this way, opening up some possibilities to study elsewhere in a more suiting environment. We'll see.

Hope to run into you someday, it would still be nice to have a coffee and a chat sometime.

groetjes

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mosc
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That article is interesting, but it is a bit narrow in it's focus. What about the GREAT music that was composed at the Phillips Labs electronic music studios by Kid Baltan, Tom Dissevelt, Henk Badings and Dick Raaijmakers? (Speaking of Dutch electronic music for example). This stuff is more based on jazz and pop music not the stuffy academic music.

Electronic music is too new to have histories - at least histories that are any good. For example, we will hear in histories about the academic roots of musique concrete, but what about all the radio and movie sound producers from the early 20th century?

I enjoy reading the "histories" myself, but I'm old enough to realize we need to take these things with a grain of salt. I've lived though a bit of history I have yet to seen written about. Rolling Eyes

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Wout Blommers



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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
That article is interesting, but it is a bit narrow in it's focus. What about the GREAT music that was composed at the Phillips Labs electronic music studios by Kid Baltan, Tom Dissevelt, Henk Badings and Dick Raaijmakers? (Speaking of Dutch electronic music for example). This stuff is more based on jazz and pop music not the stuffy academic music.

The reason it had to be 'popular music' was the fact Phillips was exploring the commercial use of electronic music. Where Cologne and Paris choose to broadcast their music by radio, at the time the most modern medium, Phillips had only a record industry, so they hoped the gramophone would be the medium where electronic music would flourish.
Quote:
Electronic music is too new to have histories - at least histories that are any good. For example, we will hear in histories about the academic roots of musique concrete, but what about all the radio and movie sound producers from the early 20th century?

Well, there is still a lot to do, don't you think, Howard?
Quote:
I enjoy reading the "histories" myself, but I'm old enough to realize we need to take these things with a grain of salt. I've lived though a bit of history I have yet to seen written about. Rolling Eyes

There is no salt needed, just realize every historic view on a subject is what the writer thinks at the moment of writing of that specific subject in a specific time. It is good to know at academic standards history once was part of literature.
Howard, just as a starter... Why not write your own memories about electronic music, in the most wide perspective? Maybe we can start a special Forum about that? Something called: 'Memory Lane'? Smile It could be a collection filled with what historians call 'ego documents'.

Wout
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
... and I have left sonology at this moment, ....

Which explains in a way the gameboy incident! Smile
Quote:
Hope to run into you someday, it would still be nice to have a coffee and a chat sometime.

Simple! 06 10312085 Smile

Wout
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seraph
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wout Blommers wrote:
Maybe we can start a special Forum about that? Something called: 'Memory Lane'? Smile It could be a collection filled with what historians call 'ego documents'.

there used to be a "memory lane" sub-forum of Shmooze. then it got cancelled Rolling Eyes
arrow http://electro-music.com/forum/post-17102.html#17102

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:
Wout Blommers wrote:
Maybe we can start a special Forum about that? Something called: 'Memory Lane'? Smile It could be a collection filled with what historians call 'ego documents'.

there used to be a "memory lane" sub-forum of Shmooze. then it got cancelled Rolling Eyes
arrow http://electro-music.com/forum/post-17102.html#17102

Well, maybe not the same thing I had in mind...
It is to much personal; I had more common things in mind.
I'll write something as an example.

Wout
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
I know a lot of people are awaiting a translation, including myself. He hasn't said much about it, but it is coming soon, I guess in the form of a book. I'll ask him the moment I'll see him and tell him people are curious!


Any news on the book translations?
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

All I know is that it is going to be published as a book, perhaps the reason it takes a while!?

I'll post title and isbn number as soon as I get it!

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Great, I can hardly wait! (But I guess I will have to...) colors
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

No news...

I am no longer a student there and mr. Boehmer no longer a teacher, so I guess I am also out of resources..

Maybe a course in French gives you faster results!

I did search the web for a reason it hasn't been translated, what came up in two discussions was the "fuzzy" way of writing Schaeffer used and the text not really being technical but more philosophical and focussing on aesthetical problems of a sound object.
Reading that made me only more curious about it.. and it is still a bit odd that an artist who has inspired people worldwide for over fifty years, doesn't get his writings/manifesto translated!?

Is there anybody one this forum who read 'Traité des Objets Musicaux' and is capable on commenting???

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
an artist who has inspired people worldwide for over fifty years, doesn't get his writings/manifesto translated!?

Is there anybody one this forum who read 'Traité des Objets Musicaux' and is capable on commenting???

maybe people inspired by him are not that many Twisted Evil I had that book in my hands but my French is very bad Crying or Very sad

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

seraph wrote:

maybe people inspired by him are not that many Twisted Evil I had that book in my hands but my French is very bad Crying or Very sad


Gehehe, even if it weren't that much, they are not all French and one or two of them should be interested in an english translation! Wink

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I was kidding Very Happy you are right, there should be people around the world interested in translating it.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
I did search the web for a reason it hasn't been translated, what came up in two discussions was the "fuzzy" way of writing Schaeffer used and the text not really being technical but more philosophical and focussing on aesthetical problems of a sound object.


That's exactly what interests me about it!
But yes, perhaps I should just work on my French (and then translate it myself? Wink).
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That would be a genius move! HAHA!
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Good news, within two weeks I received two indications of a dutch translation!!

1: My teacher mentioned it's done.

2: "Up to now no English translation of this massive work has appeared, although Konrad Boehmer has translated large parts of the work into Dutch." Wikipedia seems to know more!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Schaeffer

I'll send him an email and hope to obtain a location for the translations!

ps. I got my internet back. So I'll be haunting these forums once again. These past two months were very very lonely! Wink

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

ISBN 90-5750-089-2

The dutch translation! Very Happy

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander wrote:
ISBN 90-5750-089-2

The dutch translation! Very Happy


no english one Question Shocked

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