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solyaris
Joined: Jun 02, 2005
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 Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:14 am Post subject:
electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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Just to know if there are people here that state to make "electronic music" without use synthetizers ...
Personally I have programmed synths some years ago, but I think I achieved best results in "sound synthesis" using acoustic (electro-acoustic) instruments as source for a further processing ...
simply speaking: I use guitars as source.
In recent times I more and more appreciate music realized by artists that use (string) acoustic vibrations as source, mainly in "ambient music / creative indipendent music or whatever you want to call it ... to give you examples: Chas Smith from USA, Stars Of the Lid from USA/Belgium, Alio Die from Italy, Colleen from France, Marsen Jules from Germany, etc.
Nowadays I feel majority "electronic music" realized with synths (hw and worst digital sw) generally ugly ... paradoxically I feel textures realized after the processing of acoustic vibrations generally more complex (this is not important) but all in all more beauty (this is important!)
What I mean is that the presumed technology of recent synths seem do not support electronic music artists in possible new ways of art ... what I see mainly is that synth made electronic music are following old paradigmas ... apparently without memory of what first '900 contemporary classical music composers experimented almost using acoustic (orchestral) instrument canvass ....
ok ... a complex question, involving the topic of commercial interests (synth are projected mainly thinking about the fact 90% user will use it for dance music makeing, etc, etc.), and cultural bonds ...
What do you think about that ?
There are here musicians that use acoustic sources still believing torealize electronic music ? 
giorgio
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Wout Blommers
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:57 am Post subject:
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An important part of 'electronic music' is the 'treatment' of a sound. One of the first 'electronic music' experiments was done by the French: Musique Concrète, which used recorded sounds which were treated mainly by other recording equipment. Pierre Schaeffer used gramophone cutting machines at first when the magnetic tape recording machine wasn't available.
Anyway the musician is always free to chose any sound source he/she needs or want.
Wout |
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blue hell
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Wout Blommers
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:12 pm Post subject:
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Wout |
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bbinkovitz
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:09 pm Post subject:
Re: electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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| solyaris wrote: | What I mean is that the presumed technology of recent synths seem do not support electronic music artists in possible new ways of art ... what I see mainly is that synth made electronic music are following old paradigmas ... apparently without memory of what first '900 contemporary classical music composers experimented almost using acoustic (orchestral) instrument canvass ....
ok ... a complex question, involving the topic of commercial interests (synth are projected mainly thinking about the fact 90% user will use it for dance music makeing, etc, etc.), and cultural bonds ... |
I wouldn´t assume that the current state of the field of electronic music is in any way imaginable reflected in the features and supposed innovations in mass market instruments. Some of the instruments offered will always be useable for a composer, but the task to be solved by the major brands is always to make stuff that can be sold in huge numbers.
An amusing observation is of course that many of the "lesser" brands and specialty boutique brands ( often one man enterprises ) will ( possibly unwittingly ) are simply designing and building more of the same. Still, some of this stuff is useable and of value.
Then of course we have the music problem, what is the exactly the field of electronic music today? Is there even such a thing?
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Uncle Krunkus
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject:
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I very much appreciate the electronic treatment of acoustic sources.
I'm also just as fond of the acoustic treatment of purely electronic sources.
Almost all of my favourite music contains guitars in some form or another, I feel that to make great music using only one instrument is a very tall order. The more variety in the sources/instruments the better, as long as they don't compete too strongly for the same sonic "space/time", and even that guidline has been broken with astonishing results before. 
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Rykhaard
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject:
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I'm almost on the opposite side to Uncle Krunkus.
I started as a guitar player in 1972, switching to keyboards from bass guitar in 1982, shortly after first hearing Baroque 'classical'.
Especially in the last 5 or so years, I've been becoming especially tired of all of the guitar music that I hear on the radio (against choice, mainly).
Previous to that time, I've been working towards creating new 'instruments' from electronics (previously in software), from which I could then explore the sonic possibilities in as many expressive and varied ways as possible.
Those experiences have brought me down to certain aspects of general sound structure formats from which I then venture when I'm creating a self-instrument 'class'.
Along the other line - I'm not the happiest with the majorities of electronic 'music' that I've been hearing for at least the last 10 years either, though.
Though as well - within the huges waves of 'music' that I'm not pleased with, there are the rare gems, that I truly enjoy experiencing - performance; composition; expression.
Finally - coming back to my roots - guitar wise, I absutively LOVE watching and listening to a master guitarist in most styles of music - especially within some of the 'classical' sub-divisions.
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solyaris
Joined: Jun 02, 2005
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Location: Genova, Italy
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:42 am Post subject:
Re: electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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| elektro80 wrote: |
Then of course we have the music problem, what is the exactly the field of electronic music today? Is there even such a thing? |
oh! this is the point!
Generally I'm really interested in new paths on sound synthesis; and the default area for that seem to be "electronic music" (in 2008..., in rich countries - where musician could use electricity, electronics, internet...)
but, paradoxically, despite we are overrun by analog, digital synths, software on computers, internet, .... what lack is the search of new musical worlds (electronic devices could allow to explore).
It seem to me that 99% of synth developed following the techno dance paradigma (old stuff  ) BTW, I'm nothing against dance music I believe indeed that there are genius in this area ... and the scenario of classical contemporary music seem to me absolutely dead (In Italy is also veru difficult to listen music of some famous pionniers .. Nono; Maderna, Berio, etc.)
I believe we live in years of decadence when we have potentially very powerful (electronic) instruments and more important symbol-treating (compositional) instruments as a simple personal computer could be, but we spread all remaining in a superficial face of beuty ...
an epoch without ideas ?
giorgio
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solyaris
Joined: Jun 02, 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:46 am Post subject:
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| Uncle Krunkus wrote: | | I feel that to make great music using only one instrument is a very tall order. |
What does mean "tall order" ?
btw, sorry my English is so and so.
| Quote: | | The more variety in the sources/instruments the better, as long as they don't compete too strongly for the same sonic "space/time" |
interesting: what do you mean with "same sonic space/time" ?
giorgio
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solyaris
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Uncle Krunkus
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:04 am Post subject:
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| solyaris wrote: | | Uncle Krunkus wrote: | | I feel that to make great music using only one instrument is a very tall order. |
What does mean "tall order" ?
btw, sorry my English is so and so.
| Quote: | | The more variety in the sources/instruments the better, as long as they don't compete too strongly for the same sonic "space/time" |
interesting: what do you mean with "same sonic space/time" ?
giorgio |
A "tall order" is simply something which is hard to do. That's not to say that I haven't heard beautiful minimalist music in both guitar and synthesiser based genres.
"same sonic space/time" means the same frequencies at a particular time. Sonic space for me is the amount of space in the frequency spectrum for a particular sound/instrument. For example, a kick drum and a violin leave a lot of sonic space in between them. This could be filled with something else, or not, depending on how full you want the sound to be. A single instrument which fills a large sonic space, is not only rare, but also fragile, in that it is very easily overwhelmed by other instruments which compete for space/room. The time factor simply means that things can change radically from one second to the next. And often should do.
BTW I have virtually no interest in how dance orientated a piece of music is. Modern "dance music" is not necessarily electronic, and is quite banal. There are a few tracks, undoubtedly designed for the drug induced rave scene which I find original and inspiring, yet they are very few and far between. I actually don't see electronic music as being particularly "dance" orientated at all. And most of what I would call the best in electronic music wouldn't be danced to.
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solyaris
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:04 am Post subject:
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| Quote: | | "same sonic space/time" means the same frequencies at a particular time. Sonic space for me is the amount of space in the frequency spectrum for a particular sound/instrument. For example, a kick drum and a violin leave a lot of sonic space in between them. This could be filled with something else, or not, depending on how full you want the sound to be. A single instrument which fills a large sonic space, is not only rare, but also fragile, in that it is very easily overwhelmed by other instruments which compete for space/room. |
yes, but this overwhelmed is not necessarly negative; just my music, following your vocaboulary, is made in some strict sonic (frequency) spaces, with a lot of planned overwhelm, slow-motion in time ...
| Quote: | | BTW I have virtually no interest in how dance orientated a piece of music is. Modern "dance music" is not necessarily electronic, and is quite banal. |
technically indeed, I think 99.9% of dance music is nowadays realized with electronic devices, for sure in beat structures ... for my tastes I love many recent things in house music that, again, paradoxically, is, by recent fashions, oriented on sampling "vintage" '70s sounds (rhodes, rhodes, rhodes, choirs, electric bass riffes, etc.) so using no electronic synth sound mainly, or mixing both...
| Quote: | | And most of what I would call the best in electronic music wouldn't be danced to. |
for example ?
giorgio
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Uncle Krunkus
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:43 pm Post subject:
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Jean Michel Jarre, Bill Nelsons ambient stuff, Eno, early Kraftwerk, OMD, YMO, Radiohead, Rob Zombie, Gomez.
They all do great stuff with electronics, and yet are not pitching themselves specifically towards dancefloors. Of course I said they aren't danced to, (generally) not that they couldn't be.
I also agree that to overpower part of the frequency spectrum can sometimes be a very good thing!
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Acoustic Interloper
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:
Re: electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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| solyaris wrote: | Personally I have programmed synths some years ago, but I think I achieved best results in "sound synthesis" using acoustic (electro-acoustic) instruments as source for a further processing ...
simply speaking: I use guitars as source. |
I use banjos. I have four of them. My finger-to-finger picking interval is around 160 milliseconds for moderate tempo, and setting up delay configurations that are multiples of that allows me to play fine-grain rounds with myself. I play with myself. My wife says I could learn to play dueling banjos with myself, but I'm not ready to become a novelty act just yet. Or, is it too late?
Acoustic guitars, jaw harps, and Appalachian dulcimers as well.
I also use pitch shifting and other signal processing, both to bring out properties inherent in the instruments, and sometimes to just bend all hell out of the sound.
My son Jeremy just received a very sweet 12-string Taylor acoustic guitar from his loving parents as a graduation present for completing audio school with honours, but sadly (for me) he's about to take it off to New Mexico for a year where he'll live with his sister. More motivation to dig into that on-line jamming server software.
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kijjaz
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject:
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I'm looking at acoustic, electro-acoustic, and purely electronic / software sounds as the same thing.
Maybe the technic and what you can do with it differs in each fields and the physics of it,
but the possibilities are still endless.
So for me, it's up to the human, not at all on the sound source.
If someone gets too bored in some area,
usually it's because more of that area is needed to be discovered,
not that it's limited.
- - -
Acoustic effects are nice hehehheeh.. |
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billy_boogie
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| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:12 am Post subject:
Re: electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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| solyaris wrote: | Just to know if there are people here that state to make "electronic music" without use synthetizers ...
Personally I have programmed synths some years ago, but I think I achieved best results in "sound synthesis" using acoustic (electro-acoustic) instruments as source for a further processing ...
simply speaking: I use guitars as source.
In recent times I more and more appreciate music realized by artists that use (string) acoustic vibrations as source, mainly in "ambient music / creative indipendent music or whatever you want to call it ... to give you examples: Chas Smith from USA, Stars Of the Lid from USA/Belgium, Alio Die from Italy, Colleen from France, Marsen Jules from Germany, etc.
Nowadays I feel majority "electronic music" realized with synths (hw and worst digital sw) generally ugly ... paradoxically I feel textures realized after the processing of acoustic vibrations generally more complex (this is not important) but all in all more beauty (this is important!)
What I mean is that the presumed technology of recent synths seem do not support electronic music artists in possible new ways of art ... what I see mainly is that synth made electronic music are following old paradigmas ... apparently without memory of what first '900 contemporary classical music composers experimented almost using acoustic (orchestral) instrument canvass ....
ok ... a complex question, involving the topic of commercial interests (synth are projected mainly thinking about the fact 90% user will use it for dance music makeing, etc, etc.), and cultural bonds ...
What do you think about that ?
There are here musicians that use acoustic sources still believing torealize electronic music ?
giorgio |
After EM08, the rest of my band (all of which play guitars/bass) have ben converted! They've given up on rock music, at least in terms of playing. We are still exploring our sound, but it seemed to have been received quite well.
Eventually (maybe if I ever get a powerful enough computer) I'd like to be processing the other members of the band on the fly. Any thoughts?
www.myspace.com/rinserepeatband |
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Acoustic Interloper
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| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:05 am Post subject:
Re: electronic music made with acoustic instruments ? |
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| the_guy wrote: | | After EM08, the rest of my band (all of which play guitars/bass) have ben converted! They've given up on rock music, at least in terms of playing. We are still exploring our sound, but it seemed to have been received quite well. |
I wouldn't give up on it in terms of influence, though. Electro music can be a great place to weave strands from different genres.
| Quote: | | Eventually (maybe if I ever get a powerful enough computer) I'd like to be processing the other members of the band on the fly. Any thoughts? |
Experiment and read the forum, and of course hit electro venues. I do most of my electro work with computers because I have a computer science background, but the non-real-time operating systems on these machines make for long latencies, variant latencies, and related problems. Hardware avoids that while being less flexible, or more expensive if you have to buy a bunch of dedicated boxes.
My composition style almost always starts out being an acoustic composition that is not intentional -- I'll just be sitting around picking, and get an idea, often from the sound of the instrument -- and only later I'll use electronics, to extend the inherent sound of the instrument and/or the compositional structure. You could just as well work on a rock'n'roll piece that you extend and fuse into electronica. Miles Davis from about 1969 (In A Silent Way) until 1975 (Agharta) might be worth a listen if you're not familiar, in terms of fusing rock, jazz and funk in ways that is much more interesting than much of the "fusion" music that followed Miles' lead, but of course, I am a Miles fan. Nothing wrong with fusing rock and electronica.
This website / forum is an amazing resource.
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cbm
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:44 am Post subject:
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There are several composer who treat an orchestra something like a giant synthesizer, e.g. Scelsi, Ligeti, Varese
I always thought that Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians sounded somewhat electronic, particularly when the clarinets/bass clarinets come in at the beginning.
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solyaris
Joined: Jun 02, 2005
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:51 am Post subject:
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| cbm wrote: | | There are several composer who treat an orchestra something like a giant synthesizer, e.g. Scelsi, Ligiti, Varese |
yes. That's for sure for the Italian Giacinto Scelsi, and György Ligeti, immo.
The point is that they are deads; they are composers of the past century ...
(even if their music could be sound new and still unexplored for many people!), as Ipremised in my initial post.
So my question is related to composers now, in 2008 alives!
For give you an example of what I mean, just today I relistened some CDs of great Chas Smith ( www.coldbluemusic.com ) ...
giorgio
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Underwaterbob
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:56 pm Post subject:
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I like to do harmonic (or Fourier) analyses of acoustic sounds that I like and then steal their harmonic series for my own instruments.
No actual sampling, just analysis and altered reproduction. It's amazing how "acoustic" some electronic sounds can be. |
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solyaris
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:43 am Post subject:
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| Underwaterbob wrote: | I like to do harmonic (or Fourier) analyses of acoustic sounds that I like and then steal their harmonic series for my own instruments.
No actual sampling, just analysis and altered reproduction. It's amazing how "acoustic" some electronic sounds can be. |
Interesting resynthesis tecnique.
What do yuo mean with "steal their harmonic series for my own instruments" ?
Do you mean frequency-filtering of original source
or do you mean apply the harmonic pattern of the acoustic source to a different source (electronic) ?
giorgio
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Underwaterbob
Joined: Sep 03, 2008
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Location: Chungju, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:56 am Post subject:
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| solyaris wrote: | | Underwaterbob wrote: | I like to do harmonic (or Fourier) analyses of acoustic sounds that I like and then steal their harmonic series for my own instruments.
No actual sampling, just analysis and altered reproduction. It's amazing how "acoustic" some electronic sounds can be. |
Interesting resynthesis tecnique.
What do yuo mean with "steal their harmonic series for my own instruments" ?
Do you mean frequency-filtering of original source
or do you mean apply the harmonic pattern of the acoustic source to a different source (electronic) ?
giorgio |
The latter. I build instruments in CSound using sets of oscillators set to the relative frequencies and amplitudes of an analyzed acoustic sound. |
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solyaris
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:11 am Post subject:
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| Underwaterbob wrote: | | solyaris wrote: | | Underwaterbob wrote: | I like to do harmonic (or Fourier) analyses of acoustic sounds that I like and then steal their harmonic series for my own instruments.
No actual sampling, just analysis and altered reproduction. It's amazing how "acoustic" some electronic sounds can be. |
Interesting resynthesis tecnique.
What do yuo mean with "steal their harmonic series for my own instruments" ?
Do you mean frequency-filtering of original source
or do you mean apply the harmonic pattern of the acoustic source to a different source (electronic) ?
giorgio |
The latter. I build instruments in CSound using sets of oscillators set to the relative frequencies and amplitudes of an analyzed acoustic sound. |
I see! that's an intelligent way to add feeling to a synthetic waves, I din't see applyed in (realtime) synth as far as I know; it could be interesting to listen your results; on MP3 pheraps ?
cheers
giorgio
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Underwaterbob
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:37 pm Post subject:
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If you go to my myspace page ( www.myspace.com/underwaterbob ) the track "The Capital Fell on Toots" has some sounds in it that are precursors to the technique.
Everything I have online is years old now, I found myself wasting more time on the Internet than actually making music. |
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