Electro-Music vs Electronic Music?

[fieldswn]

Maybe this isn't the right forum to ask this, but I noticed some people at the conference making a distinction between electro-music vs electronic music. What is the intended difference? And, what about the genre of Electro music from the 80s?

Curiously,
-Bill
http://www.williamfields.com

[cebec]

i didn't hear anyone making this distinction, myself, but i would imagine the difference boils down to electronic music using purely electronic sound generation devices where electro-music is also known as electroacoustic music and can include practically all sound generation devices.

[mosc]

Well, electro is a style of electronic music. There are people who have different ways of describing that style. Electronic music is a very large term, which includes virtually any music made with electronic means. electro-music is certainly electronic music, but it referres to the music made by members of this community and others with like-minded approaches. electro-music is not a genre - it can cover many styles. It is very inclusive. It's more about the attitude. At the conference in June, I noticed that people were actually using the term electro-music as a way of identifying something new and unique. After two international electro-music festivals, and three years with this web site, electro-music is becoming something people are talking about even if it is as yet undefined.

[paul e.]

mhhh

electro music was/is a sub-genre of electronic music

electro music is a short-form term for ALL 'electronic music'

personally i don;t c are for the term and just prefer 'electronic'...and even then i tend to not make much distinction between many forms of music and electronic...

if we are manipulating waveforms, i consider that to be electronic music
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as far as the name of the forum electro-music ...isn;t it just the name of this site?

isn't it a bit presumptious to co-opt that term 'electro-music' as a thing somehow inextricably linked to this site and forum or conferences

if i was typing a post and used the term electro-music referencing a general discussion about electronic music, the term electro-music.comes out in italics and blue....which i think is a bit presumptious

isn;t it like trying to trademark the term 'rock n roll' or something?

rocknroll.com

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[Kassen]

I've been thinking a lot about this. Is there a distinction between "electronic music" and music that uses electronic sounds?

If I play Chopin on a DX7, does that make the result "electronic music"?
I've started to believe that to me personally electronic music has a strong conotation of using electronic means while composing. Programing a 808 is clearly different from druming on a kit but where doe that leave electronic triggers controled by a "real" drummer?

Both "techno" and "electro" are badly chosen and confusing genre names. they seem to imply something extremely broad. We do the same, but then; we are pritty broad....

[opg]

I also agree that "electro-music" is a term just for this community - a kind of way to say "all types of electronic music" and at the same time avoiding the confusion of "electro" and "electronica" and so forth.

Would it be okay to say that "electronic music" is music in which the sound output does not come from acoustic instruments that create their own sound waves by playing them(guitar, paino, drums, saxophone), but rather music that involves some sort of electronic pre-production/manipulation before being played. It is important to note that electronic music can still include instruments that can be "played live" like acoustic instruments are (synth, MIDI wind instruments, e-drums).

It is better to start the definition by showing what electronic music isn't, as it can become confusing when, say, guitar pedals and delay units get involved. What happens when all the artists play live on stage, but all use MIDI controllers of various types to create a replica of a string quartet, for example - like Kassen noted? If the technology was excellent and the audience did not see them on stage, would they know the difference? What if half of their songs were string quartet pieces and the other half were pieces using basic waveforms as instruments (sine, saw, square, triangle)? Are we then "genrefying" the band or an individual song?

Okay - that last paragraph was all questions.....

[Mohoyoho]

It seems to me that any sound (acoustic, digital, electro-analogue, etc.) that is somehow altered (but not merely amplified) or produced via an electronic device, either digital or analogue could be classified as electro-music. This would include Hammond B3s, Mellotrons, electric guitars or vocals going through a simple reverb tank.

[Monkeyfinger]

My wife and I came to this conclusion when trying to describe this kind of music to others.
Electro-Folk.
We are the modern era folk musicians - doing it for the love of the art not for comercial success.
For me, this captures the essence of what I hear from this community.
It describes the philosophy of the music with limiting the styles of music.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

[fieldswn]

Here are my definitions:

Electronic Music = Any music which features electronic instruments, processing, etc.

Electro Music = A specific genre of electronic music from the 80s (see my link to Wikipedia above).

electro-music = The name of this website / community.

[opg]

[ian-s]

[fieldswn]

[Mohoyoho]

I would say that the fellow with the processors is an electronic musician, but if the overall music is primarily unprocessed and he is just a small part of the overall sound, then that is not electronic music.

If you were to take a piano and place mikes in it and start pounding on the sound board with hammers, and the audio then goes through processors...then electronic music it is.

I think we take a lot of processed sound for granted and forget that it circuitry making the sound distinctive. When fuzztones and wahs were first introduced via electric guitarists, people were astounded and hits were made. Where would surf music be without the reverb tank? To me this is all early electronic music.

[paul e.]

[elektro80]

Anyone remembers that 60s british rythm and blues? The way genres work, playing the same music today would mean using at least one polka board and that would make it electronic music.

[Kassen]

[mosc]

The most popular electronic music recording - and the most popular classical music recording - of all time is Switched On Bach.

[mosc]

After some thought, saying Switched On Bach is the most popular electronic music recording could be a stretch, if one considers The Beatles recordings as electronic music. I'm assuming The Beatles recordings are the best sellers (I'm not sure about that). That assumes one considers The Beatles to be electronic music, something about which there may be considerable disagreement.

[blue hell]

[elektro80]

The whole concept of electronic music is a dud. We are trying to reapply a term that once felt natural and progressive, but it simply does not compute these days. Part of what made the term/genre electronic music valid was that a certain ideology/aestethic/style was implied. What we actually was looking at "back then" was the evolution of tonal western music into what Schoenberg and others called klangfarbenmelodien. We are talking about the the natural evolution of the avantgarde of the 19th century, the romantics, then later modernism and whatever we have on our hands now. ( It still feels like modernism, but all the important milestones have already been absorbed by popular culture.. hmm.. yeah.. this is definitively still within the scope of modernism. ) "Electronic music" was both the solution and the means of getting there.
But are we there yet? One of the traits of western music is that it is stylistically changing very fast. And it would be ignorant to think that popular music, driven by commercial players and the entertainment industry, would not hijack the new music movement.

[Kassen]

Totally with you, Stein, but I also have to note there are some branches of "true" electronic music around still. How about this?

http://toplap.org/forums.html/Main_Page

[elektro80]

[elektro80]

What about moving this one to the Composition forum? Is that OK with you guys?

[opg]

I can't wait until mediocre blockbuster pop music (boy bands, Britney Spears, etc) becomes totally synthesized. And you know the record companies are gonna go for it because they won't have to pay the performers (unless a real person instead of a pole-dancing cyborg is wanted on stage). Hopefully, this will then lead to the downfall of worthless songs cranked out every 5 minutes to reap profits from tweens. Then this genre of music will return to a realm of talent and creativity like back in the 50s and 60s such as Motown.

Ironically, "electronic music" (in terms of synths and MIDI, Autechre and laptop IDM) will become dominated by a bizarre collection of MIDI controllers. This way, the genre of music known to most people as having the most uninteresting stage presence will actually have live musicians on stage, slapping themselves with a weird MIDI wetsuit outfit and doing Twister on a DDR dancepad.

I have visited the future, and yes, this is how it's gonna go down.

[paul e.]

i would never want to go down the slippery slope of claiming what is 'pure' and less pure electronic music

pop music did not 'hijack' electronic music ..

nor would i say that progressive rock hijacked classical music

it's an evolution of musical expression that is related to technology, and it's all getting thrown in the mix now..

inter-mixing

it's ALL the 'Real Thing'

like humans....

what is a 'pure' human?

defending 'purity' would make me nervous ...