Transcript Electronic Music chance Music of John Cage

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ELECTRONIC MUSIC............
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic
music technology in its production.[1] In general a distinction can be made between
sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic
technology.[2] Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the
telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar. Purely electronic sound
production can be achieved using devices such as the Theremin, sound synthesizer, and
computer.[3]
Electronic music was once associated almost exclusively with Western art music but from
the late 1960s on the availability of affordable music technology meant that music
produced using electronic means became increasingly common in the popular domain.[4]
Today electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music
to popular forms such as electronic dance music.
Late 19th century to early 20th century
Telharmonium, Thaddeus Cahill, 1897.
The ability to record sounds is often connected to the production of electronic
music, but not absolutely necessary for it. The earliest known sound recording
device was the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de
Martinville. It could record sounds visually, but was not meant to play them
back.[5]
In 1878, Thomas A. Edison patented the phonograph, which used cylinders
similar to Scott's device. Although cylinders continued in use for some time,
Emile Berliner developed the disc phonograph in 1887.[6] A significant invention,
which was later to have a profound effect on electronic music, was Lee
DeForest's triode audion. This was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube,
invented in 1906, which led to the generation and amplification of electrical
signals, radio broadcasting, and electronic computation, amongst other things.
Before electronic music, there was a growing desire for composers to
use emerging technologies for musical purposes. Several instruments
were created that employed electromechanical designs and they paved
the way for the later emergence of electronic instruments. An
electromechanical instrument called the Telharmonium (sometimes
Teleharmonium or Dynamophone) was developed by Thaddeus Cahill in
the years 1898-1912. However, simple inconvenience hindered the
adoption of the Telharmonium, due to its immense size. The first
electronic instrument is often viewed to be the Theremin, invented by
Professor Léon Theremin circa 1919–1920.[7] Another early electronic
instrument was the Ondes Martenot, which was most famously used in
the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen as well as other works by
him. It was also used by other, primarily French, composers such as
Andre Jolivet.
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CHANCE MUSIC {JOHN CAGE}......
http://www.biographybase.com/biography/C
age_John.html
"Open form" chance music
Open form is a term sometimes used for mobile or polyvalent musical
forms, where the order of movements or sections is indeterminate or left
up to the performer. Roman Haubenstock-Ramati composed a series of
influential "mobiles" such as Interpolation (1958).
However, "open form" in music is also used in the sense defined by the
art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (Renaissance und Barock, 1888) to mean a
work which is fundamentally incomplete, represents an unfinished
activity, or points outside of itself. In this sense, a "mobile form" can be
either "open" or "closed". An example of a closed mobile musical
composition is Stockhausen's Zyklus (1959). Terry Riley's In C (1964)
was composed of 53 short sequences; each member of the ensemble
can repeat a given sequence as many times as desired before going on
to the next, making the details of each performance of In C unique
though, because the overall course is fixed, it is a closed form.
Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin
word alea, meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the
composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a
composed work's realization is left to the determination of its
performer(s). The term is most often associated with procedures in which
the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities.
The term became known to European composers through lectures by
acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at Darmstadt International Summer
Courses for New Music in the beginning of the 1950s. According to his
definition, "a process is said to be aleatoric ... if its course is determined
in general but depends on chance in detail" (Meyer-Eppler 1957, 55).
REFERENCES:
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