The Real Pioneers of Electronic Music?

[Teknobeam]

Those are a pair of EMS Synthi's behind the MemoryMoog

[cube66]

Giorgio Moroder!

[Djehuti]

Originally Posted by cpu

Pardon my ignorance, but what are those two things right behind the Memory Moog?

They are EMS Synthi As.

[cpu]

Originally Posted by Djehuti

They are EMS Synthi As.

Nice!!!! Thanks!

[FRANZ KAFKA]

Michel Chion

[famousbass]

Originally Posted by Teknobeam

I should have at least got his name right! yes it was Leonard. i have the documentary on DVD. What an amazing guy really. Quite an odyssey (no pun intended). The notion that music could be realized by rf via electronics through a human expression interface was extremely inventive given the era. something very sophisticated about the sound of a theremin played by one of those rare virtuosos. Eerie, haunting, unique and distinct.

Great Book and video.
Highly recommended.
Read the book first and the video comes to life.

[gordonmerrick]

Originally Posted by FRANZ KAFKA

Michel Chion

Nice. AudioVision is good times, if a bit flakey.

[famousbass]

Originally Posted by verve92

I has having a heated debate with my brother on who really pioneered electronic music. He insisted Kraftwerk. I said Tangerine Dream.
Ok. KW made electronic music acceptable for main stream.
But I think TD got synth out of the experimental stage and got structured. They have an unbelievable body of work. More than 200 studio and live projects. Who in all of music can say that. They also are great composers.
Sure Klaus Schultze was important. As was Wendy Carlos.
Curious what you think?

Dunno about TD... 200 albums, most are unlistenable.

Wendy (Walter) Carlos, about 10 albums, one of which is historically and musically phenomenal. Interesting historical footnote: The Doors were the first mainstream pop band to record and release the Moog on record (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Basically, these pioneers were artists in full flight developing on the works of the previous pioneers.

Here's a loose list of pioneers from different strands of electronic music development: BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Delia Derbyshire and Manhattan Research Inc’s Raymond Scott. Other names include Joe Meek, Morton Subotnick, Ernst Krenek, Michael Czajkowski, Warner Jepson, Bulent Arel, Arthur Krieger, Tristram Cary, Andrzej Dobrowolski, Tom Dissevelt, Bernard Parmegiani, John Baker, Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, Nucleus, Freddie Hubbard/Ilhan Mimaroglu, Paul Bley, Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock, Otto Leuning, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Stockhausen, Walter Ruttmann and Gyorgy Ligeti.

Hardly any lack of influence, cross influence, institutionalised development, classical and spontaneous music appreciation acceptance, scientific discovery, military speech encryption, late 50s Psychobilly, Soundtracks, advertisements and sound effects library records that got past these guys.

To pick just two names is not really where the art started.

[crazycarl]

Just one of my favorite old timey pioneers...

[axisnyc]

Lots of obviously great info in this thread, and there is no question that a lot of the right names have already been dropped, including Oskar Sala, Ussachevsky, Theremin, Stockhausen, Delia @BBC Radiophonic Workshop and many others.

No mention of Pierre Schaeffer a little bizarre, but understandable. He did ground-breaking stuff with found sounds, 'noise music' that was made with variable-pitch tape machines and lots of editing in the late 40's, he gave birth to the name 'musique concrète'. But he himself may have stayed more of a researcher, and he was certainly far from being the first anyway.


Pierre Schaeffer in his studio at the RTF circa 1952

So it is a little-known fact that the first concert of electronic music (called 'noise music' at the time) arguably took place in Italy by a group of futurists comprising Luigi Russolo. Read about it in the Wikipedia entry.

Their first performance was so shocking to the audience that it ended in a riot.


Russolo's manifesto "The Art Of Noise", original print copies of which now command prices in the thousands

Their motto "Art Of Noise" was of course appropriated by Trevor Horn's cohort to name their band, and so was the name of the poem which had given the futurists their inspiration: "Zang Tumb Tumb" (a.k.a. ZTT, Trevor Horn's record label)

So obviously Indiana Jones, someone'd already been here before for this particular treasure.... and it wasn't in the sixties, fifties or forties even.

This was around the time of World War I !

Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist. His 1913 manifesto, L'Arte dei Rumori, translated as The Art of Noises, stated that the industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. Russolo found traditional melodic music confining and envisioned noise music as its future replacement.

The Art of Noises classified "noise-sound" into six groups:

•*Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms
• Whistling, Hissing, Puffing
• Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling
• Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Buzzing, Crackling, Scraping
• Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc.
• Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs

He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori and assembled a noise orchestra to perform with them. A performance of his Gran Concerto Futuristico (1917) was met with strong disapproval and violence from the audience, as Russolo himself had predicted. None of his intoning devices have survived, though recently some have been reconstructed and used in performances. Although Russolo's works bear little resemblance to modern noise music, his pioneering creations cannot be overlooked as an essential stage in the evolution of this genre and many artists are now familiar with his manifesto.

Russolo and some of his Intonarumori

While there may well be more obscure precursors to this such as Thaddeus Cahill (as mentioned in this pretty authoritative piece), they are usually not acknowledged as much by all serious electronic musicians as having been the originators as much as Russolo and the Futurists were, also because what the latter did was performed in front of an audience. There are recordings of this in existence (circa 1921 I think) which are evidence enough of it having taken place.


Thaddeus Cahill at the Telharmonium

Sorry but - unless I am mistaken - this is what the OP asked about, and I think pretty much closes the thread....

Give praise to either Luigi Russolo and his Italian futurist friends for starting us on the road to the 'Art Of Noises', or to Thaddeus Cahill for creating the first electronic keyboard instrument.

[Reptil]

kapow

[Resonance5]

Luigi Russolo - L'arte dei rumori

[msl]

Originally Posted by Reptil

kapow

Thats awesome!



.

[dhollmusik]

Originally Posted by Mr Arkadin

Another Radiophonic vote:

The Story Of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Daphne Oram (new double CD out next year btw, quadruple vinyl already out), Delia Derbyshire, Tristram Cary, John Baker et al.

Yep. Delia Derbyshire was syncing arpeggiated sequences of synthesized electronic goodness back when Tangerine Dream were soiling their nappies.

[memristor]

Originally Posted by axisnyc

Thaddeus Cahill for creating the first electronic keyboard instrument.[/b]

It's not electronic, it's electromechanic, moreover it's not a synthesizer
the first synthesizer was the trautonium,

EDIT :

and if you mention Russolo you also have to mention Kempelens speaking machine 1791 which is the first mechanical synthesizer

[Reptil]

Oskar Sala Trautonium (1941)

(1933)

Jenny Ondiolini with instrument (1948)

[Reptil]

Originally Posted by Reptil

kapow

oh fukk that already was posted. sorry I missed that

Originally Posted by cpie

[sdrr00]

Originally Posted by axisnyc

Lots of obviously great info in this thread, and there is no question that a lot of the right names have already been dropped, including Oskar Sala, Ussachevsky, Theremin, Stockhausen, Delia @BBC Radiophonic Workshop and many others.

No mention of Pierre Schaeffer a little bizarre, but understandable. He did ground-breaking stuff with found sounds, 'noise music' that was made with variable-pitch tape machines and lots of editing in the late 40's, he gave birth to the name 'musique concrète'. But he himself may have stayed more of a researcher, and he was certainly far from being the first anyway.


Pierre Schaeffer in his studio at the RTF circa 1952

So it is a little-known fact that the first concert of electronic music (called 'noise music' at the time) arguably took place in Italy by a group of futurists comprising Luigi Russolo. Read about it in the Wikipedia entry.

Their first performance was so shocking to the audience that it ended in a riot.


Russolo's manifesto "The Art Of Noise", original print copies of which now command prices in the thousands

Their motto "Art Of Noise" was of course appropriated by Trevor Horn's cohort to name their band, and so was the name of the poem which had given the futurists their inspiration: "Zang Tumb Tumb" (a.k.a. ZTT, Trevor Horn's record label)

So obviously Indiana Jones, someone'd already been here before for this particular treasure.... and it wasn't in the sixties, fifties or forties even.

This was around the time of World War I !




Russolo and some of his Intonarumori

While there may well be more obscure precursors to this such as Thaddeus Cahill (as mentioned in this pretty authoritative piece), they are usually not acknowledged as much by all serious electronic musicians as having been the originators as much as Russolo and the Futurists were, also because what the latter did was performed in front of an audience. There are recordings of this in existence (circa 1921 I think) which are evidence enough of it having taken place.


Thaddeus Cahill at the Telharmonium

Sorry but - unless I am mistaken - this is what the OP asked about, and I think pretty much closes the thread....

Give praise to either Luigi Russolo and his Italian futurist friends for starting us on the road to the 'Art Of Noises', or to Thaddeus Cahill for creating the first electronic keyboard instrument.

this. cant believe it wasnt the first or second comment (nvm i can)

[the donal]

Should bands like The Doors really be classed as electronic pioneers?

Or are they rock bands who happened to put some additional tonality into their arrangements?

Not knocking (!) the Doors or any rock/pop band that added synths- whether Pink Floyd, The Beatles or whoever, but I think there is a distinction between these and more 'pure' electronic bands.

Even the "Krautrock" movement started with what were, basically, avant garde/psychedelic/experimental rock bands. Only in the early/mid 70s did many of them embrace electronic in a more complete way. So Walter/Wendy Carlos is definitely on the map at the start of this and Stockhausen/Cage were definitely catalysts, if not originators of the movement.

We are really looking at those who took the Moog/Buchla instruments and used them to create most of the arrangement from them.

It would make an amazing documentary series (similar to the BBC docs on Krautrock and British Psychedelia and Electronica), but deeper and covering both the development of the technology and the artists.

[vespiz]

This has probably come up on some thread here, but I thought it relevant for the discussion, if for no other reason than that it's a bloody great* documentary!



edit: Oh this is probably the one the donal mentioned in the post above?


* Not to mention long, 19eps, almost 10mins each!

[crufty]

i think the first em was over the telegraph

Electronic Musical Instrument 1870 - 1990

[kpsiegel]

Wow this is really a great thread...

Way back in the day for me Wendy (then Walter lol) Carlos was all the rage (and justifiably so. I had an English teacher that took an entire lesson and turned the lights out and made everyone lie on the floor and listen to Morton Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon." I guess that was his counter-culture statement at the time but it was just surreal for me. Most of my classmates were like "WTF was that are you kidding me????

I bought that record immediately and still have my vinyl copy to this day. Great stuff and thanks for reminding me of it!

Ken

[the donal]

Originally Posted by kpsiegel

Wow this is really a great thread...

Way back in the day for me Wendy (then Walter lol) Carlos was all the rage (and justifiably so. I had an English teacher that took an entire lesson and turned the lights out and made everyone lie on the floor and listen to Morton Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon." I guess that was his counter-culture statement at the time but it was just surreal for me. Most of my classmates were like "WTF was that are you kidding me????

I bought that record immediately and still have my vinyl copy to this day. Great stuff and thanks for reminding me of it!

Ken

We got treated to Oxygene Pt4 and Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds when I was at Primary School.

But then we also sang Blowing In The Wind alongside various hymns during assembly at that school.

Not bad for the late 70s!

[24track]

Kraftwerk
Jean Michel Jarre

[synthguy]

Originally Posted by djugel

Tomita, JMJ, Mort Garson, Haack, etc - some great stuff but not pioneers.. nor did they set out to be.. just musicians.

I have to say that just about any sound imaginable on any instrument since the 70s has already been created by Isao Tomita on his Moog Modular.

[djugel]

Can it make the "Landlord Piano" tho?

[acreil]

Originally Posted by kpsiegel

Way back in the day for me Wendy (then Walter lol) Carlos was all the rage (and justifiably so. I had an English teacher that took an entire lesson and turned the lights out and made everyone lie on the floor and listen to Morton Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon." I guess that was his counter-culture statement at the time but it was just surreal for me. Most of my classmates were like "WTF was that are you kidding me????

I bought that record immediately and still have my vinyl copy to this day. Great stuff and thanks for reminding me of it!

Funny. I found a copy at Goodwill ($1) when I was about 15-16. I think I actually mistook it for the band Silver Apples, which I had read about previously. I was already into stuff like Autechre, and had some exposure to the weirder side of electronic music (Merzbow, Milton Babbitt), but it was still a memorable experience. For all the hit or miss electronic records that would come out over the next few years, Silver Apples of the Moon is still one of the absolute best.

...and lest you think finding avant garde electronic records at Goodwill is a one-off occurrence, I recently found a copy of Andrew Rudin's Tragoedia (the second electronic work commissioned by Nonesuch).

[sovietpop]

Some favorite of mine :

[djugel]

Originally Posted by sovietpop

I remember seeing this posted before, ... I love the look and aesthetics... but something about the sound makes my "tin ear" go nuts.. absolute torture... instant headache..

[Bullseye]

Maurice Martenot