What is the Berlin School?

Mohoyoho · Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 9:40 am Post subject: What is the Berlin School?

What is the Berlin School of electronic music? I see it mentioned quite a bit, but I don't quite know what it sounds like.

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

I think it's generally considered to be the more sequencer driven style - Klaus Shulze being a prime example. I haven't heard a lot of the music that most people say is in this style - so I'm not an expert by any stretch.

Current labels that release a lot of this kind of music (and of course - other stuff...) are Groove , Space For Music, and Eurock. Some of the releases on Hypnos sublabel Binary are also considered berlin school I guess. Hypnos

I'm sure others know a lot more about this than I do.

elektro80 · Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 1:34 pm Post subject:

These days it seems that Berlin School equals a certain use of step sequencers .. one or two bar patterns.. often shorter.. some very small transposes.. like from C to D and F and back. Then throw in a structure similar to what you hear on Tangerine Dream`s "Stratosfear" or some of the "Sorcerer" material.. some Elka-string.. some Mellotron.. some doodling moog-solos etc.
On the other hand, back in the late 70s, Berlin School had a slightly different meaning. It was described "exploring methodically the interaction of short repetive patterns using sequencers" ( quote from an old norwegian fanzine from 1978 ). Examples at the time were Ricochet by Tangerine Dream, some Kraftwerk, KS and even some of the Conrad Schnitzler work. This definition sounds kool but is in essence a bit stupid because "exploring methodically...." is not a new thing at all.. and has nothing to do with Berlin or whatever. Quite possibly many of the electronic music fans had never heard of Glass, Reich or even the old avantgarde.

However, the use repetitive patterns, interacting patterns and the theory and art of it was actually discussed at the time. I am not aware of german input in this area, but many oddballs were in the late 70s trying to discuss the essence of what was going on inside repetitive patterns.

Some of the more interesting excursions musically within the BS style were Hoenig´s "Departure from the nothern wastelands" and the two first solo LPs by Peter Baumann.

I have in fact made a lot of music back then which I guess would be recognized as "Berlin School" today. Back then it was not. You can check out this one: http://elektro80.electro-music.com/music/Blinded_By_Memory.mp3

John Merrall wrote a review of it at GOM and you can check out his angle on the piece and the "genre": http://www.godsofmusic.com/gom/reviews.php?action=detail&id=5569

This piece superficially has all the components of Berlin School, but then again does not because it is written and played like prog or US ensemble music like the Mother Mallard´s. Instrumentation has a lot to do with it of course. This version was slightly rewritten and arranged in order to include the PPG Wave and the Waveterm. But you will hear the mellotron and the lot honking away. This very piece in a slightly heavier version was taken to a well known label way back then and I think the response was: "We want Tangerine Dream style music, not this noisy Frank Zappa inspired prog rock"

If Berlin School equals TD and KS, then it is quite possible to reverse-engineer the music and extract methods and formulas the same way people have done with Pink Floyd, Mozart or Bob Dylan.
Webshops/labels like http://www.synthmusicdirect.com
are very into the BS style and you could check out some of the downloads over there.

paul e. · Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 2:09 pm Post subject:

fascinating... Cool

in the 90's a 'german techno' sound coning mainly out of berlin had this kind of characteristic as well

Mohoyoho · Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 5:34 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your replies. All were very enlightening.

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

Paul - are you referring to the basic channel sound? The minimal techno - dub influenced stuff. ( Note: http://www.circonium.de is a fantastic site if someone is interested in this music. http://www.hardwax.com is the record store owned by the BC guys - and http://www.basicchannel.com is the official website of the label group. )

elektro80... that was great to read. Thanks.

When I'm reading ambient review websites - the general characteristic that seems to get thrown out there the most is that the European ambient stuff generally more leans towards the berlin school sort of thing, while American ambient is usually more drifty space music. I don't agree with it - plenty of examples to dispute it, but that seems to get brought up again and again.

I like genres as descriptions - just don't like it when they become walls.

paul e. · Posted: Thu May 13, 2004 9:09 am Post subject:

zynthetix · Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 11:38 am Post subject:

This is a good question. I don't really think of the "Berlin School" as any particular kind of sounds, but more of a thought process or way to reach those sounds...the German thought underlying their electronic music. I think the key principle here is control. Predating electronic music, Arnold Schoenberg devised the 12 tone/serial method, which is an example of German orderly control. Going back to the origins of electronic music, the Germans were more inclined to design sounds from scratch via electronics (which had much control over the sound), as opposed to capturing sounds from the world with tape. All of the sequencing methods Elektro80 described remind me of control too...after all, sequencing is a form of control. And if you want a very modern example, look at how meticulous German software such as Reaktor is, which provides much control over the sound.

elektro80 · Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 9:29 am Post subject:

Good point! Hardware like the PPG Wave series and the Wavterm have the same design idea behind them.

I have done some more research. Berlin School can probably be defined either as the style of KS, TD and others from the period 1972-1978, or as a very loose "community of electronic musicians hanging out now and then in Berlin in the same period. In this sense it is more about a mentality and a scene more than the actual music. However, people I know who are actually very familiar with the supposed scene in Berlin pretty much agrees on there not being a great and thriving electronic music movement there at all. It was all pretty small and insignificant. Most musicians kept to themselves and rarely met. Hmm.. that sounds just about like how it was in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Trondheim. Shocked

7/4 · Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 9:59 am Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 10:53 am Post subject:

Would you put Jean Michelle Jarre in the Berlin School. He's not from Berlin, or German, but the music sounds the same, or at least similar, IMHO. .

elektro80 · Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 10:58 am Post subject:

JMJ is clearly not anything like the Berlin School, and in my ears his music is quite different. On the other hand some of the french electronic music released on labels like Egg are more Berlin School than the Berlin School ever was.
Hmm.. when I think of it... to me the music of Tangerine Dream kinda went in the direction of JMJ around the time they released the "Thief" - soundtrack.