What is Electroacoustic Music?

DrJustice · Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:26 pm Post subject:

It occurs to me that I have no idea anymore of what Electroacoustic Music is. E.g. the Wikipedia article (a bad wiki article IMO) and its discussion is very confusing, basically asserting that anything can be Electroacoustic Music, which would render the term meaningless.

Can anyone point me to THE authorative defintion of it?

DJ
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Perejil · Joined: Jan 15, 2009 Posts: 10 Location: London, UK

In the academic world, electroacoustic is used to refer to what might otherwise be termed 'contemporary classical' whereas electronic music or electronica usually refers to electronic styles of popular music.

But I suppose it could also be used to refer simply to a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments (which is what I meant in my previous post, regarding the electronic oscillations acoustically altered by specially designed loudspeakers).[/i]

DrJustice · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:01 am Post subject:

Thank you Perejil.

I have now spent some time trying to clarify this. Unfortunately, the more I research it, the greater the confusion. I can't find a clear consensus; some claim that it's in the style, often refering to 'classical'. Others claim that's in the technique, often refering to either 'acoustic sources' and/or 'electronic treatment'. Yet other claim that it's simply another term for electronic music. And there are all sort of claims that are extrapolations and interpolations of these. One that is in tune with my previous, uneducated, intuitive definition, found here, says "Genre of composition that uses acoustic sound sources augmented or transformed with electronic technology."

Right, I'm not going to change this thread into a discussion of the definition. Perhaps I should make another thread for that, or split this one at my first posting. For now I have to consider myself incompetent to name any Electroacoustical Music Pioneers Laughing

DJ
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DrJustice · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:22 am Post subject:

OK - I split this off from the topic "Your favorite Electronic - Electroacoustic Music Pioneers?".

DJ
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x_x · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:31 am Post subject:

As I understand electro-acoustic comes from pieces that involve both sounds produced by acoustic instruments and electronic instruments.

Ex.
Gargoyles for Violin and Electronics by Luening is electro-acoustic.

but I'm no musicologist. Laughing

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:34 am Post subject:

Well, it isn´t really that hard to make sense of this. Basically the concept of electroacoustic music comes out of the pre-moog world and the age when composers needed the help from assistants impeccably dressed in white lab coats to make sense of the goodies offered by the electroacoustic music studios.
That being said, it is completely valid to define electroacoustic music as a hybrid consisting of acoustic sound sources being treated and processed by electronic means. It was a fair disagreement way back wether the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had any credibility at all because some sounds on some "tunes" had been produced by electronic oscillators. Shocked

I guess the term is best understood within the context of 50s and early 60s experimental music. Thus it is just as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a consistently definable type of music.

Perejil · Joined: Jan 15, 2009 Posts: 10 Location: London, UK

It just occured to me that it could also apply to electronic music made out of recorded sound clips, ie recordings of acoustic sound stuck together (essentially what a DJ does, but also some types of contemporary classical) as opposed to electronically generated music like synths and so on. I think this is implied in some of our other definitions but I felt it needed clarification.

x_x · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:03 pm Post subject:

dewdrop_world · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:35 pm Post subject:

Personally I think the term doesn't have much intrinsic meaning. By common use, it most likely refers to "composer music" (tending toward academia) using electronic sound sources and optionally non-electronic ones. But I don't think this is because "electroacoustic" as a term really means anything... more that nobody wants to call their music "electroacoustic" except academic composers Twisted Evil

James

zynthetix · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:54 pm Post subject:

zynthetix · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject:

I just grabbed a weather-worn book off of my shelf.

It is called Electronic and Experimental Music by Thom Holmes.

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music-Composition-Popularculture/dp/0415936446

It's a pretty fun read, and not very long. It's not very expensive either. It gives a great tour of the evolution of using electronic instruments with music, giving good equal exposure to the instruments, ideas, and composers themselves.

This was also a text used in one of my music classes in undergrad, if that means anything. I think it's really worth picking up and it might give a better sense of that 'consensus' I was talking about in my former post.

Edit:

Hmm, it looks like another edition has come out since I bought it.

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-experimental-Music-Thom-Holmes/dp/0415957826/ref=pd_cp_b_1?pf_rd_p=413864201&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0415936446&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0E62P2ZA7NJNGFMCW7KP

I think a used copy of the 2nd edition is the best bargain. I can't imagine too much has changed in the past 7 years, or at least the parts applicable to what we are discussing in this thread.

DrJustice · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:34 pm Post subject:

Thanks everyone for your contributions. My horizon has been broadened - although I actually wanted the subject narrowed down Smile

As I suspected, even here, the views will vary. If one is to take a fully inclusive approach of the disparate views, then the only thing that is not electroacoustic, is music performed purely on acoustic instruments in a live setting with no amplification - in part because one of the often touted meanings of the term is 'amplification of instruments'; there was an age where the idea of electronic mic/amplifier/speaker was considered a pretty radical treatment, after all.

That would make sense in purely technical terms, but then again there is the cultural/historic/stylistic perspectives which is maintained by many.

Unlike the term 'music', which is understandably not to well pinned down, I'd say that 'electro(nic)' and 'acoustic' has fairly well understood and agreed upon meanings by themselves.

So far then, I wouldn't say that this question is resolved to the degree that a certain composer, composition, musician or performance can be labelled electroacoustic and non-electroacoustic with absolute certainty. At least, I still don't feel up to that Very Happy

DJ
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Jyoti · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:04 am Post subject:

Wow - very interesting discussion! Thanks, everyone!

Perejil · Joined: Jan 15, 2009 Posts: 10 Location: London, UK

How about those pieces that are composed using computers and algorithms and so forth (ie, electronically) but then written down for- and played on- acoustic instruments? (I think Milton Babbitt did some of that but don't quote me on it). Could they be considered electroacoustic?

Antimon · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:14 am Post subject:

The "All Music Guide to Electronica" that I keep on my shelf has a section called "Brief Style Descriptions", where there is an entry on "Electro-Acoustic":

x_x · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:44 pm Post subject:

I had this book under my bed called Introduction to Electro-acoustic Music. I got it from my college library.

It says:

blue hell · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:39 pm Post subject:

The diagram taken from the attachment above :

Wayne Higgins · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:22 am Post subject:

oxymoron

Lux_Seeker · Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Posts: 8 Location: New Jersey

I would have to echo many of the responses here. First, while I have not done extensive research on the topic, I suspect the term would have come about in the days of early electronic music. A great deal of music today is electronic or at least electric and sometimes computer generated so the term has lost much of its original meaning.

However, there is a kind of music that continues today that I would say is more along the lines of classical music. If you follow the development of the early greats, many of which appear in the books mentioned here, you will find they have their roots in the avante gard.

Today, you can still find traditional classical music being played with natural instruments but you can also find the music that developed from the early EM or electro-acoustical music composers. You might call this art music or serious music or classical music, take you pick. drawing arbitrary lines does not really make all that much sense these days but clearly there is a difference between what many people do who post to this board (and I do to) and pop music. I would like to believe that some of the old EM spirit is still out there.

One final caveat. Electro-acoustic music is not just computer music, that would exlcude a lot of music that is definitely part of this genre is that is what you want to call it.

John M.