Electro-Music vs Electronic Music?

[mosc]

If electro-music means anything - asside from the historical "electro" genre, it is the democratization of music through the catalist of electronic technology and the internet.

In the past, composers who wanted to write orchestral music were attracted to academic institutions not only because that was where the teachers were, but because you could have access to orchestras and you'd earn credentials required by the patrons.

Electronic music held a natural attraction for academics - professional smart people. At first, you needed an educational or industrial institution to even touch electronic music. If you were going to build your own hardware, you needed to be an engineer. There were some innovative experimenters but they were easy to ignore.

Algorithmic composition was another natural for academics - it was difficult to understand and easy to write about. It followed naturally from the serialist ideas. It was well "above" the common music.

Overtime the technology has evolved so that anyone now can afford virtually any electronic or computer instrument imaginable. There is no need to go to an instutution to get access to the techonolgy. You don't need to go there to get the teachers either. I submit that your web browser can give you a better musical education than most grad schools.

So now, we have large numbers of people with access to great music making technology. They have direct access to the entire heritiage of all the music in of the world, and access to experts and mentors.

This is why many of us have are saying the electo-music is really folk music. Not because we sing old tunes from the simple folk in the hills, but this is the music of the common people - if we can distinguish ourselves as being that. Like folk music, we are learing it from the members of our community. Like folk music, we pick things up and adapt them. Like folk music, we get together and play music. We play at parties. We make music just because we love it. We make electronic music because it is fun and we are living in the electronic age.

Our electro-music events are really folk festivals. Our streaming events, like our New Years Streaming Concert, are like hootenanies.

Our heritage is virtually everything. At electro-music 2006 we heard music form almost every imaginable style, from 15th Century Renaisance to noise, with beats, no-beats, pitches, non-pitches, vocal, non-vocal, ethnic, and acoustic. We had people with PhDs and people who have never gone to college.

[paul e.]

[paul e.]

[opg]

[zynthetix]

electro-music vs. electronic music seems to be an ambiguous question.

What is "electro-music" in comparrison to "electronic music" first requires a definition of "electronic music". For that, I'll fall back on a quote from the beginning of Thom Holmes' introduction to Electronic and Experimental Music:

"1951: Music is dead. Long live electronic music.
2001: Electronic music is dead. Long live music."

The point he was trying to make is that modern music as we know it is completely dependent on technology. Electronic devices are used in every facet of getting modern music to your ears, from recording an electric guitar through an amplifier, picked up with a microphone and recorded into a computer all the way to playback on a CD or MP3 player. The quote then changes meaning with this context: making music with electronic devices is not dead, nor is it a revolutionary new field as it was more than 50 years ago, but electronics are so integrated into everything with music that the term "electronic music" has become useless. Long live music.

I don't like definitions since they more often than not confuse the hell out of me when trying to form them, but I like to think of electro-music as a couple things:

1) an abbreviation for electronic music or electro-acoustical music, whatever those mean.
2) the sonic result of what is going on here, right now, at this website or when members get togehter and make music.

[elektro80]

Thom Holmes likes dinosaurs too.

As for the "electronic music is dead" idea, he is trying to make a distinction between the assimilation of the technology and the music. It was of course fairly obvious early on that all things that goes "pfffing" and "boing" would be "electronic" within years or even within a few weeks. And it is clearly a fitting epitaph that there are sites out there on the net like this one:
http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html
Yeah, I know, it is hilarious. It stilll makes sense that this would happen though.

I will still stick to my claim that the term "electronic music" is best understood within a historical context. It once described a movement, an attitude, using modern technology. It did however say little about the style of music, and it makes perfect sense that the concept of style became an issue first later on when the technology itself became fairly accessible. Accessibility is of course relative because the dance/techono music thingie happened when the technology really became dirt cheap.

Paul as well as Holmes makes a point of the movement itself is not dead. The focus should of course be on the music. Take a look on the work at WDR Cologne. In retrospect this was far more about the aesthetics and the essence of music rather than the technology even though it usually is seen as a high tech lab.

Another issue is of course that the field of popular music or rather "non academic music" surely can constribute to innovations in music as well. It is a fact that in some academic circles "contemporary music" has been become a style just as strict as some strains of trance or "..your favorite polka goes here...." .

Innovations happen. As I have mentioned before, a vital component of western music is change. ( I am talking the western world here and not nashville, but you knew that already? ). Some innovations are very obvious and some are rather subtle. Innovation in music must not be confused with "new" as in "never before heard anywhere ever." What we are talking about here is everything from a certain style or school of music getting an audience, to the aesthics of structure and tonality.
In fact, a certain style getting an audience is a major part of stylistic change and it leads to innovation. Consider how jazz influenced the european scene in the 20s and 30s as well as the second european jazz revolution of the 50s and 60s.

[mosc]

[elektro80]

Why don´t we hire that guy who made the Windows 95 ad campaign thingie for Microsoft and tell him to write an entry for electro-music / electro-music.com in the wikipedia?

Perhaps we shold try to avoid any of the "what do you wanna play with today" stuff though.

[elektro80]

[elektro80]

[FLechdrop]

[opg]

When non-musician people ask me what type of music I make, I say "it's electronic music - not dance music, though. I do most of my work on the computer." That's as far as the conversation usually goes. Sometimes I mention the word "micromusic" and how it is possible to create music using a Gameboy, and they always find it really interesting that it is possible to do that. Sometimes I mention the old computers I use (Apple IIe, etc), and I usually get the same reaction. If I try to explain what it is I do on the computer or how synthesizers are used, the conversation gets very awkward and I get a response like, "I'll have to listen to your songs on your website," which doesn't usually happen.

I guess it is a "fear of the unknown" issue, but it is a great way to hear what people think "electronic music" is.

[brinxmat]

[opg]

[mosc]

Didn't they use the Rolling Stones' Start It Up for that? After seeing The Stones at last years Super Bowl, I think it's time to Shut It Down.

[Kassen]

[Kassen]

[Kassen]

[mosc]

Well, I wasn't differentiating between cheap hardware and open source software. It's all got the same effect. Great music technology at very low cost avaliable to anyone who is interested.

BTW, what is popular on the internet? There is a great deal of music by many many people. Many different styles using different instruments and techniques. I'm not saying it's all good music, BTW...

In folk music there are individuals that stand out. Like you say -- Would Aphex be as popular without all the bedroom studios of the world?[/code]

[opg]

[Kassen]

[Kassen]

[Kookoo]

Hello again. I love this thread!

[opg]

That's right - robots. That's what I've been saying all along. We as a society have to go to the complete extremes in terms of artificiality until we get back to "real" instruments and "live bands." It's been said that every new technology is first overused and used in the wrong way until a more efficient, useful way is discovered.

So for now, we just sit back and enjoy the robots marching in and pretending to be our MIDI controller slaves until they ultimately rebel and take over our planet as Michael Crichton has taught us in every one of his novels. I particularly enjoyed Westworld the most. Why is it that in every sci-fi movie that takes place in the future, they are still wearing the same style clothing that was worn when the movie was made, as if they think everything will change in the future except the awesomeness of their bellbottoms and turtlenecks?

[Tronato]

Hello...

I perceive a generalized confusion here...

Electro-acoustic music is amplified (and sometimes manipulated) music generated acoustically.

Electronic Music involves electronic sound generating arctifacts.

As simple as that!

Thanks!

TRO