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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 21st Century > Musique electronique instrumentale
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Author Topic: Musique electronique instrumentale  (Read 414 times)
C Dish
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« on: 15:40:05, 06-01-2008 »
This morning I listened to a pair of unrelated works by a member of this forum, one purely electronic, the other purely instrumental (albeit with a bicycle horn). Although I was taken by both pieces and still find them quite beautiful and absorbing, I thought I'd start a thread about how electronic music has influenced the way that composers write for instruments.

The second piece I have trouble imagining possible without the experience of filtering, resonance modeling, granular synthesis, and many other techniques developed in what we now call 'the digital realm' -- a realm where we don't need our digits -- this in no way detracts from the enjoyment of the piece, merely provokes thoughts that float on top of the listening experience like an oil slick floats in the San Francisco Bay.

Does anyone have thoughts, reactions, or a combination of the two about how electronic sound manipulation has influenced the writing for traditional instruments?
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martle
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« Reply #1 on: 19:27:48, 06-01-2008 »
Chafely, I find this a very interesting area. It's been many years since I fussed much with electronics/ digital processing of any kind, although I went through a phase where I did, and its impact on my instrumental writing, and my conception of the possibilities of musical form, was very important. And I'm really interested in how the experiences of people like Berio and Ligeti in the studio fed into their conceptions of timbre and texture. I remember one fascinating talk by Berio about how the huge, wall-of-sound chords in Coro (Neruda's 'blood on the streets' chords) were mediated and filtered orchestrally by the application, or adaptation of specific electronic techniques - spectrum filtering in particular.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #2 on: 21:19:52, 06-01-2008 »
It's also quite interesting how the "analogue" thinking of the 1920s generation (tape-loops and -speed manipulation, ring modulation etc. "transposed" into instrumental terms) becomes replaced by "digital" ideas from the 1980s onward. The extent to which a composer's experiences with electronic music condition their instrumental music also correlates strongly to the amount of time they'd spend in the studio, so that the influence is practically everywhere in Stockhausen, somewhat less central in Berio, peripheral in Ligeti and pretty much nonexistent (until much later) in Boulez, to name only these.
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martle
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« Reply #3 on: 21:31:40, 06-01-2008 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 21:19:52, 06-01-2008
and pretty much nonexistent (until much later) in Boulez

But why, I wonder. What is it with Boulez's electronic history anyway? I can hear the 'influence' of the knee-jerk reverb, filtering, distortion techniques of the 50s and 60s fairly readily in a lot of his orchestral music, but (whatever period we're talking about) not nearly in so markedly a way as in Berio's - or Ligeti's. I wonder if his heart was really in it. A piece like Repons seems to me only tangentially beholden to the fledgling digital techniques that inspired it, whereas Berio's Offanim, for instance, seems absolutely and ultimately dependent on them for its very existence.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #4 on: 21:42:21, 06-01-2008 »
Quote from: martle on 21:31:40, 06-01-2008
Repons seems to me only tangentially beholden to the fledgling digital techniques that inspired it, whereas Berio's Offanim, for instance, seems absolutely and ultimately dependent on them for its very existence.

I don't know that Berio piece at all (there isn't a recording is there?). Boulez is basically interested in what he can do with notes (rather than sounds as such) which I suppose is why he only got involved in electronic music (to the extent that he did) after computer technology began to make it possible to "do a Boulez" electronically. Dick Raaijmakers refers to the spatialisation in Répons as "horizontal arpeggios", meaning also that Boulez uses new technology to do what are fundamentally fairly "instrumentalistic" things, the opposite, in other words, of the phenomenon Chafeski refers to at the top of the thread.
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Bryn
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« Reply #5 on: 21:50:58, 06-01-2008 »
Only the one "f", Richard, "Ofanim (1988), for voices, instruments, and electronics". I know of no recording.

If you can get to New York for the end of May, the NYPO seem to be doing it:

"Thurs. 29, Fri. 30, Sat. 31
ANDRIESSEN De Staat
BERIO Ofanim"
« Last Edit: 21:56:54, 06-01-2008 by Bryn » Logged
Bryn
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« Reply #6 on: 22:15:53, 06-01-2008 »
Quote from: Bryn on 21:50:58, 06-01-2008
Only the one "f", Richard, "Ofanim (1988), for voices, instruments, and electronics". I know of no recording.

If you can get to New York for the end of May, the NYPO seem to be doing it:

"Thurs. 29, Fri. 30, Sat. 31
ANDRIESSEN De Staat
BERIO Ofanim"

Richard, I have just found this:

http://www.whowardwilliams.com/page_archiveRecordings.php

Not sure how one goes about getting hold of such "available" recordings. I guess e-mailing Howard Williams might help.
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martle
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« Reply #7 on: 23:05:04, 06-01-2008 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 21:42:21, 06-01-2008
I don't know that Berio piece at all (there isn't a recording is there?).

No, I don't think so, sadly. Yet. But it's a quite astounding piece. It was last done in this country (as far as I know) in the  memorial weekend festival a year after his death. It's the best example I know of that incorporates real-time manipulation of instrumental/vocal signal and sound distribution. I.e. that dimension is essential to the compositional conception rather than a gimmick. It originated in the research done at Tempo Reale - he was working on the software when I was there myself, so I know the way he was thinking about it.
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