A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS : EIGENWELT DER ... · Thespiritofinventionwhichimmediatelypreceeded theturn of this century was synchronous with a cultural enthusiasm aboutthenewtechnologiesthatwasunprecedented

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A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS

Dav id Dunn

"When intellectual formulations are treated simplyby relegating them to the past and permitting thesimplepassage oftime tosubstitutefordevelopment,thesuspicion isjustified thatsuchformulations havenot really been mastered, but rather they are beingsuppressed ."

-Theodor W. Adorno

"It is the historical necessity, if there is a historicalnecessity in history, that anewdecade ofelectronictelevision shouldfollow to the past decade of elec-tronic music."

-Nam June Paik (1965)

INTRODUCTION :

Historical facts reinforce the obvious realizationthat the major cultural impetus which spawnedvideo image experimentation was the AmericanSixties . As aresponse to thatcultural climate, itwasmore a perceptual movement than an artistic one inthe sense thatits practitioners desired an electronicequivalent tothe sensory and physiological tremen-dums which came to life during the Vietnam War .Principal among these was the psychedelic experi-ence with its radical experiential assault on thenature ofperception andvisual phenomena. Armedwith a new visual ontology, whatever art image-making tradition informed them it was less a cine-matic onethan an overt counter-culturalreactiontotelevision as a mainstreaminstitution and purveyorof images that were deemed politically false . Theviolence of technology that television personified,both metaphorically and literally through the warimages it disseminated, represented a source for

Photo : Salvatore Martirano's SAL-MAR CONSTRUCTION, 1969-72, set up for concert at StateUniversity of NewYork (SUNY), Stonybrook, Long Island . Courtesy of Salvatore Martirano


renewal in the electronic reconstruction of archaicperception.

It is specifically a concern for the expansion ofhuman perception through a technological strate-gem that links those tumultuous years of aestheticand technical experimentation with the 20th cen-tury history of modernist exploration of electronicpotentials, primarily exemplified by the lineage ofartistic research initiated by electronic sound andmusic experimentation beginning as far back as1906 with the invention ofthe Telharmonium. Thisessay traces some of that early history and itsimplications for our current historicalpredicament .The other essential argument put forth here is thata more recent period of video experimentation,beginning in the 1960's, is only one of the laterchapters in a history of failed utopianism thatdominates the artistic exploration and use of tech-nology throughout the 20th century .

Thefollowing pages present anhistorical contextfor the specific focus of this exhibition on earlypioneers of electronic art . Prior to the 1960's, thefocus is, of necessity, predominantly upon elec-tronic sound tool making and electroacoustic aes-thetics as antecedant to the more relevant discus-sion of the emergence of electronic image genera-tion/processing tools and aesthetics . Ourintentionis to frame this image-making tradition within therealization that many of its concerns were firstarticulated within an audio technology domain andthat they repeat, within the higher frequency spec-trum of visual information, similar issues encoun-tered within the electronic music/sound art tradi-tions . In fact, it can be argued that many of theinnovators within this period of electronic image-making evolved directly from participation in the

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electronic music experimentation of that time period.Since the exhibition itself attempts to depict these individuals

and their art through the perspective of the actual means ofproduction, as exemplified by the generative tools, it must bepointed out that the physical objects on display are not to beregarded as aesthetic objects per se but rather as instrumentswhich facilitate the articulation of both aesthetic products andideological viewpoints . It ispredominantly theprocesswhich is onexhibit. In this regardwe have attempted to presenttheideas andartworkwhich emergedfrom these processes as intrinsic parts ofideological systemswhichmust also beframed within anhistoricalcontext . We have therefore provided access to the video/audio artand other cultural artifacts directly from this text (i .e ., barcodes)as it unfolds in chronological sequence . Likewise, this essaydiscusses this historywith anemphasis on issueswhichreinforcea systemic process view of a complex set of dialectics (e .g .modernist versus representationist aesthetics, and artistic ver-sus industrial/technocratic ideologies) .

One ofthe persistent realities ofhistoryis that the facts whichwe inherit as descriptions of historical events are not neutral .They are invested with the biases of individual and/or groupparticipants, those who have survived or, more significantly,those who have acquired sufficient power to control how thathistoryiswritten . In attemptingto compile this chronology, it hasbeen my intention to present a story whose major signpostsinclude those who have made substantive contributions butremainuncelebrated, inaddition tothose figureswho have merelybecomefamous forbeing famous .The reader shouldbearinmindthatthis is abriefchronologythat must ofnecessity neglect otherevents and individuals whose work wasjust as valid . It is also animportant feature ofthishistorythatthe artisticuse oftechnologyhas too often been criticized as an indication ofa de-humanizingtrend by a culture which actually embraces such technology inmost other facets of its deepest fabric . It appears to abhor thatwhich mirrors its fundamental workings and yet offers an alter-native to its own violence . In view of this suspicion I have chosento write this chronology from a position that regards the artisticacquisitionoftechnologyas one ofthefew arenaswhereacreativecritique of the so-called technological era has been possible.

to the MUSIC stations .

One of the earliest documented musical instruments based

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I IIIIupon electronic principles was the CLAVECIN ELECTRIQUEdesigned by thejesuit priest Jean-Baptiste Delaborde in France,1759 . The device used a keyboard control based upon simpleelectrostatic principles .

All barcodes in this article pertain

The spirit ofinvention which immediately preceeded the turnof this century was synchronous with a cultural enthusiasmabout thenewtechnologies that was unprecedented. Individualssuch as Bell, Edison, and Tesla became culture heroes whoushered in an ideology of industrial progress founded upon thepower of harnessed electricity. Amongst this assemblage ofinventor industrialists was DR. THADDEUS CAHILL, inventor ofthe electric typewriter, designer and builder of the first musicalsynthesizer and, by default, originator ofindustrial muzak. Whileafewattempts to buildelectronicmusicalinstruments weremadein the late 19th centurybyElisha Gray, Ernst Lorenz, andWilliamDuddell, they were fairly tentative or simply the curious bypro-ducts ofother researchinto electrical phenomena. One exceptionwas themusical instrument called the CHORALCELO built in theUnited States by Melvin L. Severyand George B . Sinclair between1888 and 1908 . Cahill's invention, the TELHARMONIUM, how-ever, remains the most ambitious attempt to construct a viableelectronic musical instrument ever conceived .

Working against incredible technical difficulties, Cahill suc-ceeded in 1900 to construct the first prototype of the TELHAR-MONIUM and by 1906, a fairly complete realization ofhis vision .This electro-mechanical device consisted of 145 rheotome/alternators capable ofproducing fiveoctaves ofvariableharmoniccontent in imitation of orchestral tone colors . Its prinicipal ofoperation consisted ofwhatwe now refer to as additive synthesisand was controlled from two touch-sensitive keyboards capableof timbral, amplitude and other articulatory selections . SinceCahill's machinewas inventedbeforeelectronic amplification wasavailable he had to build alternators that produced more than10,000 watts . As a result the instrument was quite immense,weighing approximately 200 tons . When it was shipped fromHolyoke, Massachusetts to New York City, over thirty railroadflatcars were enlisted in the effort.

While Cahill's initial intention was simply to realize a trulysophisticated electronic instrument that could perform tradi-tional repetoire, he quickly pursued its industrial application ina plan to provide direct music to homes and offices as the strategyto fund its construction . He founded the NewYork Electric MusicCompanywith this intent and began to supply realtime perform-ances of popular classics to subscribers over telephone lines .Ultimately the business failed due to insurmountable technicaland legal difficulties, ceasing operations in 1911 .

TheTelharmonium andits inventor represents one ofthemostspectacular examples ofone side ofarecurrent dialecticwhichwewill see demonstrated repeatedly throughout the 20th centuryhistory ofthe artistic use ofelectronic technology. Cahill personi-fies the industrial ideology of invention which seeks to imitatemore efficiently the status quo . Such an ideology desires to


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summ arize existent knowledge through a new technology andthereby provide amarketable representation ofcurrent reality . Incontrast to this view, the modernist ideology evolved to assert ananti-representationist use oftechnologywhich sought to expandhuman perception through the acquisition of new technicalmeans . Itdesired to seek the unknown as new phenomenologicaland experiential understandings which shattered models of theso-called "real" .

The modernist agenda is brilliantly summarized by the follow-ing quote by Hugo Ball :

"It is true thatforus artis not an end in itself, we have lost too manyofour illusionsfor that. Artisforus an occasionforsocial criticism,andfor real understanding ofthe age we live in. . .Dada was not aschool of artists, but an alarm signal against declining values,routine andspeculations, adesperate appeal, onbehalfofallformsofart,for a creative basis on which to build a new and universalconsciousness ofart."

Many composers at the beginning of this century dreamed ofnew electronic technologies that could expand the palette ofsound and tunings ofwhich music and musicalinstruments thenconsisted. Their interest was not to use the emerging electronicpotential to imitate existant forms, but rather to go beyond whatwas already known . In the same year that Cahill finalized theTelharmonium and moved it to New York City, the composerFERRUCCIO BUSONI wrote his Entwurfeiner neuenAsthetikderTonkunst (Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music) wherein heproposed the necessity for an expansion of the chromatic scaleand new (possibly electrical) instruments to realize it . Manycomposers embraced this idea and began to conceptualize whatsuch a music should consist of. In the following year, theAustralian composer PERCY GRAINGER was already convincedthat his concept of FREE MUSIC could only be realized throughuse of electro-mechanical devices . By 1908 the Futurist Mani-festo was published and the modernist ideology began its artists'revolt against existant social and cultural values . In 1913 LuigiRussolo wrote The Art ofNoise, declaring that the "evolution ofmusic is paralled by the multiplication of the machine" . By theend ofthatyear, RUSSOLO AND UGO PIATTI had constructed anorchestra of electro-mechanical noise instruments (intonaru-mori) capable of realizing their vision of a sound art whichshattered the musical status quo . Russolo desired to create asound based art form out of the noise of modern life . His noiseintoning devices presented their array of "howlers, boomers,cracklers, scrapers, exploders, buzzers, gurglers, andwhistles" tobewildered audiences in Italy, LONDON, and finally Paris in 1921,where he gained the attention of Varese and Stravinsky. Soon

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after this concert the instruments were apparently only usedcommercially for generating sound effects and were abandonedby Russolo in 1930 .

Throughout the second decade of the 20th century there wasan unprecedented amount of experimental music activity muchof which involved discourse about the necessity for new instru-mentalresources capable ofrealizing the emerging theorieswhichrejected traditional compositional processes . Composers such asIves, Satie, Cowell, VARESE, and Schoenberg were advancing thestructural and instrumentalresources for music . Itwas into thisintellectual climate, and into the cultural changes brought on bythe Russian Revolution, that LEON THEREMIN (Lev SergeyevichTermen) introduced the Aetherophone (later known as the Ther-emin), a new electronic instrument based on radio-frequencyoscillations controlled by hands moving in space over two anten-nae . The extraordinary flexibility of the instrument not onlyallowed fortheperformanceoftraditional repetoirebutalso awiderange ofneweffects . The theatricality ofits playing technique andthe uniqueness ofits sound made the Theremin the most radicalmusical instrument innovation of the early 20th century .

The success of the Theremin brought its inventor a modestcelebrity status . In the following years he introduced the instru-ment to Vladimir Lenin, invented one of the earliest televisiondevices, and movedto NewYorkCity . There he gave concertswithLeopold Stokowski, entertained Albert Einstein and married ablack dancer named Lavinia Williams . In 1932 he collaboratedwith the electronic image pioneer MARY ELLEN BUTE to displaymathematical formulas on a CRTsynchronized to music . He alsocontinued to invent newinstruments such as the Rhythmicon, acomplex cross-rhythm instrument produced in collaborationwith HENRY COWELL . Upon his return to the Soviet Union in1938, Theremin was placed under house arrest and directed toworkfor the state oncommunications and surveillance technolo-gies until his retirement in the late 1960's .

In many ways, Leon Theremin represents an archetypal ex-ample of the artist/engineer whose brilliant initial career iscoopted by industry or government . In his case the irony isparticularly poignant in that he invented his instruments in thefull flowering ofthe Bolshevik enthusiasmfor progressive cultureunder Lenin and subsequently fellprey to Stalin's ideologyoffearand repression . Theremin was prevented until 1991 (at 95 yearsofage) from stepping foot outside the USSRbecausehepossessedclassified information about radar and surveillance technologiesthat had been obsolete for years . This suppression ofinnovationthrough institutional ambivalence, censorship or co-optation isalso one ofthe recurrentpatterns ofthe artistic use oftechnologythroughout the 20th century . What often begins with the desireto expand humanperception ends with commoditization or direct


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repression .By the end of the 1920's a large assortment of new electronic

musical instruments had been developed . In Germany JORGMAGERhadbeenexperimentingwith the designofnewelectronicinstruments . Themost successfulwas the SPHAROPHON, a radiofrequency oscillator based keyboard instrument capable of pro-ducing quarter-tone divisions ofthe octave . Mager's instrumentsused loudspeakers with unique driver systems and shapes toachieve a variety of sounds . Maurice Martenot introduced hisOndes Martenot in France where the instrument rapidly gainedacceptance with a wide assortment of established composers .Newworks werewrittenfortheinstrumentbyMilhaud, Honegger,Jolivet, VARESE and eventually MESSIAEN who wrote Fete desBelles Eauxfor an ensemble ofsix Ondes Martenots in 1937 andlater as a solo instrument in his 3PE777FS LI7URGIES of 1944 .The Ondes Martenot was based upon similar technology as theTheremin and Spharophon butintroduced a much more sophis-ticated and flexible control strategy .

Other new instruments introduced around this time were theDynaphone ofRene Bertrand, the Hellertion of Bruno Helbergerand Peter Lertes, and an organlike "synthesis" instrument de-vised byJ . Givelet andE . Coupleauxwhichused a punchedpaperroll control system for audio oscillators constructed with over 700vacuum tubes . One of the longest lived of this generation ofelectronic instruments was the TRAUTONIUM of Dr . FriedrichTrautwein . This keyboard instrument was based upon distinctlydifferent technology than the principles previously mentioned . Itwas one ofthe first instruments to use aneon-tube oscillator andits unique sound couldbe selectively filtered during performance .Its resonance filters could emphasize specific overtone regions .Theinstrumentwas developedin conjunctionwith theHochschulefur Music in Berlin where a research program for compositionalmanipulation of phonograph recordings had been founded twoyears earlier in 1928 . The composer PAUL HINDEMITH partici-pated in both of these endeavors, composing a Concertino for7rautonium and String Orchestra and a sound montage baseduponphonographrecordmanipulations ofvoiceandinstruments .Other composers who wrotefortheTrautoniumincluded RichardStrauss and Werner Egk. The greatest virtuoso ofthis instrumentwas the composer OSKAR SALA who performed on it, and madetechnical improvements, into the 1950's . Also about this time,the composer Robert Beyer published a curious paper about"space" or "room music" entitled Das Problem der KommenderMusik that gained little attention from his colleagues (Beyer'ssubsequent role in the history of electronic music will be dis-cussed later) .

The German experiments inphonographmanipulation consti-tute one ofthe first attempts at organizing sound electronically

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thatwas not basedupon aninstrumental model . While this initialattempt at the stipulation of sound events through a kind ofsculptural moulding of recorded materials was short lived, it setin motion one ofthe principle approaches to electronic composi-tionto becomedominantin decades to come: the electronic musicstudio . Other attempts ata non-instrumental approach to soundorganization began in 1930 within both the USSR and Germany .With the invention of optical sound tracks for film a number oftheorists become inspired to experiment with synthetic soundgenerated through standard animation film techniques . In theUSSR two centers for this research were established : A.M .Avzaamov, N.Y . Zhelinsky, and N.V . VOINOV experimented attheScientific Experimental Film Institute in Leningrad while E.ASCHOLPO and G.M . Rimski-Korsakov performed similar re-search atthe Leningrad Conservatory. In the sameyear, Bauhausartists performed experiments with hand-drawn waveformsconverted into sound through photoelectric cells . Two otherGerman artists, RUDOLPH PFENNINGER and OSCAR FISCH-INGER worked separately at about this time exploring syntheticsound generationthrough techniques thatwere similar to Voinovand Avzaanov.A dramatic increase in new electronic instruments soon

appeared in subsequent years. All of them seem to have hadfascinating if not outrightly absurd names : the Sonorous Cross ;the ELECTROCHORD ; the Ondioline ; the CLAVIOLINE; the Ka-leidophon ; the Electronium Pi ; the Multimonica; the Pianophon ;the Tuttivox; the Mellertion; the Emicon ; the Melodium ; theOscillion; the Magnetton ; the Photophone ; the Orgatron ; thePhotona; and the PARTITUROPHON. While most of these instru-ments wereintended to produce new sonic resources, somewereintended to replicate familiar instrumental sounds of the pipeorgan variety . It is precisely this desire to replicate the familiarwhich spawned the other major tradition ofelectronic instrumentdesign: thelarge families ofelectricorgans and pianosthatbeganto appearinthe early 1930's . LAURENS HAMMOND builthis firstelectronic organ in 1929 using the same tone-wheel process asCahill's Telharmonium . Electronic organs built in the followingyears by Hammond included the NOVACHORD and the Solovox .While Hammond's organ's were rejected by pipe organ enthusi-asts because its additive synthesis technique sounded too "elec-tronic," he was the first to achieve both stable intonation throughsynchronized electromechanical sound generators and massproduction of an electronic musical instrument, setting a prece-dent for popular acceptance . Hammond also patented a springreverberation technique that is still widely used.

The Warbo Formant Organ (1937) was one of the first trulypolyphonic electronic instruments that could be considered apredecessor ofcurrent electronic organs . Its designerthe German


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engineer HARALD BODE was one of the central figures in thehistory ofelectronic music in both Europe and the United States .Not only did he contribute to instrument design from the 1930'son, he was one of the principle engineers in establishing theclassic tapemusic studios in Europe . His contributions straddledthe two major designtraditions ofnewsounds versus imitation oftraditional ones without much bias since he was primarily anengineer interested in providing tools for a wide range of musi-cians . Other instruments which he subsequently built includedthe Melodium, the MELOCHORD and the Polychord (Bode's othercontributions will be discussed later in this essay) .

By the late 1930's there was an increase of experimentalactivity in both Europe and the United States . 1938 saw theinstallation ofthe ANS Synthesizer at the Moscow ExperimentalMusic Studio . JOHN CAGE began his long fascination with elec-tronic sound sources in 1939 withthe presentation of ImaginaryLandscape No . 1, a live performance work whose score includesa part for disc recordings performed on a variable speed phono-graph . A number of similar works utilizing recorded sound andelectronic sound sources followed . Cage had also been one ofthemost active proselytizers for electronic music through his writ-ings, as were EdgardVarese, Joseph Schillinger, Leopold Stokow-ski, Henry Cowell, Carlos Chavez and PERCY GRAINGER . It wasduring the 1930's that Grainger seriously began to pursue thebuilding of technological tools capable of realizing his radicalconcept of FREE MUSIC notated as spatial non-tempered struc-tures on graph paper . He composed such a workfor an ensembleof four Theremins (1937) and began to collaborate with BurnettCross to design a series of synchronized oscillator instrumentscontrolled by a paper tape roll mechanism . These instrumentssaw a number ofincarnations until Grainger's death in 1961 .

In 1939 Homer Dudley created the voder and the vocoder fornon-musical applications associated with speech analysis . TheVODER was a keyboard-operated encoding instrument consist-ing of bandpass channels for the simulation ofresonances in thehumanvoice . It also contained tone and noisesources forimitatingvowels and consonants. The VOCODER was the correspondingdecoder which consisted of an analyzer and synthesizer foranalyzing and then reconstituting the same speech. Besidesbeing one ofthe first soundmodification devices, the vocoderwasto take on an important role in electronic music as a voiceprocessing device that is still widely in use today .

The important technical achievements ofthe 1930's includedthe first successful television transmission and major innova-tions in audio recording . Since the turn ofthe century, researchinto improving upon the magnetic wire recorder, invented byVALDEMAR POULSEN, had steadily progressed . A variety ofimprovements had been made, most notably the use of electrical





amplification and the invention of the Alternating Current biastechnique . The next major improvementwas the replacement ofwire with steel bands, a fairly successful technology that playeda significant rolein the secret police ofthe Naziparty. TheGermanscientist Fritz Pfleumer had begun to experiment with oxide-coated paper and plastic tape as early as 1927 and the I.G .Farbenindustrie introduced the first practical plastic recordingtape in 1932 . Themost successful ofthe early magnetic recordingdevices was undoubtedly the AEG Magnetophone introduced in1935 at the Berlin Radio Fair. This device was to become theprototypical magnetictaperecorderandwasvastly superiorto thewire recorders then in use. By 1945 the Magnetophone adoptedoxide-coated paper tape . After World War II the patents for thistechnologywere transfered to the United States as war booty andfurther improvements in tapetechnologyprogressed there . Wide-spread commercial manufacturing and distribution of magnetictape recorders became a reality by 1950 .

The influence of World War II upon the arts was obviouslydrastic . Most experimental creative activity ceased and technicalinnovation was almost exclusively dominated by military needs .European music was the most seriously affected with electronicmusic research remaining dormant until the late 1940's . How-ever,withmagnetic tape recordingtechnologynow a reality, a newperiod of rapid innovation took place. At the center of this newactivity was the ascendancy of the tape music studio as bothcompositional tool and research institution. Taperecording revo-lutionized electronic music more than any other single event inthat it provided a flexible means to both store and manipulatesound events . The resultwas the defining of electronic music asa true genre . While the history of this genre before 1950 hasprimarily focused upon instrument designers, after 1950 theemphasis shifts towards the composers who consolidated thetechnical gains of the first halfof the 20th century.

Just prior to the event of the tape recorder, PIERRESCHAEFFER had begun his experiments with manipulation ofphonographrecordings and quickly evolved a theoretical positionwhich he named Musique Concrete in order to emphasize thesculptural aspectofhowthe sounds were manipulated . Schaefferpredominantly used sounds of the environment that had beenrecorded through microphones onto disc and later tape . These"sound objects" were then manipulated as pieces of sound thatcould be spliced into new time relationships, processed througha variety of devices, transposed to different frequency registersthrough tape speed variations, and ultimately combined into amontage of various mixtures of sounds back onto tape . In 1948Schaeffer was joined by the engineer Jacques Poullin whosubsequently played a significant role in the technical evolutionoftape musicin France . That same year sawthe initial broadcast


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of Musique Concrete over French Radio and was billed as a`concert de bruits' . The composer PIERRE HENRY then joinedSchaeffer and Poullin in 1949 . Together they constructed theSYMPHOA71EPOUR UN HOMMESEUL, one ofthe true classics ofthe genre completed before they had access to tape recorders .

By 1950 Schaefferand Henrywere workingwithmagnetic tapeand the evolution ofmusique concrete proceeded at a fast pace .The first public performance was given in that same year at theEcole Normale deMusique . In thefollowing year, French NationalRadio installed a sophisticated studio for the GroupforResearchon Musique Concrete . Over thenext fewyears significant compos-ers began to be attracted to the studio including Pierre Boulez,Michel Philippot, Jean Barraque, Phillipe Arthuys, EDGARDVARESE, and OLIVIER MESSIAEN . In 1954 Varese composed thetape part to DESERTS for orchestra and tapeat the studio and thework saw its infamous premiere in December ofthat year.

Since Musique Concrete was both a musical and aestheticresearch project, a variety of theoretical writings emerged toarticulate the movement's progress . Ofprincipal importancewasSchaeffer's book A is recherche d'une musique concrete . In it hedescribes the group's experiments in a pseudo-scientific mannerthat forms a lexicon of sounds and their distinctive characteris-tics which should determine compositional criteria and organiza-tion. In collaboration with A . Moles, Schaeffer specified a classi-fication system for acoustical material according to orders ofmagnitude and other criteria . In many ways these efforts set thedirection for the positivist philosophical bias that has dominatedthe"research" emphasis ofelectronicmusicinstitutionsin Franceand elsewhere .

The sonic and musical characteristics of early musique con-cretewere pejoratively described by Olivier Messiaen as contain-ing a high level of surrealistic agony and literary descriptivism .The movement's evolution saw most of the participating compos-ers including Schaeffer move awayfrom the extreme dislocationsof sound and distortion associated with its early compositionsand simple techniques . Underlying the early works was a farilyconsistentphilosophy best exemplified by a statementbySchaef-fer :

"I belong to a generation which is largely torn by dualisms . Thecatechism taught to men who are now middle-aged was a tradi-tional one, traditionally absurd : spirit is opposed to matter, poetryto technique, progress to tradition, individual to thegroup andhowmuch else . From all this it takesjustone more step toconclude thatthe world is absurd, full of unbearable contradictions . Thus aviolent desire to deny, to destroy one ofthe concepts, especially inthe realm ofform, where, according to Malraux, the Absolute iscoined. Fashionfaintheartedly approved this nihilism

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Ifmusique concrete were to contribute to this movement, if, hastilyadopted, stupidly understood, it had only to add its additionalbellowing, its new negation, after so much smearing ofthe lines,denial ofgolden rules (such as that ofthe scale), I should considermyselfrather unwelcome. I have the right to justify my demand,and the duty to lead possible successors to this intellectuallyhonest work, to the extent to whichI have helped to discoveranewway to create sound, and the means-as yetapproximate-togiveitform.

. . . Photography, whether the fact be denied or admitted, hascompletely upset painting,just as the recording ofsound is aboutto upset music . . . . For all that, traditional music is not denied; anymore than the theatre is supplantedby the cinema . Somethingnewis added: anew art ofsound. Am I wrong in still calling it music?"

While the tape studio is still a major technical and creativeforce in electronic music, its early history marks a specific periodof technical and stylistic activity. As recording technology beganto reveal itself to composers, many of whom had been anxiouslyawaiting such a breakthrough, some composers began to workunder the auspices of broadcast radio stations and recordingstudios withprofessional taperecorders and test equipment in offhours . Others began to scrounge and share equipmentwhereverpossible, forming informal cooperatives based upon availabletechnology. While Schaefferwas definingmusique concrete, otherindependent composers were experimenting with tape and elec-tronic sound sources . The end of 1940's saw French composerPaul Boisselet compose some of the earliest live performanceworks for instruments, tape recorders and electronic oscillators .In the United States, Bebe and Louis Barron began theirpioneer-ingexperiments with tape collage. As earlyas 1948 the Canadiancomposer/engineer Hugh Le Caine was hired by the NationalResearch Council of Canadato begin building electronic musicalinstruments .

In parallel to all ofthese events, another major lineage of tapestudio activity began to emerge in Germany. According to theGerman physicist Werner Meyer-Eppler the events comprisingthe German electronic music history during this time are asfollows . In 1948 the inventor of the Vocoder, Homer Dudley,demonstratedfor Meyer-Eppler his device . Meyer-Eppler subse-quentlyused a tape recording ofthe Vocoder to illustrate alecturehe gavein 1949 called DevelopmentalPossibilities ofSound. Intheaudiencewas theaforementioned RobertBeyer, nowemployed atthe Northwest German Radio, Cologne . Beyer must have beenprofoundly impressed by the presentation since it was decidedthat lectures should be formulated on the topic of "electronicmusic" for the International Summer School for New Music in

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Darmstadtthefollowing year. Much ofthe subsequentlecture byMeyer-Eppler containedmaterialfrom his classicbook, ElectronicTone Generation, Electronic Music, and Synthetic Speech.

By 1951 Meyer-Eppler began a series of experiments withsynthetically generated sounds using Harald Bode's Melochordand an AEG magnetic tape recorder. Together with Robert Beyerand Herbert Eimert, Meyer-Eppler presented his research as aradio program called "The World of Sound of Electronic Music"over German Radio, Cologne . This broadcast helped to convinceofficials and technicians of the Cologne radio station to sponseran official studio for electronic music . From its beginning theCOLOGNESTUDIO differentiated itselffromtheMusiqueConcreteactivities in Paris by limiting itself to "pure" electronic soundsources thatcould be manipulatd through precise compositionaltechniques derived from Serialism.

While one of the earliest compositional outcomes from theinfluence of Meyer-Eppler was Bruno Maderna's collaborationwith him entitled Musica su dueDimensioni for flute, percussion,and loudspeaker, most of the other works that followed werestrictly concerned with utilizing only electronic sounds such aspure sine-waves . One of the first attempts at creating this laborintensive formofstudiobased additive synthesiswas KARLHEINZSTOCKHAUSEN who created his Etude out ofpure sine-waves atthe Paris studio in 1952 . Similar works were produced at theCologne facilities by Beyer and Eimert at about this time andsubsequently followed by the more sophisticated attempts byStockhausen, Studie I (1953) and STUDIE II (1954) . In 1954 apublic concert was presented by Cologne radio that includedworks by Stockhausen, Goeyvaerts, Pousseur, Gredinger, andEimert . Soon other composers began working at the Colognestudioincluding Koenig, Heiss, Klebe, KAGEL, LIGETI, BRUN andERNST KRENEK . The later composer completed his Spiritus In-telligentiae Sanctus at the Cologne studio in 1956 . This workalong with Stockhausen's GESANG DERJIINGLINGE, composedat the same time, signify the end ofthe short-lived pure electronicemphasis claimed by the Cologne school . Both works usedelectronically-generated sounds in combination with techniquesand sound sources associated with musique concrete.

While the distinction usually posited between the early Parisand Cologneschools oftape music composition emphasizes eitherthe nature of the sound sources or the presence of an organiza-tional bias such as Serialism, I tend to viewthis distinction morein terms ofa reorganization at mid-century oftherepresentation-ist versus modernist dialect which appeared in prior decades .Even though Schaeffer and his colleagues were consciouslyaligned in overt ways with the Futurists concern with noise, theytended to rely on dramatic expression that was dependent uponillusionistic associations tothe sounds undergoingdeconstruction .

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The early Cologne school appears to have been concerned with anauthentic and didactic display of the electronic material and itsprimarycodes as ifitwere possible to revealthe metaphysical andintrinsic nature of the material as a new perceptual resource .Obviously the technical limitations ofthe studio at that time, inaddition to the aesthetic demands imposed by the current issuesof musicality, made their initial pursuit too problematic .

Concurrent with the tape studio developments in France andGermanythere were significant advances occuring in the UnitedStates . While there was not yet any significant institutionalsupport for the experimentalworkbeing pursuedbyindependentcomposers, some informal projects began to emerge . The MusicforMagneticTape Projectwasformedin 1951 byJOHN CAGE, EarleBrown, Christian Wolff, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman andlasted until 1954 . Sincethe group hadno permanent facility, theyrelied on borrowedtime in commercialsound studios such as thatmaintained by Bebe and Louis Barron or used borrowed equip-ment that they could share . The most important work to haveemerged from this collective was Cage's WILLIAM'S MIX. Thecomposition used hundreds of prerecorded sounds from theBarron's library as the source from which to fulfill the demandsof a meticulously notated score that specified not only thecategories of sounds to be used at any particular time but alsohow the sounds were to be spliced and edited. Thework requiredover nine months ofintensive labor on the part of Cage, Brownand Tudor to assemble . While the final work may not havesounded to untutored ears as very distinct from the other tapeworks produced in France or Cologne at the same time, itnevertheless representedaradical compositionaland philosophi-cal challenge to these other schools of thought .

In the same year as Cage's William's Mix, VLADIMIR USSA-CHEVSKY gave a public demonstration ofhis tape music experi-ments at Columbia University. Working in almost completeisolation from the other experimenters in Europe and the UnitedStates, Ussachevsky began to explore tape manipulation ofelectronic andinstrumental sounds with very limited resources .He was soon joined by OTTO LUENING and the two began tocompose in earnest some of the first tape compositions in theUnited States at the home of Henry Cowell in Woodstock, NewYork: Fantasy inSpace, LowSpeed, and Sonic Contours .Theworks,aftercompletion inUssachevsky's living room in NewYorkand inthe basement studio of Arturo Toscanini's Riverdale home, werepresented at the Museum of Modern Art in October of 1952 .

Throughout the 1950's important work in electronic musicexperimentation only accelerated at a rapid pace . In 1953 anItalian electronic music studio (Studio de Fonologia) was estab-lished at the Radio Audizioni Italiane in Milan. During its earlyyears the studio attracted many important international figures


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including LUCIANO BERIO, Niccolo Castiglioni, Aldo Clementi,Bruno Maderna, LUIGI NONO,JohnCage, HenriPousseur, AndreBoucourechliev, and Bengt Hambraeus. Studios were also estab-lished at the Philips research labs in Eindhoven and at NHK(Japanese Broadcasting System) in 1955. In that same year theDavid Sarnoff Laboratories of RCA in Princeton, New Jerseyintroduced the OLSON-BELAR SOUND SYNTHESIZER to thepublic . Asitsname states, thisinstrumentis generallyconsideredthe first modern "synthesizer" and was built with the specificintention of synthesizing traditional instrumental timbres for themanufacture ofpopular music. In an interesting reversal of theusual industrial absorption of artistic innovation, the machineproved inappropriate for its original intent and was later usedentirely for electronic music experimentation and composition .Since the device was based upon a combination ofadditive andsubtractive synthesis strategies, with a control system consistingof a punched paper roll or tab-card programming scheme, it wasan extremelysophisticatedinstrument forits time . Notonlycoulda composergenerate, combineandfilter sounds fromthemachine'stuning-fork oscillators and white-noise generators, sounds couldbe input from a microphone for modification. Ultimately thedevice's design philosophy favored fairly classical concepts ofmusical structure such as precise control of twelve-tone pitchmaterial andwas thereforefavored bycomposers working withinthe serial genre.

The first composers to work with the Olson-Belar SoundSynthesizer (later known as the RCA Music Synthesizer) wereVLADIMIR USSACHEVSKY, OTTO LEUNINGand MILTON BAB-BITTwho managed to initially gain access to it at theRCA Labs .Within a few years this trio of composers in addition to RogerSessions managed to acquire the device onapermanent basis forthenewlyestablished Columbia-Princeton Electronic MusicCenterin NewYork City . Because of its advanced facilities and policy ofencouragementto contemporary composers, the center attracteda large number ofinternationalfigures such asALICE SHIELDS,PRIL SMILEY, Michiko Toyama, Biilent Arel, Mario Davidovsky,Halim El-Dabh, Mel Powell, Jacob Druckman, CharlesWourinen,and Edgard Varese .

In 1958the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana estab-lished the Studio for Experimental Music. Under the initialdirection ofLEJARENHILLER the studio became one ofthe mostimportant centers for electronic music research in the UnitedStates . Two years earlier, Hiller, who was also a professionalchemist, applied his scientific knowledge of digital computers tothe composition of the ILLIAC SUITE FOR STRING QUARTET, oneofthe first attempts at serious computer-aided musical composi-tion. In subsequent years the resident faculty connectedwith theStudio for Experimental Music included composers HERBERT

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Documents

A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS : EIGENWELT DER ... · Thespiritofinventionwhichimmediatelypreceeded theturn of this century was synchronous with a cultural enthusiasm aboutthenewtechnologiesthatwasunprecedented