Chapter 1Electronic Music Before 1945

Contents•Music, Invention, and Culture•Earliest Experiments•Into the Age of Electronics•Early Electronic Music Performance Instruments•Other Early Approaches to Electronic Music•Early Recording Technology•Looking Forward

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• The first era of electronic music comprises the instruments and music created prior to 1945.

• In 1863, Hermann von Helmholtz published On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, a classic work on acoustics and tone generation.

• The field of electronic music has often been led by composers and inventors with a need to invent a way to realize their musical visions.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

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• Two early electrical music devices, the Reis Telephone (1861) and Musical Telegraph (1874), were offspring of the new field of telecommunications.

• The first electronic music synthesizer was the massive Telharmonium patented by Thaddeus Cahill in 1896 and using a dynamo with rotating pitch shafts and tone wheels.

• Composer Feruccio Busoni published Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music in 1907 and anticipated the use of electrical machines in the development of new music, revealing an important relationship between the inventor and the musician.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

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• Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo published L’Arte dei rumori (The Art of Noise) in1913, a musical manifesto that encouraged the use of noise in music. Russolo and Piatti constructed mechanical noise-producing instruments for creating Futurist music, predating the availability of audio recording technologies for the inclusion of noise in music by many years.

• Edgard Varèse was an experimental composer who anticipated the development of electronic musical instruments. In 1922 he spoke of the need for the collaboration of inventors and musicians and devoted much effort prior to World War II composing for available electronic musical instruments and seeking funds for research in the field.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

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• Electronic musical instruments invented prior to World War II were performance instruments designed to play live in real time.

• The first boom in electronic musical instrument development began in 1917 with the availability of the De Forest vacuum tube. The vacuum tube provided miniaturization of electrical circuits, amplification, and tone-generating capability.

• Electro-mechanical instruments used electrical means to amplify and modify mechanically produced tones. Examples include the tone wheel design of the Telharmonium and Hammond Organ and the use of magnetic pickups to convert the vibrations of piano strings into electrically amplified sounds.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

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• Electronic tone generation was accomplished using vacuum tubes. The first such instruments used beat frequency technology and included – Theremin – Ondes Martenot.

• Another generation of instruments used multiple, tuned tube oscillators to reproduce tones, including– Coupleaux–Givelet organ (early 1930s) – Hammond Novachord (1939). – The Trautonium (1928) was a tube oscillator instrument that

used a pressure-sensitive fingerboard instead of piano keys.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

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• The magnetic tape recording was invented in 1928 but was not widely available outside of Germany until 1945.

• The introduction of high-quality sound recording and editing ended the first era of live-performance electronic music and began the era of composing with recorded sounds.

Chapter 1 Electronic Music Before 1945

8Chapter 1 Reis Telephone (left) and Microphone (right)

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9Chapter 1 Gray’s Musical Telegraph

10Chapter 1 Telharmonium in Holyoke, MA, 1906

11Chapter 1 Telharmonium Patent

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12Chapter 1 Russolo and Piatti with Intonarumori, 1914

13Chapter 1 Vintage Theremin, 1930 (photo: Thom Holmes)

14Chapter 1 Vintage Ondes Martenot, showing finger-ring (photo: Thom Holmes)