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Lecture on the history of electronic music

November 4, 2004

Today I was giving a lecture at The Grieg Academy on the history of electronic music. It’s not easy to condense the subject to a 2 hour presentation but I’ve had fun lately googling for images to use.

Rough scetch of subjects touched upon:

  • Early electronic instruments (Telharmonium Theremin Ondes Martenot)
  • Futurism. The Art of Noise
  • Development of mass media. The Gramophone. Radio. Film.
  • Musique Concrète
  • The studio of Westdeutche Rundfunk in Köln.
  • Stockhausen: gesang der Junglinge. Kontakte.
  • The Philips Pavilion
  • Tape Centers in the 50s and 60s.
  • Minimalism
  • Ambient Music
  • DJ. Sampling. Turntableism.

Lots and lots left out….

I also attempted to discuss how electronic music is to be defined. According to Holmes “the stuff of electronic music is electrically produced or modified sounds”. An alternative and very wide way of looking at electronic music would be to consider a field expanding outwards to any kind of music or sound experience that is in some way influenced or touched by the precense of electronic media for sound (re)production. It’s probably difficult to find music in current Western society that is not in some way influenced and altered by the existence of electronic media for sound recording storing processing distibution distribution and reproduction.