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August 1975
A Realistic View Of Electronic Music
David Cope
Development of fully reallized electronic music depend on mutual understanding between composers and technician. A composer tells how to dissolve existing confusions.
IN A SENSE, all sounds emanating from a loudspeaker represent electronic music because they are the realization of electric currents projected through (or with) air by way of paper cone vibrations. More specifically, however, electronic music has come to mean those sounds which originate from audio oscillators or generators and are altered by processes of filtering, envelope
construction, etc. This not-so-new art, dating back to Delaborde's Electronic Harpsichord in 1761, has suddenly (since about 1951) become a serious art form, a popular rock device, a profound contributor to the commercial music scene. Over 30 percent of TV commercials employ either complete or partial electronic sources, according to a study done by the author two years ago. It's also a guaranteed Pavlov scare technique in the motion picture industry (current example being The Exorcist).
We are not concerned here with the history, aesthetics or current uses of electronic music, but rather, the distinctly unique problems of the interdisciplinary synthesis of music and science. In a recent interview with Pierre Boulez, conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, I became more acutely aware of these problems. Boulez offered the following observations: "I think that you cannot do good work in this area 'until you have teams working together. You must have composers and technicians alike. Four things, really: composer, technician, good equipment and a company or factory with money to back the operation as well as performers in some cases, and as long as these elements cannot work together you will have small laboratories without any outstanding results."
The many problems become magnified when trying to teach electronic music to musicians and/or electronic music to scientists. Synthesizers such as that shown in FIG. I are typical of manufacturers' attempts at making sound synthesis a possibility for one "Renaissance" man to create a great work of art. Piano-type keyboards abound (and with them the ten-finger limitations of piano music which electronic music is, or should be, able to avoid). Frequency switches containing reference points in organ stop lengths (8 ft., 4 ft., etc. rather than Hz) are at every oscillator; numerous other musical reference points no more than hint at the ultimate use of the equipment.
On the other hand, a host of oscilloscope functions, digital sequencers, sample hold techniques and waveform indicators contrast the musical terminology with often highly technical and strangely abbreviated scientific jargon. To say the least, teaching the synthesizer and its manifold functions to any group of specialists requires a remarkable blend of vocabularies, leaving most students with the impression that only a madman would attempt an honest association with this combination of gear and gadgetry.
To date, most of the writing about this subject has been in music journals or textbooks edging around electronics, acoustics, and engineering with variable amounts of success. The composers, teachers and serious practitioners of electronic music have had to be content to subscribe to music journals as well as journals such as db and others in the scientific fields of acoustics, electronics and physics. The intent here is to acquaint the sound engineer with the incredible problems the serious composer of electronic music faces. By doing so, we hope that more literature will appear offering solutions to some of these problems.
UNFAMILIAR GROUND
Through necessity, the composer must search an initially unknown subject, electronics, to gain even a bare insight into his raw material (the instrument). And the electronics engineer must grope through the more personal, yet still highly technical skills of unfamiliar musical material. For the most part, as Boulez has pointed out, neither combination has yet produced outstanding results.
Going ahead in one's own speciality without anything but a bare knowledge of the other fields involved has sometimes proved fatal in the end result. We find the creative process so ego-demanding that, as Stockhausen has remarked, "It is necessary to constantly switch personnel so as not to invoke daily fistfights." Half the time, the specialist is attempting solutions without knowing the problems encountered in the other discipline. (A complete studio was once destroyed by a composer turning all pots on full to hear his sound, unaware that his product was sub-audio).
One can easily uncover a problem and call for an answer. Proposing a concrete solution is another matter. After having worked in electronic studios for over seven years and taught college courses for a number of years, I've come up with a set of priorities possibly of value to the sound engineer, most certainly of value to the electronic music composer. My priorities are not complete, they are merely my own viewpoint. Hopefully, they will create a possible bridge between one art, music-and a series of sciences.
POINTS OF INTEREST AND/OR CONFUSION
.Relationships between audible non-linear sideband production and combinational tones (cochlea produced).
• Construction and possible standardization of waveform identities other than sine, rectangular, sawtooth, staircase, and triangle.
• Standardization substitutes for the now confused plug and connector systems (phone, phono, cannon, etc.).
• Details of acoustical placement of speakers (angle toward ceiling, etc.).
• True "balanced line" properties and priority when connecting one unit to another.
• Importance of speaker enclosures and possible reconstruction of available units for better responses in variable circumstances.
• A third possibility of pot control besides vernier and slide, that presents viable clean operation during recording or playback.
These represent but a few current problems. A sound engineer's glance through Allen Strange's Electronic Music (Win. C. Brown Co., 1972), Gilbert Trythall's Principles and Practices of Electronic Music (Grosset & Dunlap, 1974) and others-including my own New Directions in Music (Win. C. Brown 1971)-will give him an insight into many other existing problems. Although these books
might not have solutions to some of the engineer's questions, one must keep in mind that electronic music, taken seriously only since 1951, is still a baby art. No books nearing the above quality were available within 25 years of the development of the violin!
DEMANDS OF EVER-NEW TECHNOLOGY
Possibly the most significant challenge facing the electronic music composer, as welt as the sound engineer, is that of progress. No sooner has one spent his entire budget on what was the best available equipment than another, more advanced, synthesizer or module appears. The composer can treat that in one of two ways. He can forget it- music is music- and opt out of the expense of valuable time learning to use the equipment as well as the money spent. Or, he can buy the equipment, learn to use it, and usually find that something else yet more advanced is now being produced.
A good friend who is currently a director of a computer music studio recently wrote to me: "David after five years I have finally arrived at a complete D/A interface for our IBM 7090, only to discover that I have for- gotten what it was I was going to do with it." To compound the problem, it was recently learned that the computer time was taken away due to business and science priorities.
Problems and confusions continue. With the advent of light pen writing on CRT inputs for computers, as well as the possibility of computers actually reading music for direct analog playback (and voice activation of quick alterations), the endless study of voltage controlled synthesizers may have been a wasted one- at least for the composer.'
COOPERATION A NECESSITY
There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel when the composer finally realizes that he has worked with "performers" for years, whether technical or musical, equally respected for their craft in their own rights. Their relationships may not have been smooth. But it may become apparent that the sound engineer, who takes delight in discovering and purchasing new equipment, and the composer, concerned with artistry, can more than co-exist. As a flexible unit, they can produce works of music far beyond our current vocabularies.
These two-three man groups would need three vital properties: a common vocabulary for communication, constant role identification in the creative act, and patience.
Another matter is becoming more and more clear. Instead of the keeping-up-with-the-Jones's attitude of our colleges (major creators of electronic labs around the country), we need to funnel these monies into two or three large, centrally located laboratories. These labs then will become the centers for research in sound engineering and for composer creativity.
INSTITUTE OF SONOLOGY
Such a center exists at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht State University, the Netherlands. This lab is equipped with four complete studios (including computers, synthesizers of all types, and ten professional tape recorders). It employs six scientific staff members, four technical staff members, and two secretaries. The results are represented on every major record label in the world and speak for themselves. More than once, an American university has lost a gifted student to this incredible environment.
My electronic music is listed on two record labels, Discant and Orion, and represents what I hope are crafted and inspiring compositions. They are, however, far less than highly sophisticated in terms of sound engineering, and future works will necessarily remain so. It takes years for sound engineers to fully comprehend, in terms of their own craft, the nuances of interpretation necessary for a true partnership of the technical and musical possibilities.
If sound centers became a reality, the opportunity would be present for the closer sharing of the creative processes.
When the disciplines of music and technology finally erode their differences, we will come, as Varese says "to the liberation of sound."
