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Music out of Noise, Light and Paper. Russia’s contribution to the history of electronic music and audio technology
No full textThe following paper is devoted to Russia’s contribution to the birth of electronic music, sound synthesis and audio technology. While the 20th Century is one of the most over-documented in the history of the world, yet it seems, the history of experimental and electronic sound and music, and the impact that it has had on our culture, is largely unknown even by authoritative scholars. Much interesting and significant material from history doesn’t ever come to light, is forgotten or overlooked, whether for political or financial reasons, because stories are not well documented or simply because they are just not heard by the right people at the right time. In Russia a lot of material from the first half of the 20th Century was actively destroyed or written out of the history books as it did not fit within the Stalinist regime’s vision of what sound and music technology should be.
The illustrated talk draws on materials from various Russian archives, much of which has not been seen or heard before in the West, but which throws new light on the early history of the astonishing early history of Russian electronic music and sound art.
The most fertile and adventurous period in the history of sound experiments in Russia is arguably from 1910 to the late 1930s, when they were developed around avant-garde ideas. Musicians turned to the study of physics; mathematicians set about mastering musical theory; and artists who had grasped the basics of acoustics worked on new methods for synthesising and transforming sound. The talk's heroes include the artist and creator of the theory of Projectionism Solomon Nikritin, composer and theorist Arseny Avraamov - inventor of Graphic Sound and a 48-note scale; pioneering film maker Dziga Vertov, director of the Laboratory of Hearing; Vladimir Popov, inventor of Noise Orchestras and Sound Machines; Leon Theremin, inventor of the world's first electronic instrument, and others. The Theremin, early synthesizers, noise orchestras, graphical, ornamental and paper sound, syntones and audio computing,— these were just a few of the Soviet experiments in music technology and sound art developed by the artists, actors, filmmakers and poets who have created the concepts and methods, that outstripped time for decades, offering a promising basis for future scientific and cultural development.
The revolutionary utopia of the 1920s was replaced by the totalitarian era of the 1930s–1950s. The rapid growth of censorship and repression, the fight against "formalism" and other such changes had, by the late 1930s, put a stop to practically all experimentalism. A new generation of Soviet inventor-engineers appeared in the cultural and informational isolation of the 1970s; unaware of their own history, which was banned and almost forgotten, they were generally preoccupied with replicating Western music technologies.
The irony of history lies in the fact that, in the light of Smirnov's research, a considerable part of these Western technologies might be seen as a result of emigration from Russia, and, not in the last instance, of the ideas of those inventors who had broken new cultural ground within the revolutionary 1920s, and which are to this day almost unknown to the world and absolutely forgotten in Russia – the country which until now did not manage to utilize any of the brilliant technical solutions, discovered by these forgotten pioneers
The Trautonium: Oskar Sala and the development of electronic music in Germany
No full textThe history of electronic music in Germany seems to have started with the establishment of the NWDR’s studio in Cologne. But this institution wouldn’t have been able to exist without antecedent experimentation with electronics and music. In this lecture, I would like to show, how focusing on the biography of one person and his work with one instrument offers an alternative perspective for Germany’s history of electronic music.
In 1988 a person reentered the concert-stage, opening awareness for his former activities parallel to and earlier of those of the Cologne studio. Oskar Sala, born in Thuringia in 1910 and had his career as soloist on the Trautonium relaunched after working in his private studio for about 30 years, virtually unknown to the public. His instrument, the Mixtur-Trautonium, was constructed in the 1940s and 1950s. But even in the late 80s it still provided a solid potential for producing electronic music on stage. In his studio Sala predominantly composed for television, radio and movie productions, the most famous example being his work for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1962).
Why do this man and his instrument offer an alternative view on electronic music?
First of all, he gave concerts and produced music on the Trautonium in the 1930s, thus starting to create music with electronic means two decades before Herbert Eimert and the Cologne studio did. Secondly, Sala together with his colleague Friedrich Trautwein, inventor of the Trautonium, was involved in the design of the Cologne Studio, both even were lecturers at the International Summer Course for New Music (Darmstadt). Sala also was a consultant for designing the Siemens Studio in Munich and even was visited by Ussachevsky. His correspondence, which for the first time ever I evaluated for my dissertation, offers an insight in his view on electronic music, which is pointing to his former mentor and teacher, the composer Paul Hindemith.
Sala and Trautwein worked from 1929 on in one of the first research laboratory in electronic music technology, the “Rundfunkversuchsstelle” (Radio-Research-Institute) in Berlin. This institution marks the beginning of systematic research and experiments in electronic music. Paul Hindemith himself was very interested in the development of electronic musical instruments, as well as electronic music. His aesthetic position of course completely differed from that of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton von Webern, who had been the authorities, Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen referred to in their music and writings.
Oskar Sala and the Trautonium are two keystones in an alternative view on electronic music. Salas education both as a composer and as an electro-engineer enabled him to develop his own musical style and the Mixtur-Trautonium. His efforts in electronic music after the war soon were overshadowed by the Cologne studio, but his work enables us now to gain new perspectives on the genesis of German electronic music. His connections reached out to a wide field of people, all reestablishing cultural work in post war Germany
The Hohner Electronium: a 1950s portable monophonic valve synthesizer
No full textIn the early 1950s René Seybold designed the electronic accordeon for the Hohner company, names the Electronium. This design ostensibly allowed an accordeonist to play with more volume, and also allowed sounds in the lower octave ranges to be loud enough to be heard in more festive and noisy situations. In the early 1960s Harald Bojé started playing the Electronium as a tabletop keyboard instrument rather than using the shoulder straps, and modified his instrument to allow for this. Within the context of the electronic music made in Cologne at the time, the use of a piano style keyboard was anathema. The two electronic instruments initially present in the WDR Studio for Electronic Music at its inception – the Melochord and the Monochord – had been summarily ejected primarily because the keyboard interface was a problematic link to an old fashioned way of thinking about music.
Bojé’s choice of instrument, then, to play mostly compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen within the Cologne Ensemble was a strange one. Through documents including photographs and letters, this paper will show the evolution of Bojé’s Electronium, and the reactions of technicians and co-performers will illustrate the reception of this electronic instrument in the key period of the mid 1960s when portable synthesizers were not yet available. The many modifications made to the instrument and its appearance in Stockhausen’s compositions from 1967 to 1973 provide great early examples of repurposing and DIY culture in electronic music performance practice, and I will demonstrate how the design of the instrument itself affords many of these modifications, and therefore influences the sound of the music made and composed with this device
Datasets associated with 'Sucrose diffusion in aqueous solution'.
No full textThe diffusion of sugar in aqueous solution is important both in nature and in technological applications, yet measurements of diffusion coefficients at low water content are scarce. In our paper, “Sucrose diffusion in aqueous sucrose”, we report directly measured sucrose diffusion coefficients in aqueous solution. Using a Raman isotope tracer method, we monitor the diffusion of non-deuterated and deuterated sucrose across a boundary between the two aqueous solutions. As well as providing information of importance to the fundamental understanding of diffusion in binary solutions, these data have technological, pharmaceutical and medical implications, for example in cryopreservation. In the atmosphere, slow organic diffusion may have important implications for aerosol growth, chemistry and evaporation. This dataset contains all raw Raman spectra from which the diffusion coefficients presented in “Sucrose diffusion in aqueous sucrose” are calculated, as well as temperature and humidity data from the hygrometer measuring the conditions under which each experiment was performed
Data associated with 'One-step Fabrication of Hollow-channel Gold Nanoflowers with Excellent Catalytic Performance and Large Single-particle SERS Activity'
Get PDFHollow metallic nanostructures have shown potential in various applications including catalysis, drug delivery and phototherapy, owing to their large surface areas, reduced net density, and unique optical properties. In this study, novel hollow gold nanoflowers (HAuNFs) consisting of an open hollow channel in the center and multiple branches/tips on the outer surface are fabricated for the first time, via a facile one-step synthesis using an auto-degradable nanofiber as a bifunctional template. The one-dimensional (1D) nanofiber acts as both a threading template as well as a promoter of the anisotropic growth of the gold crystal, the combination of which leads to the formation of HAuNFs with a hollow channel and nanospikes. The synergy of favorable structural/surface features, including sharp edges, open cavity and high-index facets, provides our HAuNFs with excellent catalytic performance (activity and cycling stability) coupled with large single-particle SERS activity (including ~30 times of activity in ethanol electro-oxidation and ~40 times of single-particle SERS intensity, benchmarked against similar-sized solid gold nanospheres with smooth surfaces, as well as retaining 86.7% of the initial catalytic activity after 500 cycles in ethanol electro-oxidation). This innovative synthesis gives a nanostructure of the geometry distinct from the template and is extendable to fabricating other systems for example, hollow-channel silver nanoflowers (HAgNFs). It thus provides an insight into the design of hollow nanostructures via template methods, and offers a versatile synthetic strategy for diverse metal nanomaterials suited for a broad range of applications
How the Institutional Data Repository helped me promote my data
Get PDFThis is an archived copy of a blog post available at the associated link below (Related resources
The (lack of) documentation and canonization of interdisciplinary electroacoustic music
No full textThe availability and the choice of sources are an important aspect of the formation of music history. As I argued previously in relation to gender issues,1 analytical and historical accounts are mostly confined to music of which there is accessible documentation or audio(visual) recording available. This is a problem for music that does not fit into established formats and for which scores or standard audio(visual) recordings are not available or not sufficient as source material. This is not only a disadvantage with regard to contemporary accounts and analyses of such musical art; the long-term preservation of it is seriously problematic.2 This specifically affects music that has one or more of the following characteristics: interdisciplinary, exclusively performance-based, participatory, in the form of an installation, live electronic, improvised, with custom-made instruments or equipment. The use of various analogue and/or digital electronic technologies, instruments and media, the intermingling with various other disciplines (such as art, dance, theatre, etc.), the upheaval or stretching of the work concept and the departure from tradition causes new and serious problems to its preservation, such as early obsolescence of the experimental technology and a lack of standards. Moreover, a focus on the unique present, on decay or on obsolete technology are often aesthetic features of such music, adding a reflexive layer to the problematics of preservation.
The issue of what is included and excluded in the established histories and canons, is closely related to the issue of preservation. A shift in focus with regard to what is or must be preserved, in what form or media, may come with a shift in the construction of music histories and canons, and vice versa. Do other kinds of histories need other kinds of sources? What different kinds of sources can we think of? What complicates the use of these?
A focus on the musical work neglects the practice of music. Instead, I propose to take into account actor-network theory and to deal with musical performers, sound engineers, technologies, institutions and other actors as well. In interdisciplinary music, the notion of the composer as the Author is particularly problematic, as this music is often a collaboration between makers of various disciplines, shifting conventional musical roles.
As a pilot study for a larger research project on the documentation of interdisciplinary electroacoustic music in relation to the concept of the musical work in the electronic/digital age, I will explore:
1) what kind of source materials are used in some of the main historical overviews of electronic music and how the choice and availability of sources influences these histories;
2) some of the possibilities and problems of the documentation and preservation of interdisciplinary electroacoustic music (works or practices).
I will trace these issues by way of some specific examples of Dutch interdisciplinary music: the work of Dick Raaijmakers, Huba de Graaff and the studio for electro-instrumental music STEIM. Both Raaijmakers and STEIM are among the few Dutch exponents of electroacoustic music that are mentioned in the main histories of electronic music. But why are only specific aspects of their work discussed and significant parts ignored? What does this tell us about the selection and canonization process?
The works and practices of Dick Raaijmakers, Huba de Graaff and STEIM seem to resist documentation, ontologically and practically; but on the other hand, there is a desire for its documentation, dissemination and canonization. How is this done, by whom, what are the problems, and what may be possible solutions? What interests influence these processes
Popular entertainers, radio hobbyist and film composers. Alternative (pre)histories of electronic music
No full textThe origin of electronic music is usually presented as a tale of forward-looking inventors, musicians and composers wanting to explore new musical possibilities. As expressed by Nick Collins and Julio d’Escriván in their Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music: ‘A rich history underlies electronic music, full of radical inventors, pioneering composers and daring innovators’ (2007:2). Among the leading figures of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘prehistory’ of electronic music, are musicians and composers such as Ferrucio Busoni and Edgard Varése. In this paper, however, I will focus on other groups of actors that are not so often described as radical, pioneering or daring. To what extent and in what ways did groups such as popular entertainers, radio hobbyist and film composers contribute to the early development and understanding of electronic music? I will concentrate on the period between approximately 1930 and 1950.
Popular entertainers were among the first to make use of the new electronic musical instruments developed during the first half of the twentieth century. Artists such as Joseph Whitely (Musaire) in Britain, Darius Cittanova in France and Samuel Hoffman (Hal Hope) in the US demonstrated the theremin and the ondes martenot at cinemas, theatres and restaurants (we may also include Leon Theremin here). In addition to playing popular tunes, they showed how the instruments could imitate different sounds – from the sound of seagulls to the voice of Mickey Mouse. Even though these entertainers were hardly concerned with the exploration of timbre or microtonal music, they played an important role in making people (more or less) accustomed to electronic sounds.
From the early 1930s there were also numerous radio amateurs and electronics hobbyists building their own electronic musical instruments. Radio magazines in Europe and the US printed construction guides explaining how to make a theremin or a trautonium. This practice may be seen as the beginnings of an experimental DIY culture in electronic music. It can be compared to the building of musical synthesizers and circuit bending. The story of how Robert Moog – inventor of the Moog synthesizer – started his career building and selling Theremins is illustrating.
The introduction of sound film opened up new possibilities for experimenting with electronic musical instruments. During the 1930s and 1940s, film composers such as Dimitri Shostakovich in Russia, Oskar Sala in Germany and Miklos Rozsa and Franz Waxman in the US used instruments such as the theremin, the trautonium and the novachord to create new sound effects. In particular, the electronic howl of the theremin seemed suitable as an illustration of fear, darkness, anxiety and psychological disturbance. This in turn influenced how the early electronic musical instruments and theirs sounds were perceived in general.
As Mark Brend has pointed out in The Sound of Tomorrow ‘there is a version of history that says that electronic music filtered down from the arid, imposing mountains of serious academic culture into the gentle foothills of pop music’ (2012:viii). By examining how popular entertainers, radio hobbyist and film composers contributed to the early development and understanding of electronic music, I wish to bring in an alternative perspective. One of the aims of this paper is also to direct attention to the mutual relationship between ‘serious’ and ‘popular’ electronic music
Electromechanical Perspectives of Sound and Music
No full textFrom a technological necessity in projects like the Telharmonium, to a creative opportunity enjoyed by current sound installation artists, the electromechanical condition is a mainstay of electronic and experimental music and sound art. As a core component of loudspeaker technology in a fully electrified and digitised sound world it is also likely to remain a mainstay, as long as hearing continues to be linked to the mechanical world of acoustics. In this way the electromechanical is simultaneously both outmoded and future-proofed.
This paper will trace the electromechanical condition throughout electrified sound and music, identifying its role in sound modification, transmission and production. This provides a non-human centric perspective of electronic music making that aims to avoid technologically deterministic and linear historical narratives. Certain music technologies that have made particular use of electro-mechanics such as the speakers of the Ondes Martenot, the rotating Leslie loudspeaker and mechanical reverberation devices will be explored as a general technological context. Particular examples of creative practice that forefront the electromechanical condition will be presented from the canon of American 1960s sound art and experimental music practice, including the work of practitioners such as Alvin Lucier and David Tudor. Connections will be made between these examples and the work of kinetic artists such as Len Lye, Jean Tinguely and Takis. Here the electromechanical will be presented as a kind of transitionary media between materialised and dematerialised modes of sonic and visual art practice, making its presence felt at a time of burgeoning computer power and systems thinking.
Current sound art practice that uses the electromechanical as a core creative element will be discussed. This will include works by practitioners such as Peter Bosch and Simone Simons, Daniel Wilson, Andrea Valle as well as original pieces by the author. In the context of easily accessible digital technologies of synthesis and control these current electromechanical approaches are used to explore tensions between the control and the autonomy of sounding objects and materials
Searching for Alternative Histories in Electronic Music through a Survey on Discourses of Space-Place Relations
No full textDiscussing three ways of conceptualizing space in music in Music, Sound and Space, Georgina Born makes a critical observation on the use of spatialisation in electroacoustic music, and more fundamentally, the conceptual framework of the practice on space. Particularly on Denis Smalley’s ‘space form and the acousmatic image’ (Smalley, 2007), she argues that Smalley’s analytical taxonomy ‘offers ultimately an expanded, if rigorous and elegant, sonic formalism’. At the same time, however, she recognises a strain in Smalley’s spatial thinking, ‘a tension between the perspectival and a certain objectivism’ (Born, 2013). This paper aims to explore this strain or tension, which it proposes can be witnessed throughout the history of electronic music. The main topic of this paper meets Born’s argument sideways, by which I mean that I became aware of this issue and started questioning the practice I was engaging in as a composer in a more practical and personal way.
The paper aims to question whether the long-held primacy of spatial thinking in electronic music may have resulted in and continues to lead the dominant discourse in the history of electronic music, and therefore, whether, based on such suspicion, a critical observation of the history of electronic music would engender a passage toward under-recognised dimensions of electronic music practice. To argue for such a question, the paper conducts a critical survey on the relations of space and place as sonic concepts explored in the discourses and practice of electronic music.
Particularly, through the survey, the paper posits that the spatial thinking in electronic music may have been borne, more than anything else, out of the so-called ‘Studio’, and that a set of peculiar attitudes toward listening to, creating, and performing sounds in the Studio, which I have termed ’Studio Aesthetics’ elsewhere, should be teased out for analysis. The Studio Aesthetics is a set of compositional aesthetics and/or a particular set of attitude toward composing that has been established in, and enhanced by, a studio and furthermore in a concert hall where we spatialise or diffuse the work, the place where we practice the bracketing of our body, and the practice of constructing or engineering sensibility toward sublime spaces.
Furthermore, by surveying the space-place relations in the history of electronic music, the paper aims to discuss the tension or uneasiness ‘place’ as a sonic context often brings about in the discourse of electronic music, focusing not only on the mechanisms based on which continuous attempts are made to subsume place within the normative spatial thinking, but on the resilience of place that persists to offer alternatives