Delirious Tremors

In recent years the term “electronic music” has become an increasingly vague way to describe the technologically driven genre. With advances in sonic engineering as a catalyst, electronic music has burst into a multitude of sub-genres and even found its way into the zeitgeist of popular music, proving that the influence of this musical style is undeniable. As we test the limits of sonic experimentation we will find what can — and can’t — be achieved through the ever-evolving marriage of music, art, and technology.

Pioneers as far back as the ‘50s even had difficulty pinpointing it when they began manipulating and distorting tape recordings to mimic sounds of the natural world. Pierre Scheaffer and Pierre Henry called their combination of artificial and natural sounds musique concrète or “real music.” Robert Moog created the Moog Synthesizer in the 1960’s and made the electronic instrument affordable to average musicians. Still it was not considered a genuine musical instrument until it was introduced into mainstream media when composer Wendy Carlos used the Moog Synthesizer on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange.

Music groups like ELP and Yes found that the electronic keyboard complimented their sound and other 70’s rock groups like them, utilizing the electronic effects, were able to pack arenas with fans. It wasn’t long until the electronic music would stand on its own and we would see the beginning of the modern era in music with groups such as the German group Kraftwerk that produced music entirely electronically, even using a vocoder device to synthesize the human voice.

Since then the use of electronic devices in music has become it’s own genre and splintered off into countless others including, “ambient, illbient, minimalism, new age, space music, electronic, techno, environmental, avant-garde, downtown (in New York), proto-techno, electro, Krautrock, world, dub, trance, house, acid house, rave, and just plain old electronic music. Most of these so-called genres exist as points on a single continuous spectrum of music that wouldn’t be possible without electronics,” according to “Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition” by Thomas B. Holmes.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and the sharing power of the Internet combined with advances in computer software and hardware, and the process of synthesizing audio is now more commonly accessible than ever. This progression has led to the “democratization of electronic music,” which has had both positive and negative effects on the dynamic of the musical playground.

Computer programs like Ableton, Pro Tools and Garage Band have made the manipulation of audio simple enough that even the average Joe Sixpack with basic computer knowledge can create a catchy dance tune by looping a few riffs. When you apply this with increasingly affordable hardware like CDJ turntables and the Lemur device in conjunction with programs like Ableton Live and Torq, practically anyone with a MacBook can plug in and call themselves a DJ/musician/producer.

Just look at Owl City. While living in his parents’ basement Adam Young created the synthpop musical project by generating digital sounds on his computer in an effort to fight off insomnia. After gaining a huge fan base on MySpace, the viral phenomenon was signed to Universal Republic and is now making serious bank. It’s this kind of accessibility to the people that makes the current atmosphere of electronic music so democratic in my mind.

Eric Dries has a doctorate in music composition and is professor of music theory, musicianship, analysis, counterpoint, jazz history and keyboard at California State University, Fullerton. According to Dries, “It seems that with the advent of new software and hardware [the ability to create music digitally is] now more available to personal consumers. This has allowed for the production of audio recordings with seemingly the same degree of sophistication and quality that used to be only available in the bigger studios.”

Not only does this explain how Young was able to produce chart-topping songs from his home but also shines light on how this effect has reached producers at mega-record companies who follow the trend by utilizing this technology to enhance the audio quality of pop star icons heard on the radio.

“Let’s take the case of Ke$ha for example,” said Dries. “The album that was released sounds really good, quality wise. So you don’t know until they perform live on Saturday Night [Live] whether or not they can really sing. Then you can immediately notice the auto-tune that is used throughout. It’s become an economic necessity because the record companies have invested so much money into the production that they need to ensure a return on their investment. So they are obviously not going to let one of their artists release something with any noticeable flaws because it won’t sell. That same technology applied to singing you can expand to all the other domains.”

Now that nearly any conceivable sound or effect can be synthesized without limit, this vastly expanded opportunity creates an even greater challenge – to apply artistic merit in selecting from the countless possibilities the precise elements to generate true music and evoke an authentic response.

Rather than using electronic effects to enhance existing music, others have found freedom in creating music entirely electronically rather than with conventional analog instruments. James Christian is a student at The School of Audio Engineering in Los Angeles and is studying to become an electronic music producer himself.

“I was in a [rock] band once and there was a lot of creative conflict. With digital engineering, I can create music without dealing with the conflict and I also don’t have to worry about affording expensive studio time in order to practice and record,” Christian said. “The people that enjoy the analog feel of instruments will always stay that way versus the people like me that enjoy being in front of a screen, fidgeting away on a laptop.”

Dr. Pamela Madsen, Associate Professor of Music Composition, Theory, Technology at CSUF and Artistic Director of the New Music Festival, explained in an email interview that there is a new trend in electronic music that incorporates the music with other forms of media and composers are more apt to add interactive and improvisational techniques to their work.

“As curator of the International Electroacoustic Listening Room Project, I send out a call for new works in electronic music each year to an expanding network of people who specialize in electronic music,” said Madsen. “Through this project I am able to find what is on the cutting edge of new music worldwide and present the latest trends and advances in music technology here at CSUF during the Annual New Music Festival held each March. I also put up the Listening Room Project at other centers, universities and sometimes travel with this project to venues throughout the world.  What I have noticed in recent years is a tendency towards more interactive electronics with live performance, use of spatialization of sound in electronics, use of multi-media (combining sound and video) interest in live streaming of the listening room and remote improvisation, performance via the internet.”

If you were at this year’s Coachella festival in Indio you could see this new trend coming to the mainstream. According to LA Weekly, Berlin-based DJ and producer Richie Hawtin “has pioneered the use of Ableton Live software to atomize and reconstruct tracks on-the-fly during DJ performances and has now turned to his own iPhone app, called Plastikman Sync, to allow interactive, audience input at his live events.”

With technology making creation so accessible, does it make electronic music “too easy” to be true art? Does great art require intense commitment and significant struggle or is it something that merely causes you to think or feel no matter the simplicity? There was definitely a large amount of effort and careful planning required of the electronic pioneers in the early days of their work. The relative ease of pushing a few keys nowadays can foster a lackadaisical, casual attitude. The result all too often can avoid the essential purpose of artistic creation.

“Going completely digital makes it look like you are doing really cool stuff when the computer is really doing it for you,” said Alex Antone, a vinyl DJ who now uses digital software to mix, “any real DJ will be able to tell the difference in the subtle details. There is also a degree of satisfaction that you get by going to a record store and going through crates and crates of albums before finding something really good and it shows some street cred if you find something obscure that’s really good.”

“The reason I will use [Tork to mix] for now on is because of the money. Records can get expensive and they can be really heavy to carry around; rather than just having a huge bank of mp3’s you can select through at will for a party.”

Dries believes that it all depends on the goal of the musician. “It ties into the notion of success,” said Dries. “If their goal is to sell a bunch of their music then yes, I think that you should be aware of all the technologies out there that will make your product sell. That would be the economic goal rather than an artistic or academic goal.”