ELECTRONIC MUSIC:
I. Introduction: A Brief History
When it comes to major innovations in experimental (and mainstream) music, arguably none are more relevant today than the advent of electronic music.
Predating Luigi Russolo’s futurist manifesto, the Art of Noises (1913), a contemporary Itlaian composer, Ferruccio Busoni, predicted the use of machines in the future of music in his 1907 essay, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music[1]. Sure enough, by the early 1920s, some composers were using record players to play short pre-recorded sounds during live performances[2]. After records, came tape music; the first accessible tape recorder was unveiled in 1935 in Berlin, Germany[3].
Some notable examples of experimentation with electronic music, include Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s ‘That’s All‘ (1938), Johanna Beyer’s ‘Music of the Spheres‘ (1938), and Halim El-Dabh’s ‘Wire Recorder Piece‘ (1944; recorded the same year as his infamous composition, ‘The Expression of Zaar’). These pieces will be examined in more detail below.
In the following decades, other well-known European and American composers and musicians would go on to become infamous for their contributions to musique concrète in the early 1940s in France and the emerging elektronische musik in Germany in the early 1950s[4].
‘Timeline of the Development of Electronic Music (1907 – early 1950s)’ by homebody10 using Canva
II. Notable artists
Some notable experimental musicians who contributed to electronic music are outlined in the following section. Recall, my goal is to focus primarily on underrepresented, diverse musicians who have been largely overlooked in time.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915 – 1973)
Most people think of names like Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Louis when they think of the birth of rock n’ roll, but rock music would not be where it is today without Sister Rosetta Tharpe. While rock music is primarily guitar based, electric guitars generate electroacoustic sound as the guitar strings’ vibrations are electronically amplified[8]. Not only is Tharpe credited for her innovative marriage of gospel and “proto-rock” music, but also, she is celebrated as a massively influential queer woman of colour in music; she is believed to have had at least one relationship with another woman throughout her touring career[9]. One of her earliest recordings using the electric guitar is her 1938 cover of the gospel song ‘Denomination Blues‘ under the name ‘That’s All‘[10] (see video below).
Reflection on ‘That’s All‘ (1938) by Sister Rosetta Tharpe:
From the first few seconds, you can immediately hear the very clear connection this song has to rock music’s roots: the driving rhythm, the high energy, and of course, the electric guitar. It’s really neat that Tharpe was so quick to pick up on the potential uses for electronically amplified instruments before some of rock n’ roll’s biggest names. I can really how she essentially used this very new vessel for music to revamp a very well-established genre like gospel. It is really the essence of experimental music – taking what came before you and what lies on the cutting edge to make something that transcends contemporary art.
Johanna Beyer (1988 – 1944)
Johanna Beyer was a German-born composer who moved to the United States in the 1920’s. She was classically trained in piano and studied music at Deutscher Konservatorien and Musikseminare. In New York, in the 1930s, she worked with a group of fellow modernist composers[11]. Beyer is often considered to be one of the first female electronic music composers and was incredibly forward-thinking[12]. One of her most celebrated works was her 1938 composition ‘Music of the Spheres‘[13] (see video below). This recording of the composition was recorded by Electric Weasel Ensemble, 1977.
Reflection on ‘Music of the Spheres‘ (1938) by Johanna Beyer:
Even though this recording is from 1977 which is not *that* long ago, I can just tell that this piece would have been totally alien to someone in 1938. When I listen to this over 80 years after its initial conception, even now I am intrigued by its unique sound palette. If I were Beyer, I would have been so proud of having composed this when the world had never heard anything like it. I can really hear the influence this kind of electronic music likely had on film scores, particularly in the sci-fi genre.
Halim El-Dabh (1921 – 2017)
Halim El-Dabh was an Egyptian-American composer and musician who is often credited as another early pioneer of electronic music[14]. One of his most groundbreaking and influential pieces is his 1944 recording ‘Wire Recorder Piece‘[15] (see video below) from his wider; this recording is one of the earliest known examples of electronic tape music or musique concrète. El-Dabh‘s work predates the work of hugely celebrated musique concrète composers sucha s Pierre Schaeffer[14]. Many years later, regarding this composition, El-Dabh told Egyptian indipendent online newpaper, Mada Masr:
“I wanted to find the inner sound, that vibration that’s always necessary for transcendence. I eliminated the fundamental tones of the harmony by changing the voltage — it changes the quality of the music, it seeks another quality in the voice, the hidden material, the inner part of the voice. That’s what the whole idea of electronic music is. You have a recording and you go inside the recording to find the hidden meaning”
Halim El-Dabh, Mada Masr Interview (2007)[14,16]
Reflection on ‘Wire Recorder Piece‘ (1944) by Halim El-Dabh:
The first word that comes to mind when I listen to this piece is haunting. I think I read somewhere in my research for this blog post that El-Dabh had recorded voices of women singing when recording this piece. I’d have to check that, but either way, I can totally hear ghostly wails of what sound like women singing. This sounds like it could be from an old Legend of Zelda game, honestly, and I mean that in a really good way. Like I said about Beyer’s piece above, I think if I’d heard this in the mid-1940s I would have been totally shocked—this is really something otherworldly.
References:
[2] Holmes, T. & Pender, T. M. (2012). Electronic and experimental music : technology, music, and culture. Routledge, New York. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/electronicexperi00holm/page/n5/mode/2up
[10] @James1Zero (2017, October 13). Sister Rosetta Tharpe – That’s All (1938). YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8HrN5UpGg