Electronic Music Exam 1

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Hugh Le Caine

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-Created the Electronic Sackbut
-The Electronic Sackbut was a performance-oriented synthesizer with an unusual capability for fingertip control of expression and nuance.
-The national research Council established a music laboratory for him.

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Pierre Schaeffer

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-Created Studio d'Essai, renamed Club d'Essai, which served as a base for experiments in radio-theater and music.
-made Etude aux Chemins de Fer (Railroad study)

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Pierre Schaeffer: Etude aux Chemins de Fer

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Etude aux Chemins de Fer
by Pierre Schaeffer
title means “Railroad Study”
composed and premiered in 1948
is an example of Musique concréte
is totally comprised of train sounds
it uses most of the 5 classic “tape” techniques

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The Beatles: Revolution #9

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By: the Beatles
When: 1968
In the mid-1960's, the Beatles had been exposed to some experimental electronic music. It has a noticable effect on there studio technique. "Revolution No. 9" is an extended piece of "Musique concrete" based, mostly, on tape loops. The Fab Four had already used tape loops in "Tomorrow Never Knows," but that was a Pop song where this is not. The Beatles would aften raid the Sound Effects locker at the Abby Road studio to, for example, find a Blackbird recording for "Blackbird." In this case, John Lennon liked the way some audio example was introduced ("Number nine") and made a loop out of it.

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The Beatles: Tomorrow Never Knows

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By: The Beatles
When:1966
The first song recorded for their 1966 album, "Revolver," this piece is a masterpiece of pop music production. This piece is recorded, as almost all the Beatles catalogue was, on a 4-track tape deck. Other techniques employed are tape loops (four of them), direction change (i.e. backward guitar solo), and voice through a rotating organ speaker (on the last verse, "That Love is all..."). It wasn't long after the release of this album that the Beatles stopped performing live and became a "studio band."

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Steve Reich: It’s Gonna Rain part 1

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By: Steve Reich
When:1965
This classic tape piece is created with a tape deck, razor blades and loops. In your "Links" menu you will find a site where the composer speaks about this work. "Part 1" of this work can be divided, roughly, into three sections: Section 1 (0:00-0:13) is the preacher whose voice this piece is based on speaking without edits. The part where he says "it's gonna rain after a while" is where the sample "it's gonna rain" comes from. That happens at about 3 seconds into the piece. The rest of Part 1 is derived entirely from those three words. Section 2 of part one deals with a loop of "it's gonna rain" (0:14-0:36), but Reich shortens the loop to just the "it's gonna" part and then very slowly shifts that smaller "window" through the sample. So "it's gonna" slowly becomes "s gonna rai" before becoming "gonna rain" and then, eventually, "rain it's g," etc. It's a very interesting effect and it runs from 0:37-2:00). From the 2 minute mark to the end of the piece is the third and longest section. This section deals with two loops being played together (one in each speaker, left and right). The start together and therefore sound like a "unison," or a single sound. But because each loop is being played on different tape deck, they run at a slightly different speed, one a little faster than the other, but not much. Little by little you notice the sound change as the loops go out of phase. By the middle of this section (about 5:30) the loops are 180 degrees out of phase, meaning as one loop is saying "it's gonna," the other is saying "rain" and visa versa. By the end of the piece, the loops have come back into phase at which point Reich splices "after a while" onto the very end.

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Steve Reich: It’s Gonna Rain part 2

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By: Steve Reich
When: 1965
Steve Reich: It's Gonna Rain, part 2 (1965)
Part 2, while constructed in a similar way as Part 1, has a very different form. The beginning is the same preacher speaking, and then his speech get edited and spliced together in strange ways creating a distinct rhythm and "melody." From this edited speech, Reich makes another tape loop and, like Part 1, duplicates it and lets the two loops go out of phase with each other. But then he takes a recording of the two loops going out of phase, duplicates that and lets the two recordings go out of phase of each other, giving the effect of four loops slowly going out of phase from each other. He repeats the process one more time, making the final effect one of eight loops going out of phase of each other. The result is an eventual "smearing" of the sounds that gives the illusion that the sounds are being stretched. Remember, as repetitive as "It's Gonna Rain" parts 1 and 2 may seem on first listening, these compositions are always slowly changing and, in fact, never really repeat. This music has been called "Musique concrete," "loop music," "minimalism" and "process music."

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Hugh LeCaine: Dripsody

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By: Hugh Lecaine
When:1955
This masterpiece is created entirely from the sound of one drip of water. It is an amazing example of pitch manipulation and editing. Though it is only 1:28, it represents an incredible amount of work with a tape recorder, razor blade and splicing tape.

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Otto Luenning: Fantasy in Space

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By: Otto Luenning
When: 1952
Otto Luenning, along with Vladimir Ussachevsky, created a tape music center at Columbia University in NYC. Unlike Pierre Schaeffer, whose tape music was based on the use of "found sounds" (or, if you will, more 'abstract' environmental sounds), Luenning and Ussachevsky used the tape recorder to stretch the boundaries of the classical instruments which they played. Luenning played the flute and Ussachevsky played the piano. They gave an historic concert in 1952 showing what they had accomplished. The next three pieces in this playlist are from that concert. As you might imagine, "Fantasy in Space" deals heavily with the "front-to-back" space that is created through different ratios of signal-to-reverb. The loud, dry flutes sound like they are in your face. The soft, reverberant ones sound distant. The echo in this piece is created with the use of tape delay.

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Vladimir Ussachevsky: Sonic Contours

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By:Vladimir Ussachevsky
When:1952
Ussachevsky was a pianist. Like Luenning, he used the tape recorder to stretch the limits of the piano sound. The first sounds you hear are the piano slowed down drastically. You will also hear hear some sounds speeded up (including some chipmunk voice, which is the only non-piano sound in the piece). In addition there is direction change, envelope manipulation (especially 1:45-2:10, where there is almost no attack to the piano sound) and heavy used of tape delay. At about 2:00 you can hear tape delay used as a normal echo. At 4:46, you can hear a tape delay with recursive filtering. That means, every time the sound echos, its timbre changes slightly.