Electronic Music

Wednesday, 7 February 2007

I guess that the main reason why in the 50’s so many talented and successful musicians and composers embraced electronic music, was that they could do everything by themselves, without having to work with musicians. Still it is strange, because the musical possibilities in the early days of electronic music were extremely limited. Certainly when you compare them with the rich and varied sounds that an orchestra can produce. But you won’t hear me complain about all those people, who wasted their lifes in little rooms, cutting up tape fragments to compose bloop&bleep music.
I like the music of the pioneers of electronic music. Much of what I have heard is classical or abstract, which is no problem for me, but to know how electronic music from those days really sounded, can best be heard when a familiar pop tune is played.
On this demonstration record that Philips released in 195?, an anonymous musician uses Colonel Bogey to demonstrate that sine wave, square wave, sawtooth, pulse and noise generators were the instruments of the future. Almost 60 years later they still are. Of a future that never was and never will be. Don’t leave before the tune is over; it is the second half that does it.