Electronic music history pre-dates the rock and roll period by decades. The majority of us weren't actually with this planet when it began their usually unknown, under-appreciated and misunderstood development. Nowadays, this'other worldly'human anatomy of sound which began close to a century before, may possibly no longer appear odd and special as new ages have accepted much of it as mainstream, but it's had a bumpy street and, in finding mass market popularity, a slow one.
Many musicians - the modern promoters of electronic music - developed a passion for analogue synthesizers in the late 1970's and early 1980's with signature tunes like Gary Numan's discovery,'Are Buddies Electrical?'.It was in this period that these devices turned smaller, more available, more user-friendly and less expensive for a lot of us. In this article I'll try to track this history in simply digestible sections and offer examples of today's best modern proponents.
To my mind, this was the beginning of a new epoch. To produce electronic music, it was no longer required to have access to a roomful of engineering in a studio or live. Hitherto, this was solely the domain of artists the kind of Kraftwerk, whose strategy of electronic instruments and custom created gadgetry the rest people could just have IT Programming dreamed of, even when we will understand the logistics of these functioning. Having claimed this, at the time I was growing up in the 60's & 70's, I nonetheless had small familiarity with the complexity of function that had set a standard in prior ages to arrive only at that point.
The history of electronic music owes significantly to Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007). Stockhausen was a German Avante Garde musician and a pioneering figurehead in electronic music from the 1950's onwards, influencing a action that will ultimately have a robust affect upon titles such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Desire, Mind Eno, Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Function, and undoubtedly the fresh function of the Beatles'and others in the 1960's. His experience is observed on the protect of "Sgt. Pepper's Alone Spirits Membership Group", the Beatles'1967 master Opus. Let's begin, but, by traveling only a little more in time.
The Change of the 20th Century
Time stood however for this stargazer when I originally discovered that the first reported, entirely electronic, shows weren't in the 1970's or 1980's in the 1920's!
The first purely electronic tool, the Theremin, that is played without touch, was created by European researcher and cellist, Lev Termen (1896-1993), circa 1919.
In 1924, the Theremin created their show debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Interest generated by the theremin attracted readers to shows staged across Europe and Britain. In 1930, the prestigious Carnegie Corridor in New York, experienced an efficiency of established music applying only a series of ten theremins. Watching several qualified musicians enjoying this eerie appearing tool by waving their fingers around their antennae should have been therefore exhilarating, unique and strange for a pre-tech market!
For anyone involved, read the tracks of Theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore (1911-1998). Lithuanian created Rockmore (Reisenberg) caused their inventor in New York to perfect the tool all through their early years and turned their most acclaimed, brilliant and recognized musician and representative all through her life.
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