BA Digital Music – Year 1
Electronic Music in Context (Historical)
Charlie Tandacharry – Q13731220
‘Breaking the Rules’
Wednesday 29th November 2017, 4pm
Dr. Simon Fisk
‘Breaking the Rules’
The following commentary’s purpose is to discuss and contextualise functional tonality, Arnold Scoenberg’s twelve tone technique, Musique Concrete and Elektronische Musik.
What was Scoenberg’s twelve tone technique? Scoenberg’s twelve tone technique is a technique where each of the twelve notes on the chromatic scale are played and equal amount of times as each other, whilst simultaneously ensuring that the is no focus on one particular note via incorporation of tone rows. The twelve notes approximately attract an equal amount of attention, leading to a piece of music that is not in key. This technique is regarded as a form of serialism. Serialism is a term which refers to compositions that are based on a formal order of a definable parameter, such as duration or pitch for example. The twelve tone technique is considered a serial-based form as it is based on the order of pitch. There is no specific order the twelve notes must be arranged in to be considered twelve tone music, though a row of a piece of twelve tone music is composed of pitch classes.
Scoenberg’s twelve tone technique is often regarded as the most significant systematic-technique regarding the chromatic scale. The fundamental structure of the twelve tone technique is the tone row. Tone row is defined as twelve notes utilised in an arrangement on the chromatic scale. A pitch class is defined as a note on the chromatic scale. No notes are played more than once in a tone row. To Scoenberg’s annoyance, his technique was defined as ‘atonal’. He rejected this term as it’s suggestive of negativity, and preferred the term ‘pan-tonal’ though it never disseminated. Atonality refers to composition which does not orientate around defined tones of any chromatic note.
Inversions are known as notes within a chord that have been re-organised into a different order so that the root changes. It can be applied to triads and chords of more than 4 notes. An inversion that is situated within a single-octave spectrum is known as a ‘close-voicing’, whereas an inversion situated in more than one octave is known as a ‘spread-voicing’. Spread-voicing’s don’t convert chord symbols, the chord symbols are defined by their root note. Intervals always produce a similar sound to it’s inversion. Retrograde is defined as a composition of notes played in reverse and upside-down. Retrograde is a form of contrapuntal imitation. Contrapuntal is defined as music that includes harmonics that are replaced with additional melodies which cut across each other. Therefore, retrograde is a melody that’s interrupted by a reversed version of itself. This means retrograde-inversion is a melody succeeded by a version of itself that’s inverted. In 12 tone music, retrograde inversion is utilised in the same tone row. Inversion is often carried out before retrograde so the row starts and ends on the same note. The 12 tone technique was devised by Arnold Scoenberg across the late-1910s/early-1920s. 12 tone music was radically different from other music of it’s period as it did not confine itself within the realm of tonality.
What is Musique Concrete? Musique Concrete is an artform developed by Pierre Schaeffer during the 1940s. Similarly to Scoenberg’s twelve tone music of 2 decades prior, it was a long way from the confines of traditional music. Musique Concrete is created from sampled sounds exclusively as opposed to musical instruments. The difference between twelve tone music and musique concrete is that musique concrete is unassociated to the chromatic scale, or music theory. The instruments behind musique were a variety of tools including tape decks, instruments, tone generators, records, delays, reverbs and mixers. When recording their own sounds, mic positions were often more crucial than the recorded sound itself as it was atmosphere based. The techniques are adapted from audio engineering rather than musical artforms. The approach to sound selection is similar to that of foley artists as they select sounds to transmit a mood. They can use a technique called splicing which is chopping tape and re-arranging it to create different sounds.
Functional tonality means tones of which that are
What is Elektronische Musik? Elektronische Musik is a form of experimental music that formed in Germany during the 1970s. It birthed from the backdrop of the revolutionary student movement in the late 1960s. This was triggered by people who were angry at former Nazi’s who still maintained political power, and the politically motivated shooting of Student Movement figurehead; Judi Dutschke. Elektronische Musik was similar to Musique Concrete as it was a style compromised of recorded natural sounds. Elektronische Musik was influenced by Herbert Eimert who created tones from sine waves. In his Cologne studio, he was able to have incredible control over the tone with timbre and dynamics. This resulted in the ability to accurately represent serialism.
Elektronische Musik resulted in Krautrock; a German genre of music that drifted away from the confines of rock music by introducing the use of synthesizers and experimental electronic recording techniques. One of the most iconic artists in this genre is Kraftwerk.
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