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Electric [music] avenue(Malay Mail Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) FOR the majority of people who are not born deaf, the world is a very noisy place. From the moment you were born, there was all this bunyi-bunyi that got really bising sometimes surrounding you. Much of it came from your parents, but you soon learned to distinguish other noises too. You also soon came across a wonderful type of sound - one that would hold you spellbound for hours (or what seemed like hours). You would try to reproduce those sounds from those early moments, and would probably still try and do so well into your nyanyuk years. That noise is the wonderful sound we call music. Most of the time, the music made is acoustic, meaning it is physically made by the performer by means of breath or using your limbs on instruments that do not utilise electricity. However, technology has long since fully caught on with the music making community, and more often than not, music nowadays is electronic music. The definition of electronic music, according to Wikipedia, is for "music created using electronic devices. As defined by the IEEE standards body, electronic devices are low-power systems and use components such as transistors and integrated circuits". There is a distinction, though, between instruments that produce sound through electromechanical means (such as an electric guitar) rather than with instruments that produce sound using electronic components (like a synthesizer or a computer). For today's article, we'll take a look at both aspects, as well as the outlook for music nowadays in general. Yesterday/all my troubles seemed so far away Believe it or not, making music using emerging technology (in this case, that new-fangled product called electricity) started in the Late 19th century. One of the earliest electromechanical instruments was the Teleharmonium, created by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. Although it was a unique achievement, it wasn't in the least bit practical - the thing weighed seven tonnes and was as big as a tram. Not very easy to drag around for band camp practice, you would think. Some people agree that the title of first electronic instrument belongs to the Theremin, invented by Professor Leon Theremin. This instrument is quite rare nowadays, but you probably have heard the sounds it makes - a high, otherworldly wail that was used in the them for the original Star Trek series. As well as used by Mentok the Mind-Taker, if you watched Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law ("OooWeeEeeOooWeet!"). Another fact that might surprise you: the tape recorder was invented in Germany during World War II. An invention which went on to conquer the world, even if the Germans didn't, it not only caught the attention of serious composers (such as Pierre Henry, Pierre Boulez and the notorious Karlheinz Stockhausen), it proved to be the best way to spread music among the common people - attested to by the fact that it took another 50 years and the invention of the Internet called death of the music industry. Goodness, gracious/great balls of fire! Around the same time that Malaya won its independence, two electronic instruments made their debut in 1957: a computer using a programme called Music 1, and the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, the world's first programmable electronic music synthesizer. Still impractical in terms of making music (unless you happened to have a PhD in physics and programming), it took the tinkerings of one Robert Arthur Moog in 1964 before the legendary synthesizer that still bears his name made his debut. Moog, who died on Aug 21, 2005, created voltage-controlled oscillators (which controls music frequencies via direct current), and was the first to utilise a piano-keyboard layout for the synth - an idea so basic anyone could have have thought of it. It was the efforts of musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Jan Hammer who would champion the use of synths as central to people's musical enjoyment. Of course, it later brought rise to the rubbish that you would know as feng tau music (if you can call it music), but it evolved into other things too. Probably the most successful impact has been that of dance music, and with acts as varied as Basement Jaxx, Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Groove Armada, Orbital and Bjork providing the world with just that much more love in a booty shaking-package. And now, with music creation programmes like Cakewalk, Sibelius and Finale available, you can be your own Beethoven or Chuck Berry - or even both at the same time. We didn't start the fire Soon, music-making evolved to the point when the nonuse of electromechanical and electronic instruments became sort of unthinkable. Look at the music that is everywhere nowadays, particularly "pop" music now: so full of electronic twitterings, beeps and scratchings that you can hardly hear how untalented the singers are (Justin Timberlake, that means you ...). That's kind of logical, if you think about it. Instrumentalists (either sessionists or orchestra members), at the end of the day, need to be paid (sometimes, a lot); an electronic instrument only needs electricity. Also, most importantly, it would do exactly what you told it to do (via programming) - and with more and more instruments capable of producing almost any sound imaginable, you would be hard pressed to argue otherwise (especially if you are hard-pressed for cash). However, the wonderful thing about music is that it - just like the humans who created it - evolves with the times. Sure, some people don't think of music nowadays as music; but their descendants do, so there. And with publications like Urb, BPM, XLR8R, DJ, Mixmag and Future Music fanning the flames, electronic music look set to stay, even after we all turn into cyborgs. Copyright 2006 The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Intelligence Wire. |