ELECTRONIC

MUSIC
Ms. Joyce Timbol
Music 10
 ELECTRONIC MUSIC
HISTORY
1919 theremin
1928 Ondes Martenot
1938 Hammond Organ
1939 Novachord
1948 Chamberlin 200
1970 Minimoog
1971 EMS Sequencer
1977 Yamaha CS 80
1970 Fairlight CMI
1983 MIDI
1984 Computers, MIDI, & & Virtual
Synths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITp-KpM_SIg
 ELECTRONIC MUSIC

• Was introduced in the early 1950’s

• Different natural sounds and musical tones are transformed in
various ways using electronic means then assembled on tape for
play back.
• Electronic music did not require performers, neither long
rehearsals, nor specifically qualified personal. Sounds were
available anytime without natural means of production
 HISTORY OF
ELECTRONIC MUSIC
• Through computers, composers are able to define and control
the pitch, rhythm, timbre, and other music elements.
Programmed music produced from electronic computer which
contains necessary information fed to create music, notate
composition and perform is stored in a Synthesizer.

• Electronic Music was introduced by Milton Bobbitt who

composed several music pieces with the use of synthesizer and
tape. He invented new sounds which were evident in his works.
 MUSIQUE CONCRETE

• Refers to the experimentations in music with the help of

electronic machines. Any kind of sound such as human singing
or voice, sound from nature, speech, street noise, and usual or
unusual sounds may be used in this type of music.

• Karlheinz Stockhausen applied musique concrete by recording

natural sounds. These sounds were manipulated on magnetic
tape. Electronic music and musique concrete are responsible for
the creation and production sounds that are impossible for
acoustic instruments or voices to produce.
CHANCE MUSIC
Ms. Joyce Timbol
Music 10
 ALEATORY MUSIC OR
CHANCE MUSIC
• Is a musical composition in which some elements of the
composition are left to chance, and/or some primary elements of
the realization of a composition are left to the determination of
its performer/s.

• Werner Meyer-Eppler. According to him, “A process os said to

be aleatoric if its course is determined in general but depends on
chance in detail”.

• Compositions that could be considered a precedent for aleatory

composition date back to at least the late 15 th century with the
genre of catholicon, exemplified by the Missa cuiusvus toni of
Johhanes Ockeghem.

• A later genre was the Musikalisches Wurfelspiel or musical dice

game, popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. (One such
dice game is attributed to Wolfgand Amadeus Mozart.)
 TYPES OF
INDETERMINATE MUSIC

• Music can be divided into three

groups
a) The use of random procedures to
produce a determinate, fixed
score;
b) Mobile form; and
c) Indeterminate notation, including
notation and text.
 TYPES OF
INDETERMINATE MUSIC
1. The first group includes scores in which the chance element is involved
only in the process of composition, so that every parameter is fixed
before their performance
2. In the second type of indeterminate music, chance elements involve the
performance. Notated events are provided by the composer, but their
arrangements is left to the determination of the performer. Events are
composed and notated in a traditional way, but the arrangement of these
events is determined by the performer spontaneously during the
performance.
In this second type of music, chance and control merged in some works of
composers in the late 1950’s one type of music in which this might occur is
called Sound mass composition or Textural Composition, where individual
pitches and lines are integrated into complexes of sound or “sound masses”
3. The greatest degree of indeterminacy is reached by the third type of
indeterminate music, where traditional musical notation is replaced by
visual or verbal signs suggesting how a work can be performed.
OPEN FORM
Is a term used for mobile or
polyvalent musical forms,
where the order of
movements or sections is
indeterminate or left up to the
performer

However, “open form” in

music is also used in the sense
defined by art historian
Heinrich Wolfflin, to mean a
work which is fundamentally
incomplete, represents an
unfinished activity, or points
outside of itself. In this sense,
a “mobile form” can be either
“open” or “closed”
 VOCAL SCORE
• A Vocal Score or more properly termed. Piano-vocal score is a
reduction of the full score of a vocal work such as musical play,
and opera.

• Examples of extensive aleatoric writing can be used in small

passages is scores for films. Other film composers using this
technique are Mark Snow, John Corigliano, and others