Music in the Age of
Electronic (Re)Production
A commented journey through
time…
Jan Smeddinck (#1976868)
jan83@tzi.de
Sound Culture, Petra Klusmeyer
HfK Bremen, Germany (2009)
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http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j281/Kriziavb/electronic_music_flowers_by_nullbom.jpg

The Book
• Audio Culture: Readings
in Modern Music
– Continuum Inter. Publis. (7.
Oktober 2004)
• Daniel Warner &
Christoph Cox (Eds.)
• Chapters 22, 24 & 25
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdourish/3103575261/sizes/o/ http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/0262041960-f30.jpg

Mechanical Reproduction of
Music
• 14th – 18th century: barrel organs etc.
• 1857: Phonautograph
– Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
– Recordings made audible in 2008
• 1877: Phonograph Cylinder
– Thomas Edison
– First real recording
• 1885: Gramophone
– Emile Berliner
– „cheap“ copying (from master)
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http://getfantasticdeals.com/library/Gramophone.jpg

Music Across Time & Space
• “The effect of recording is that it takes
music out of the time dimension and
puts it in the space dimension.”
– Brian Eno (late 1970s)
• Recording makes music all present
– Mc Luhan
• “So not only is the music with us now, in
some sense, on record, but the whole
global musical culture is also available.”
– connect to present & internet
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Electronics ~ 1900
• 1906: Electronics (Triode)
– Lee De Forest
– vacuum tube / electronic amp.
• 1920s:
Microphones, loudspeakers, usable
electronic instruments
• 1930s: Steelwire recorders
• 1935: AEG K1 Magnetophon
– Fritz Pfleumer
• 1939: John Cage: “Imaginary
Landscape #1”
– First composed piece to use means of
electronic reproduction (var. speed
phonographs)
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http://www.tonaufzeichnung.de/images/Tonband/magnetophon_K1_gross.jpg

Culture & Technology
• also 1930s: Jazz becomes recorded
– no full coincidence
• Brian Eno (p. 128)
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http://justbooks.org/calendar/images/Jazz%20NIght.jpg

Walter Benjamin
• 1935: „Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner
technischen Reproduzierbarkeit“
• Argues about photography and film
• The reproduction can take a position
concerning the original
• The reproduction can put the original in
a different context
• While the original may remain
untouched, it‟s here-and-now is
devaluated (ref. towards Eno on space & time)
• Loss of ‚originality„: traditional role of
art -> politics
• link to visual culture / art
– e.g. montage, collage, borrowing, …
(Cutler, p. 144)
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http://www.braungardt.com/Theology/Benjamin/Benjamin.jpg

Tape Recorders
• 1947: Improved electric tape
– John T. “Jack” Mullin
• Music is opened to
environmental sounds
– nature & technology
• music, brains & the universe:
music & math
• Tape vs. discs
– mutable, cuttable, reversible …
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http://www.hifiengine.com/images/model/revox_pr99.jpg

Improved Electronic
(Re)Production
• 1950s: Stereo becomes commercial
(Ampex)
• Musique Concrète (Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry)
• 1951: John Cage: “Imaginary Landscape
#4”
– Radios as instruments
• 1956: Karlheinz Stockhausen: “Gesang
der Jünglinge”
– natural sounds (voices) mixed with
electronic, 5 channel sound
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http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/gesang-der-juenglinge/images/1/

Improved Electronic
(Re)Production
• 1960s: Cassette, Synthesizers & Experimental Digital
Recording
• Multi-Track recording
– towards studio composing & „crowded‟ rock music
• 1964: Compact Cassette
• Glenn Gould goes studio only!
– subverted authenticity
• 1966: Dolby Noise Reduction
• Dub
• 1967: James Tenney: „Viet Flakes“
– pop + classical + asian music
• antedating mashup
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Chris Cutler
• * 1947: Percussionist, composer, music theorist
• 1968: Henry Cow (@ Cambridge): avant-garde rock
• „Indeed, from the moment recordings existed, a new
kind of „past“ and „present“ were born – both
immediately available on demand. Time and space
homogenised in the home loudspeaker or the head
phone, and the pop CD costs the same as the classical
CD and probably comes from the same shop. All
commodities are equal.“ (p. 147)
– Young musicians grow up in the electronic recording age
– Now they (~ we) are the first digital natives!
• Good writings: SCALE & The Age of Virtual
Communities of Taste
• Sound declines to disappear (p. 138)
– Organic response: RECYCLE
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http://www.ccutler.com/ccutler/Images/electrifiedKit.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/HenryCow_AlbumCover_Concerts_inside.jpg

Plunderphonia
• John Oswald: „Plunderphonic“ (~ 1985)
– sued by Michael Jackson
• Antedates Youtube, remix-
culture, sampling, UGX
• Consciously self-reflexive (Cutler, p.
141)
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Plunderphonia
• Using „macrosamples“ and
„electroquotes“
– Since arrival of recording: copyright no
longer simple…
• To refer, or not to refer?
• The power of pure atomic recordings…
• Sound freed from the reference…
– Steal this Film II: around 33:00 min..
• about the good of copying for music
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Art Widespread
• 1970s: Radio-Cassette (“Boombox”, 2
tracks), Walkman, Commercial Digital Recording
(PCM), Quadraphonic Sound
• Stockhausen: „Opus 1970“
– players control loudspeakers and distortion
• Miles Davis: electric records
• Turntable culture:
– NY Hip-Hop DJs, scratching
• 1975: Brian Eno: “Another Green World”
– Invention of „Ambient‟
• 1977: Kraftwerk: “Trans-Europe Express”
– Sequencers
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http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/images/cig.jpg

Brian Eno
• * 1948: Art school, glam
rock, ambient, avant-garde (Bowie)
• Electronic composer
– Producer: e.g. U2, Coldplay,
• Can„t read or write music, or play an
instrument well
– ref. music escaping sheets (Chris Cutler)
Working towards different music, because constraints
of classical composition are shifted
- Oblique strategies
Ode To Gravity: Pt. I: 59 min. 30 sek. - 1:02:35
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http://smith3000.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/brianeno.jpg

The Studio as Compositional
Tool
• interplay of live vs. recording
– many times mixed
• lifting musical constraints
• “…working directly with sound, and
there is no transmission loss between
you and the sound – you handle it.”
– Brian Eno (p. 129)
• summary on the history (Ode Pt. II first 3 min.)
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Digital (Re)Production
• 1980s: CD, DAT / DAB
– WAV & AIFF
– Samplers become affordable
• 1982: MIDI & Roland Baseline and Drum Machines
• Rise of electro and techno
– Detroit: Auto-city!
• Ambient -> chill-out
• 1989: Max
• (Re)Producing sound by writing (code)…
– Cage„s Williams Mix (1952) took a year now 5 min.
– Math turns directly into music (NIN, LOSD, Kiln)
• also natural science – conversion between digital media!
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Unlimited Reproduction
• 1991: MP3 (Fraunhofer IIS, Erlangen)
• 1992: Minidisc
• 1997: Max/MSP
• 1998: Portable MP3 players
• Embracing glitches and errors of
electronic music (e.g.
scratches, compression)
– also 8Bit
• Oval – Post-Post
• People Like Us – Recyclopedia Britannica (2002)
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Studio as the Instrument
• 2008: Brian Eno: Bloom (iPhone
app)
• Technology becomes mobile
and ubiquitously available
• Focus returns to the
performance
– Which often involves
recording…
• Even less transmission loss…
• Everybody can be a composer
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Kodwo Eshun
• * 1967: Writer and theorist, Prof. @
Goldsmiths
• Black music & afro-futurism
– it„s black, but it isn„t !?!
• the „soulful“ vs. the „postsoul“
• „Alien Music is a synthetic recombinator, an
applied art technology for amplifying the
rates of becoming alien. Optimize the ratios
of excentricity. Synthesize yourself.“ (p. 158)
• Science of machine music
• Unlimited reproduction & the anxiety of
missing out (video interv. 03:00 ~ 2 min.)
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Generative Music
• „Leakage, seepage, adoption, osmosis, a
bstraction, contagion: these describe the
life of sound work today.“ (Cuter, p. 152)
• Eno on evolution…
• Steal This Film II:
– 19:00 about how the internet is for
reproduction…
• Neural Network music composition:
– http://cssp.us/pdf/D_Watts_Six_Degrees_CSSP.pdf
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Summary
• culture <-> technology
• (or music, or society)
• ? -> (notation) -> reproduction ->
production -> generation -> self-
reproduction -> self-generation -> ?
• Milestones: Tape, Digitalization
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That’s it!
!?!
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http://timesonline.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/brian_eno.jpg

Sources & References
• History:
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_and_reproduction
– http://www.caipirinha.com/Film/modulations/timeline.html
• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin
• http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arteclab.uni-
bremen.de%2F~robben%2FKunstwerkBenjamin.pdf&ei=iNImSubfO8SksAazvMHZBQ&usg=AFQjCNGRprfP1sRRE3EE
PSJdNAf_qQ-Hjw&sig2=2_aIh8nzZzytTqGPk6ibaw
• http://www.ccutler.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cow
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Cutler
• http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/
• http://www.myspace.com/ambientlegend
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno
• http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=OTG.1980.02.02.A
• http://cssp.us/pdf/D_Watts_Six_Degrees_CSSP.pdf
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RivGWjlLoQ
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodwo_Eshun
• http://www.spikemagazine.com/0400brilliantsun.php
• http://www.jahsonic.com/BSF.html
• http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/6/6902/1.html
• http://fr.truveo.com/Generative-Music-eng/id/1313610500
• http://www.epitonic.com/artists/losd.html
• Steal This Film I & II
• Please also refer to the links on the slides…
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