Electro – Acoustic Music

1. Electro –
Acoustic Music
an introduction…

2. Before Electro-Acoustic music composers such as Stravinsky,
Debussy and Shostakovich (Late-Romantic period)were
establishing musical ideas that would shape this new style:
Some basic terms and ideas:
 Aleatoricism – creating music by chance /
random
 Serialism – Schoenberg’s 12 tone technique built
on rows
 Minimalism – repetition of short phrases, minimal
variations over a long period of time
 Atonal – no sense of key / tonal centre

3. Composers of Note
 Karl Heinz Stockhausen
German composer, helped to develop concepts such as serialism,
aleatoricism and electronic music.
Klavierstucke – 19 fragments of music, starting wherever!
Gesang der Junglinge – Serialism (electronic sounds / human voices)
Gruppen – 109 musicians in 3 groups, creating spatiality
 Steve Reich
Utilised technology such as phase shifting, sound effects and tape
looping to create abstract pieces of music.
Electric Counterpoint – tape samples triggered at various times
Clapping music – a rhythm played at various times a quaver beat apart
It’s Gonna Rain – tape loops out of phase creating varying timbres

4.  John Cage
American composer, and a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electro-acoustic
music, and non-standard use of musical instruments.
4’33 – “no such thing as silence, something always happens to make a
sound”
Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano – Cage placed nuts and
bolts at various points on the piano to create new timbres and sounds
 Philip Glass
Popular in minimalism and post-minimalism and a prolific film composer.
 Terry Riley
Influenced by jazz, Indian music and aspects of technology
 Michael Nyman
Film and minimalist composer and celebrated pianist