New Life, Familiar Songs
The Modernism expression in the early 1900s had a few early complications. While classic modernists like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel had explored ways to withdraw traditional practices of form, Bela Bartok and Richard Strauss began tearing at concepts like meter and harmony. These composers laid important groundwork towards going deeper into strange permeations of musical structure, and it was not long before Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Prokofiev began tinkering with the abstract, bringing in odd percussion and wild story telling onto the stage. These are the tales of the orchestral Modernists, classical and radical. There are many contributors, and these names are often at the top of the list when we investigate this realm of history.
Much of the dilemma of categorization comes from the ideals of modernism becoming hard to contain within a specific setting. Modernism was part of the era of post-industrial revolution, skyscrapers, flight, and scientific achievement. Many minds of the day were pointing their attentions to the future. The “futurism” branch of this movement seemed almost inevitable. While modernism quickly began to include a variety of expressions, from popular music including jazz, ragtime, and regional folk implementations into Western Art idioms (as Bartok made it his legacy to include), part of futurism was built upon the premise of deviations from our ideas of what instrumentation meant. The expansion of what the Western world considered an orchestra, band, or ensemble was put into question.
Abstract instrumentation and the technological eras of computers and wave physics brought in a new age of experimental music. From this we start to see two names emerge that are commonly associated with the birth of electronic sound. The terms “west coast” and “east coast” have become the basic categorizations when these origins discussed, and Tony J. Rivas says in his 2016 article The Basis of East Coast and West Coast Synthesis, “The inventions of Robert Moog and Donald Buchla in the 1960s fundamentally reshaped the possibilities of the sonic landscape and contributed to the groundwork for the philosophical and technological development evident in modern synthesizer theory and practice.” Much of the ability to manipulate sound frequencies and the commercial access to such technologies is born out of the scientific achievements of research in World War II and the subsequent conflicts afterwards, as are many advancements of the 20th century. Moog and Bulcha are two individuals that started working on electronic sound at roughly the same time period with two fundamentally different approaches.
“I Dream of Wires”, Directed by Robert Fantinatto and written by Jason Amm describes Moog’s vision as wanting to create a product that was commercially accessible to musicians. Because of this, he chose the keyboard as the primary input device. Bulcha decided that using a keyboard would make it too easy for musicians to deviate back into traditional composition. He wasn’t interested in old music with new sounds. Bulcha wanted innovation, so he developed technologies that avoided common input methods. The West Coast Synthesis became known for its dials, knobs, buttons, and inputs, while the East Coast Synthesis became synonymous with the modern keyboards. Both innovators released products to the public to display their new music. Donald Erb is one of the first composers to take the risk of releasing an all-electric orchestral album called “Music for Instruments and Electronic Sounds” . While it was not commercially successful, it was a paramount achievement in showcasing the possibilities for electronic music. Mark Jenkins’ book Analog Synthesizers: Understanding, Performing, Buying cites Paul Beaver and Bernard Krause as other innovators in this new and exciting realm of composition.
This process of sound manipulation through electronics comes back around shortly after, as companies like Beckman Musical Instruments develop compact pedals for electric guitars. Technologies used to innovate wild distortions of frequencies and voltage are quickly adapted to blend entirely new ways to hear and record a wide variety of instruments. The Roland Corporation would buy Beckman Musical Instruments and incorporate them into their US distribution model, and from there the famous Boss Pedals were born. In 1976, the first line of guitar pedals were released under this banner, and now have largely been accepted as one of the standards in electric guitar sounds. Ikutaro Kakehashi 2002 book, “I Believe in Music,” takes a look at the Roland Corporation Founder’s vision for the future of electronic music and catalogues the journey of this important part of electric sound.
Depeche Mode is one of the more commercially successful early examples of bands to understand that their expression could be shaped in the popular culture with these new ways of playing. Vince Clarke says in the “I Dream of Wires” documentary, “Depeche Mode started as a guitar band, and we realized we could make more interesting music with synthesizers than guitars, because our guitar playing was atrocious.” What would unfold, was part of a huge movement towards some of the most influential music of the world today. The list of contributors to the expansion of electronic music is huge, and looking at the early crossovers from rock, punk, and alternative styles is a fascinating way to see how EDM, Dub, and dance music today captivates the ears and minds of new pioneers.
This journey through the soundscapes of the past making pathways to the music of the future is far than over. Tomorrow I will take a look how a Caribbean Island nation could patch together loudspeakers in dance halls, molding reggae and early rock into a deep, rich, and landmark styles of electronic sound that dominates a large portion of the soundscape today. For now, here’s some good old fashioned 80’s rock to help us get our bearings for the new age on the horizon.
Enjoy Depeche Mode’s “New Life” from their debut album Speak and Spell (1981)