Day 081: Electronic music day
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
81 — Electronic music day
22-October-1971
(Fri.)
TRANSCRIPT
Most of Friday–from now on—will be involved with my
Electronic Music courses. It is, at this point,
difficult to understand, but I believe it will become
easier. Even at this point, I am learning. We have
practical exercises to do, which are interesting.
(Collecting normal sounds on tape to be used later
on.)
REFLECTIONS
Electronic
music day. It looks
like Fridays will be my electronic music day—with
most of my classes taking place on this day. I like
that I mention a bit about what I am learning, I hope
that I continue this.
Electronic
music label. In my
posts, I will refer to these classes as electronic
music rather than musique concrète. One reason is
that we will use some electronic equipment and
techniques (filters) in the class; the second reason
is that I don’t like typing the accent in concrète;
pronounced “kan-kreh-t”, not like the cement. Plus,
my spell checker always removes the accent.
Collecting
sounds. Since we
are manipulating sounds with tape recorders, our
first steps are to collect interesting sounds. That
means recording those sounds. Later on, we will learn
to manipulate them.
This task of taking a sound and manipulating it will
become a central focus of one of my activities this
entire year.
2007
applications. Are there
any practical applications in 2007 that have a
history or relationship to electronic music or
musique concrete? Yes. Here are a few.
•
Composition. Certainly,
there is contemporary music composition. Composers
may wish to include elements of these genres and
techniques in their works.
•
Sound design. Sound
design is a major element in the making of today’s
motion pictures—so dominant that, many times, it
drowns out the music. Creating and balancing sound
effects with dialog and music is the job of sound
design. Many techniques in sound design are related
to those in electronic music and musique concrète.
•
Foley work. Foleys are
sound effects, most often used in motion pictures.
Foley work is most closely related to musique
concrète and involves the recording and manipulation
of natural sounds, background ambience, and sound
effects that go into a film. Often, this involves the
live recording of sound—such as footsteps, background
sounds, and door creaks—synchronized with the motion
picture. Without the foley artist’s contribution, a
film would not feel natural. Background sound is a
part of reality, if it’s missing, it will feel
unnatural.
•
Recording engineer. A
recording engineer is the heart of a recording
studio. His job is to record music, voices, and foley
effects and make a recording sound great. Today’s
recording engineer has an incredible array of tools
to record, make, shape, and mix music, sound, and
vocals. Many recording techniques are the same as in
musique concrète and electronic music
techniques—mixing, applying filters, equalization,
modulation, reverb, stereo, audio editing (splicing),
sound manipulation, and others.
•
Mastering engineer. A
mastering engineer is a specialized engineer that
takes the final recording mix from the recording
engineer and then “masters” it, using mastering
equipment and software. A good mastering engineer
produces recordings with that “pro” sound. Mastering
is the missing element in many home recordings.
•
Podcasts, soundseeing, and soundscapes.
Podcasts
are an amazing phenomenon. Think of them as your own
private audio or video show for the Internet. Some
podcasts employ soundseeing tours—an audio tour—that
can encompass sightseeing in a major European city, a
talking tour in an art museum, a live restaurant
review, or one of Chris Marquardt’s
(tipsfromthetopfloor.com) photography soundseeing
tours on digital photography topics. People also
record “soundscapes” that capture audio recordings in
a variety of settings—most often in nature settings.
If you have a topic of interest, give podcasting a
try.
•
Home recording and songwriting. So, you’re
a songwriter or in a band? Today’s computers,
software, hardware, and musical instruments are a
goldmine of recording capability. You can create,
record, mix, manipulate, master, and produce your
band’s CD right at home. For that matter, composers
are producing TV and motion picture scores in their
home studios. It’s a great time to be musically
creative.
•
Teaching. You can
teach science, acoustics, and musical composition
concepts to your students, using the science and
musical principles behind electronic music and
musique concrète.
After Vienna, I was an instrumental music teacher in
middle school for six years. During my teaching
tenure, I won a couple of educational grants to teach
electronic music composition and filmmaking to my
students. The results? Incredible! Young students are
creative. Students used both musique concrète
techniques and electronic music synthesizer to create
wonderful electronic music soundscapes, films, and
compositions. As part of my teaching, I incorporated
science, acoustics and the teaching of musical
composition concepts using these mediums.
Enjoy.
John
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