by Sianne Suicide

Created on: December 29, 2006   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

How important was the music of the European Avant-garde (i.e. Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen and others) in the development of Techno and Electronica? Has its importance been fairly represented?

The new medium of electronic music in the 1940's made a pathway for all the new and excited electronic music composers of that time. The new electronic instruments such as the ondes martenot and the tratonium offered new sounds for use in the new electronic compositions. When tape machines became widely available throughout the world in the late 1940's, a whole new world of sound manipulation and recording was opened up. Composers were now able to record the new sounds being generated by the machines, and then, through the painstaking process of tape editing, were able to create new sounds and effects known exclusively to the genre of electronic music. Music Concrete was a great example of the possibilities of the tape editing techniques that were on offer to the Music Concrete composers. Their compositions were made up of found sounds, natural sounds which were recorded and the highly edited and rearranged to form the compositions. Stockhausen was a composer in Cologne, he did many experiments where he would place different pure frequencies together and make whole new synthesised sounds. Although, some of his attempts were more successful than others, he had generated a new type of Music, Avant-Garde. This type of Music was made of out completely synthesised sounds that were manipulated and put back together.

The European Music heavily influenced American radio DJ, DJ Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson. He had a 5 hours set between 1977 and the mid 1980's where he played all types of electronic and new music like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and George Clinton. The Minimalist, Music concrete and Avant-garde composers had also heavily influenced the artists he played. Upon hearing this radio set, the trio who are regarded as the founders of Techno came up with their ideas for a type of music that was going to take America and the world by storm. The three were Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May. They brought together their influences from the European Avant-Garde and created something shockingly new.

So when the music hit the world, it had such an influence, such a strange sounding feeling, it seemed to latch on to hearts and minds that always seemed disillusioned, disenchanted and not necessarily satisfied. (May, D: www.Eye.Net)

The sounds of techno and the

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