The History of Electronic Music: A blog about how electronic music came to be and why it was created. Electronic music is a genre of music that is made up of synthesized sounds, or electronically generated sounds. The roots of this genre of music date back to the mid to late 1960’s with the invention of the Moog synthesizer. The Moog was widely used throughout the late 1960’s and into the 70’s in many forms of rock and pop music. Soon after, synthesizers started to be widely used in electronic genres such as techno, house, ambient, and other forms of electronic dance music (EDM). EDM has grown exponentially since its inception in the early 90’s, and has become a dominant force in popular culture.
I will be focusing on two major topics throughout this blog: What exactly is electronic dance music? And how did it get to where it is today?
Electronic Dance Music is a very broad idea in itself. The term “electronic dance music” can refer to anything from techno, house, drum n bass, trance, dubstep, trap and many more forms of electronic music. All these genres have different characteristics that make them unique. I plan on going over all the different genres at some point during the course of this
The purpose of this blog is to explore how electronic music came to be and why it was created. Electronic dance music (EDM) has become a staple in the world of music, but it’s easy to forget that this unique genre has been around for less than 100 years. The first electronic instrument was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray, and since then many more have been added to the list.
The term ‘electronic dance music’ refers specifically to a type of club music, which evolved from disco and house music in the 1990s. This genre originated in Detroit and Chicago, with DJs using synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines to create new sounds that were more experimental than traditional pop songs.
It’s important to note that EDM does not refer only to “dance” but also other genres such as hip hop or rap because these genres are often associated with the same style of dancing at clubs, parties etc…
The History of Electronic Music
The first foundation in the history of electronic music is the invention of physics and the development of mathematics. Physics brought us electricity, magnetism, and the laws that govern them; mathematics gave us ways to describe them, to measure them, and to use them in calculations. Without these developments, we would not have the world as it is today.
The second foundation is synthesis: finding ways to create sounds from their component parts. This includes everything from vocoders to samplers to oscillators; any device that can take a sound and break it down into its individual components is a synthesizer.
The third foundation is composition: how we arrange those sounds into something that makes musical sense. In general, this means putting together multiple layers of sound so that they produce an effect greater than any one part could have on its own.
The final foundation is performance: actually playing the instrument or making the recording that will be heard by listeners. We can use technology like turntables or computers to help us do this, but ultimately it is up to us as musicians to decide what will be played and how it will be played.
The history of electronic music began with the invention of the telharmonium by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. Cahill’s instrument was a keyboard device capable of reproducing tones much like a pipe organ. This invention paved the way for other electronic instruments to be created. In 1925, Leon Theremin invented an early electronic musical instrument called the Termenvox or theremin. This was later followed by the Ondes Martenot, which was created by Maurice Martenot in 1928. The Ondes Martenot is similar to a theremin but has a keyboard instead of a volume knob.
The first synthesizer was invented in 1971 by Robert Moog, who used it as an alternative to other forms or instrumentation. His invention became very popular among musicians, especially musicians of pop and rock music. It also became popular among other genres of music such as hip-hop and electronic dance music (EDM). After this period, many different types of synthesizers were created and used all over the world in all sorts of genres such as jazz and classical music.
The popularity of synthesizers has grown tremendously since their creation; they are now used in almost every genre of music that exists today. They are used not only to play notes but
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production, an electronic musician being a musician who composes and/or performs such music. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means (electroacoustic music) and that produced using electronics only.
Electronic music was once associated almost entirely with Western art music, but from the late 1960s on the availability of affordable music technology meant that music produced using electronic means became increasingly common in the popular domain. Today, most electronic music is created with keyboards, samplers and synthesizers, with guitars and wind instruments occasionally used to add texture.
Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, around the same time as rock music began to emerge as a distinct musical genre. The Mellotron, an electro-mechanical polyphonic tape replay keyboard was developed in 1963 by British engineer Peter Guttman and released in 1964; it was used by several well-known groups of the period including The Beatles (“Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Baby You’re A Rich Man”, “I Am The Walrus” and “The Fool On The Hill”), The Moody Blues (“N
In the 1920s, composers began experimenting with electronic instruments and avant garde music. Russian composer Alexander Mosolov wrote music for a theremin, an early electronic instrument, in 1927. Also in the late 1920s, British composer Daphne Oram created a new type of electronic music at the BBC by using two turntables and a tone generator to create sounds on magnetic tape that she dubbed “the Oramics Technique”. Another British composer, Tristram Cary, also began experimenting with electronic music around this time and composed some of the first works for early synthesizers.
In 1950, German-born composer and musical theorist Johann Georg Albrechtsberger became one of the first people to compose a piece of music explicitly for what would become known as an analog synthesizer. This synthesizer was developed by physicist Harald Bode in 1949 and was capable of creating many new timbres. Around this same time, French composers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry were creating musique concrete using reel-to-reel tape machines.
In 1957, RCA announced the invention of the first programmable synthesizer called the Mark II Sound Synthesizer. The Mark II came with a library of preset sounds like fl
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments and circuitry-based music technology. In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means (electroacoustic music), and that produced using electronics only. Electromechanical instruments include mechanical elements, such as strings, hammers, and so on, and electric elements, such as magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar, which are typically made loud enough for performers and audiences to hear with an instrument amplifier and speaker cabinet. Pure electronic instruments do not have vibrating strings, hammers, or other sound-producing mechanisms. Devices such as the theremin, synthesizer, and computer can produce electronic sounds.
The first electronic devices for performing music were developed at the end of the 19th century, and shortly afterward Italian futurists explored sounds that had not been considered musical. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for electronic instruments were made. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape allowed musicians to tape sounds and then modify them by changing the tape speed or direction, leading to the development of electroacoustic