The question of what happened to electronic music in the 20th century is not a new one. It has been asked by many writers and commentators, and several theories have been proposed. But there is no universally accepted explanation for what happened to electronic music in the 20th century.
There are two main theories about what happened to electronic music in the 20th century: The first is the “cultural” theory, which proposes that electronic music was lost because it was never really “found” in the first place. The second is the “technological” theory, which proposes that electronic music was lost due to technological changes in the way we listen to music.
The cultural theory of what happened to electronic music in the 20th century has two main components: First, it proposes that electronic music was not widely accepted by mainstream culture because it was considered too radical or avant-garde; second, it proposes that electronic music was considered too radical or avant-garde because it was not widely accepted by mainstream culture.
As most people know, the United States is the land of opportunity. But what most people don’t know is that the United States is also the land of electronic music. While many countries have had their own electronic music scenes, none have been as influential on the world stage as ours.
Electronic music has gone through a number of different phases in its time. In the early 20th century, there was no such thing as electronic music—there were only electronically produced sounds. Then, in the 1920s, a number of composers began experimenting with new ways to use electricity to create sound. One of these composers was Leon Theremin, whose instrument became known as the theremin. Another was Edgard Varèse, who used electricity in his piece Amériques (1921).
The 1950s and ’60s brought about a new phase in electronic music: synthesizers. These instruments enabled musicians to make all sorts of sounds without having to play an actual instrument—or even make any physical contact with it at all! Although synthesizers were first developed for use by military personnel during World War II (to communicate over long distances), they soon found their way into popular culture via rock bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys.
In today’s world
It was not until the mid-20th century that electronic music was developed, and for a long time after that it remained the most obscure and marginal of musical genres. But as it happens, this period coincided with the golden age of American experimental film. In particular, the years from 1940 to 1960 were marked by an extraordinary flowering of American animation, an art form in which musicians played an especially important role.
By “animation” I’m referring not just to the cartoons made for children, but also to other avant-garde films, such as those of Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute and later Stan Brakhage. The term “avant-garde” is tricky here; since animation arose in the early days of cinema (even predating live-action film), it always had a strong association with technological innovation.
Many avant-garde filmmakers believed in technology’s power to transform society, and they often worked in mediums like animation–which could be produced alone and cheaply on small budgets–because they saw these as a means of circumventing Hollywood’s constraints. At the same time, though, there were also fiercely contrarian currents running through this tradition that rejected big business and consumer culture more generally. As one
Electronic music is a form of music that involves the manipulation and treatment of sound by electrical or electronic devices such as tape recorders, audio oscillators, synthesizers, and theremins. It is often used to produce unique effects and sounds in pop music, rock music, and disco.
The first use of the term “electronic music” was in Europe during the 1930s. In the 1970s and 1980s, electronic music became more common with the advent of new technology such as synthesizers and samplers. Electronic instruments are now widely used in mainstream commercial pop music, especially the use of electronically altered vocals (such as pitch correction).
Electronic dance music (EDM) has been popular in modern nightclub culture since the 1980s. EDM is characterized by repetitive beats and bass lines.
Electronic music is the general name for music produced by electronic means, with no acoustic sound sources. It is composed using instruments and devices such as theremins, synthesizers and sequencers, computers and musical instruments that generate sound electronically.
Electronic music was once considered to be only a part of academic music, but today it has become a major commercial industry. Since the late 1970s, electronic music has been one of the most rapidly expanding fields in the commercial music world. The term “electronic music” was first used in its modern sense in 1871 when French composer Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville used it to describe his invention, the Phonautograph, which recorded sounds on a soot-covered cylinder. The term “electronica” was first coined in 1958 by German composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Herbert Eimert as the title for an article published in Die Reihe (“The Series”), an annual chronicle of new electronic music edited by Eimert and published by Universal Edition. The term “electronica” has been adopted by artists themselves as well as many popular music critics when referring to modern electronic music.
Electronic dance music (EDM) is a broad range of percussive
The 20th century saw great advances in musical technology. Instruments, recording devices and electronic media made possible what would have previously been unimaginable, opening up new creative pathways for composers to explore. The latter half of the century witnessed an explosion of electronic music: from the first modular synthesiser developed by Robert Moog in 1964, to the widespread availability of digital samplers in the 1980s.
Today we are inundated with examples of electronic music, from radio jingles to film soundtracks, television theme tunes, advertisements and computer game sound effects. Despite this ubiquity it is not always clear when such music is ‘new’ and when it is a re-creation of something that already exists. Electronic music is based on the storage, manipulation and playback of sound by means of digital or analogue technology. It has its roots in the early twentieth century work of French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) whose composition ‘Vexations’ required a pianist to perform a short theme 840 times!
In the 1930s there was a surge of interest in recording sounds as well as making them. American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965) experimented with recordings made on wax phonograph discs which were then edited together with tape to create
Every city in the United States has a distinct electronic music scene. The D.C. electronic music scene is small, but it’s growing fast with the introduction of new venues that cater to different genres such as house and techno.
In this series, I will be discussing the different venues where you can go here in D.C. to enjoy electronic music and I’ll also discuss the history of electronic music in D.C. and how it has changed over time.
The first venue that comes to mind is U Street Music Hall which was founded by Will Eastman, formerly of Bliss nightclub, and his partner Brian McKeon back in 2010 along with DJ Derek Plaslaiko who helped them put their vision into action by opening two rooms: one for house music and another for techno (Plaslaiko).
Fast forward a few years later and the DC nightlife scene has expanded rapidly with the addition of more venues like Flash and Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL).
I’ve had many conversations with my friends about how great it would be if we had more places to go listen to electronic music here in DC so when I heard rumors circulating around town about “Echostage” opening up its doors after months of construction delays, I was