The Voice In Electronic Music

Hi Ilenia, welcome.

For starters, I would say you can't miss the very first ones: Visage by Berio, Gesang der Junglinge by Stockhausen, Canto Sospeso by Nono.

...of Berio including "Omaggio a Joyce" 😉

Am I the only one who thinks that a mere inventory of pieces is substantially useless? Okay for having an overview... but for the purposes of a thesis paper ... 😵 ?

Xenakis wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks that a mere inventory of pieces is substantially useless? Okay for having an overview... but for the purposes of a short thesis ... 😵 ?

Why isn't it useful... hasn't there been an evolution?

Lupino wrote:

Why isn't it useful... hasn't there been an evolution?

Because there were 3 centers: Paris, Cologne and Milan, and all 3 pursued different ideals. How can one compare Gesang der Junglinge with Visage?

What perhaps can be done is to take a decade as a reference and highlight the differences and analogies specifically based on the "reference" models.

Xenakis wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks that a mere inventory of pieces is substantially useless? It's okay for having an overview... but for the purposes of a thesis...?

Yes, I was aiming to have an overview ... even if it emerged a little bit poorly

It is complex to provide an overview, which is also why no one is doing it... the voice is a kind of taboo in the music of the second fifty-year period of the 1900s, and to a certain extent, electronic music as well. Combining electronics and voice is an operation that few have done, especially few have done with clear and original aesthetic ideas. If you want to go beyond Stockhausen and Berio, it becomes a true research project, rather than just a short thesis.

An argument like this should also be expanded to include popular music. Because much of the audio technology dedicated to the voice was born there: filters, vocal synths, microphones... as usual, everything stems from the Beatles and Lennon filtering his voice :-)

An approach that distinguishes the three European centers of electronic music is appropriate: the Rai Phonology Studio in Milan (with Berio, Maderna, and others), the Cologne studio, and the musical research center in Paris. In Milan, they did everything; in Cologne, they primarily made "pure" electronic music; and in Paris, they made musique concrète. Stockhausen's Gesang der Junglinge is a kind of union between pure electronic music and musique concrète, so it is an exception; Berio's compositions between vocal and electronic music are all based on a study of pre-verbal language and the voice of Cathy Berberian; Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in Paris did everything, but little is still known (at the time their work was not well considered, whereas today it is highly revalued). Then there is an entire world of extra-European electronic music about which little is known. There have been experiments somewhat everywhere, the most well-known being those made in the United States. But even regarding these, not much is known, at least not in Italy... it is already quite something that Milton Babbitt is known, who is more famous for his article "Who cares if you listen?" than for his compositions. But his Philomel follows Berio's line http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngw1AzxGF0Y but complicating it... Babbitt is one of the most radical dodecaphonists... on the other hand, musique concrète has its true development in the United States. Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening founded a musical research center at Princeton, which would become one of the largest centers for computer music, but they applied techniques primarily to magnetic tapes, starting a "Tape Music" movement typical of the States. The Tape Music of Ussachevsky and Luening will inspire what is today one of the most successful composers in the vocal-electronic field, Steve Reich. In 1965, he composed a piece that is considered seminal, as much as Gesang der Junglinge, with the difference that the latter is still remixed by a tide of DJs and bands.

but I emphasize him because I know him well... anyway, the way Reich treats voices is revolutionary, in It's Gonna Rain, in "Come Out", in "Tehillim", in "The Cave". But these things must also be related to non-classical music. If we are talking about voice, loops, and electronics, we cannot fail to mention the Beatles' "Revolution 9".

Here, listen to the "White Album."

Open content (youtube)

Open content (youtube)

Thank you Thallo, truly excellent