What is electroacoustic music?

Just as the vague term "piano music" can refer to a sonata by Van Beethoven as well as the rock 'n roll of Jerry Lee Lewis, the term "electroacoustic music" is also a rather vague term that only tells something about the type of musical equipment used.

The term "electroacoustic music" today points to music created using sounds generated or manipulated by electronic means. The composition of electroacoustic music has its history in classical western music and is done with the intention of creating a context in which these new sounds or sound evolutions have a meaningful place.

Through these modern techniques, various new forms of making music and composing emerged. These are indicated with more specific terms such as: concrete music, electronic music, live electronics, etc.

After the 2nd World War

With these new electronic means, researchers have moved away from the familiar paths and started to explore a new world of possibilities just after the Second World War. Musical insights renewed and broadened.

Two major schools of thought

In the two major movements which emerged, researchers applied electronics to existing sounds on the one hand ("Musique concrète" with Pierre Schaeffer), and on the other hand they synthesised electronically generated sounds themselves (Punktuelle Musik with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Serial Muziek with a.o. Karel Goeyvaerts).

Controlling everything

Karel Goeyvaerts and particularly Joris De Laet compose starting from sound parameters such as timbre, pitch, texture, volume, etc. These parameters, which were of course also known in classical composition, can now be affected much more easily and over a much wider range. The aim is to have control over every element of sound. It goes without saying that the computer has been eagerly employed to help control these sound parameters.

Computer-aided composing

There is also a lot of experimentation going on with computer-assisted composing. The computer helps to determine how these parameters should run during the course of the piece of music.

New music

All kinds of new compositional insights arise from this, but there is no general or universal notation. Many are looking for a method to describe the music so that it can be reproduced at later times. Because there is no universal way of notation, some researchers have a philosophical problem with this music.

The value of these new compositions sometimes only becomes clear after a thorough and attentive listening, because since modernism all holds are put aside. Because of this, the listener is brought into a new musical context by many composers, where he cannot rely on fixed standards of beauty for his appreciation. Very often the new listener has to switch off his spontaneous appreciation and try to get in touch with what the composer is trying to bring. For some this takes some time getting used to it.

Tape concerts

The search for the right sound, for the right progression of one sound into another, the position of the sound in space, the right balance between several layers of sound, and a number of other parameters that must be calculated, processed and assembled. Believe it or not, this is a quest that can last for months. You can compare this with film, where a lot of time is spent preparing the set and filming the footage. The final product is projected for the audience at a premiere in both cases. The creative work from the studio is presented. The creator lets the creation be heard through the sound system. Because in the analogue era, this was done from a multitrack tape, some still speak of 'tape' music, although digital discs and laptops have long been used in the meantime...

Music on a Carrier

In English and in French the terms "Music on fixed media" or "Musique sur support" are already quite common. In Dutch this becomes "Muziek op drager" or "Muziek op audiodrager"

(DV - 2010)

laatste update: 2021.07.28