NRC NRC

TT - 610 TT - 610

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA

TECHNICAL TRANSLATION TT - 610

THE PLACE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN THE

MUSICAL SITUATION

BY

HERBERT EIMERT

FROM
TECH. HAUSMITT. NWDR, 6: 42 - 46, 1954

TRANSLATED BY

D. A. SINCLAIR

OTTAWA

1956
 NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA

Technical Translation TT-6l0

Title: The place of electronic music in the musical

situation*.
(Zur musikalischen Situation).

Author: Herbert Eimert.

Reference: Technische Hausmitteilungen des Nordwestdeutschen

Rundf'unks, 6: 42-46, 1954.

Translator: D.A. Sinclair, Translations Section, N.R.O.

Library.

Translated with permission.

*Paper No. 10 of' a special collection of twelve papers on elec-

tronic music published by the Northwest German Broadcasting
System. These have been translated by the National Research
Council and issued as TT-60l to TT-6l2.
 THE PLACE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN THE
MUSICAL SITUATION

Summary:

Electronic music involves new acoustical phenomena

and is not identical with the playing of' electronic musi-
cal instruments. It dif'f'ers equally f'rom the ac;oustical
backgrounds of' f'ilms and radio plays. The f'irst stage
of' its histor~ includes such notions a~ the division of
sound (Busoni) and timbre shaping (Schbnberg). J8rg
Mager f'ollowed up both these ideas, but it was not until
the development of' methods of' sound storage and the
application of' magnetic tape that electrically produced
sound became available as raw material f'or composition.
The electronic-music composer is conf'ronted by the task
of' having to create, in this new and unlimited medium,
orderly relationships and def'inite standards of' f'orm.
Direct points. of contact result f'rom the present situ- I
ation concerning ttabstract tt music, which in many recent
instances has reached the limits of' "playability". Work
done with sinusoidal tones as well as with certain com-
plex sounds releases new structural dimensions. Precise
def'inition of' the work is a f'undamental technical and
musical requirement of' electronic music.

The situation is rather conf'using. What is generally

called "electronic music'f nowadays, in reality has little to do
with what is understood by the term here. Anyone playing on an
electronic musical instrument, whether f'or artistic reasons or
in order to promote the instruments industry, can be said to be
making "electronic" music, as indeed, technically speaking, any
mus.ic produced by electrical means can be so named. However, if'
the term "music" be taken to mean that special sphere of' artis-
tic creation and spiritual responsibility to which it has always
ref'erred, then in a very strict sense it could be maintained
that electronic music is much more concerned. with counterpoint
than with electriCity.
 - 3 -

Along with electrical music appearing in the f'ormj of

hi t tunes, fugues and concertos, we have the unmoni tored el1ectric
sounds, the decorative sound phenomena which can be used for
certain illustrative purposes. Such naturalistic adjuncts are as
far removed f'rom music as nature from art. The extent of thei

general confusion prevailing in this regard can be estimated f'rom

the perf'ormance of' "Musique concrete" at the Donaueschingen Music
Festival of' 1953. Many critics ref'erred to these perf'ormances -
a double conf'usiont - as "electronic music". It must be admitted,
however, that the novelty of' the phenomena, combined with the
general unfamiliarity with the acoustical effects and ignorance
concerning the technical methods,to some extent excuse the error.

The new acoustical material has been made avaj.lable by

the technicians and engineers. As ttmaterial tf in the musical
sense, however, it has still another function, its spiritual
status can only be determined by the composer who familiarizes
himself' with it. Musically speaking, theref'ore, it is not the
physical processes which are of' decisive inu?ortance, but rather
what the composer does with thell4

Imitation and Background Ef'f'ects

The electronic acoustic means have hitherto been

accepted chieflY at the entertainment level. The situation ' is
not unlike that of the earlier silent motion pictures and the
f'irst radio broadcasts. Technology makes new media available
which become commercialized and are at once used f'or mass con-
sumption. Regarded from this point of' view, electronic music
is a hopeless case. The "intelligent despisers", i.e., serious
patrons of' music, quite properly assign a lower function to
these acoustical experiences. Such people will perhaps'be re-
minded of the cinema organ which with its artif'icial vibrato
quality poured an acoustical coating of sugar over the entire
musical f'are. As a matter of' fact there is a great deal of'
objectionable "vibration" in electronic entertainment music.
 - 4-

The inventors of electrical musical instruments have been in a

great hurry to incorporate a vibrato effect, the new electrical
qualite de luxe, into their ingenious constructions, to serve,
perhaps, as a aubstitute for expression, mood and nineteenth
century sentimentality. The electric musical sound, however, is
much more inclined towards rigidity than to such differentiations.
Its diversities are of an entirely different kind. To atterrrpt
to escape from its material nature byirrrproper devices is a waste
of time. On the contrary, it is of the utmost importance to
arrive at that nature by using the proper means.

Another field of application of electronic sound pro-

duction is to the acoustic background of films and radio dramas ..
These sounds assail our hearing painlessly as real or surreal-
istic mood contributions which often combine surprisingly well
with the scene, word or image. Such effects can also be produced
by microphone reproduction of sound processes, that is, with the
methods of f'Musique concrete U , but the electronic methods should
prove much more versatile, refined and easier to produce.

To the la~~n at first nothing is so impressive as this

unshackled and yet easily managed noise dynamiCS which, psycho-
logically speaking, has the effect of arousing multiple associ-
a tions. The majority of these baclcground effects would be~ong
in the cat'3 gory of "white noise". Its astonishing effectiveness
is due not least to the fact that it is localized by association
on the part of the listener without any effort whatsoever.
Powerful impressions follow one another with the ease of a
succession of: pictures; sounds roll past in the maImer of' a film;
acoustic settings are changed in a matter of seconds; and this
all happens smoothly like the arbitrarily succeeding numbers in a
catalogue of' noises, but without effort; one sound merging into
another amost organically. These are totally new experiences in
the realm of acoustics, unknown to earlier times. Their great
effectiveness is probably due to the economy with which they are
errI.Ployed. The Cologne Studio has produced a great many sound-effect
 - 5 -

settings ~or radio dramas. Generally several variations of a

given setting are produced, the director of the drama being
responsible ~or selecting the one he wishes to employ and in-
corporating it into the drama.

The Opportune Moment of HistofuY

There can be no doubt that these complex combinations

of musical sounds and noises are open to musical exploitation if'
they are f'irst of all subordinated to a primarily musical scheme
of things. Of' greater importance here is the question of' what
musical scheme is broad enough to include the elect~onic means o
i
Historical systems such as have crystallized in the personal
styles of composers and in schools of music are eliminated on
this basis, as are, for example, Oskar Sala's e~~orts to produce
a "modern-sounding" orchestral substitute with the Mixtlmrautoniu.m",
What has already been said earlier applies equally here, namely
that the mere adoption of historical media, even those of modern
music, inasmuch as they have become historical, cannot do justice
to the material data of' an electronic music.

Highly significant, on the other hand, are certain

dif'ferentiating tendencies of the new music with respect to
rhythm and acoustical e~fects, especially in the realm of twelve-
I
tone music. Imitated twelve-tone music, of course, - for example
imitations of' Sch8nberg or Webern - will not produce electronic
music any more than imitated Stravinsky or Hindemith. What we
are referring to here are the musical boundaries which have been
reached in the intensified twelve-tone technique, which at the
same time constitute the limits of playability. It is not that
limits are being imposed on Virtuosity, but rather that the un-
playability of this latest instrumental music is due to a
rationalization of musical elements which is no longer reducible
to manual perf'ormance. This c1ef'ini tely constitutes a genuine
point of departure f'or electronic musiC. At the same time the
true nature of' the electronic musical media is revealed here by
 6 -

the very fact that these media have become available for ICOmpO-
sition at the precise moment of history when they are ne~dede

concept and Realization

On the technical side, the phenomenon of electronic

music can be said to begin with the invention of the electronic
tube by de Forest and von Lieben in 1906., strange as it may seem?
it is nevertheless a fact that at about the same time Busoni and
Sch8nberg conceived the idea of an infinite musical raw materia19
They were defeated, of course, in the realization of their dreams
by the mechanical limitations of contemporary musical instruments
Busoni with split intervals and Sch8nberg with his tone-colour
melodies o Busoni expresses this directly. "Further tonal
development"g he statesp "is impossible with our present instru-
ments.!-' He refers to traditional music as Ita minute fraction of
a ray from that greatest star in the firmament of eternal
harmonies. - music" and mentions C'a hill' s electric organ as indi-
cating for the first time the possibility of "free-flight tests
for composers~. By tone-colour melodies Sch8nberg means the
method, unrealizable on any known instruments, of relating
different tone colours in a manner analogous to the melodic
combinations of notes in conventional music. The third of his
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, based on a single chord. which
is constantl~ changing in brilliance represents an attemp~ to
realize something of this kinde Anton Webern's Orchestral
Pieces, Opo 10, undertakes a similar task, but with different
means o

Sch8nberg did not pursue the idea further in his sub-

sequent career, while Webern merged it with his concept of, the
proportional series in which both the harmonic and the melodic
employ the ~ame interval proportions so that the consonances no
longer depend on arbitrary or statistical factors but, excluding
all illogical elements, on harmonic ratios, i.e., on acoustical
structures which conform to the law of the permutations of series.
 - 7 -

This is one of those turning pOints of electronic music, which

is no · longer merely copying Web ern , s inspired concept, but which
"eleva tes" · in both senses of the word. Many of Web ern 's con-
structions seem like premature electronic fragments. His permu-
tations of sounds lead directly to the question of shaping sounds'
by the grouping of sinusoidal tones, which has become a current
concern of electronic music o Timbre as a by-product of structural
contours! This is indeed a contagious idea, even though the use
of sinusoidal tones at first imposes certain limitations. A far-
reaching, still unsolved question is whether electronic music as
a universal source of all sounds possesses any coherent g form-
sustaining force corresponding to tonality - most likely of the
nature of a self-sustaining system of timbres.

Following up the ideas of Busoni and sch8nberg, as well

as the experiments of Stein, Moellendorf and Habain quarter-tone
composition, came Jgrg Mager, who, in contrast to most inventora
and instrument builders)) wanted to "make all possible oscillations
available to music for both melodics and harmonics, and even for
all partialS g on which the timbre depends~' Mager, who was more
an inspired craftsman than a systematic researcher, did succeed
with his instruments (Electrophone, Spherophonep Partiturophonej)
etc o ) in producing new acoustical effects {"fluid chord,,? 1ttimbre
trills")e In 1931 he produced the sound of the Parsifal bell at
Bayreuth with an electronic circuite A year later he produced
the electro-acoustic sound-effects background for Hartung's pro-
duction of Faust at Darmstadto His last work was the vision music
in the Ufa-film "Starker als Paragraphen" (1936)0

Much later than the production of sounds, practical

results were obtained in the recording of sounds on magnetic tapee
The electrically produced sound was not available as a means of
actual musical composition until the methods of sound storage and
tape processing were developed o The first attempts in this di-
rection led to new acoustical models which could be put together
to form montages of sounds. Such montages have a very derinite
 - 8 -

inhibiting effect on composition in the sense of moulded musico

Doubtless, after much tedious, laborious work, such montages
could be managed and given greater significance from a composing
standpoint, and indeed the value of the synthetic montage method
in art is greatly underestimated when the word is used in the
current, derogatory sense, for example, referring to a plloto-
i
montage. What was discovered in these initial models and montages,
i.e., a new acoustical raw material, does not belong to music
proper, but rather to musical propaedeutics, and perhaps also to
something tha"t might be termed, in a general sense, applied arto
Of great importance here, however, is the new treatment of the
magnetiC tape, which is normally only a passive receiver of re-
corded sound processes. The manipulation of the tape as a co~
posing means is something new in music. It is just as certain
that it is possible to "con:q;>ose" by such tape-processing methods g
not in the sense of a Chinese puzzle, but in the traditi~nal
musical sense, as it is that these methods can be used by un-
scrupulous persons for mischievous ends.

The altogether new idea of using the magnetic tape not

only to record music and to retain it for documentary purposes,
but also for the processing of fixed sounds and their trans-
position into other creative planes has only taken shape in the
last few'years o It appears to have arisen simultaneously in
tl. "., I;" . ,~.

various places and among various persons - Pierre Schaeffer in

the Paris Institute of tlMusique concrete", the "Music for tape"
group in New York (Jo Cage, Co Wolff, L. and Bo Baron, O. Luening,
Vo/ Ussachevsky, etco) and the acoustics expert of Bonn University,
WI> Meyer-Eppler o The "Musique concrete" works begun in 1948, and
so far confined to the assembling of sound effects, do not belong
in this context as they consist of non-electronic transformations
of: soundse The American "Music for tape", including some" of
John Cage's "Music for prepared piano":1 frequently intermingles
concrete elements with electronic sounds. Cage's recordings of
feed-back whistling tones are preliminary experimentso Baron's
music for abstract films employs beat-note oscillators and
 - 9-

feed;"'back ef'f'ectso The Itdrawn" film music of' the Canadian$'

McLaren, achieves similar ef'f'ects by a dif'f'erent method. A
summary of' all these dif'ferent methods (Musique concrete 9 elec-
tronic music g prepared music and Music f'or tape) was presented by
the French Broadcasting System at the Paris Convention, "Premiere
decade internationale de la musique experimentale", in June 19530

The first public perfo~ruances of Meyer-Epplert~ experi-

ments took place in 1951 at the Dar.mstadt summer courses in
modern music and in a late evening programme of the Northwest
German Radio Station at Cologne, entitled "The Acoustic World of
Electronic Music", which marked the start of our genuinely musical
I
operations. The first compositions (by Ho Eimert and R.Beyer)
were performed at the Cologne "Festival of Modern Music", 19530
Since then other compositions ofHo Eimert, Ho Heiss g ~ Goeyva~s~
"
P. Gredinger, Ho Pousseur and KeH., Stockhausen (who has r:eceived
the first commission to compose "electronic music tt from Cologne
Radio) have become available o

Fundamental Theoretical Concepts

Electronic acoustical phenomena can be classif'i'ed as.

simple tones 9 complex tones with harmonic partialsg tone mixturesp
noises and intervals.,
1., Simple tones, in this case, refe~ to the pure or
I
sinusoidal tonep without overtones, which is not found in
traditional music, but which is the basis of' all musical sound
processes.. rts overtones, formed ttsubjectivelytt in the err$ are
so weak that tone can be used in composition as an ultimate unit.,
The musical discovery of the sinusoidal tone terminates the
historical analytical development that began with twelve-:-tone
music and passed through the stage of Anton Webernts isol~ted tone
to the tone as distinct from the overtones. Sinusoidal tonea
cannot be used to build up a system of tones in the traditional
sense o They have no place in the traditional scheme of' thingsg
no "tonal" character., The sinusoidal tone system can thus be no
 - 11 -

composition arrangemento The relationship between complex tones,

tone mixtures and intervals contains the core of the nruch .dis-
cussed timbre problem.

New SYstems of Arrangement

The technique of electronic composition reqUire~ a good

deal of knowledge of a k~nd not generally found among musicianso
This includes familiarity with the operation of the apparatuses p
as well as at least an elementary aC~ua1ntanceship with the field
of acoustics (which in its modern t:,brm is essentially electro-
acoustics).. But with the master~, of the "material" the work of.'
composi tion is just begun, .~.!..~ -; '~ the methods of producing and
processing electronic, JJnu~i~al material must grow logically and
directly from the ~~~Ure of.' these materials. It is something
different from ~r:~case where a composer makes himself.' familiar
with the tec~ique of the violin, trumpet or celesta with a view
to compOS~ng for these instruments o Whether he regards any given
kind 0t. .l-tone-producing means as his ttinstrwnent tf or whether he
cons/~ders tape recording as the new technical form of electronic
in~nrumentation, nevertheless the fact that he is no longe~ moving
i~c a solidly constructed tonal system places. him in a totally new.
~~tuationo He finds himself in a realm in which the musical
r'Inaterial for the first time appears as a continuum!) capabie of"
Ibeing shaped!), including all known and unknown~ all imaginable and
all possible sounds o
I
This demands thinking in new dimensions p a form of
thinking which is inseparably bound up with the electronic sound
materials o In the history of music and musical theory there are
plenty of examples of the fact that thinking, even in the 'initial
stages, is directed to the "actual" storerooms and is capable of.'
comprehending hidden and unrevealed meanings,. It has been said
that with electronic music the history of music levels off, as
its material is without tradition and its naturalistic sounds
present themselves to the ear devoid of historical associations -

\
 - 11 -

omposition arrangemento The relationship between complex tones~

one mixtures and intervals contains the core of' the nmch .dis-
ussed timbre proble~

New Systems of' Arrangement

The technique of' electronic composition requiref a good

eal of' knowledge of' a kind not generall~/-f'ound'among nmsicians o
his includes :familiarity with the operation o:f the apparatusesj)
s well as at least an elementary acquaintanceship with the f'ield
r acoustics (which in its modern f'orm is essentially electro-
coustics)o But with the mastery o:f the "material" the work of'
omposi tion is just begun"_;,,, e., the methods o:f producing and
~

pocessing electronic, musical material must grow logically and

irectly :from the nature o:f these materials. It is something
if':ferent f'rom the case where a composer makes himself' f'amiliar
ith the technique of' the violin, trumpet or celesta with a view
D composing f'or these instruments o Whether he regards any given
ind of tone-producing means as his ninstrument" or whether he
onsiders tape recording as the new technical form of' electronic
nstrumentation, nevertheless the :fact that he is no longe~ moving
n a solidly constructed tonal system places him in a totally new'
ituationo He :finds himself in a realm in which the musiqal
aterial :for the first time appears as a continuumI' capab~e of
eing shaped~ including all known and unknown" all imaginable and
11 possible sounds o
I

This demands thinking in new dimensionsj) a form 'of'

hinking which is inseparably bound up with the electronic sound
aterials o In the history of' music and musical theo~ there are
lenty of' examples of' the fact that thinking, even in the~initial
tages, is directed to the "actual" storerooms and is capabl.e of'
omprehending hidden and unrevealed meanings. It has been said
hat with electronic music the history of' music levels off, as
ta material is without tradition and its naturalistic sounds
resent themselves to the ear devoid of' historical associations -
 - 12-

the sculptorts stone is also unhistorical and so is the catgut

which the violinist calls a "string". All acoustical materials
are necessarily devoid of history and tradition. It is only man
using them who is historical. And for him alone is the question
of any importance as to whether the electronic acoustical
material contains those components of order which in the
traditional sense can be called elements of musico

The oldest and most conservative of all tone rational-

izing processes can be said to be the setting up of orderly re~
lationships. The simplest monochord investigation sets up such
orders as well as the ecclesiastical o~tave excerpts~ classical
harmony theory or twelve-tone technique. What is represented in
romantic functional harmonics as tension between a natural bas~
I
and "spiritual motion" has been relegated by twelve-tone techn'-que
to the abstract. The tones derived from the natural base of
harmony themselves become an objective relationship" a process :
I

which is possible only by a dialectic process. Electronic music

is not twelve-tone music, but embraces an infinitely greater
number of combination possibilities. Accordingly, it is so to :
speak more "atonal" than atonal music, but does not share its '
shock effect. While creating relationships between the elements"
it appears abstract by the standards of traditional harmonics.
The fact that the abstract forms are derived from a naturalist~c
I
all-tone sound material, constitutes the unique opportunity of:
I
electronic music o It joins the elemental to the ordered side bf
sound by reaching into chaos and drawing forth the very foundation
plans of music o This is its "style", in the broadest sense in
which the term is currently used, the style of our period" which
takes the measure of the antithetical in its extreme span: the
elemental and the abstract, absence of restraint and precision"
dream world and consciousnesso

The ear quickly imposes a limit on the tonal division

concept of Busonio With electronic means these smallest interval
vJ3.lues distinguishable to the ear can be produced without d:i.:r.f'icul tyo
 - 13 -

However, the basic unit of electronic music is not some micro-

scopic interval, but belongs to quite a different dimensionct It
appears not as a division, but as something abstracted from the
musical sound. It is produceQby the generator as a pure itone
(without overtones) having the form of a sinusoidal oscil+ationo
This sinusoidal tone, which is well known in acoustics, i~ some-
thing totally new in music o Also new is the possibility of
!
com-
posing by structural arrangement of sinusoidal tones combined
I

into sounds. For the first time it is then possible for the
sound structure to become an integral part of the opus st~uctureo
Other structural dimensions are opened up by the possibility of
working with given complex sounds o Such sounds can be the subject
matter of music only if their production is mastered. In~idental
sounds, on the other hand, are spontaneous forms which can be pro-
iuced in unlimited numbers. They should be left to background
music.

Both technically and musically speaking, accurate

iefinition of the work is a fundamental requirement of electronic
nusic. The confusing double sense of the word "composed" should
be borne in mind hereo The inspirational act of composition has
:lothing to do with the practical business of putting things to-
sether. The methods applied to this latter activity are extremely
tedious. Just recently in the C'olognel Stu.:.,dio we have succeeded in
lccoroplishing something at this practical level by means of
iirect tape loop control during the mechanical unwinding of the
Gape. Putting this in terms understandable to the layman, it is
)ossible, with this loop control, to produce a four-voiced Bach
~horal with sinusoidal tones in a single step, i.e., without any
lard tape cuttingoThe machine, so to speak, "interweaves" the
:horal. If the latter is one minute long, then the machine re-
Luires approximately 10 minutes to do the job.

It will be difficult, however, for the layman to under-

:tand the importance of this process. In the simplest terms, it
leans that the machine does what the composer wants it to dOg the
 -14=

exact opposite of' n~~chanical musicUolt would be an errof to

suppose that it is merely necessary to construct apparatus$s
and machines in order to produce electronic music e People1not
machines are the prime requisite - technicians and musiciaAs
ceaseless~ engaged in a cooperative effort to solve the p*ob-
I
lems of electronic musico