<p>I have been trying to understand terminology, as well as different aesthetics, in the world of electronic and electroacoustic composition. My daughter sent me this history/overview today and I thought I would share it, even if it is Wikipedia, because this terminology comes up on the forum often.</p>
<p>I think the article helps differentiate "electronic" from "electroacoustic" thought I am still pretty overwhelmed by all this.</p>
<p>Here is a footnote:
"Electroacoustic music uses electronics to modify sounds from the natural world. The entire spectrum of worldly sounds provides the source material for this music. This is the domain of microphones, tape recorders and digital samplers can be associated with live or recorded music. During live performances, natural sounds are modified in real time using electronics. The source of the sound can be anything from ambient noise to live musicians playing conventional instruments."</p>
<p>My daughter is considering grad school but trying to find the right fit. It has been interesting to listen as her music evolves, as many other students' music will evolve over their college/conservatory years. Her thesis involved mixed acoustic and electroacoustic elements. I am trying to at least be minimally understanding of the issues in any conversations with her as she tries to choose grad schools to apply to.</p>
<p>Hope this is helpful to others, whether a future film scorer, rock songwriter, classical composer who wants to add recorded sounds to a performance, or a programmer generating music with a laptop.</p>
<p>This time around I don’t say much, just listen, but I will slip this into the conversation Thanks! It does reintroduce conservatories in the mix: Peabody’s grad funding isn’t bad at all.</p>
<p>I appreciate these ideas, but I guess I should make clear that I am actually not looking for tips on places for my daughter to look at. She has many people to consult with at this stage of the game and knows what she wants. I am not involved other than as an occasional humble listener. I probably should not have mentioned her at all, except that I was trying to make the point that these terms are used to mean many things and the search for a fit is nuanced.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was mainly hoping folks would enjoy the Wikipedia history and might even discuss the terminology a little. The forum gets a lot of posts from people interested in music technology, production, recording technology, sound engineering etc. Also film scoring, games. Engineers who want to compose, Rock songwriters or electric guitarists using technology. It seems that every conservatory and college program that focuses on classical composition also has an electroacoustic labs.</p>
<p>All of this newish musical activity intersects in various ways, and every program has a slightly different focus. So reading the history and background of what was going on was interesting, and I just wanted to share it :)</p>
<p>Oh yes, I am certain that our postings will have no bearing on your D’s choices! But it’s interesting to reference the various programs, especially to younger readers who have no clue as to what’s out there.</p>
<p>Compmom, you are right about it being a very nuanced field with a lot of confusion about the terms. I am not so sure that electro acoustic still retains the purity of “natural and acoustic sounds modified electronically” although there are probably individuals who will define it rigidly. It is confusing enough in the academic/classical world. Take a look at the sub genres of electronic pop world. there might be a hundred defined sub genre. Now add in the ability of the listener to interact with the composition through digital and mechanical interfaces, real time sound synthesis based on environmental input, electromechanical instruments that blend digital/analog and physical computing, generative music that evolves and creates itself based on composer created rules and you start to really rethink the role of the composer even more than defining what sub genre a “written piece” belongs to.</p>
<p>Sometimes there even seems to be very little “human agency” involved…by intention. </p>
<p>Interesting that you mention academia and the pop world, which in some ways seem to be intersecting more, through electronic work.</p>
<p>My daughter has so far done the “pure” electroacoustic work of either using sounds she creates with anything from sheet metal to party favors, or recording instrumentalists and then manipulating those recordings in the lab, mixing with a purely acoustic composition and performance. </p>
<p>Musictechdad, do you have a family member studying or working in any of these genres or subgenres, or do you do that work at all yourself?</p>
<p>My son is a HS senior preparing to apply to composition programs. He has been studying composition for traditional acoustic instruments with a composition professor but his other passions are electronic instruments (especially analog synthesis), DIY/handmade instruments and controllers (primarily along the lines of physical computing with Arduino and homemade circuits), noise art, and avant grade (I use this term broadly and loosely) composers.</p>
<p>The top of his list is Oberlin with Bard, MSM, and maybe CalArts slightly below. Any knowledge I have in this area is owed to watching his interests develop over the last few years. I need to do my homework so that I can continue to have somewhat informed conversations with him. I am quite sure that he would probably correct most of what I say and give a far more in depth and insightful critique of the world of academic electronic music. </p>
<p>Interestingly, he is not a fan of the kind of popular electronic dance music that most people would associate with electronic music. No David Guetta or Skillex or the like. He does like Nine Inch Nails though.</p>
<p>Musictechdad, you are way ahead of me in holding up your end of the conversation. </p>
<p>Can you explain analog synthesis, and also " DIY/handmade instruments and controllers (primarily along the lines of physical computing with Arduino and homemade circuits)."</p>
<p>Is he primarily interested in TIMARA? I think that Sam Pluta is at MSM: he’s great. Spirit Manager knows a lot about Bard.</p>
<p>“Noise art” is an interesting term I have not heard. Some graduate programs are in “sound/music.” My daughter recently said that with acoustic composition, she tends to make sound out of music, and with electroacoustic, she makes music out of sound </p>
<p>Your comment about most people associating the term “electronic music” with popular dance music is exactly why I posted the Wikipedia piece, which does, in fact, mention dance music toward the end. When people post on this forum about music and technology, or about electronic music, I am never quite sure what they are asking about.</p>
<p>What avant-garde composers does he like (and I’ll bet he has exposed you to)? Did he find them on his own or has his professor/teacher introduced him to a lot of works?</p>
<p>Your son has the acoustic composition and the technological skills and interests. Many grad programs have students from both backgrounds, with a lot of cross-pollination. Your son, at a relatively young age, brings both talents to the table. Wishing him luck!</p>
<p>MusicTechDad, your son might enjoy Umich’s PAT program
Because if I had to describe it, this probably best represents the nut of many conversations I’ve had with my son trying to understand and capture his area of study in that program :):</p>
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<p>Compmom, I’ve spent the last four years trying to tease out the many nuances in this field. Like musictechdad, my son also started out with a degree of traditional composition skills, performance skills, and recording/mixing/mastering skills.
(Note – this is in part a response to a pm about what said kid studied :))</p>
<p>He also enjoys experimentation via the creation of instruments, controllers and Arduino. Just another way to create an aural experience using technology, in essence. The geek version of Hendrix :)</p>
<p>But he doesn’t define his work as electro acoustic, per se, although he would define SOME of his work that way. He more or less views technology as the tool to create an experience for an audience that is not genre-specific. EA has come for some to mean a fairly specific feel or aesthetic (think Cage, Oliveros). At the same time, the approaches used in EA find their way into all sorts of music, especially when it comes to video game music, for example, but even in “traditional” pop :)</p>
<p>His particular study of music technology has been to master the science, technology and compositional theory to write, produce and “program” music whether the sounds are electronic, hybrid, captured, organic, or synthetic and whether it is delivered via live performance or like a live interactive performance (think multimedia performance or live looping or electronic performances using an AP40 or notepad computer with often additional visual experiences) situational interactively (eg like a video game where the environmental music shifts according to play action) or produced/mastered for traditional delivery.</p>
<p>So the problem with the term “music technology” is that it is very broad. But the problem with “electronic music” is that suggests the exclusion of acoustic capture, which IMO, is not true (there are always acoustic instruments captured and modified in my son’s electronic compositions ;)) The problem with “ElectroAcoustic” as a term is that on one hand, technically speaking, it describes a now-common process, yet on the other, describes a pretty specific style of composition that is perhaps more experimental and academic than the average student seeking music technology is after.</p>
<p>By way of example, we recently had a poster on these threads interested in music technology as it relates to film scoring, but whose decided aesthic was definitely classical.</p>
<p>In McSon’s program, which was one part composition, mcson wrote and produced things as varied as: a classical minimalist piece for string quartet; an interactive exhibit whereby the users would pick up a phone at a sound station and have their words mixed in with generated and algorithmically controlled segments then produced on the fly with the resulting “piece” produced via speakers in the trees (kid ya not); electronic dance music; experimental ambient music; indie pop songs with a mix of traditional instruments and found sounds, drone music; chip tunes, short film scores and foley work, interactive visual events where the music generated visual graphical interpretations, and so on.</p>
<p>His particular curriculum, however, had the interactive media element. The engineering curriculum would have had more time spent on honing capture, mixing, and mastering, although he did study each. The difference was that in upper year courses, he took more interactive programming/performance systems/computer composition courses, and fewer upper level recording courses. </p>
<p>Where this leaves us in terms of understanding how best to assist students seeking “music technology” degrees is basically a set of questions about what the student would like to be able to do, what the students level of music performance, composition, programming, live capture, sequencing and mixing to date is, whether or not the student is mainly interested in creating their own music or producing others, and what kind of proficiency the student has in science and math, plus what kind of music the student prefers to make/is most interested in.</p>
<p>Beyond that, I think I’d need a degree in it myself to tease out the nuances of the labels :)</p>
<p>Analog synthesis is really just the act of creating sounds using analog circuits by taking a wave and manipulating various properties. Digital circuits can do the similar things e.g. inside of a computer. On some level they can produce the same sounds but he is drawn to vintage modular analog synthesizers all the way down to circuit bent toys and home built circuits that he solders together. Handmade instruments is along the same lines but can also include various controllers that can control signals or midi in addition to things that make their own noise.</p>
<p>Noise art is kinda along the lines of what TIMARA does as well as programs like School of the Art Institute of Chicago and CalArts. He doesn’t really want to study that at the UG level. He would like to get a stronger foundation in Composition first. He is drawn to that area but is thinking of waiting until grad school for that kind of specialization. </p>
<p>He is self-taught for a lot of things including being drawn to various types of Avant Garde music. His composition teacher has helped, too. Looking at his Spotify playlists I see people like Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, Gyorgy Ligeti, Luigi Nono, George Crumb, Wolfgang Rihm.</p>
<p>Well, I am glad to read some of these explanations. And this discussion hasn’t even gotten into the different aesthetics involved.</p>
<p>Some schools separate composition and electronic work, some don’t and recognize the contributions along the musician-techie spectrum. Randomly, today I was looking at Purchase, and found classical composition, then, under music production and technology, studio composition and studio production as areas of study, with overlap. It can be hard to figure out the best program, even within a school.</p>
<p>Musictechdad, your son sounds both wise and patient. Kmcmom, it sounds like your son was able to hone his interests in the final two years in a way that preserved his compositional development.</p>
<p>This thread may raise more questions than answers, but I think it might be useful…</p>
<p>I think your original idea has a lot of value. It might help someone down the line if we start to develop some shared language around these topics. For simplicity’s sake it might be easiest by teasing out the various potential career paths presented by different types of programs that involve music + technology. I am sure many things are missing but here is a start:</p>
<p>Sound/Recording Engineer
Sound Designer
Sound Artist
Electrical Engineer with focus on music/sound
Acoustical Engineer
Software Designer
Product Design/Engineering with focus on music/sound/instruments/electronics
Composer: Fine arts with emphasis on electronic/computer music
Composer: Scoring for intermedia and interactive
Popular Electronic Music Composer/Creator/Arranger
Popular Electronic music performer/producer</p>
<p>Cincinati College-Conservatory has two separate programs that might interest the technology-oriented music student. John Owens is a great contact person if you have questions.</p>
<p>Musictechdad, that’s a great list. This thread has helped me a lot and I hope in the future students/applicants can do a search and see your posts and kmcmom’s too. </p>
<p>I think that one thing that got me thinking (apart from my daughter’s investigations) is that there has been a recent reference to a well-known film composer who barely reads music. I can now see how that might be possible.</p>
<p>I also like some of the reference here of terms like “noise”, “sound,” and…" music" (as well as what a composer actually is and will be in this technological context).</p>
<p>From now on, when someone comes on this forum asking questions in any of these areas, it will help to know exactly how broad, varied and nuances the different fields are.</p>
<p>p.s. I googled Arduino at my daughter’s suggestion and still don’t really understand!</p>
<p>ps More classically or academically inclined composers can apparently love and do well at electroacoustic composition and not be very technologically oriented at all, the flip side of a techie being able to do music composition. There are great grad programs that basically rely on students coming from all these directions to a place where they can help each other.</p>
<p>Compmom, I think comp/tech graduate school is one of the things my son is thinking about. He would rather have a very strong foundation in composition with a secondary emphasis on technology during his undergraduate studies and then pursue a Masters degree (if he should be so lucky) at places like Mills, Stanford, Yale, UCSD, Harvard where he can go deeper into electronic, computer, and electroacoustic composition. I am sure you can also get to the same grad programs through more technical degrees. </p>
<p>An Arduino is a type of prototyping microprocessor board. It is a low-cost mini computing device that is somewhat easy to program and make do things. You can use them as the brain in robotics, people put them in weather balloons to handle GPS and tracking duties. In music they can be turned into little synthesizers or guitar effects pedals or midi controllers. You can control sensors, displays, input devices and more. Since they are small and low cost they can be embedded in things where it would otherwise be too expensive or risky or small to stick a laptop.</p>
<p>Compmom, this is where it gets tricky in terms of advising students we don’t know, especially composers who have an interest in technology or technologically inclined students who enjoy composing. :)</p>
<p>Musictechdad’s son has ferreted out that composition is his central focus, so rightly, to my mind, that sounds like its going to be his undergrad emphasis. I personally think my son would have benefitted from this approach, but he has and has always had too many fingers in too many pies (In retrospect, you can tell this from his transcript…his highest grades and perfect scores we always related to the creation of music. I once noted to him that was a signal that comp should have been his central focus, to which he replied that he went to school to learn things doesn’t know as well!)</p>
<p>But in the case of Musictechdad, it also sounds like his son, through experimentation, has gathered some strong experience with programming languages, music sequencing software, and has a strong technological base which hopefully can be maintained and expanded during his study of composition (eg TIMARA at Oberlin.)</p>
<p>Because at the graduate level, a composition student applying to something like Mills for the electronic and recording masters, will be asked to describe what programming languages, hardware they’ve worked with, what level of experience they have in circuitry, etc. and will submit detailed tech notes with portfolio materials wherein the production values themselves will form part of the evaluation.</p>
<p>By contrast, someone applying to the masters of composition at Mills will be asked about their experience in electroacoustic composition.</p>
<p>Both will be asked to submit three recordings of their work, composers including scores and electronic applicants submitting aesthetic notes, tools and techniques.</p>
<p>I thought this example might be useful because it begins to articulate where the two paths seem to depart. In theory, my son could apply to either masters program at Mills, and in his case conceivably have a shot (we’re not likely to know that de facto until well after he’s moved to SF and determined whether he even wants to continue or whether he’s content to work without further study…his gf has this year yet to finish her performing arts degree and he’s signed on to her lease :)) </p>
<p>But in his case, he’ll wonder whether his composition background is adequate, and on the flip side, whether his programming and circuit work is similarly as polished as fellow applicants, considering he has truly been hybrid all along and ergo is not as highly specialized in either as a straight comp undergrad or an Eng music grad from his university.</p>
<p>However, he did not choose his undergrad path with the notion of specialization Frankly, he chose it the way a hungry Hamlet might order a pizza…every available discipline mixed in…and of course when he started, he was also a dual degree student in film, which he later abandoned only once he realized his degree gave him access to all the upper level film production courses…and all of which he took :)</p>
<p>So perhaps the most germane question of all for a prospective music technology student might be “if you were locked in a room for 24 hours with every instrument you can play, every daw or capture hardware you know of, every conceivable controller, sequencer, software relating to music, unlimited computing power, what percentage of time would be spent writing a song?”</p>
<p>If the kid were too geeked by the equipment to write a song, they’re straight up tech and just don’t know it yet. If they spent more time composing a song than exploring the tech, and used the tech in service of the song, they’re a composer who’s technologically inclined
And if they created a song via exploration of what the tech could do, well then they’re probably what you call a “sound artist.”</p>
Thanks! It does reintroduce conservatories in the mix: Peabody’s grad funding isn’t bad at all.</p>
