Mixed music

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Mixed music is music combining acoustic instruments and fixed-media electronics (e.g concrete sounds, sound-file playback etc) [1] or more generally, music which combines acoustic-instrumental and electronic sounds sources (to the exclusion of electrically amplified instruments, such as the electric guitar and electronic instruments such as the theremin, electronic organs & keyboards, etc); mixed music is therefore a subcategory of electronic music. [2] While this term could be applied to many genres, the term mixed music generally refers to contemporary classical music repertoire and is therefore distinct from live electronic music.

Musical instrument History and classification

A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications.

Electroacoustic music is a style of Western art music which originated around the middle of the 20th century, following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition to fixed media during the 20th century are associated with the activities of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales at the ORTF in Paris, the home of musique concrète, the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) studio in Cologne, where the focus was on the composition of elektronische Musik, and the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City, where tape music, electronic music, and computer music were all explored. Practical electronic music instruments began to appear in the early 1900s.

Electric guitar electrified guitar; fretted stringed instrument with a neck and body that uses a pickup to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals. The vibration occurs when a guitar player strums, plucks, fingerpicks, slaps or taps the strings. The pickup generally uses electromagnetic induction to create this signal, which being relatively weak is fed into a guitar amplifier before being sent to the speaker(s), which converts it into audible sound.

Contents

The term Mixed music is probably a calque of the French musique mixte which connotes the same material and stylistic implications. [3]

In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation. Used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new lexeme in the target language.

History

Significant early works

Déserts (1950–1954) is a piece by Edgard Varèse for 14 winds, 5 percussion players, 1 piano, and electronic tape. Percussion instruments are exploited for their resonant potential, rather than used solely as accompaniment. According to Varèse the title of the piece regards, "not only physical deserts of sand, sea, mountains, and snow, outer space, deserted city streets... but also distant inner space... where man is alone in a world of mystery and essential solitude."

All those that people traverse or may traverse: physical deserts, on the earth, in the sea, in the sky, of sand, of snow, of interstellar spaces or of great cities, but also those of the human spirit, of that distant inner space no telescope can reach, where one is alone.

Brass instrument class of musical instruments

A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments".

Woodwind instrument family of musical wind instruments

Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the more general category of wind instruments. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments. What differentiates these instruments from other wind instruments is the way in which they produce their sound. All woodwinds produce sound by splitting an exhaled air stream on a sharp edge, such as a reed or a fipple. A woodwind may be made of any material, not just wood. Common examples include brass, silver, cane, as well as other metals such as gold and platinum. Occasionally woodwinds are made out of earthen materials, especially ocarinas. Common examples include flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone.

Associated institutions & significant works

A number of institutions have been key in the evolution of technologies pertinent to the creation of mixed music:

IRCAM

IRCAM is a French institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organisationally linked with, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Much of the institute is located underground, beneath the fountain to the east of the buildings.

Pierre Boulez French composer, conductor, writer, and pianist

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez CBE was a French composer, conductor, writer and founder of institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of the post-war classical music world.

Dialogue de l'ombre double is a mixed work by Pierre Boulez for clarinet and electroacoustic device composed in 1985. The play is dedicated to Luciano Berio for his sixtieth birthday. There exists a version for bassoon, for saxophone, for transverse flute and for recorder, each made by the performer themself.

Suggested further reading

Related Research Articles

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<i>Mikrophonie</i> (Stockhausen)

Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations. .. are made audible by an active process of sound detection ; the microphone is used actively as a musical instrument, in contrast to its former passive function of reproducing sounds as faithfully as possible”.

Live electronic music is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the practice developed in reaction to sound-based composition for fixed media such as musique concrète, electronic music and early computer music. Musical improvisation often plays a large role in the performance of this music. The timbres of various sounds may be transformed extensively using devices such as amplifiers, filters, ring modulators and other forms of circuitry. Real-time generation and manipulation of audio using live coding is now commonplace.

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References

  1. ↑ Landy, Leigh (2007) Understanding the Art of Sound Organization, pp.154-155.
  2. ↑ Collins, Karen; Kapralos, Bill; Tessler, Holly (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio. Oxford University Press. p. 302.
  3. ↑ Lecrenier, Philippe. "Musique mixte, à la frontière des genres".
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