Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and electric guitar.
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener.
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It is often "peaceful" sounding and lacks composition, beat, and/or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electronic music and music technology, as well as its popular scores for programmes such as Doctor Who and Quatermass and the Pit during the 1950s and 1960s.
Digital music technology encompasses the use of digital instruments, computers, electronic effects units, software, or digital audio equipment by a performer, composer, sound engineer, DJ, or record producer to produce, perform or record music. The term refers to electronic devices, instruments, computer hardware, and software used in performance, playback, recording, composition, mixing, analysis, and editing of music.
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally.
A music sequencer is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound Control, and possibly audio and automation data for digital audio workstations (DAWs) and plug-ins.
Daphne Blake Oram was a British composer and electronic musician. She was one of the first British composers to produce electronic sound, and was an early practitioner of musique concrète in the UK. As a co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, she was central to the development of British electronic music. Her uncredited scoring work on the 1961 film The Innocents helped to pioneer the electronic soundtrack.
Delia Ann Derbyshire was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including her electronic arrangement of the theme music to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. She has been referred to as "the unsung heroine of British electronic music", having influenced musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.
Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instruments. It 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 Studio for Electronic Music 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 20th century.
Frederick Charles Judd was a British inventor, amateur radio operator, and proselytiser of early British electronic music.
The Variophone was developed by Evgeny Sholpo in 1930 at Lenfilm Studio Productions, in Leningrad, the Soviet Union, during his experiments with graphical sound techniques, also known as ornamental, drawn, paper, artificial or synthetic sound. In his research Sholpo was assisted by the composer Georgy Rimsky‐Korsakov. The Variophone was an optical synthesizer that utilized sound waves cut onto cardboard disks rotating synchronously with a moving 35mm movie film while being photographed onto it to produce a continuous soundtrack. Afterwards this filmstrip is played as a normal movie by means of a film projector. Being read by photocell, amplified and monitored by a loudspeaker, it functions as a musical recording process.
A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI.
The use of electronic music technology in rock music coincided with the practical availability of electronic musical instruments and the genre's emergence as a distinct style. Rock music has been highly dependent on technological developments, particularly the invention and refinement of the synthesizer, the development of the MIDI digital format and computer technology.
Graphical sound or drawn sound is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are several different techniques depending on the technology employed, but all are a consequence of the sound-on-film technology and based on the creation of artificial optical polyphonic sound tracks on transparent film.
Steven Woloshen is a Canadian film animator and a pioneer of drawn-on-film animation.
Sarah Angliss is a composer, sound designer, producer and performer based in London UK. She creates new music and soundworlds for film, theatre, opera and the concert stage, including her own live performances. Sarah's music uses voices, orchestral and ancient instruments, augmented them with Max, electronics and her own hand-built robotic music machines. Angliss is also a professional thereminist and woodwind player and applies her own extended and electronic techniques to various instruments. In November 2018 she received a Composer's Award from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and on 8 December 2021 she received an Ivor Novello Award. The Ivors Committee commented she “stays true to her artistic concepts, to create unique compositions that connect to the listener with emotional depth and great beauty, never failing to leave a lasting impression.”. Her opera Giant opened in Aldeburgh Festival 7 June 2023 and transferred to The Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House 6 March 2024.
Jo Thomas is a composer, sound artist, producer and performer of electronic music based in London. She works primarily with electronic sound, with a focus on fine detail and abstraction combining technological, biological and emotive thematic elements. Her work utilises a wide range of sound sources including field recordings, voice, glitch, and synthesised sounds from various sources, including her own self-built instruments.
Henrietta Smith-Rolla, is a British-born Ghanaian-Russian-German composer, producer and DJ based in Manchester, performing under the alias Afrodeutsche. Alongside her prolific DJ career, she has produced music for her own studio album, as well as music for television and film, including composing the score for BAFTA nominated short film Kamali.
