Electronic music
Along with Daphne Oram, Fred was enthusiastically promoting electronic music to the British public via demonstrations and lectures to amateur tape recording clubs up and down the country. In 1961 his book Electronic Music and Musique Concrete was published – one of the earliest in the world to tackle the subject and provide practical information and circuit diagrams. Two years later he became chief editor of ATR and began issuing 7” records made available through the magazine. Castle and sister label Contrast issued a range of sound effects discs recorded by Fred, including 3 disks of electronic music. Some of these tracks were later issued by library label Studio G on the Electronic Age album.
By the start of 1963 Fred had designed and built his own prototype synthesizer – a simple voltage controlled, keyboard-operated unit for generating, shaping and switching electronic sounds – a small but significant development in the history of the synthesizer, as it predates the Synket, Moog and Buchla instruments.
Broadcast in 1963 on the ITV network, the sci-fi puppet show Space Patrol was the first on British television to feature a specially composed electronic music soundtrack running throughout the whole series. Fred created the sounds with tape manipulation, loops and tone generators in his home studio in London.
Fred’s investigations into the visualisation of electronic sounds led to his system Chromasonics. This was a modified b&w television to which he added new pulse generating and amplifying circuitry, along with a high speed colour scanning wheel in front of the screen. This apparatus yielded full colour abstract patterns moving in accordance with the sound input from oscillators or tape recordings. Chromasonics was demonstrated to great acclaim at the 1963 Audio Fair in London, but interest from electronics firm Stuzzi did not lead to commercial development.
Later career, legacy
Fred was a great amateur radio enthusiast with his call sign G2BCX, and his innovative designs for the Slim Jim and ZL Special aerial antennas are still in use today. From the late 1970s, he operated from his home in Cantley, Norfolk. Towards the end of his life, he built several detailed reconstructions of early electrical devices including a Wimshurst machine and Edison phonograph. He was honoured by the University of East Anglia for constructing a working replica of apparatus used by Heinrich Hertz, but it seems that none of this equipment, the Chromasonics apparatus or his experimental music-making machinery has survived. However, starting in 2010 all of his remaining original quarter inch tapes have been catalogued and deposited with the British Library Sound Archive.
In 2011, Judd was the focus of Practical Electronica, an experimental documentary by Ian Helliwell, covering Fred’s work with electronic sound and amateur tape recording. A retrospective album gathering together as much of his experimental music as can be located, is being released by the Public Information label. Judd was a regular contributor to Practical Wireless magazine.
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology 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 the electric guitar.
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, 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 Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. As the key is released, the tape is retracted by a spring to its initial position. Different portions of the tape can be played to access different sounds.
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.
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally.
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.
Glitch is a genre of electronic music that emerged in the 1990s. It is distinguished by the deliberate use of glitch-based audio media and other sonic artifacts.
Frederick James "F.J." Camm was an English technical author and magazine editor. He founded several radio and electronics titles, including Practical Mechanics, Practical Motorist, Practical Television, and Practical Wireless, some of which are still in circulation.
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
Chris Brown is an American composer, pianist and electronic musician, who creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. He was active early in his career as an inventor and builder of electroacoustic instruments; he has also performed widely as an improviser and pianist with groups as "Room" and the "Glenn Spearman Double Trio." In 1986 he co-founded the pioneering computer network music ensemble "The Hub". He is also known for his recorded performances of music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, and John Zorn. He has received commissions from the Berkeley Symphony, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, the Gerbode Foundation, the Phonos Foundation and the Creative Work Fund. His recent music includes the poly-rhythm installation "Talking Drum", the "Inventions" series for computers and interactive performers, and the radio performance "Transmissions" series, with composer Guillermo Galindo.
David C. Johnson is an American composer, flautist, and performer of live electronic music.
Armstrong Audio, originally called Armstrong Wireless and Television Ltd. was a British manufacturer of radios and other audio equipment based in London, England. Founded by Claude Charles Jackson in 1932.
Lisle Ellis, is a Canadian jazz bassist and composer who is known for his improvisational style and use of electronics.
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.
The following timeline tables list the discoveries and inventions in the history of electrical and electronic engineering.
Francis George Rayer T.Eng.(CEI). Assoc.IERE was a British science fiction writer and technical journalist.
Electric music technology refers to musical instruments and recording devices that use electrical circuits, which are often combined with mechanical technologies. Examples of electric musical instruments include the electro-mechanical electric piano, the electric guitar, the electro-mechanical Hammond organ and the electric bass. All of these electric instruments do not produce a sound that is audible by the performer or audience in a performance setting unless they are connected to instrument amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets, which made them sound loud enough for performers and the audience to hear. Amplifiers and loudspeakers are separate from the instrument in the case of the electric guitar, electric bass and some electric organs and most electric pianos. Some electric organs and electric pianos include the amplifier and speaker cabinet within the main housing for the instrument.
Laurie Scott Baker was a British composer and musician of Experimental and Electronic music. He was a pioneer of live electronics and graphic scores from the 1960s.
Voice of America is a 1982 live collaborative album of improvised experimental music by Fred Frith, Bob Ostertag and Phil Minton. It was recorded live at PASS, New York City in January 1981, and the Actual Festival at the ICA, London in August 1981. The album was released on LP by Rift Records in 1982. RecRec Music reissued the album on CD in 1994.
George Newson is an English composer and pianist who made some important contributions to British electronic and avant garde music during the 1960s and 1970s and has subsequently composed large and small-scale works in many musical forms and styles, from songs and chamber music to choral works and opera. As a photographer, Newson has taken portraits of many of his composer contemporaries.
