ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENT

any musical instrument that produces or modifies sounds by electric, and usually electronic, means. The electronic element in such music is determined by the composer, and the sounds themselves are made or changed electronically. Instruments such as the electric guitar that generate sound by acoustic or mechanical means but that amplify the sound electrically or electronically are also considered electronic instruments. Their construction and resulting sound, however, are usually relatively similar to those of their nonelectronic counterparts. any musical instrument that produces or modifies sounds by electric, and usually electronic, means. The electronic element in such music is determined by the composer, and the sounds themselves are made or changed electronically. Instruments such as the electric guitar that generate sound by acoustic or mechanical means but amplify the sound electrically or electronically are also considered electronic instruments. Their construction and resulting sound, however, are usually relatively similar to those of their nonelectronic counterparts. The origins of electronic music go back to the 200-ton, telharmonium exhibited by the American inventor Thaddeus Cahill in Massachusetts and New York in 1906. More manageable electronic instruments were subsequently built in the 1920s and '30s, most notably various electronic organs (such as the Hammond organ) and the Ondes Martenot of the French inventor Maurice Martenot, which has an important place in the French composer Olivier Messiaen's Turangalla-Symphonie (194648) and other works. Meanwhile other composers, including the Frenchman Edgard Varse and the German Paul Hindemith, were exploring the possibilities of transforming sounds with the use of the phonograph, or gramophone: playing records at different speeds, backwards, and so on. Such sound-manipulation techniques became much easier to use when tape recorders became available about 1950. The development of tape music then began in earnest, led by the French composer Pierre Schaeffer, who established a studio in Paris for what he called musique concrte. His work attracted the attention of several composers, notably Varse, who worked there in 1954 on the tape for his Dserts, interweaving orchestral passages with electronic excursions. He used similar techniques of assembling purely electronic sounds with natural sounds (factory noises and music from instruments and voices) in his Pome lectronique (195758), which exists entirely on tape. Besides this kind of collage work, there were also in the 1950s attempts to produce music solely by electronic means of generation, by deriving tones from oscillators, recording them on tape, and perhaps modifying or editing them at will. A notable example of such a device is the theremin (q.v.), which in its original form was not actually touched by the performer. The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen created his Elektronische Studien (195354) by means of oscillators, at the studio for elektronische Musik established in Cologne in 1951. Other technological advances after World War II led to the design of various score-reading instruments that were programmed by punched cards or rolls rather than controlled by conventional keyboards or fingerboards. Perhaps the most successful instrument of this type was the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer (called the Mark II) installed in 1951 at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. Despite its name, the RCA Synthesizer was not a synthesizer in the modern sense. It was designed to be used in a studio as a composition aid and not for real-time, live performance. The American composer Milton Babbitt frequently employed the Mark II in his works. A third significant postwar development was the rapid growth of the market for electronic organs, especially for home use. This wide acceptance of an electronic instrument, combined with advances in tape music and the score-reading instruments, helped prepare the way for the next stage of development: the introduction of the music synthesizer (q.v.). The first synthesizers were actually systems of compatible, interchangeable electronic components. When these components, or modules, were connected, they enabled the composer or musician not only to produce but also to process sounds with unprecedented flexibility. These synthesizers were usually equipped with a piano-style keyboard or other manual control device to facilitate use and were soon being played in live performances. The two best known of the early synthesizers were those designed by the American inventors Robert A. Moog and Donald F. Buchla, both introduced in 1964. As synthesizers became more compact and generally available, they were quickly adopted by popular musicianssometimes to the exclusion of all other types of instruments. The main development of the 1970s, though initiated in the previous decade, was the increasing use of the computer as a musical tool. Computer music appealed to composers interested in a high degree of exact control (as exerted, for example, in the American composer Charles Dodge's tape pieces), but it also proved a suitable medium for composers inclined, like John Cage in his various electronic works dating back to the 1930s, to use electronic imagery to stimulate a new kind of consciousness brought into being by the electronic age. By the 1980s, digital computer techniques were being used to control every aspect of sound: pitch, colour, loudness, and the change of these qualities in real-time. It also became possible to sample (digitally record) any sound for playback on a synthesizer. Additional reading General surveys of the electronic music scene are Thomas B. Holmes, Electronic and Experimental Music (1985), with an extensive detailed discography; Andy Mackay, Electronic Music (1981); and Paul Griffiths, A Guide to Electronic Music (1979). Analog synthesizer technology is emphasized in Allen Strange, Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls, 2nd ed. (1983). Joel Naumann and James D. Wagoner, Analog Electronic Music Techniques: In Tape, Electronic, and Voltage-Controlled Synthesizer Studios (1985), is a technical discussion of tape composition, analog synthesizers, and basic electronic composition techniques. Charles Dodge and Thomas A. Jerse, Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance (1985), is another technical overview. Thomas H. Wells, The Technique of Electronic Music, 2nd ed. (1981), discusses electronic music composition without reference to specific equipment. An important standard for compatibility in digital sound equipment is the subject of Craig Anderton, MIDI for Musicians (1986); and Jeff Rona, MIDI, the Ins, Outs & Thrus (1987). Deta S. Davis, Computer Applications in Music: A Bibliography (1988), offers a valuable reference source for independent research. Robert A. Moog