Please note that the view point here is of the writer and not necessarily that of the club or it's members.
This is a question that I have been asked time and time again. How do
you explain it to some one who is a new comer to this particular form of
music? Firstly you ask the question of what makes this type of music
electronic, and the obvious answer is by using electronic instruments, but
is that really so obvious? Many people believe that in order to be
successful in EM you must use the latest all singing, all dancing, fuel
injected DX 16 valve turbo to produce your music on. When you go to a
concert and see artists such as Tangerine Dream or Rick Wakeman with a
stage full of gear, how often do you think "I must have gear like him
to be successful". This is not the case, because EM can be produced
with equipment of any type regardless of how new or old it is. Infact you
do not have to use a synth to do it. Much of the first pioneering work was
done using nothing more than tape machines and modified organs. Listen to
something like Tangerine Dreams's Alpha Syntauri or Electronic Meditation
and you will hear how household objects fed through effects they created
totally new sounds. Another example is the early music for Dr.Who created
by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Before they had their fabled EMS Synthi
100 and VCS3's they relied on nothing more than oscillator banks, signal
generators and Mellotrons. With a little creative use anything can sound
inspiring. Take as an example the Jean Michel Jarre tracks that were
played at the first club meeting. I am sure that we had a few of you
fooled even if you do not like to admit it. The programmer of that used
the instrument's weaknesses for effect. (To everyone that was not there
that night, some Jarre tracks were performed exclusively from a Yamaha
TG100).
My second point is about what makes EM is how many categories are within
it. Today it has many avenues that have branched off after being given a
new tag by the music press and public. In the seventies Tangerine Dream
and Klaus Schulze were merely new electronic music. Today they are
described as new age, ambient, progressive and even Kraut rock. The same
can go for Kraftwerk, electro pop, industrial, Euro disco and Techno? Take
your pick as there are enough suggestions. My point here is does it really
matter that we must categorize the music to it's smallest detail. Surely
all that matters is that the artist produces enjoyable and innovative
electronic music.
My last point is that of electronic music being performed live. The
argument here is that how much of the music must be played live? Unless
you are able to hire roadies to transport your gear around, it becomes
very difficult to take a lot of it on stage with you. The number of times
I have wished I have had someone to transport my Hammond C3 to gigs. A
sticky point to make here is that because of this, do we take out
sequencers or tapes? EM by it's very nature cannot all be played live
because of the multitudes of parts playing. Sequencers allow us to have
these playing alongside ourselves, thus enabling all the music to be
played as we intended it to be. They can also be treated as musical
instrument in their own right allowing parts to be played that would be
impossible by any musician to attempt. They can also be very temperamental
on stage and have a tendency to crash, in particular old faithful, the
Atari (major fight breaks out within editorial team disagreeing that
the Atari does not crash, merely some poorly written software does - ed).
Tape backup is very handy if anything does happen to your sequencer, as it
means you do not have to walk away from your show with your head bent
down. An example of this is the last Erasure tour where boffin Clarke,
used various Jupiters, Prophets and Oberheims all triggered by a Roland
MC4. This system packed up several times during the tour and was saved by
using DAT backups. In my viewpoint I think I have aired the most common
questions about EM and hopefully answered them well enough to give you a
better understanding.
DH
If anyone has any strong feelings about EM, write about it and submit it to BSC
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