Introduction
Today, a number of different objects and areas of life are of great importance in a person’s life because they give the elements of fun and entertainment to that individual. Entertainment and pursuing lines for relaxation, fun, and excitement have been with a human being for as long as we can look back. As such, music, in all its popular form and genres, has always inspired humankind because of its soul-touching and soul-soothing quality. Humankind has always sought to play and listen to music in times good or bad; excited or sad; of loneliness and collective gathering.
In the context of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, music and development in music production and creation have taken high strides with regard to music as both entertainment and as an industry. Today, a number of genres exist; a number of music legends have made their way to the top because they simply won the hearts of their fans by producing and creating music that soothed their listeners and took to their hearts. One of the important genres of today’s music scene is Electronic music. Among the numberless list of the legends in the music arena such names as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Alvin Lucier stay alive with their marvelous hand in electronic genres. These three artists can simply be regarded as big shots of music and have a huge circle of fans internationally.
The present paper, as such, looks at the electronic genre of music and undertakes an analysis of the three above listed artists’ work both examining their works and creation and cross-examining their live performances that came to pass in recent times. Moreover, the paper links these artists’ works with electronic music and its development. The paper begins with the pursuit of electronic music and how it exists today, then it moves on to critically examine the three artists: John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Alvin Lucier.
Electronic Music: History, Present
It was way back in the year 1897 that a patent of an invention was registered in the United States of American’s patent office. The patent number was 580.035. The person whose name was registered with the patent was Thaddeus Cahill. That very invention has now become a mere page of history “but in several respects, it was to prove as significant a landmark for electronic music as the more celebrated phonograph patents of Edison and Berliner registered some twenty years previously” (Manning, p. 01, 1994).
It was at Holyoke, Massachusetts that a fully developed model sound-generation system that was electrically operated was presented. It was named Dynamophone, which was “about 200 tons in weight and some 60 feet in length, assuming the proportions of a power-station generator” (p. 01). It was regarded as a substitution for the conventional keyboard instrument.
In the days to come, electronic music made its place in the hearts of music fans. In the 1950s, the coming into being of the transistor gave great strides for the development of electronic music. From here the evolution of a number of different devices began which were characteristic of “thermionic” valves (p. 117). However, the complications such as size, fragility, and heat dissipation were the problems that required more sophisticated and versatile systems.
Hence, it was Herald Bode, one of the pioneering engineers to take the electronic music machine to a significantly stable stage. Herald Bode invented Melochord and published an article after which “easily transportable system packages, containing customized selections of self-contained and mutually compatible units such as oscillators, filters, and modulators” became a reality. These designs proved to be a hallmark in the development of electronic music.
From this time on, most of the studio devices were controlled by knobs or sliders. Connections between these very units were therefore taken to be transferring audio signals from one level of synthesis to another, and “The versatility of transistor-based electronics made it possible to design any number of devices which could be controlled by a common set of voltage characteristics” (Manning, p. 01, 1994).
As such, this very genre has become very popular due to its unique sound production, the intensity of voice, and thrilling echo. Today, most musical instruments are electronically operated. This is not only outreaching but also more sophisticated in terms of sound quality and volume along with the facility to make a voice sound more attractive.
In the upcoming section of the paper, I would examine the three artists: John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Alvin Lucier. I would examine their works, their performances, their contribution to music, and I would also cross-examine these artists.
John Cage
John Cage is one artist who will be remembered for centuries because of the creativity, innovation, and experimentation that he gave to music. His American fans spread all over the US and who remember him for his noble contribution. It was in the year 1943 that Cage’s live performances in concerts featuring percussion instruments attracted a good deal of audience. It was Cage who is entitled to have invented the ‘prepared piano’ for his live performances in these concerts. Investigating the ‘prepared piano’ reveals that with this gadget Cage attached to metal, wooden, and rubber objects to the strings of the piano.
The result of this experimentation was that the pitch and tone and the sound being produced resembled a minuscule percussion group. Therefore, Cage’s works Bacchanale, released in the year 1938, and Sonatas and Interludes, released in years 1946 to 48, were actually composed for his very invention or innovation ‘the prepared piano’. It was Cage who seemed to break the conventional boundaries between what was art and what was not art. As such, we can say that he practiced as a rebel in music production who was of the view that music, whatever its kind may be, is music and is to be enjoyed. We can find this rebel tendency of Cage in a number of musical works of him.
For instance, 4′33″, released in the year 1952, is regarded to be his most impressive work, in which there is a vacuum of silence spanning 4 minutes and 33 seconds only to be filled with randomly fusion sounds of the environment. In addition, it was Cage who envisaged the scheme of “composition indeterminate of its performance”. In this type of piece, the composer delivers to the performer such instructions as do not straightforwardly condition the ensuing sounds. For instance, his well-known Imaginary Landscape No. 4, released in the year 1951, is scored for 12 radios which were tuned randomly (The Columbia Encyclopedia (a), p. 8001, 2007).
Moreover, Cage gave way to such procedures in which the composer does not straightforwardly condition sounds of the ensuing composition, employing methods like the dice roll or I Ching consultation. As such Cage made a massive contribution to music and choreography. He was famous for his inventiveness and experimentation which won the hearts of not only the general audience but also introduced a number of trends in the musical field. Moreover, Cage’s influence also touched such areas as poetry, video art, printmaking, and painting. Cage passes away from this world in the year 1992.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz, or Karl Heinz, born in the year 1928 (and still living) is a multitalented individual also famous on a number of grounds. Stockhausen is a music theorist and music teacher. Stockhausen is regarded as among the rarest talented individuals that earth has ever produced. His Avant-grade compositions and the inventiveness in them are masterpieces par excellence. He is one of the greatest supporters of electronic music and a big proponent of this genre of music. His famous serial music techniques have given a great deal of aesthetic pleasure to the world. Stockhausen usually seems busy striking the hearts of the audience with his complicated contrapuntal systems.
What is so typical of Stockhausen’s innovation in electronic music is his employment of free rhythms, repetitions of tone, dissonance, and percussive effects which declare that Stockhausen is performing live. Stockhausen adheres to aleatory music and lets performers decide certain aspects as to how to undertake a performance; that is to say, the performers working with Stockhausen can have the liberty to improvise, start and finish at different points; these perfumers can also determine the speed at which they want to perform or sing. (The Columbia Encyclopedia (b), p. 45993, 2007).
If we are to correctly understand what Stockhausen is all up to and appreciate his acutely talented personality, his composition Gruppen, released in the year 1959, is the best example. In Gruppen Stockhausen has very innovatively made use of three separate orchestras with three separate conductors. These three play at the same time. Meanwhile, their performance is going on; the three orchestras coincide with their music, at times they play against each other, and there are times when these go antiphonal to each other. Gruppen is one example of this great innovator and proponent of electronic music. Moreover, Kontakte, released in the year 1959, is another masterpiece of Stockhausen to comprehend this performance of this musician using the electronic music genre (The Columbia Encyclopedia (b), p. 45993, 2007).
Alvin Lucier
When it comes to anarchic experimentation in electronic music, everyone remembers one name and that is the name, Alvin Lucier. Lucier became acquainted with the general audience because of his collaboration with such great creators as John Cage, David Tudor, the Cunningham Dance Company by year 1966. The monumental performances that Lucier is well remembered for in the electronic music area in the ONCE festivals. This gave birth to the Sonic Arts Group, later to be known as Sonic Arts Union (from 1966 to 1976). It was during this time that Lucier devoted much of his creative talent and time to the development of electronic music.
Lucier is such a great artist of electronic music that he is ranked Paul Morley, a maverick pop critic, as at par only with Kylie Minogue because of his innermost relevance to present-day music. Lucifer is one of the most highly influential and fundamental music composers to come from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century. This is the creativity of Lucier that electronic music sought to feel a rare piece of entertainment, something that entertains the audience by bringing pleasure out of chaotic sounds. (Barr, p. 23, June 22, 2004).
To look at the broad creator Lucier we find that Lucier’s music is usually highly simple with the background concept but is surprisingly loaded when executed. “He is fascinated with acoustics and ways to use the performance space as a natural acoustic filter” (Holmes, p. 80, 2002). Lucier is gifted in making impressive experiments by his electronic sound systems; for instance, his I Am Sitting in a Room, released in the year 1970, is one work that shows great experimentation of the artist’s versatility. Lucier’s this work is a surprising innovation in an electronic genre that is simple yet so complex that someone might not even think of how it was created.
However, Lucier himself told that it was a revelation overtaking him in a room where only tape recorders were at first available. He wrote the song and did the experiment with his creative chaos producing one marvelous piece of music which seems to fade away as the music goes into maturity. As such, Lucier’s use of electronic mixing and improvising makes him all wanted by listeners (Holmes, p. 80, 2002).
John Cage, and Alvin Lucier
The association of John Cage and Alvin Lucier that contributed so much to the developmental journey of electronic music is, as mentioned above, well-remembered as what is called Sonic Arts Union in which these artists, with others like David Tudor, changed the scene of contemporary music. They actually took their innovative music on the road. Lucier and Cage climbed the ladder of success through their union of Sonic Arts in such a manner that this union became the remarkable period of their individual careers.
It was with this association, especially because of Tudor, that Lucier was fascinated; the focal point to him was that they could now design their own music equipment letting their individual creativity and gift completely work their way out. Henceforth, the world witnessed how Lucier, Cage, Tudor surprised people with their individually unique abilities and innovations. (Holmes, p. 195, 2002). Cage and Lucier together worked for something new that not only could fascinate the music fans but would be new in feel, sensation, and design: they were talking of new music equipment. These two artists virtually broke away with the conventional way of doing music.
They dealt with sound which was completely a new genre and so they started from scratch. On the Sonic Arts Union tour these artists were to perform live to enthrall the audience as well as were to play the part of their own technicians and musicians. “Because there was often little or no payment for such performances, the union served as a hedge against unnecessary expenses” (Holmes, p. 195, 2002). However, few had the idea that this cost-saving effort will produce great artists of their time.
Although Cage and Lucier were touring together, they did not collaborate on their individual compositions. All they did was help each other while they were performing live to an audience. This is the reason that we see the certain ingredients of individuality in the two music icons. All that happened during a live performance was that “Each composer would bring a piece to a concert and the others would act as musicians by manning the equipment” (p. 195). Hence, the music giants were busy experimenting their way out through the newly established forms and devices of electronic music which were plugged into each other, to recall the words of Ashley (qt. in Holmes, 2002).
It was the time that each of these artists was going through a phase of transition in their careers. It was during this time that Behrman added the names of Cage and Lucier, along with other Avant-garde composers, to the repertoire of artists who were represented on the label of Columbia Masterworks of classical recordings of music. Moreover, Lucier was, at this very time, was teaching at Brandeis University. His performance at this university known as Brandeis University Chamber Chorus is one masterpiece remembered for the unique Lucier-ness in the work.
Lucier is especially the cone artist who was well into new inventions for the music industry. For example, Lucier’s name springs in mind in the early 1970’s when the transistor systems were replaced by a computer chip. As such, this artist was always busy consulting with something that was new; that could be made use of to produce different sound quality, pitch, and voice. This very much helps us in understanding the way Lucier made his way up the ladder of success in the electronic music scene. There is no doubt that today much of the development in electronic music is credited to Lucier. John Cage, however, is remembered for his marvelous maneuvering with voice modulation, recording, and experiments with recording (Holmes, p. 225, 2002).
John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen
John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 1 is one single piece “conceived for turntables and test records and was produced long before magnetic tape composition was available to the composer” (Griffiths, p. 113, 1995). This was typically a Cageian thing to happen to the electronic music scene. Cage recalled this experiment as being a very gradual and steady experiment that needed great care. Such maneuvering simply showed “how prophetic Cage’s musical vision had been” (p. 113).
On the other side of our analysis of performance by Stockhausen, we find that this very artist, side by side with Cage, is regarded as an originator, from the soft times of the early 1950s well into the 1970s. It was this time that the common belief about origination changed which gave way to Stockhausen’s coming to stand as an individual artist who composed and produced his own records personally. This very thing in Stockhausen’s music career is something that took the hands of his family members. This family union of Stockhausen is said to alienate Stockhausen from common music culture. Stockhausen’s seven-opera project Licht is something said to be a strategy of “creative survival in an age skeptical of the forging genius and inimical to innovation” (Griffiths, p.244, 1995).
However, on the side of Cage, we see that he was busy exploring the “assembly of musical material using composition techniques for which the outcome was not preconceived: a composition that was “indeterminate of its performance” (p. 113).
What was actually aimed for was the complete democratization of tones that was to be produced by new rules formed by Cage, who chose on his own what notes and dynamics were to be employed to produce the typically sweet Cageian music? According to Griffiths all Cage wanted was to completely remove the composer’s taste from the very process and conduct of composition; as such Cage wanted versatility par excellence. Cage, then, opened his ears to any tones, examined each sound that came in his way. In the later years to come Cage developed his own rules for producing his kind of music. Cage commonly worked in the manner as Griffiths describes below:
“He might choose the instrumentation for a piece ahead of time—prepared piano, strings, radio sounds, etc. —although some works were also written for any number and kind of instruments. He would then use random numbers to denote choices for any decision that had to be made regarding the characteristics of the sound, such as pitch, amplitude, duration, timbre, and envelope. Individual performances might also vary because he might make the parts or choices interchangeable” (p. 114, 1995).
On the other hand, Stockhausen seems busy bringing something which is different in taste and experimentation. For instance, his maneuvering in Montag (1984-88) works on a girls’ chorus, an intervention of keyboard, “trios for sopranos and tenors, a ballet of perambulators, various solos and ensembles for wind instruments” moreover, “an enactment of the Pied Piper legend, and much else washing in on tides of sound from synthesizers and percussion” (p. 245).
This way Stockhausen comes to create his modern orchestra which is in actual terms a replacement of the orchestra echoing in the standard circle. As such the grandeur of Stockhausen is highly innovative, something which is way different from that of Cage of Lucier. These three artists seem to work their way up the ladder of success and fame along their own and individual tracks that not only proved their talents but also won the hearts of the people.
Conclusion
If Lucier was busy playing the new equipment so that he could produce stunning sound and voice modulation, then Cage was busy in an experiment with the tape recorder which was to him a way to creatively undermine its conventional employment. He used the tape recorder to surprise all and sundry. Meanwhile, Stockhausen was looking for something different in the live performance of his innovative orchestras and sound production. He regarded different experiments with the orchestra to be the integral component of electronic music.
As such, all these three artists stand to be on top but side by side with each other. They worked really hard so much so that people took them as gods of electronic music. Today these creators are known for their massive contribution to the field of electronic music. Their performances would be remembered not only by those who witnessed them but also by the coming generations. Anyone studying the art of electronic music cannot ignore any of the trios because of the marvelous contribution that these men have made to electronic music.
Works Cited
Barr, G. (2004). “Gig to Unite the Pioneers”. Evening Chronicle. Page Number: 23. COPYRIGHT 2004 MGN Ltd.; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group.
Griffiths, P. (1995). Modern Music and After. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holmes, T. (2002). Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition. New York: Routledge.
Manning, P. (1994). Electronic and Computer Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Columbia Encyclopedia (a), Sixth Edition: Cage, John. Columbia University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2007. (p. 8001).
The Columbia Encyclopedia (b), Sixth Edition: Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Columbia University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2007. (p. 45993).