Who this book is for

In 1837, a Dr Page of Massachusetts created a ringing tone using an apparatus involving a horseshoe magnet and a coil of copper wire. He called his creation ‘galvanic music’. Although his contribution to the world of electronic music is neither noteworthy as the invention of a serious instrument or as a work of musical art, it does demonstrate an original mind at work. One that sought to break the barriers of conventional thinking and indeed of conventional culture. A mind that sought to cross the desert that exists between the arts and the sciences. Page started down the long road which, starting as a dirt track, led to the Theremin and the loudspeaker. A track which had turned into a ‘two-lane black-top’ by the time of the invention of the electric guitar and the Hammond organ, and had become an Interstate by the time it reached the multi-track tape recorder and the MINIMOOG synthesiser. Even to today, when music and electronics race along together on an eight-lane freeway.

Each step along this route betrays yet another restive mind at work and interestingly, neither the arts or the sciences appear to have the monopoly on restlessness! No better example exists of this than the two men who are immortalised in the names of the world’s first two electric guitars: Leo Fender was an electronics technician who turned his skills to musical ends, inventing the Telecaster; Les Paul was a musician who turned his prolific mind to technology. Same motivation, very different men, very different guitars. This book is full of the inventions of fertile, enterprising minds and I hope that it will be of interest to electronics engineers who, like Leo Fender, have acquired an interest in music and for musicians who, like Les Paul, have become fascinated in the technology of electric and electronic music making and who wish to learn more. For all these individuals, I have adopted the collective term musician-engineer, the two parts of which define the ends of the spectrum of people to whom I hope the book will appeal.

Music and the twentieth century

As I write this second edition of Music Engineering, the twentieth century has passed. Who knows, or can know, what the future will bring? But looking back, any author choosing to write a history of the world would have to devote a long chapter to the last one-hundred years. It would not make easy reading either. Within fourteen years of the beginning of the twentieth century, the mechanical genius of the previous hundred years had been turned upon ourselves in a war of unspeakable horror. A war that lasted (according to the theory that the Second World War was a re-kindling of the First) over thirty years. It was a century in which we came face to face with the dark-side of ourselves. From mustard gas to work-camps, from ethnic-cleansing to the atomic bomb, the ‘post-Hiroshima’ citizens of the world have a unique – and uncomfortable – vision of what it is to be human. The twentieth century was the century during which, to quote W.H. Auden, ‘the Devil broke parole ‘. It was also the century during which, due to a kind of intellectual ‘trickle-down effect’, the philosophical certainties which underpinned society for hundreds of generations evaporated. The widespread beliefs in God and in the immutability of His creation were gone. In an age during which politics summoned the power to smash whole cities and the families that lived in them, is it any wonder that the belief systems which had underpinned stable societies should have been smashed as well? And throughout the troubled century, the science of electronics graced us with ambiguous blessings, like an ambivalent angel. The technology of the twentieth century (our century) is the technology of electronics. From the field-telephone to the smart bomb, electronics has been our dark companion. From television to the X-ray, our friend. It has also made each of us a part of a far bigger world. The global village is far too cosy a name for the factionalised, polluted, half-starving world community to which we are all members, but who cannot now not be aware of what it is to be part of this community with all the benefits and disadvantages that brings?

In order to depict in music a unique vision of this most unconventional time, composers sought ways of breaking the conventional bounds of music. The twentieth century was a century of ‘movements’ as groups of musicians struggled to express the bewildering litany of new experiences the age brought. They were legion, especially after the end of the 1939–1946 war. Integral serialism (a movement which attracted composers such as Boulez, Berio and Nono) sought to break the mould of traditional musical ideas and associations by taking the ideas of serialism (see Fact Sheet #6), developed by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, and applying these concepts to all elements of a musical structure; to rhythm, dynamics and so on. Other groups, the aleatorists and the followers of Fluxus, sought – by introducing indeterminacy and chance into their compositions – to redefine what is art and what is not. Indeed the slogan of Fluxus was, ‘Art is Life and Life is Art’. Even to the extent, as in the case of John Cage and La Monte Young, of seeming to resign from the process of composition altogether! Others, whilst retaining conventional musical instruments, sought to capitalise on bizarre instrumental uses; encouraging the exercise of split-notes in the brass and the woodwinds or have emphasised ancillary instrumental sounds, key noise for instance. Fortunately for us – and for future generations of concert goers – not all composers succumbed to the philosophy of Adorno (1958) who believed, ‘Only out of its own confusion can art deal with a confused society’. They took a different path – the one that concerns us here. They opted to exploit the new ‘sound-world’ fostered by electronics, to explore and explain the Zeitgeist.

Electronics

Lest I give the impression that this book will concentrate on, so-called, art-music. Let me ‘come-clean’ at once as to my own preferences: I believe there can hardly be a better sound-world than that produced by electronics to describe our unparalleled age. Listen to that filmsoundtrack, doesn’t the drone of the engines of a squadron of bombers sound like an electronic tone? And what better aural sensation better symbolises our fragmented cosmic life-raft than the swoosh, splash, crackle cacophony of a tuning short-wave receiver? But these sounds are not the sole province of high-art. One of the frustrations of the impossible ‘discipline’ of aesthetics is that the learned opinions of one generation are often laughable in the next. The artists, writers and musicians who are lauded in their own day often slip unnoticed into history leaving subsequent generations to discover intellects ignored and misunderstood in their own time. Never is this inability accurately to judge the ‘half-life’ of music more true than in cases where music appears, on the surface, to ‘slip the bonds’ of its own conception1. In our own time, popular, rock and (particularly) dance music – which often appears to ignore our own time – may ultimately most eloquently express it. History proves that art does not have to prick our consciences to speak to our hearts.

Ironically, the examples of the electronic sound-world discovered by the post war avant-garde composers remain largely unknown and un-liked. Possibly history will judge these composers differently, but I doubt it. They probably tried too hard to depict the harsh, exigent realities of our times in music which is, itself, too abrasive and demanding. But – and this is the crucial point – their legacy has found a vital place in all sectors of today’s music industry and, most importantly of all, via this, in our collective consciousness; precisely because of the resonances electronic music finds in our hearts and souls. History, as always, will be the judge but, I believe the 25th century Mars-dweller is more likely to regard the characteristic sound of our age as an analogue synthesiser patch or a coruscating electric guitar, than that most noble invention of the nineteenth century – the orchestra – being asked to tap, rasp and otherwise abuse their instruments in a grotesque parody of orchestral technique! Couple with that the undeniable fact that electronics, in the form of recording and reproduction technology, has brought about a revolution in the dissemination of music and its cultural significance is almost beyond comprehension. For electronics is not just the messenger, it’s the message itself.

The messenger and the message

This idea that electronics is both messenger and message is more than a mere poetic conceit. For it implies, with some degree of accuracy, that this book is two books in one. A book about recording (and by association, reproduction) technology and a book about electronic musical instruments and effect technology. Clearly a well-informed recording engineer, design engineer or musician-engineer must be aware of both and both are included for completeness. Furthermore, it is not strictly necessary to distinguish a pattern separating the two disciplines. However, the unmistakable motif which emerges between these two strands of technology...