Live electronics

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Live electronics is a type of electroacoustic music that is created with the help of interpreters in real time during a performance. The sound production that normally takes place in the electronic studio is shifted to the stage, which means that rigid electronic feeds are replaced by more flexible methods. This gives the electronics an instrumental character, which in turn opens up opportunities for improvisation and a more free design of the timing.

Again and again, the live electronics are played by the composers themselves, thus eliminating the usual division of labor between composers and performers.

development

The term “live electronics” goes back to John Cage , who first used it in the preface to his composition Cartridge Music (1960). Cage was also the composer of the earliest work with live electronics in the narrower sense: In his Imaginary Landscape No. 1 for piano, cymbals and two turntables, these are played by two musicians like instruments by manipulating the sine tones stored on the records by changing the speed during the performance.

An early example of live electronic music is microphonic I (1965) for large fanfare , two microphones, two bandpass filter and volume control of Karlheinz Stockhausen is here the musical process is split into three separate areas:. Sound generation (two performers bring the fanfare with various means sound) - sound recording (two musicians scan the vibrating metal surface with microphones) - sound transformation (operation of the filters and volume controls by two other musicians). The microphone becomes an instrument and serves to make the otherwise inaudible audible.

The Canadian composer Alvin Lucier has a special approach to live electronics . In his performance I Am Sitting in a Room (1969) the composer speaks a text on tape. This is then played back into the room via a loudspeaker and recorded on a second tape with a microphone. This dubbing process is repeated until at the end only the room resonances remain audible.

The Heinrich Strobel Foundation's experimental studio at the SWR in Freiburg, which was established in 1971, focused primarily on the live electronic manipulation of spatial sound. For this purpose, a separate surround sound distributor - the “Halaphon” (named after its developers Hans Peter Haller and Peter Lawo) - was constructed. a. used by Luigi Nono in works such as Prometeo (1984).

IRCAM , founded in 1977 by Pierre Boulez , turned its attention to the digital handling and algorithmic control of live electronics, which led to the development of music computers that enabled sound manipulation in real time. In Boulez ' Repons (1981 ff.) Acoustic instruments, live electronics and multi-channel sound projection are combined.

The availability of powerful and affordable personal computers led to the development of own programming languages ​​for sound manipulation in real time, such as Max / MSP and Pd , from the end of the 1980s , which meant that the live electronics were no longer linked to complex analog studio equipment. The required components can now be implemented as software modules and can be used on a laptop .

literature

  • Martin Supper: Electroacoustic Music - Live Electronics ; Lexicon article in The Music in Past and Present , 2nd Edition, Sachteil Vol. 2 (1995)
  • Karlheinz Essl : Changes in electroacoustic music ; in: Between experiment and commerce. On the Aesthetics of Electronic Music, ed. by Thomas Dézsy , Stefan Jena and Dieter Torkewitz (= ANKLAENGE. Wiener Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, edited by Cornelia Szabó-Knotik and Markus Grassl, Volume 2), Mille Tre: Wien 2007, p. 37-84.