Varese

sup d00ds,

I've been making electronic music for a few years with fruityloops, and as such I really have no idea about the science behind what im doing. Can anyone recommend any books about the basics of electronic music? I'm looking to get a better understanding of it all so that I can do more than make cheap ditties. thx

optik_nerve

I've been making electronic music for quite sometime and I wanted to get more into skill with it but over time I realized to grab old analogue or digital synths and make your own sounds.

Fruity Loops is great but very limited. It only gives you loops.

I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot recommend any books but just experiment with random sounds. I don't know exactly what type of electronics you're into but just take noises or synth lines and put effects on it. It's not something that can be thrown together in a few minutes and have skill or talent.

In the great words of Piet Hein, "Things take time."

Willravel

You know, not 2 years ago I started a book on music theory of electronica. I ran into several big problems though.

1) over half of thr artists in electronica have no formal musical training. In order to develop the basis of theory, there have to be rules. Some will bend and maybe even break those rules on occasion, but there has to be an underlying understanding. The artists have such different understandings of music that this is extremly difficult. DJ Tiesto explained that trance [electronica] is not a science. It's almost not even an art form.

2) Electronica is often derivitive. How many times have you heard a trance cover of another song? Everything from Vivaldi to Clockwork Orange to Saltwater to Enjoy the Silence, to even other electronica music. We have remixes of remixes of remixes. I once jokingly (read: sarcastically) said, "Electronica started with one song", and everyone understood what I meant. I'm not suggesting that others forms of music aren't derivitive, but let me put it this way: the first modern music theory developed out of the Renaissance and into the Boroque. It continued to develop thrugh the Classical and Romatic and even today, but the the basis of modern music theory is on it's infancy. Electronica is alien to this. If Morazt heard Southern Sun by Oakenfold, he'd go nuts.

3) I'm really busy. I decided it's easier and more fulfilling to just compose.

Your best study guide is to simply expose yourself to as much and as varied electronica as you can get your hands on. The less main stream the better (as you've probably already heard most of the main stream stuff).

jwoody

I'm of the opinion that classical composers could have made much better music than they did if they had modern equipment to work with.

Suppose Mozart had modern technology at his disposal he could have created recordings which sounded exactly like the music in his head, rather than him having to relay his 'musical thoughts' to an orchestra.

Training can only improve technique. If a person has a musical idea in their head it doesn't matter how they turn it into a sound. Musical theory is useful if you want to pass a test, earn a degree... become a musical theory teacher.

It's derived from birdsong.

My best advice to the original poster is to read and understand the instruction manuals and experiment until you break something.

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aberkok

Paging Dr. Roachboy...paging Dr. Roachboy...

Everyone wants a book that they think'll solve their musical problems. Take it from me. I've been working at a print music/music bookstore for the last 4 years and there are a lot of books...but you can't write a book on how to compose! Sure, there are books which breakdown and outline tonal systems, but there's nothing that says: "do this, then do this..." History suggests that you'll have to wait at least another 30 or 40 years before such a book is written about electronica.

Just learn how to listen analytically. Take stuff you like and find out how it was made and eventually you'll build up an arsenal of technique. How you use it to make music can never be learned from a book...only through experience.

Jwoody - I wonder if Mozart ever felt like an orchestra was limiting his creativity. In 100 years, do you think your great-grandson will think about his neural interface to his computer and wonder what we did as composers without it 100 years ago?

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jwoody

You'll never catch me calling any music 'electr0n1c@'

I hate that word.

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roachboy

summoned from the aether i am.

if you are using fruity loops, i assume that you are oriented toward pop forms...and that you're probably interested in pushing into other types of laptop music and not moving into areas like circuit bending....and are not necessarily interested in doing this stuff live. (this last one tends to operate as the big divide between approaches---those who are oriented toward doing this stuff live have quite different requirements from those who see electronic music as a studio form.---i know much more about types of processing/electronic music that are geared toward performance than about the possibilities for studio/bedroom work)

btw: personally, i am interested in electronic stuff, but i dont do all that much processing. but i have been playing with folk who do various types of electronics for a few years and have learned an enormous amount from them, including lots and lots of deviant ways to think about what you can make an acoustic piano do.


books, then:

first off, on traditional music theory: it is not necessarily useful in this context. what i have found useful for thinking about composition in this context pretty much begins with john cage, and moves more into modes of organization rather than composition in any traditional sense---structuring situations rather than determining outcomes, as micheal nyman sez.

aiden evans' book "sound ideas: music machines and experience" is pretty good in that it will take you from processing into the basic language of synthesis---a primer in acoustics, basic old-school synth terminologies, etc.

curtis road's book "microsound" is really quite good--it is mostly on granular synthesis (workng with sound elements of around 1/10 second or less)--it is fairly obsessive (most are)--but upside of moving into a more granular approach is that you get to use the platforms you are used to but can build your own sounds from found/already existing materials. the downside is the amount of work it takes to make a minute.
road's book is entirely about computer processing, and uses the ways that an audio platform can let you magnify time intervals as a point of departure.

if you are looking to shift more than just your platform, maybe check out other ways of considering/doing electronic music and how the various types of music connect together (when they do) i think daniel warner and christoph cox's collection "audio culture" is a good place to start.



past that--i could recommend a ton of other books, but i would prefer to get a bt more information about what kind of music you are doing and where you would like to head.

o yes: listen to everything. get some musique concrete, get some morton subotnik, some tape music---track down releases from elaine radigue---or phill niblock or lamonte young----aki onda or boston sound collective---shalabi effect is doing qutie interesting stuff involving mixing live improvisation and layers of processing (they take a collective approach to processing, which is kinda cool)---raster-noton or mego records---christian marclay (a turntablist who will, i expect, blow your mind)---listen to everything....

edgar varese was right--this music is only secondarily about the technology--it is mostly about the person who is using it.

there are some good elists on electronic music:
microsound
phonography
etc. (there are others--i am on these lists)

advantage of lists: there are lots of folk donig newer types/variants that are not on the popradar, but which are often really cool...tons of interesting phonography out there, for example) downside: there is no agreement about how to think about/evaluate musc, whether what matters is the complexity of the processing or the coolness of outcomes. so you will tend to get mutually exclusive responses to whatever stuff you decide to posts to these lists of your own.

microsound has a wiki that is worth checking out--open source platforms/patches, links to lots of artists/netlabels, etc.

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jwoody

Roachboy is The Book.





This is a good site if you want to hear some electronic music:

Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music
http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html


another good one:


BBC's guide to making music

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/studio/

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