THE CONCORDIA COLLECTION WITHIN ELECTROACOUSTIC
HISTORY
Introduction INTRODUCTION   PEDAGOGICAL OBJECTIVES PEDAGOGICAL OBJECTIVES Introduction BACK


1897-1945
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIRST INSTRUMENTS



1930-35
USA
The large radio corporations (CBS, NBC, etc.) are established, causing some panic in the recording industry, as the radios often employed musicians to play live during broadcasts.

Holds Great Promise...
The creative potential inherent to radio would unfortunately never truly be realized. The use of live musicians in most of the radio programmes created problems for the recording industry, which could not do much more than sit back and to bear with the consequences of these new developments.

The recording companies had to make compromises (RCA-Victor was the first to do so). Electric gramophones were used at the radio stations, but the gramophone would gradually lose its autonomy to become a complement to radio.

Negative Cultural Impact
Before the advent of radio a certain cultural diversity could be found amongst listeners, notably due to the music published as “Race Records”, i.e. music stemming largely from the black community (Blues, Dixieland, Hot Jazz). Originally very successful items for the recording companies, these genres were gradually (but irreversibly) assimilated into the musical genres the radios loved so much and played back to back between programmes — swing, big band.

In a general manner, despite the innovative potential it had in regards to radiophonic theatre and technological developments, radio played an important role in the standardization and banalization of popular music of the day by imposing upon them a certain uniformity, almost even destroying the genres in the process.

Creative Potential
These developments did not prevent some artists from exploring the unique potential of radio. In France, around 1920, Gabriel Germinet wrote on the subject and around 1923 created the radio play Marémoto (“Seaquake”) which, through the use of sound effects and a convincingly “real” dramatic portrayal, recreated the sinking of a ship. As the Titanic tragedy was still fresh in people’s minds, many who heard the broadcast thought that they were in fact witnessing a similar event, live. The work had a similar effect on the public as did “The War of the Worlds”, a theatre work directed by Orson Welles as part of the Mercury Theatre on the Air series and broadcast by CBS on 30 October 1938. It created an incredible panic because of its presentation as a newscast but especially because of its subject — the invasion of Earth by Martians.

Un rôle de diffuseur important
Despite its conservatism, radio has played an important role in the dissemination of electroacoustic and electronic music. It was alone (this is less true nowadays) in promoting this art form on a fairly large scale, despite the fact that it sometimes did so by obligation and that shows regularly programming such music tended to be relegated to the least desirable or popular time slots.

It is important to remember that it is here that musique concrète was born, in 1948.
1906
USA
Thaddeus Cahill publicly presents a new version of the Telharmonium (in Holyoke), a precursor to the Hammond organ.
  
1911-1913
USA
Lee De Forest invents and perfects the Audion, a vacuum tube which would later permit amplification.
  
1913
Italy
Luigi Russolo writes and publishes his Futurist manifesto “The Art of Noises”, and invents the Intonarumori.
 
  
1914
Italy
Première of the Intonarumori orchestra.
  
1919
Russia
Léon Theremin invents the Theremin.
  
1920
USA
Birth of Muzak.
 
  
1921-1928
Germany
Jörg Mager invents a number of monophonic or semi-monophonic electronic instruments in order to explore the possibilities of microtonality, and names the series of instruments the Sphärophon. The Elektrophon, Kurbelsphärophon, Klaviatursphärophon, Partiturophon and finally the Kaleidophon would follow.

Note that the name “elektrophon” fell into disuse but the term was later recuperated for other uses.
  
1924
Italy
Ottorino Respighi indicates in the score of Pines of Rome (Pini di Roma) that a gramophone is to be used in the performance to reproduce the sound of bird song.
  
1925
USA
Appearance of electrical recording, whereby instead of using purely acoustic means, the sound is now recorded with a microphone and amplifier.
 
1927
Soviet Union
Alexander Mosolov’s symphonic work Fonderie d’acier (Iron Foundry) could be considered an early prototype of musique concrète for its use of factory whistles, motor sounds, etc. Around this time there is a strong current of such “industrial music” in the Soviet Union.
1928
Germany
The principles of magnetic tape and the tape recorder (reel-to-reel) as we know it today are put in place. AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) begin to use these technologies with the goal of putting telephone answering machines on the market.


USA
First official feature-length “talking film”, The Jazz Singer. As early as 1906 experiments to make sound films had been made, but none of the available technical or commercial procedures were viable.


France
Invention of the Ondes Martenot, an instrument with an electric keyboard.
1928-29
France
At the 1929 Paris Expo, Edouard E. Coupleux and Joseph A. Givelet present the first “synthesizer”, named the “‘Automatically Operating Musical Instrument of the Electric Oscillation Type.’ Four voices were controlled by means of perforated paper, similar to the Player Piano, but it was also possible to individually modulate each of the voices by means of filters to create tremolos or change the timbre. The instrument was not commercially successful but did serve as a model for other later developments such as the Kent Music Box (in the early 1950s), or, more importantly, RCA Synthesizer”. [Translation] (Haro, Petite histoire) This instrument was polyphonic!
  
1930
Germany
Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch create Grammofonmusik, experiments which used the gramophone as an instrument to alter the sound (via the speed control). Unfortunately all but one of these has been lost.
  
1930-1935
USA
The large radio corporations (CBS, NBC, etc.) are established, causing some panic in the recording industry, as the radios often employed musicians to play live during broadcasts.
 
  
1931
Germany
Jörg Mager receives a commission to create electronic bell sounds for the Bayreuth Festival to be used in a performance of Parsifal.
USA
Invention of an instrument that would revolutionize pop music in the 1960s: the Rickenbacker A22 electric guitar.
  
1933-1935
USA
Laurens Hammond invents the organ that bears his name (he used the principles of Cahill).
  
1945
Canada
Hugh Le Caine invents the Electronic Sackbut (one of the first real synthesizers).
  
1947
France
Harald Bode invents the Melochord, a monophonic electronic keyboard instrument that would later be one of the first tools available in the Cologne Electronic Music Studio.
  
1906 1911 1913 1914 1919 1920 1921 1924 1925 1927 1928 1928-2 1930 1930-2 1931 1933 1945 1947
 
1906 1911+ 1913 1914 1919 1920 1921+ 1924 1925 1927 1928 1928+ 1930 1930+ 1931 1933+ 1945 1947


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