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Author Topic: Electronic music.. help  (Read 3692 times)
pappoo
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« on: February 09, 2006, 09:34:06 PM »

Its been a while (a few years actually).. and boy have things changed around here! But anyway let me get to the point. Long post but bear with me..

Stupid college courses with stupid 8 page papers bring me back to the beach boys web community. I'm taking a class, intro to electronic music and skill, as an elective. And yes, a month into the semester a paper is due. Nevermind that she only gave us a week and a half to do it.. all 8 pages worth.. from an elective class.. thats besides the point.

But anyway,  the objective is to write about a composer/group/artist that does some work in electronic music. We have to pick 2 of their compositions, discuss their inspiration for using the electronics they used, then compare and contrast them from a musical perspective. Forget the fact that I know NOTHING about music and this is the first music class I've had in my entire life. I love music and can't live without it, but thats as far as my musical experience goes. I'm actually into hip hop music which originally inspired me to take this course, however no resources were available for my hip hop composer choices.

So rather than choose a no name fossil from a list she supplied, the good ol beach boys popped in my head. I'm relatively familiar with them (i was hardcore into the beach boys for about 3 years straight a few years back and know a decent amount about them), however its been such a long time of not listening to them, and not only that, i have no idea what sounds of their's are electronic and which are not! I can't even tell with today's music.. just to show you how inexperienced i am in this music skill department.

Now, we covered the theremin in class, and naturally i brought up the whole good vibrations thing which the professor knew about. I could easily use that song as one of my choices since the use of the theremin was rather groundbreaking for a pop song, however I want to look deeper since thats the only electronic device in the song (at least to my knowledge). For me, the album that immediately comes to mind for this paper is the love you album. I could easily find two electronic songs from that record. And basically.. thats where it stops. I have to go back and listen to the rest of the late 60s/70s stuff to find more. But when I listen.. would I even be able to pick out the electronics? Probably not..

I would suppose the songs would have to be of some importance with their use of electronics (ie: GV). I plan on taking some BB books out and reading up on it. However with only a week left I'm hoping to speed up the process of searching for songs with help from the people here. All I need are song suggestions I can use (2 will suffice) and I can look up the electronic importance of the songs. And if anyone would like to go ahead and explain some of the electronics (importance, techniques) to me.. even better! Maybe I'll even quote you in the paper! lol

So if anyone cares to help me out, it would be appreciated!! I know you guys are good with this stuff..

Thanks!!
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« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2006, 10:46:43 PM »

Well, pretty much the entire Love You album comes to mind, as does Surf's Up, where the Moog was heavily prevalent. Somebody more technically knowlegeable and/or sober can pick up from here!
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runalot
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« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2006, 10:49:54 PM »

And don't forget some of them "high tech" Mount Vernon and Fairway songs. :D


« Last Edit: February 09, 2006, 10:52:02 PM by runalot » Logged

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Mitchell
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« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2006, 05:45:50 AM »

Forget the Beach Boys and do it on Hugh LeCaine!

By the way, it's not a theremin on Good Vibrations, it's an electro-theremin, aka a Tannerin, invented and played by Paul Tanner. Also, the moog ribbon synth designed to be used by Mike Love to play GV live ended up being a crucial component in Bob Moog's first synths, so that's important and relevant (poster guitarfool is the leading expert on this one). Other songs using the Tannerin are I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (the FIRST use of it) and Wild Honey (I believe).

Check this site out: http://www.electrotheremin.com/etfaq.htm

As for other songs, well, there's a thread below that discusses the Beach Boys' use of a primitive drum machine on Til I Die and other songs, so you can check that out. I don't know if it was groundbreaking or not. I can't think of any other good examples at the moment.
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NimrodsSon
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« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2006, 06:15:37 AM »

The tannerin was also used on the tracks "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" (or was it a real theremin on that one?) and "Wild Honey" (the song). Love You has a lot of synth stuff going on, as you've already pointed out.
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Mitchell
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« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2006, 06:29:03 AM »

I wouldn't say that Love You is particularly groundbreaking electronic music, though. It just uses a lot of synths. It's not like Wendy Carlos' Switched on Bach or anything.
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jazzfascist
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« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2006, 07:33:07 AM »

I don't know, maybe you could discuss GV against a track from "Love You". On GV it's like he uses the tannerin to get like a ghost or a spooky voice and on "Love You" it's like he goes for a more brash sound, so at a various points in time it's like the electronic instruments inspire something different in him, at least as far as sounds go.

Søren
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SurferGirl7
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« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2006, 12:34:12 PM »

Mt. Vernon and Fairaway would've been cool on moog  Grin
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Jason
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« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2006, 01:23:59 PM »

The Beach Boys aren't the best band to look into if you're in an electronic music class. Raymond Scott or Bruce Haack are your picks.

By the way, that's not a real theremin on Good Vibrations. A real theremin sounds like a soprano voice.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2006, 01:29:43 PM by Dr. UNH, Esq. aka Jason » Logged
buddhahat
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« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2006, 04:32:10 PM »

It's not like Wendy Carlos' Switched on Bach or anything.

Man, I bought that recenty. I love the first track so much but I feel like I'm in Clockwork Orange whenever I listen to it.

Did they use moog stuff on the sunflower version of cool water? I'm pretty clueless about the technolgy to be honest. They overdubbed some moog stuff  on Surf's Up for the SU album too I think but maybe this completely not helpful. Good luck ...
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pappoo
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« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2006, 08:43:44 PM »

Thanks for all the awesome replies. I knew you guys would come through! If i had more time and if the topics weren't finalized just 4 days ago, I'd definitely look into those other composers. However with only a week left and a 30 hour work week coming up (kill me now), I think I'll just stick with what I'm familiar with. A few Surf's up songs came to mind for me as well but I wasn't sure about their electronic aspects. I'm actually liking Soren's idea of comparing the 2 different styles of music between GV and Love You. It seems very easy and straightforward. After re-reading the paper info, it says for the two pieces selected I just need to discuss their importance within the composer's overall work or the public interest in those pieces. So it seems the songs don't have to be groundbreaking or anything like that.

I plan on ripping through the 1 page biographical section tonight with no resources and hopefully when I have time to breathe in the next week I can take some books out. Any reccomendations as to which books will be best for "synopsis of composer's compositional style and philosophy?" lol I need to write a page about that as well. I suppose I could elaborate on Brian's 'feels' method but I'm going to read about it before I jump in.

I'm supposed to have 4 pages of a description and comparison of the two selected pieces (oh boy). But I'm sure with enough listens I'll be able to pick out some things and those 4 pages will fill up quickly.

I don't think I will be finalizing the songs I'm going to use until after the weekend so if anyone has anymore suggestions or any input on their electronic music feel free to add to the discussion!!

Thanks again everyone!!

UPDATE: biography is done.. and man, was it hard only making it one double spaced page! lol. it feels so.. scratching the surface!
« Last Edit: February 10, 2006, 10:01:15 PM by pappoo » Logged
jazzfascist
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« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2006, 05:33:38 AM »

I was thinking after I wrote my first post, that in terms of Brian using electronic instruments, it didn’t really change his compositional strategies and his concept of music, even though he maybe was about to get into other compositional strategies around “Smile”. But he didn’t turn into Steve Reich and began playing around with tape loops and whatnot. Basically he stayed a traditional songwriter, that wrote in the western major/minor mode and would use electronic instruments, like the tannerin for getting new sounds, that he thought was interesting or illustrative, just like he would for instance use jawharps, when he thought that sounded good. Maybe when he got into the synth around “Love You”  it brought out a punky brash side out in in him, specifically those fat bass sounds he uses, but again it was more the sound that inspired him, he wasn’t so much going after making a new kind of music.
BTW one could also compare "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Revolution 9" by Beatles, that's closer to electronic music and there's also a development in compositional principles that you could discuss.

Søren
« Last Edit: February 11, 2006, 07:06:52 AM by jazzfascist » Logged

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