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<HEAD>
<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 6 - The Bleep Culture</TITLE>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><a href="ch5web.htm"><img src="arrowleft.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" name="ch1web.htm" border="0"></a><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999">
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<p align="center"><font size="+2" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><b>Chapter
6<br>
THE BLEEP CULTURE</b></font></p>
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<p align="left"><b><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">The American
Heritage College Dictionary</font></b><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
defines electronic music as follows: "Music produced or altered by
electronic means, as by a tape recorder or synthesizer."</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Electronic music
has long existed as a subculture within "real music", especially
in Sweden. In 1948 (the same year that <b>IBM</b> started marketing the
first commercial computer) a certain <b>Pierre Schaeffer</b> created the
first electronic music composition, which he called<i> Études aux
Chemins de Fer </i>(Etudes for Trains). Electronic music was born in his
studio for <i>Musique Concrète</i> (Concrete Music) at Radio France.
Concrete music is music that is not limited to pure tones, and incorporates
sounds from everyday life, such as long, continually changing notes without
tone quality, etc. In 1952-53, the musician <b>Karlheinz Stockhausen </b>worked
with Schaeffer, and brought some of Schaeffer's ideas home to Germany.
Since then, this form of music has spread and is on the curriculum at
different public institutions as a very small branch of classical music.
As opposed to Schaeffer, who preferred to work with taped recordings of
real sounds such as those of trains or birds, Stockhausen focused on using
only electronically created sounds. In Sweden, this music form was basically
unknown until it was introduced in <b>Harry Martinsson</b>'s science-fiction
opera <i>Aniara</i> in 1959.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">This chapter is not about
classical electronic music - there are plenty of texts on the subject.
Furthermore, this book is aimed at regular people who think that art should
reflect something, i.e. that one should not constantly try to break out
of existing concepts and conceptual systems to appear as incomprehensible
as possible. Electronic music is a form in which the music has to be interpreted
on more levels than the musical. In other words: this book will stick
to a broader aspect of popular culture. This is not to say that the art
of electronic music is not interesting; it is just not particularly interesting
for the purpose of this book.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">It is unnecessary to point
out that the history of electronic music stretches farther back than the
history of hacker culture. However, the phenomenon of electronic music
has had a profound influence on hacker culture, and in its pop-culture
manifestation in the forms of synth-pop, techno, acid, house, etc., it
has played an important role for the generation that grew up with computers.
One of its main uses has been to display the beautiful side of the computer.
Electronic music was the first area in which computers were used to create
art, and as opposed to other forms of electronic culture, electronic music
has its roots in Europe.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">The first time a computer
played music was in 1957, at Bell Labs in the United States. The song
was called <i>Daisy</i>, which is the same piece that the intelligent
computer <i>HAL</i> (in <b>Stanley Kubrick</b>'s film version of <b>Arthur
C. Clarke</b>'s science fiction novel <i>2001</i>) starts humming as it
is being disassembled. Naturally, this is not a coincidence, but rather
the intention of the director to return the computer to its "childhood
state" (in a double sense) as it loses its advanced electronic identity.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">The world in the 70's and
80's: With the introduction of the first cheap Japanese synthesizers,
regular people (who were not trained musicians) started using electronic
instruments, and electronic pop music was born. The difference between,
for example, the Hammond organ or Pink Floyd's monophonic synthesizers
and the new generation of electronic instruments was that the latter could
store rhythms and entire pieces of songs in their digital memory, which
could later be modified. In particular, quantization (which adapts notes
played to a given rhythm) was (and is) greatly criticized by "serious"
musicians. They thought that simple and rhythmically perfect melodies
were destructive to music, and they distanced themselves from it. Another
factor that abhorred musicians of the old school was that music played
by machines would not be limited by the dexterity of a given musician,
which allowed the ability of the ear to perceive sound variations to set
the limits for the music. A "groove" of several hundred beats
a minute, or pieces with tone lengths of several hundredths of seconds
- songs like those scare the living daylights out of musicians who are
accustomed to being able to analyze the music they listen to.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">For the new electronic musicians,
the perfect quantization, the possibility of a high pace, and synthetic
"sound images" constituted a measure of beauty. Among the pioneers,
the most notable was the German band <b>Kraftwerk</b>, who built their
own synthesizers and should be considered classics of the genre. Kraftwerk's
importance for synth music can hardly be exaggerated. No single group
has had as much influence on electronic pop music as these futurists -
futurists in the sense that they saw the inherent beauty of the technology,
rather than a tool for reproducing other ideals. They made contact with
the previuosly named Karlehinz Stockhausen at an early stage, and drew
lots of ideas and inspiration from classical electronic music.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Kraftwerk, and in particular
its member <b>Ralf Hütter</b>, are also extremely politically aware
and openly supports hackers. Sometimes, Ralf even refers to himself as
a hacker. The mentality of these German gentlemen has thus influenced
- and been influenced by - the digital underground culture around the
world. Chaos Computer Club member Pengo, who was previously mentioned
in connection with illegal hackers, was a Kraftwerk fan, and he listened
to their records over and over while breaking into computers around the
globe. He was not alone in this. Even though hackers in general have disparate
musical tastes, from Bach to death metal, there are few who do not enjoy
electronic music in some form or another.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">While a "normal"
educated musician perhaps sees the computer as a tool for producing compositions,
musical arrangements, and nice-looking sheet music, a futuristic musician
sees the computer as an instrument, something to be played by its own
right, and which - like a saxophone or a harp - possesses an inner beauty.
The futuristic musician can sit for hours and adjust different parameters
to extract personal sounds from the machine, and he/she loves it as much
as a guitarist loves to extrapolate his/her scales up and down in the
search for a greater personal touch.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">While a "normal"
musician creates his or her profile through finding new techniques to
manipulate his/her existing instrument, the electronic musician works
with numeric parameters, spectrum analyzers, and one-handed play. Some
don't know how to play an instrument at all, and stick to writing the
music note by note in something like a "musical word processor".
The method may be radically distinct from traditional music creation,
but that doesn't mean that electro-pop has less 'soul".</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><b>Peter Samson</b>, as one
of the very first hackers at MIT (yes, we're back there again), had managed
to get a PDP-1 computer to play Bach fugues solely based on numerical
input. His program could be said to be the first sequencer made by an
amateur. A sequencer is a computer program or a machine that remembers
the notes to be played, and allows the user to change the notes, replay
them, then store them again to replay them at some other time. Since that
day, we have enjoyed a living, machine-made music culture. Many musicians
of the old school react with outright xenophobia against this new way
of working with music, rather than enjoy its benefits and try to understand
what the point is.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Among Swedish electro-pioneers
there was <b>Page</b> (which is still an active band). During the early
80's the group was one of the first (and for its genre, also one of the
most successful) so-called synth-pop groups. Many jumped on the synth
bandwagon, but have presently been forgotten. Who listens to groups like
<b>Trans-X</b>, <b>Ultravox</b>, or <b>Texas Instruments</b> today? Not
many, even if there are still quite a few synth-pop fans around the country.
The genre has returned in the form of groups such as <b>S.P.O.C.K.</b>
or newcomers <b>Children Within</b>, which are both very talented Swedish
bands.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">As a reaction against the
frequently well-groomed and "nice" synth bands (read: Howard
Jones, Depeche Mode, etc.) that flourished in the mid-80's, there came
a new and incredibly heavy form of synth music: Electric Body Music, or
simply <i>EBM</i>. Mostly, it was just referred to as "raw synth".
The English band <b>Cabaret Voltair</b> had "invented" the style
in 1978, but it was not until now that it reached popularity on the Continent
and in America. Among others, <b>Portion Control</b>, <b>Front 242</b>
(who coined the term EBM), <b>Skinny Puppy</b>, and <b>Invincible Spirit</b>
joined the trend. One can compare the arrival of heavy synth music to
the introduction of grunge (personified by Nirvana) as a reaction to "poodle
rock" - there were simply too much corny stuff out there. Less successful
was perhaps the tendency of many heavy synth bands to flirt with nazi
symbolism and clothing, and many groups (including Front 242) had to make
public statements denying any connection to or support of neo-nazi movements.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">In the 90's, many groups have
grown weary of the EBM concept, since it started to become a bit trite.
For example, <b>Ministry</b>, <b>Die Krupps</b>, and the Swedish band
<b>Pouppé Fabrikk</b> had switched to Crossover, a type of music
that mixes EBM and different types of metal, often in the style of the
trash-metal pioneers <b>Metallica</b>.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><b>Ambient</b><br>
In 1978, the former Roxy Music keyboard player<b> Brian Eno</b> released
a record named <i>Music for Airports</i>, using his own record company
called Ambient. Ambient is originally an esoteric form of artistic music.
The underlying idea is to produce a complete environment rather than just
a musical "sound carpet" with rhythms and ordered notes. Naturally,
it is advantageous to create a sound image from an unfamiliar and exciting
environment if one is interested in making quality, penetrating ambient
music. A simple method for creating ambient music is to just set up a
couple of microphones in a steel mill, a suburban apartment, or whatever
environment you want to incorporate.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Eno supposedly got the idea
for making such music after being hospitalized following a car accident.
He was confined to the bed with the stereo on, unable to get up to either
turn it off or turn up the volume. The silent whisper of music combined
with the sounds from the street below made him realize that this was actually
a real music style. Peripheral music - like the music we listen to in
supermarkets or airports - contains its own logic and does not at all
resemble "regular" music. Ambient music is music that should
be listened to while doing something else, concentrating on other sounds,
yet it should be subconsciously enjoyable. In psychology, the phenomenon
is classified as subliminal perception. The music creates a totality together
with external sounds and does not place requirements on the listener's
attention.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Eno didn't actually "invent"
ambient music. The eccentric and ingenious composer Erik Satie made a
few less-appreciated attempts at creating "furniture music"
in the early 1900s, and in the 60's, the musical artist <b>John Cage</b>
wrote <i>Four Minutes, Thirty-three Seconds</i>, a piece for silent piano,
which is considered by many to be the ultimate ambient composition. The
point was that the listener should concentrate on the sounds in his or
her environment. To get the most out of the piece, one should perhaps
read the score. Cage also worked with electronic music, where he introduced
ideas from Zen philosophy about how the music should be organized but
still display a chaotic nature. These ideas have, served as a basis for
the study of improvisational techniques. They have also had a great influence
on ambient music, and this is mentioned on the covers of Brian Eno's records.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Together with installation
art, this music form says a great deal about ambitions within modern art:
to create a total environment and place the beholder inside it<sup><a href="#foot1">1</a></sup>.
The concept of Virtual Reality is considered to be the optimal combination
of installation art and ambient music. An artificial, man-made environment
of the type that writers for ages have been able to create using the reader's
imagination - but tangible, detailed, and accurate. A world built on pure
information.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Electronic music pioneers
such as <b>Tangerine Dream</b> (which debuted with <i>Electronic Meditation</i>
in 1969), and some symphonic rock groups like <b>Hawkwind</b>, experimented
early on with creating alien, futuristic sound environments using early
synthesizers and manipulating all types of electronic equipment (for example,
guitar amplifiers) to produce strange sounds.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Brian Eno is still a prominent
figure in ambient music. Before ambient music became well-known, it was
often filed under labels such as New Age or Meditational. These terms
are nowadays used for artists like Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis, who
represent a sort of mood-charged elevator-style music, suitable for active
as well as passive listening.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Modern DJ's such as <b>Alex
Paterson</b> and <b>Bill Drummond</b> (The Orb/KLF) and <b>Sven Väth</b>,
inspired by techno and industrial music, have succeeded in the art of
making rhythmical pop music with elements of ambient music without ruining
the basic concept. Especially The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
and Väth's Accident in Paradise are considered important milestones
in "modern" ambient</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> <b>Electronic Film</b><br>
The last subject I will touch upon in this chapter is not about music.
Electronic film has existed basically since the introduction of the TV,
but never developed into a genre of its own until the late 80's. We can
compare electronic film to electronic music, and define it as film that
is created only by electronic means. The first time anything of the kind
was done was when a TV camera was aimed at a TV screen, and thus created
a flowing feedback pattern. That type of effect has also been used in
music, to spiff up a melody and add new dimensions; there's hardly a guitarist
that does not know how to employ feedback in an electronic amplifier to
create new sounds.</font> <font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">For
music, this form of manipulation came about as early as the mid-50's through
Stockhausen. For TV and film, it was never a matter of making electronic
film its own art form. Instead, technology was mostly used to create special
effects. A shining example is the vignette for the English TV series <i>Doctor
Who</i>, an illusion of a trip through a long, colorful tunnel, created
solely with the help of feedback patterns.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">The art of filmmaking has
developed in many directions, but electronic film in particular seems
to repel many filmmakers. In film, there is no tradition of creating pictures
without people. Since its inception, film has been based on theater, and
thus on dialogue. The mere thought of making a film without people is
absurd to most directors (<i>Translator's note: </i>and then <i>Star Wars:
The Phantom Menace</i> came along...). In music there is, to say the least,
a much older tradition of making music without song. One could say that
music, as opposed to theater and film, has more to do with directly generating
emotions and moods than trying to reflect real events or psychological
occurrences.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">In animated pictures, there
have been several attempts to take a step away from people and trying
to create a symbolic universe. Mostly, however, it has only led to compromise.
Virtually all animated films are fables, i. e. they describe things that
actually occur in human society. Basically all events that are described
in cartoons involve actors with certain human physical and psychological
attributes that have been put in some human-like situation. The few attempts
at creating animated film like modern art, through the use of symbols
and patterns without "life", have almost exclusively produced
incomprehensible results.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Also relevant is the fact
that film, up until the 90's, was extremely expensive to produce and did
not lend itself to frivolous experimentation. It was necessary to have
an established market potential or government financing to afford to make
a movie. Neither of these institutions is very receptive to experimental
ideas. With the introduction of cheap video technology in the late 80's
and early 90's, it became possible to experiment with film in an entirely
new way.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">The computer has also made
an appearance in electronic film. Here, as in music, it is the general
opinion that the computer should remain merely a tool, a means of creating
completely normal commercial or artistic film. Among those involved with
animation and computer graphics, ideas are radically different. One of
the most distinct and beautiful examples of electronic film is a series
of short movies created by George Lucas' <i>PIXAR</i>, a company that
was founded by the film mogul for the sole purpose of developing computer
technology for motion pictures. It goes under the collective name of <i>Beyond
the Mind's Eye</i>, and is well appreciated among those who already have
been involved with electronic culture. Somewhat paradoxically, in this
case it was the commercial film industry that financed the development
of one of the most alternative art forms there is. Some of PIXAR's movies
are regular movies intended for a wide audience (like cartoons but more
detailed), while others are very experimental<sup><a href="#foot2">2</a></sup>.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I refer to films containing
only exploding geometric figures, camera pans over incomprehensible landscapes,
fractal images, and psychedelic color patterns as ambient films, since
the idea is about the same as with ambient music - to set a mood without
a linear or coherent content. The style is related to so-called parametric
film, in which the technique, especially camera positioning and panning,
is an end in itself to lend the film a certain mood without resorting
to traditional narrative methods.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Electronic film is very popular
at rave parties, and also a given ingredient in many techno music videos,
a music style which will be discussed in the next chapter.<br>
</font></p>
<hr>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br>
<a name="foot1"></a><font color="#999999">1 To "widen the frames"
is considered a general characteristic of postmodern art.<br>
<br>
<a name="foot2"></a>2 They've made a commercial breakthrough with the movie
Toy Story.</font></font> </td>
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<p align="center"><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><a href="ch5web.htm"><img src="arrowleft.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" name="ch1web.htm" border="0"></a><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999">
<a href="mainindex.htm">INDEX</a> </font><a href="ch7web.htm"><img src="arrowright.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" border="0"></a></font></p>
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