The Electronic Music concert in LeFrak earlier tonight was an interesting and different concert than I have ever been to. There were no musicians on stage, just the director of the concert and his helper at a computer playing the different soundtracks of unique musical sound. The lights were also turned off so the audience would focus on the music.
I think it is safe to say that the pieces of electronic music that were played could be considered the musical version of abstract expressionism. Each piece had a multitude of different unique sounds, many of which could not be replicated by any real instrument. Many of the sounds sounded like the music for the introduction to a modern movie, but blended in a bizarre and abstract way. Many other sounds sounded like musical background in a video game, also blended together in a puzzling and abstract fashion. Furthermore, a couple of the pieces were accompanied with a visual slideshow of abstract moving colored blobs, lines, and streaks, the kind that you frequently see in screen savers. In a way, these “screen saver” animations could also be considered animated abstract expressionism.
So just when we thought that abstract expressionism was limited to de Kooning and 2D visual art, the art form has actually made its way into modern technology as well in the form of music and animation.
Abstract expressionism has been around in music for years. It is present in classical music, in jazz, (not really present in pop) and in electronic music. I find it funny the way most people have now been conditioned to say “that reminded me of movie music”, or “video game music”. The truth, is that the composer for that game or movie was inspired by Debussy, or Shoenberg, or Beethoven, or Aaron Coplan (though probably not unless the movie is a country western). Either way, modern society tends to forget the connections that this music has to past. If most people were exposed to the original abstract music before hearing it with electronic devices, perhaps they would be able to appreciate it better.
While I was unable to attend this performance, I find the idea of electronic music to be truly fascinating. Electronic music, though strange, has the potential to make huge splashes in the way we listen and hear things. Most of the time, sounds are either musical or not. The beauty here is that literally any sound can be taken, juxtaposed to any other sound, and music can be formed. Everyday sounds from snoring to walking can be recorded and used as electronic fodder for musical productions. The opportunities are endless and the creativity is too. Unlike typical music which is bound by the sounds of instruments and voices, electronic art has no bounds. The sound of falling can be music. The sound of a train can be music. Even the sound of a flushing toilet can be made into music. That is not to say that I think that toilets make music, but I do believe people can make music with toilets. I think that, much like de Kooning and other modern artists, electronic musicians are pushing the boundaries of what can be called music in a good way. By recording sounds and manipulating them with a computer, anything can be music in ways that previously couldn’t be done. I don’t mean that I don’t enjoy the sounds of instruments and vocals anymore, just as I don’t believe that people who enjoy modern art wouldn’t enjoy an excellent classic. I just think that electronic music has a lot of untapped potential, and may one day be a more mainstream musical form.