Listening to Electronica: A Guide for the Perplexed Noob

[atomic_(no)afro]

It should be pointed out that there are more and more "analogues" (pardon the pun) of other musical genres found in the broad category of electronic these days. For example, Broken Beat & Nu Jazz are offshoots of Downtempo mixed with Deep House moved in a swing-latin-avant-garde jazz style. You take a listen to Koop or AS One and you will see for yourself that electronic can be just as musical as many other established genres. For those with a more classical taste, try Craig Armstrong or Hybrid. Both are a good place to start for someone with a symphonic background.

ATA

[Sw-Michael]

As several writers have said, electronica is a very wide classification. It goes from euphoric trance (or even more "traditional" stuff like house) where you use harmonies and chords to electronic art music (Varese, Subotnick, Stockhausen, Cage etc) where total lack of tonality and rythm is common.

One pretty cool aspect is that there isn't really any strict boundaries betweens all these genres. In traditional music, the gulf between pop music and classical music is extreme, while in electronica it is more of a sliding scale.

I know (of) several techno/psy-trance producers who also frequently compose what is best described as abstract electronic art music.

[birrbits]

To bridge the classically-trained-to-electronica-gap go buy/listen to BT (artist name) ESCM (album name). cerebral melody with fantastic rhythm. He is also a classically trained musician.

[emdot_ambient]

I actually find a the bulk of 'electronica' much too conservative these days.

By that, I take it, you mean a lot of 'electronica' is too formulaic and does not take enough risks? I would agree with that in large part. Take any given sub-genre of electronic music today and there are tons of sound-alikes. I used to listen to Goa a lot and with but a few exceptions, I couldn't tell one artist from another.

But it's hard to generalize, especially in a field with so much subfractalization. What does one mean by 'electronica' anyway? A lot of people bandy genres around like there's a clear definition, but there's so muce crossover and intermingling between styles that all the talk of genre becomes pretty much useless. Tangerine Dream, for example, has been called Berlin School, Space, Krautrock, Cosmiische, New Age, Ambient and Electronica . . . probably a few additional genres as well. Of course, their style went through several obvious progressions but as genres were invented and became recognized, all their music would be lumped into the genre du jour . . .

. . . I've pretty much been spouting off random thoughts generated by the thread thus far, but as for the original query, it has to be pointed out that there are many different listening modes one must take to appreciate the variety of electronic music now available. One does not listen to Morton Subotnick's early work with the same musical ear as one does Vurt's latest dronefest. Appreciating Glass or Reich or Riley takes a different ear than needed to appreciate a Hardcore floor pounder, though all these musical forms rely intensely on repitition.

The key is to find the artist's apparent focus is and to learn to delve into that. Be that rhythm or pure sonic mangling.

I will admit that too much of today's focus is on beat, and if not on beat then on sonic washes and soundscapes. I prefer the latter to beat driven works (just personal preference, though I do love a good floor pounder now and again), but sorely miss melody. Perhaps that's why my own work is currently rooted in the electronic music of the early 70's, drawing off the influence of Klaus Schulze, (early) Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michele Jarre, Vangelis and their kind. In all of these cases melody was present supported and sometimes presented in equal measure with sonic washes, sound effects and pulse.

[SecondSkin]

To bridge the classically-trained-to-electronica-gap go buy/listen to BT (artist name) ESCM (album name). cerebral melody with fantastic rhythm. He is also a classically trained musician.

As much as BT is slammed around here, that is a better starting point than Aphex Twin, Autechre, etc.

[foosnark]

Some chiptunes stuff is very melody-oriented, simply because the sonic pallette and dynamic range are strictly limited. Composing for something that only goes "beep" at different pitches is not too far off from composing for, say, harpsichord.

(Though in other cases you have jungle, industrial, IDM or pop going on in that same space, or simple recreations of 80's video game themes.)

Anyway, might want to check out 8bitpeoples for some examples of the most overtly inorganic stuff out there. Some of it is amazingly expressive