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The History of Electronic Music in 476 Tracks (1937–2001)

(www.openculture.com)
119 points bookofjoe | 2 comments | 02 Jul 25 22:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.476s | source
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aimeric ◴[05 Jul 25 19:59 UTC] No.44475119[source]▶
Sadly, no mention of Louis and Bebe Barron, who together created the first all-electronic soundtrack for the 1956 movie "Forbidden Planet".

This was before the invention of the synthesizer a few years later: Louis created so-called "cybernetic circuits", which apparently had a life-cycle similar to living organisms, while Bebe arranged the resulting sounds into music.

And, to this day, no one knows exactly how they created their music... (Almost no one, that is - it's my PhD topic ;-)

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quakeguy ◴[05 Jul 25 20:21 UTC] No.44475253[source]▶
Now we need to know more!
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1. aimeric ◴[05 Jul 25 21:27 UTC] No.44475687[source]▶
A substantial mythology has formed around the soundtrack's creation. One of the prevailing notions is that the sounds were generated by torturing and electrically overloading the "cybernetic circuits". There's evidence that this is simply artistic misdirection.

In reality, the music was carefully crafted and performed - with an emphasis on performance, rather than random events and sounds. (The genre of "Krell music" went off at a completely wrong tangent in this regard...)

It's unfortunate that Bebe Barron downplayed her own compositional technique and creative input in order to bolster this mythology.

The research is focused on the nature of the Barrons' cybernetic circuits. Using digital equivalents of these circuits, the aim is to recreate the title track, using only the techniques that were available to the Barrons in the 1950s.

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2. quakeguy ◴[06 Jul 25 12:06 UTC] No.44480021[source]▶
Thx for the reply, but i only have more questions now… Good luck with your studies!