Michael Willow

Electronic Music:

“Electronic music: Music made by producing, modifying and recording sounds, and reproducing it by electroacoustical means. Electronic music has become very important since World War II” (Willi Apel 1969).When we talk of the evolution of music today it is inevitable to refer to electronic music. Electronic music is interwoven with the past, present and future of music. We may return to pure acoustic music, we may combine acoustic with electronic sounds or we may indulge in pure electronic music. Nothing can stop us going back and forth in time. However, acoustic sounds are not being lost or forgotten. The acoustic instruments, the piano, the guitar, the brass, the harp, the fiddle can by no means be permanently replaced. This is not the purpose of electronic music. Although acoustic instruments are often substituted by digital or electronic ones either for aesthetic or for financial reasons (e.g. using string samples is much cheaper than recording a whole strings ensemble) in more than a few cases the acoustic instruments are preferred to anything digital because the lack of them would sound fake, unnatural. Continue reading »