Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde (The New Cultural History of Music Series)

Cold War electronic music—made with sine tone and white-noise generators, filters, and magnetic tape—was the driving force behind the evolution of both electronic and acoustic music in the second half of the twentieth century. Electronic music blossomed at the __Westdeutscher Rundfunk__ (WDR [West German Radio]) in Cologne in the 1950s, when technologies were plentiful and the need for cultural healing was great. Building an electronic studio, West Germany confronted the decimation of the “Zero Hour” and began to rebuild its cultural prowess. The studio’s greatest asset was its laboratory culture, where composers worked under a paradigm of invisible collaboration with technicians, scientists, performers, intellectuals, and the machines themselves. Composers and their invisible collaborators repurposed military machinery in studio spaces that were formerly fascist broadcasting propaganda centers. Composers of Cold War electronic music reappropriated information theory and experimental phonetics, creating aesthetic applications from military discourses. In performing such reclamations, electronic music optimistically signaled cultural growth and progress, even as it also sonified technophobic anxieties. Electronic music—a synthesis of technological, scientific, and aesthetic discourses—was the ultimate Cold War innovation, and its impacts reverberate today. Résumé éditeur : "For a decimated post-war West Germany, the electronic music studio at the WDR radio in Cologne was a beacon of hope. Jennifer Iverson's Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde traces the reclamation and repurposing of wartime machines, spaces, and discourses into the new sounds of the mid-century studio. In the 1950s, when technologies were plentiful and the need for reconstruction was great, West Germany began to rebuild its cultural prestige via aesthetic and technical advances. The studio's composers, collaborating with scientists and technicians, coaxed music from sine-tone oscillators, noise generators, band-pass filters, and magnetic tape. Together, they applied core tenets from information theory and phonetics, reclaiming military communication technologies as well as fascist propaganda broadcasting spaces. The electronic studio nurtured a revolutionary synthesis of science, technology, politics, and aesthetics. Its esoteric sounds transformed mid-century music and continue to reverberate today. Electronic music-echoing both cultural anxiety and promise-is a quintessential Cold War innovation." For a decimated post-war West Germany, the electronic music studio at the WDR radio in Cologne was a beacon of hope. Collaborating with scientists and technicians, the studio's composers coaxed music from oscillators, generators, filters, and magnetic tape, reclaiming and repurposing military machines, spaces, and discourses into the new sounds of mid-century electronic music. Jennifer Iverson's Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde traces the development of this music into a quintessential Cold War innovation-one that reverberated as much with anxiety as wi For a decimated post-war West Germany, the electronic music studio at the WDR radio in Cologne was a beacon of hope. Collaborating with scientists and technicians, the studio's composers coaxed music from oscillators, generators, filters, and magnetic tape, reclaiming and repurposing military machines, spaces, and discourses into the new sounds of mid-century electronic music. Jennifer Iverson's 'Electronic Inspirations' traces the development of this music into a quintessential Cold War innovation - one that reverberated as much with anxiety as with the promise of a new age c580c687_Cover(full permission) Title_Pages (1) Dedication ffa44a20_vii(full permission) Epigraph Introduction OriginsCreating_a_Laboratory KinshipCage_Tudor_and_the_New_Timbral_Utopia CollaborationThe_Science_and_Culture_of_Additive_Synthesis Reclaiming_TechnologyFrom_Information_Theory_to_Statistical_Form ControversyThe_Aleatory_Debates_Beyond_Darmstadt TechnosynthesisFrom_Vocoder_Speech_to_Electronic_Music Epilogue Notes Glossary_of_Actors Bibliography Index Пустая страница Origins : creating a laboratory -- Kinship : Cage, Tudor, and the timbral utopia -- Collaboration : the science and culture of additive synthesis -- Reclaiming technology : from information theory to statistical form -- Controversy : the aleatory debates beyond Darmstadt -- Techno-synthesis : from vocoder speech to electronic music