TX Computer Musicians Visit

Electronica brings in the noise

Last Thursday at Warner Hall, the TIMARA department featured selected works by five young electronic composers belonging to the Texas Computer Musicians Network (TCMN). The concert environment followed typical TIMARA tradition by having the audience listen to pre-recorded electronic music from impressive surround-sound speakers in a completely dark room.

The five pieces that comprised this event integrated many different and abstract sounds, such as slamming doors, pouring rain, roaring airplanes and church bells. With the exception of the vocal piece entitled "Hollow Ground II," this brand of conceptual music abides to a rejection of melodies, tonality and structure. The compositions demonstrate a lack of continuity and distract the listener with electronically fabricated or manipulated sounds. These works create a wild and untamed music landscape, rich with spontaneous explosions, sedating machine drones and eerie organ sounds.

"Deep Pockets," composed by Larisa Montanaro, is reminiscent of the opening sequence to Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine." This piece is full of the standard oscillating motors, grinding drills and pumping pistons. However, the mechanical aspect of this song contrasts markedly with the quirky program notes pertaining to the work: "Roll into your favorite bar, grab a pint of brew (don't forget to throw some change into the tip jar), and shoot some pool. Slice the three into the side and put some backspin on the four- you've never heard the game like this before."

The worst and most annoying piece in the program, mysteriously entitled, "ATALLMIRROR:academix," endlessly utilizes a computer-generated sound resembling the drone of rapidly flapping bird wings. The overbearing fluttering sound made 10 minutes of listening feel like 10 hours. One would half-expect that the sound would eventually change after a certain amount of time judt provide disappoint. Even the occasional dissonant chord or ringing bell could not offset that damn fluttering sound.

The most striking piece of this concert, entitled "Hollow Ground II," featured Larisa Montanaro, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas, singing to prerecorded music. Larisa's tender voice overdubs other feminine voices, evoking a feeling of subdued melancholy. While listening to this section, one envisions a group of nuns in a cathedral lamenting the passing of their loved ones. The piece quickly transformed into a thumping African beat and the singer regretfully sounded like Enya. Unfortunately, a sudden power outage interrupted the climax of this piece and completely ruined the moment. The presenter of the concert apologized for the lack of electricity, the audience looked at each other with awkward glances, and the performer scuttled back stage, thus concluding the TCMN concert.

Modern electronic music has followed a conceptual path of utter chaos as computer technology has developed. Although the TCMN pieces require a significant amount of software-tinkering and button-pushing, a certain element of musicality is lacking in the process. While listening to church bells, buzzing sounds and climactic airplane engines are appealing to the average listener in certain mind states, the TCMN concert failed to achieve any sense of structure and unity in the constituent pieces. With the exception of the vocal/tribal piece, the works abandoned melody, harmony and tonality.

As electronic music composers venture into the wilderness of their computers and keyboards, the current conceptual trend shall only continue. In the same pattern as other mediums of art, the audience must face the inevitable pretentiousness from artists who explain their works in fancy terms in order to recompense for a lack of standard musical ideas. For electronic music to evolve, composers must refrain from pretentious ambitions, and integrate elements of musicality and acoustics with the vast capabilities of computers.