Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Before I gained interest in composition, I already had experience of studio work, recording

music mainly in the field of metal. At that time, I had never heard of electroacoustic music,

and it was not until I started to study composition at Gotlands tonsättarskola that I

encountered the genre. At the beginning I found that electroacoustic music was very hard to

listen to and enjoy, but after a while it started to grow on me and eventually, I also started to

compose electroacoustic music myself. The composer Curtis Roads in his book Composing

Electronic Music (2015) says that the practice of electronic music continues to generate a flow

of new materials, tools, and novel methods of organization. The music produced by these

means evokes new sensations, feelings, and thoughts in both composers and listeners. To my

discovery working with electroacoustic music was very enjoyable and it did unite my love for

both composition and working in a studio and provided me with another way of expressing

myself as a composer.

To further my craft as a composer in electroacoustic music I feel the need to learn more about

form in that genre. As argued by Roads (2015) “The unique materials and tools of electronic

music lead to new forms of organization” (p. 316). A historical example which supports this

claim is the pioneering composer Pierre Schaeffer, who observed how “In reality, musique

concrète, as soon as it was discovered, was found to be bubbling over not only with the

proliferation of material but in the breaking open of forms” (Schaeffer, l ´Expérience Concrète

en Musique, 1952, p. 125 cited in Norman, 2004, p. 23). Musical form is a core subject of

study for any composer doing their bachelor’s degree. What we mainly study is the classical

forms such as Sonata form when it comes to large scale works but also the form of a theme

with its motives, phrases and cadences. This is what one of the late great composers Arnold

Schoenberg has to say about the aesthetics of form in composition:

Used in the aesthetic sense, form means that a piece is organized; i.e. that it

consists of elements functioning like those of a living organism. Without

organization music would be an amorphous mass, as unintelligible as an essay

without punctuation, or as disconnected as a conversation which leaps

purposelessly from one subject to another. The chief requirements for the

creation of a comprehensible form are logic and coherence. The presentation,

development and interconnexion of ideas must be based on relationship. Ideas

must be differentiated according to their importance and function. (Schoenberg,

1967, p. 1)

During my bachelor’s degree in composition, form in electroacoustic music was not studied,

and I feel that I am lacking knowledge on the subject and the ability to plan out an

electroacoustic composition has the organization qualities corresponding to Schoenberg’s

statement above. Doing research in the subject form in electroacoustic music and study how

other composes work with form in that field will change that and give me proper knowledge

to be able to plan out a composition and make it coherent.