Is Electronic Music “Real Music”?
by evanhechtman
My roommate is something of a music snob.
He enjoys going to the orchestra and opera. Beethoven is his jam. Most of all, he loves The Who and classic rock.
However, his taste isn’t eclectic enough to include electronic music. In fact, he believes electronic music isn’t really music at all. To him, music requires an instrument and a player. The physical act of playing an instrument validates the music, making it legitimate. Creating something with a synthesizer or computer just doesn’t quite cut it.
Of course, his criticism is mostly leveled at popular songs that proliferate frat parties. But as we journey into experimental music, with less instruments and more technological wizardry, perhaps it is still worthy of consideration.
Obviously, “Etude aux Chemins de Fer” or the Reich piece “It’s Gonna Rain” sounds quite different from a symphony. Is this a bad thing? Is a piece of music somehow less authentic art if the sounds are not being produced by humans playing instruments? Certainly there is still a creative process involved in its production, but it is not quite the same. Instead of coordinating a team of players, a single person stacks varied sounds together as desired. How, if at all, does this make technological and electronic music fundamentally different than what we’ve previously studied?
I believe the core of my roommate’s criticism is that electronic music cannot be performed in the traditional sense. We can go to the orchestra, and even the Who are still rocking out live in their advanced age. But the experimental pieces for this week and Calvin Harris aren’t quite the same. Once an artist has created an electronic piece, you don’t exactly go out and play it in front of an audience in the same way one performs a concerto or rock song. Instead, you just hit play. Does this make electronic music less authentic? Is live performance a crucial aspect of music?
The Thousand-Year Ears 
I often feel as your roommate does. But I have to ask myself “Am I rejecting this music because it really isn’t valid, or because it’s mainstream and I want to feel special?” It’s hard to filter ego out of all of this. Music today has become such a big feeder into image and self-perception.
Your roommate is wrong.
“Synthetic” music uses a computer as the instrument and a programmer (of sorts) as the player. Commanding a computer is trivially different from strumming a guitar.
I don’t agree that music must involve an instrument and a player. Any combination of sounds that is arranged to be presented to listeners should be deemed music. I would even go as far to include birdsong as music, simply because it is a sound that is pleasing to the ear. With electronic music having distinct rhythms and dynamics, it is wrong to think that it is not “real music” as well.
I do believe electronic music should be considered, however I came across an article on the EDM (Electronic Dance Music) website where the Rolling Stones completely disregarded electronic music as “music”
http://doandroidsdance.com/features/rolling-stone-italy-rocker-dj/
Especially after today’s lecture, we can see that electronic music can be considered music, including the “Switched on Bach” album by Wendy Carlos. Same music (dynamics, rhythms, etc.), different output and instrumentation.
There are many times where I feel very similar to your roommate. I love Bach and Beethoven but it’s not that I don’t love electronic music. Electronic music evokes a different brand of emotions for me than does the classical music of Bach and Beethoven, so I don’t think electronic music should be disregarded. It’s is very valid as a genre, especially since it permeates the lives of many. And especially considering the advent of computers and the exponential improvement in technology, electronic music makes sense on the grand scheme of things.
I think music can be made from anything that creates a sound, and in no way should music be limited to traditional instruments. Electronic music is just what’s popular these days and for some people it’s hard to have respect for this type of music.
Thanks to technologies like iTunes and Spotify, I think that our generation has a much different definition of what “real music” is than our grandparents do; sure, my parents grew up with the classic Walkman and with stereos, but my grandparents were more used to seeing live music performances. It’s hard to say if electronic music is “real” music or not – isn’t it relatively similar to other kinds of recorded music that we are so used to listening to? A lot of what I listen to for pleasure is some popular singer who has recorded their performance, but there is undoubtedly auto-tune involved. I am not sure if electronic manipulation greatly diverges from electronic music, so it’s hard to say whether electronic music is “real” or not.
You should probably point out that the Who use the synthesizer very heavily in many of their works. The doors do as well (possibly even more so). To say that music is not allowed to grow and change with regards to this electronic revolution is ridiculous.
I think some of the ways electronic music (synthesizers/computer generated sound) is used today takes away from the performance aspect of music. However, I think that electronic music allows composers to create an energy and timbre that is a part of some of my favorite music.
I think electronic music definitely belongs to the music category. It’s just different from the other, but that doesn’t make it another art form. Listening to electronic music obviously gives you a completely different listening experience, but that’s just like watching movies of different genres.
I think electronic music can be considered music as long as listeners can feel something when they listen to it. Live performance is an important part, but I don’t think it decides whether electronic music can be considered real music.
While I’m personally not very fond of electronic music, I think your roommate is wrong. I remember at the beginning of the semester we learned that religious Gregorian chants were the predominant musical form for centuries. Then we saw the rise of purely instrumental music at the beginning of the baroque period. I’ll bet that those who were raised in the Gregorian tradition would criticize baroque music as somehow being ‘less authentic’ or ‘less natural’ than vocal music in the same way that your roommate criticizes electronic music. Technology changes over time and so does music. It’s not surprising that one would affect the other.
Many people believe that electronic music cannot be “performed” live, but actually many of the world’s top electronic musicians do exactly that. While sounds may be prerecorded, the musicians manipulate and layer the different sounds live on the spot. That’s why if you go to an electronic music concert, it will ALWAYS sound different from what you hear on the radio or spotify. Yes, the general framework of the piece will stay the same, but artists most always change the details from concert to concert.
I think electronic music is just as authentic as music we have been listening to this semester. Many people do, in fact, go to concerts of electronic music. It is just a different time period and a new type of music that has emerged. In one hundred years I bet people will simply consider electronic music in the history and evolution of music itself.
Eli makes a very good point about electronic music performances. Many, if not all, DJs will manipulate their songs and other DJs songs on the spot.
Electronic music should be considered music. The only thing that distinguishes electronic music from say classical is the type of tools used to produce sound. Violins, guitars, and other musical instruments are to other genres of music as the computer is to electronic. With today’s technology, DJs can recreate a Bach performance on the computer. Would you say that that is not music just because it was created on a computer?
In Erica Ball’s music theory class, she defines music as “sound organized in time.” Under that definition, EDM is most definitely music. And to say that there is no live aspect is bogus. Has your roommate ever seen a good DJ perform live?
I believe music can be defined broadly as sound composed with intent. I do not believe it’s limited to sounds/instruments that must be played like an instrument, nor does it need to be played live. In addition, electric sounds or effects create sounds that previously were unattainable, adding an unprecedented variety in sounds that can be achieved.
I think there is no such thing as “real music,” and that anything can be music. It’s up to the listener to approach the music with open ears and an open mind. I think our culture has come to the point today where practically anything can be considered art and practically any conglomeration of sound can be classified as music. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, though. I think it will be interesting to see what else the future holds for music!
One thing your roommate should consider is the amount of skill and hard work that all of those DJs need to create their music. Though Beethoven and Calvin Harris have different types of music the amount of work that went into their works is still admirable and both deserve respect because of that.
While there is definitely a distinct difference between these two styles of music, I don’t think it really takes away from electronic music’s allure just because it’s not performed by a person like more traditional music. It’s just a further evolution of the artistic medium of music.
I believe that electronic music does count as music, but I personally like classical symphony better because the melody of it is more fluid and beautiful to me. However, if your roommate could get a same listening experience from electrical music, there’s no need to argue too much on the exact definition of “music”.
I think electronic music is definitely a form of music. I agree there is a big difference in the sound and presentation, but this does not give a reason to neglect it. For me, the experience of listening to these different types of music is distinct, but this does not mean electronic music should be disregarded. These electronic artists still take many of the same things into consideration when creating a work. This new sound is just another step in the development of music.
I think electronic music should be considered music. After all, it is composed by a musical artist with the same goals as any other composer: to bring out the best sounds they can from what they have at their disposal. For a conductor, it means from an orchestra. However, for an electronic musican, it may be as simple as being unable to bring together such a large group of people to coordinate a performance. A number of my friends here at Penn are into making electronic music (they certainly would have a hard time becoming a conductor), and while a number of the beats are not original (defaults on the software), it is the coordination and careful study of how the sounds play together that make this an art just like music. All in all, they possess similar ideas and goals, and both are fueled by a love for music.
Perhaps your friend is just being condescending of the behavior and atmosphere that surrounds the electronic (dance?) music culture today. You should show him the pendulum music we listened to in class, maybe he would appreciate that more than Skrillex.
I can see the critique that there is something important about the performance. Fluxus, for example, is entirely dependent on the setting of the live performance. However, I would agree with most other commenters here that your roommate is extraordinarily close-minded in disregarding “popular songs that proliferate frat parties.” A lot of people would argue that good music is that which elicits an emotional response (remember the division in the Catholic Church over whether pleasurable music was bad?). The music that plays at frat parties is playing because it is music that gets young people excited. It’s clearly a different form of transcendence than Gregorian chants or symphonies, but it allows them to just get lost in the sounds in much the same way.
Denouncing electronic music on the whole for being electronic is rather questionable. Some electronic instruments require an incredible level of precision and skill, such as the Theremin. In the case of using a synthesizer or digitally composing music, perhaps it doesn’t take technical dexterity to create music, but listening for sounds and knowing which to use to produce the effects that the composer wants is a skill in its own right.
Perhaps the reason we are reluctant to label electronic music in the same way as older, “traditional” kinds of music is simply the abstractness of the synthesizer; the sounds are produced in a magic box and wires, rather than from our hands or breath in a physical object, and simply emanate through some metal disks and amplifiers, so we have a psychologically more difficult time mentally analyzing such a method of producing sounds.
In whatever case, music being “electronic” doesn’t necessarily mean that it loses melodic quality or musical traditionalism, as Switched-on Bach showed. It’s just that most electronic music is usually taken in novel (or “noisy” depending on perspective) directions.
The argument could go either way in my opinion. There are online programs that can let you “compose” music, but they really take little to no talent to do. If that is what your roommate means, then I agree that that isn’t real music. However, if you know music theory and simply use electronics to make your ideas come to life then that still takes talent.
I think your roommate just agrees that the “traditional” way of playing requires more talent and skill than it does to use a created music program where you click buttons to add various sounds without knowing much about the music theory behind it.
Music is music regardless of the origin. Computers can mimic multiple instruments through algorithms (such as the Karplus Strong Algorithm for a guitar) and furthermore, wont need to be re-tuned or have strings fixed.
In my opinion it is difficult, if not near impossible, to judge if music is “real” from a singular perspective. What does being “real” really mean? Is it that physical sound is produced? Is it that the particular kind of music does not garner enough respect? Beyond this ambiguity I believe that what is or what is not real depends on the individual, especially on the topic of music. For instance, I can totally trash a particular kind of music and completely reject it to the point of saying that it is “not real”, however, the complete opposite may be true to another individual. That individual would perceive the music as absolutely real to him because his core perceptions and beliefs align with the characteristics of that particular music genre. Ultimately what is and what isn’t real depends on the individual and if your roommate thinks that the music is real then it is real. The vice-versa holds as well.