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ELSE MARIE PADE AND SEVEN CIRCLES The History and Legacy of Denmark’s First Piece of Purely Electronic Music Name: Nikolaj Lange Kurs: AED913 Institution: SAE Berlin Betreuender Dozent: Sebastian Metzner Abgabedatum: 15.08.2014 Wortzahl: 9.786

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  • ELSE MARIE PADE AND SEVEN CIRCLES

    The History and Legacy of Denmarks

    First Piece of Purely Electronic Music

    Name: Nikolaj Lange

    Kurs: AED913

    Institution: SAE Berlin

    Betreuender Dozent: Sebastian Metzner

    Abgabedatum: 15.08.2014

    Wortzahl: 9.786

  • 2

    Table of Content

    1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3

    2 Main chapter ................................................................................................................... 5

    2.1 Biography of Else Marie Pade ................................................................................ 5

    2.2 The electronic evolution .......................................................................................... 6

    2.2.1 1759-1899: Early experiments ......................................................................... 6

    2.2.2 1900-1940: Instruments take form ................................................................... 7

    2.2.3 Electricity for what end? .................................................................................. 8

    2.3 The first electronic music genres ............................................................................ 9

    2.3.1 Schaeffer and musique concrte ...................................................................... 9

    2.3.2 Stockhausen and elektronische Musik ........................................................... 11

    2.3.3 Paris vs. Cologne ........................................................................................... 12

    2.4 Else Marie Pades work with musique concrte ................................................... 13

    2.4.1 First steps into the new music ........................................................................ 13

    2.4.2 The electronic mermaid ................................................................................. 14

    2.4.3 New techniques .............................................................................................. 15

    2.5 Seven Circles ......................................................................................................... 16

    2.5.1 Inspiration ...................................................................................................... 16

    2.5.2 Execution ....................................................................................................... 18

    2.5.3 Reception ....................................................................................................... 19

    2.6 Legacy and echoes in contemporary music .......................................................... 22

    2.6.1 1955-1990: Tapes, turntables, synthesizers, and samplers ............................ 22

    2.6.2 1991-2014: Computers and software ............................................................. 24

    2.6.3 Fubinis law: Integration of new technologies .............................................. 26

    3 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 28

    Literature .............................................................................................................................. 31

  • 3

    1 Introduction

    The main object of this paper is the composition Seven Circles completed in 1959 by Dan-

    ish composer Else Marie Pade. It is the first piece of purely electronic music composed in

    Denmark. The paper has three primary focuses which are first: the evolution of elec-tronic

    music that leads up to Seven Circles, second: Pade and the production of the piece itself,

    and third: how the techniques used by Pade point out the way towards the electronic music

    we know today.

    The history of electronic music is divided into two chapters. The first traces the history of

    experiments with electronic instruments prior to electronic music developing into genres of

    its own. The second describes the two first major genres of electronically composed music

    which develop in Europe during the 1950s. These will be called by the names given by

    their inventors and main practitioners: Musique concete lead by Pierre Schaeffer in Paris

    and elektronische Musik with major figure Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne.

    The section dealing specifically with Pade and her work is also divided into two chapters.

    The first describes how she discovers the new pioneering genres and how she makes her

    first experiments incorporating electronic sounds into different contexts. The second deals

    specifically with Seven Circles: where the inspiration comes from, the technical execution

    and production, and finally how the piece is received by the press and the public at the

    time.

    The last chapter is dedicated to following the evolution after Seven Circles and traces how

    the techniques and practices used by Pade and the other pioneers of the 1950s lead the

    way towards the electronic music production we know today. This includes the invention

    of samplers and synthesizers as well as software-based production.

    It is important to note that even though Pade works with genres and methods which are

    pioneering at the time, she is not the inventor of these. What makes her interesting is pri-

    marily that she is the first person in Denmark to open up to the new ways, composing elec-

    tronic music years before anyone else in the country. But if one thing makes Pade stand out

    as a visionary even in an international context, it is that while Schaeffer and Stockhausen,

    each imbedded in his own genre, both think less of each others respective methods, Pade

    as an outsider is quick to recognise the importance of both directions.

  • 4

    Another thing about Pade which has caused much interest in her is the simple circumstance

    that she is a woman. At the time there are practically no women working in the new genres

    of music. Still today female electronic producers are far outnumbered by male producers

    and they are rarely spoken of without their gender being highlighted. Consequently the

    story of Pade has often, and for good reasons, been told from a feminist perspective.

    Though this is also an important story, it is an angle which will not be dealt with in this

    paper. The simple reason being that when looking at Pades work as a composer her gender

    seems to be without relevance.

    Finally a short note on conceptual clarification: The term electronic music will be used in

    this paper as a loose term, which incorporates any form of music being produced using

    electronic equipment. The term elektronische Musik is used specifically to describe the

    scene around Karlheinz Stockhausen and his studio in Cologne. The term electronic music

    also includes musique concrte even though much work in the genre contains no sound of

    electronic origin. Still including the genre makes sense because of the editing process car-

    ried out with tape recorders and other electronic equipment, which at the time is a radical

    new way of conceiving music.

    Now, before going back to the time of the first experiments with electricity and music, the

    story will begin with an introduction to our main protagonist; composer Else Marie Pade.

  • 5

    2 Main chapter

    2.1 Biography of Else Marie Pade

    Else Marie Pade (ne Haffner Jensen) is born on 2 December 1924 in Aarhus, Denmark.

    At 3 months old she is struck by pyelonephritis (inflammation of kidneys and pelvis). The

    disease follows her on and off until she turns 13, which keeps her involuntarily in bed for a

    significant part of her childhood. During these periods Pade develops a great love for

    sounds and their meanings, since often the sound of changing weather or children playing

    in the yard will be her only connection to the world outside.1

    From an early age Pade is given piano lessons, but bored with the scales she is forced to

    study, she teaches herself to play by ear, and when finally learning the scales she rebels by

    playing them backwards.2

    During the German occupation of World War II Pade becomes involved in the resistance

    movement. However, on 13 September 1944 she is arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the

    Frslev Interment Camp. There, on her 20th

    birthday, her fellow internees set up a founda-

    tion, which will enable her after the war to move to Copenhagen and study music at The

    Royal Danish Academy of Music.3

    An important turning point for Pade comes in 1952, when she hears the radio programme

    Horisont presenting a new form of music they call musique concrte. The ideas about

    composing music from non-musical sounds instantly strike a chord with her.4

    Pade turns to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation to realise her ideas and during 1954 and

    1955 she works with a team of technicians to realise En Dag P Dyrehavsbakken, which is

    an abstract poetic reportage from the amusement park Dyrehavsbakken incorporating a

    soundtrack of musique concrte.

    The following decade she is highly productive, composing many works drawing from both

    musique concrte and elektronische Musik, both of which she is exploring before anyone

    1 Pade, EMP, 11, 15.

    2 Ibid., 1819.

    3 Ibid., 24, 25, 31.

    4 Bruland, , 20.

  • 6

    else in Denmark. Much of her work is connected to her job as a producer at the Danish

    Broadcasting Corporation ,where she is employed until 1976.5

    In 1976 Pade is diagnosed with KZ syndrome and has to retire from her job. For many

    years she lives a quiet life pretty much forgotten.6 But in 2001 things starts rolling again. A

    new generation of electronic composers are suddenly rediscovering her, and she becomes

    an almost cult-like idol for a new techno generation.7

    Since 2001 much of her work has been released on CD and in 2002 Seven Circles is re-

    leased along with remixes by five contemporary electronic composers. In 2004 she is

    awarded a lifelong grant from The Danish Art Foundation,8 and her latest album

    Svvninger, a collaboration with the 51 years younger sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard, is

    released in 2013.

    2.2 The electronic evolution

    2.2.1 1759-1899: Early experiments

    Its almost impossible to underrate the influence electricity has had on music today. This

    goes both for the artistic process, recording, and distribution. Yet its not until the 1940s

    that artists really begin embracing the new technologies and create musical directions made

    for electronic instruments. But experiments which combine electricity and music go back

    much longer.

    The first known examples which integrate electricity in musical instruments are Jean Bap-

    tiste de La Bordes Clavecin Eleqtrique from 1759 and Prokop Devis Denis dOr from

    1762. Both inventors are priests and physicist, and both instruments are operated with a

    keyboard. Very little is known about the latter, whereas the former is a form of carillon that

    used static electricity to let clappers oscillate between pairs of bells of identical pitch to

    5 Pade, EMP, 62, 63.

    6 Ibid., 61, 62.

    7 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 192.

    8 2004 Annual Report of The Danish Art Foundation, 29.

  • 7

    create a sustained tone. Like most early experiments, these instruments are not put into

    production and are probably heard by very few, apart from their inventors.9

    The 19th

    century also sees quite a few inventions which all remain obscure novelties. An

    obvious reason is that electricity is not widely available until the end of the 19th

    century.

    But another explanation can be that many inventions seem to be mostly by-products of

    other scientific advancements. This goes for The Musical Telegraph patented in 1874 by

    Elisha Gray, who two years later helps Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone. The

    Musical Telegraph is a polyphonic instrument which can transmit electrically generated

    tones played on a small keyboard and it is by many regarded the first actual electronic in-

    strument.10

    Another musical scientific by-product which has no musical impact is The Electric Arc-

    light invented by William Dudell. What he actually tries to do is figure out a way to elimi-

    nate the humming noise from the arc lamps installed as street light in many cities during

    the 1890s. What he discovers is that by connecting a second electric tuned circuit, he can

    actually control the volume and tone of the sound.11

    2.2.2 1900-1940: Instruments take form

    The first electronic instrument which really manages to get public interest is Thaddeus

    Cahills Telharmonium. In 1906 he performs the first public demonstrations of the 200 ton

    heavy apparatus, which polyphonically could play and transmit via the telephone net a va-

    riety of sounds mostly imitating organs, flutes, and horns. Theres instantly a huge interest

    from people who want to subscribe to live transmissions from the Teleharmonium. Unfor-

    tunately the broadcasts are way too stressful for the phone system and the music disturbs

    the conversations. The phone company cancels their agreement immediately.12

    The invention of the radio, first put into use in 1913, also sparks advancements in electron-

    ic music. Many radio amateurs observe how a person operating a radio, alone through the

    9 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 2122.

    10 Ibid., 2526.

    11 Hong, Wireless, 164.

    12 Russcol, The Liberation of Sound, 4, 5.

  • 8

    presence of his or her body, will change or disturb the electromagnetic field. Russian in-

    ventor Leon Theremin uses this technique when in 1917 he creates the Theremin. The

    Theremin is a cabinet with two antennas and by moving his or her hands towards or away

    from these, the player controls tone and sound level respectively. The Theremin becomes

    the first electronic instrument to receive international attention and is put into mass produc-

    tion in America by RCA.13

    From this point things speed up. During the 1920s and 1930s hundreds of new instru-

    ments are invented, though most of them quickly disappear into obscurity. An exception is

    the instantly popular Ondes Martenot from 1928, which like many instruments of the era is

    based on the Theremin-principle, but adds a keyboard to make melodic playing easier.

    Whats remarkable about these new instruments is that despite their highly futuristic

    sounds, whenever they are put into use, it is almost exclusively to replace violins in already

    well known and popular compositions.14

    2.2.3 Electricity for what end?

    During the 1920s and 1930s electronic instruments are easily available, but they still have

    next to no actual impact on the music made. It may be time to ask the obvious question:

    What is the purpose of electrifying musical instruments?

    There seem to be two aims when electricity starts to enter music. The first is simply to ra-

    tionalise already existing practices, while the second is an attempt to create something rad-

    ically new and yet unheard.

    A good example where electricity is used to rationalise something already existing would

    be the organ. Since classical organs are big, heavy, and expensive to build, there is early on

    an interest in experimenting with electricity to make a cheaper and more compact construc-

    tion. In 1866 the first electrical organ is installed in a church in Marseille, and in 1935 a

    mass production of the Hammond Organ is rolled out, which has since been produced in

    several million copies.15

    13

    Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 3134.

    14 Ibid., 3436.

    15 Ibid., 2627, 38.

  • 9

    In the early 20th

    century composers are also starting to demand new practices. In 1907

    composer Ferruccio Busoni praises the Telharmonium seeing the instrument, which can be

    programmed to play any given frequency, as a way to escape the limitations of the western

    tonal system.16

    Ten years later his scholar Edgard Varse calls for new instruments to pro-

    vide a whole new world of unsuspected sounds.17 In 1938 Australian composer Percy

    Grainger lets his imagination run wild and wishes for music to pass direct from the imag-

    ination of the composer to the ear of the listener by way of delicately controlled musical

    machines.18

    The introduction of the sound film in 1927 becomes an important step for the electronic

    instruments. Film composers are much more willing than others to take on the new instru-

    ments and allow them to play sounds which are new and unsuspected and not just imita-

    tions of classical instruments. A famous example is King Kong from 1933, which uses the

    Theremin to create spooky and eerie atmospheres. One reason for the openness can be that

    film is already a new medium and therefore artists working with film are more open to new

    technologies in general. Another reason can be that music in film plays a secondary role to

    the image and therefore the strangeness of the new sounds becomes less alienating since it

    comes as soundtrack to intelligible images.19

    2.3 The first electronic music genres

    2.3.1 Schaeffer and musique concrte

    The first new genre of music to rise out of the electronic world is musique concrte. The

    music is composed using recordings of everyday sounds and objects filtered and edited

    together with a tape recorder.

    An early experiment to foreshadow the new genre is Walter Ruttmanns piece Weekend

    from 1930. This piece also comes out of the newly invented sound film, which makes it

    possible to integrate sound in the film strip. Ruttmann sets out with a microphone during a

    16

    Busoni, Entwurf Einer Neuen sthetik Der Tonkunst, 4445.

    17 Russcol, The Liberation of Sound, 43.

    18 Ibid., 19.

    19 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 3940.

  • 10

    weekend in Berlin and records sounds from the city. Back at the cutting board he puts to-

    gether a ten minute sound collage which he refers to as a Hrfilm. Essentially this is the

    first piece of musique concrte realised 5 years before the launching in 1935 of the tape

    recorder, which will become the genres most important tool.20

    The genre is named in 1948 by French composer and engineer Pierre Schaeffer, who

    notes in his diary on May 15th

    that the concrete music will oppose what he thinks of as

    the abstract music made by musical instruments.21

    Schaeffer has a background as a radio technician, but from 1948 he dedicates his work to

    musical research. He works in a studio provided by the French national radio Radio Tele-

    vision France (RTF), where he has gramophones, various electronic sound filters, an echo

    room, a mixer, a portable tape recorder, plus several self-manipulated tape recorders. These

    enable him for instance to play the tape at 12 different fixed speeds or to play it with echo

    or filtering.22

    Schaeffer describes the world as an endless source of sounds23

    and thus clearly mirrors

    Varses call for new unheard sounds. He even cites Andr Mole for claiming that there

    are in all 13.000.000 pure notes,24

    again mirroring Busonis excitement about the Telhar-

    monium and its ability to play any exactly defined frequency.

    With an endless source of sounds available, the job of the composer is to organise the

    sounds and remove them from their dramatic context.25 This means that though the

    source may still be recognizable, the sound will be manipulated to a degree where the

    origin loses its significance.26

    Consequently Schaeffer would not want us to think of his

    first piece tude aux Chemins de Fer (Railroad Study) as a collage of train sounds, but

    rather as music that just happens to be made of train sounds.

    Sound manipulations are achieved through different means, such as playing the tape back-

    wards, playing it at different speeds to alter the length and frequency, combining sounds by

    using separate tracks, and cutting up the tape and putting it back together either randomly

    20

    Ibid., 6365.

    21 Hegarty, Noise/music, 32.

    22 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 6667.

    23 Hegarty, Noise/music, 23.

    24 Schaeffer, , 119.

    25 Schaeffer, , 32, 46.

    26 Hegarty, Noise/music, 33.

  • 11

    or ordered. Cutting up tape also involves the so-called tape loops, where both ends of a

    piece of tape are connected so that the strip is played over and over again. Schaeffer even

    explores different ways of cutting the tape ends, either diagonally or pennant-shaped, and

    thus achieves different kinds of crossfade effects.27

    2.3.2 Stockhausen and elektronische Musik

    A few years after the start of musique concrte in Paris, another direction of electronically

    composed music starts to take form. This happens in Cologne in the electroacoustic studio

    opened 1952 by pioneering physician Werner Meyer-Eppler and a circle of composers un-

    der Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR, now WDR). The leading figure of the scene is

    composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the music simply becomes known as elektronische

    Musik.28

    Unlike musiqe concrte, the electronic part is not only the editing and manipulating of the

    sound material. Elektronische Musik altogether rejects the real-life recordings and instead

    focuses on electronically generated sounds. The primary sound material is the sine tone.

    Technically it is the simplest sound possible, consisting only of one frequency with no

    overtones or any sort of tonal richness. Despite being the most basic form of sound, the

    sine tone can only be made electronically and not by any acoustic instrument or human

    voice. In this way elektronische Musik answers Varses call for new unsuspected sounds,

    and Stockhausen even states that the aim of his work is to create nie erhrte Klnge.29

    Two other important sound sources are white noise and pink noise.30

    White noise is de-

    fined as a noise where every frequency is present with equal sound level. However, due to

    our subjective hearing which is more sensitive to higher frequencies, distinctly around 4

    kHz,31

    white noise appears high-pitched to the ear, best described as a hisss. Pink noise

    also has all frequencies present, but for each descending octave the sound level is 3 dB

    lower, resulting in a rather low-pitched noise, best described as a schhh.

    27

    Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 6768.

    28 Ibid., 87, 88, 91, 92.

    29 Ibid., 88, 89, 99.

    30 Ibid., 88, 89.

    31 Ballou, Handbook for Sound Engineers, 5152.

  • 12

    Another characteristic of elektronische Musik is that it is strongly tied to principles of seri-

    alism. When Stockhausen starts working in the NWDR studio in 1953, the leader of the

    studio Herbert Eimert demands that everyone working there promises to work by princi-

    ples of serialism.32

    These are built on the 12-tone music formulated in 1923 by Austrian

    Jewish composer Arnold Schnberg. His music is built on a strict system which requires

    the composer to use all 12 semitones of the chromatic scale and the music cannot return to

    the same note until all 12 notes have been used. As a result all notes are heard equally of-

    ten, avoiding emphasis on any specific notes over others.33

    The strong urge for new unheard sounds and new ways of composing should be seen in the

    light of the historical context. After the war especially younger German artists feel com-

    pelled to distance themselves from the past. If they are to believe in historical progress

    after the horrors of the Nazi-regime, they must make a clear cut and start all over again.34

    2.3.3 Paris vs. Cologne

    As it is clear from the two previous chapters, the two pioneering scenes had some funda-

    mental differences. This leads Schaeffer and Stockhausen to be rather critical of each oth-

    ers methods. But in the beginning it is actually Schaeffer who introduces Stockhausen to

    electronic composing.35

    During 1952-53 Stockhausen is in Paris to study serial composing, and there he meets

    Schaeffer, who invites him to work in his studio. From his correspondence with Eimert

    back in Cologne it is clear that Stockhausen does not approve of Schaeffers methods and

    the idea of concrete sounds. To the Germans the approach is lacking in theory and histor-

    ical rooting and simply looks like a childish play with sounds.36

    Schaeffer on the other hand also criticises Stockhausen. He finds working only with elec-

    tronic sounds to be much too limiting.37

    32

    Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 93.

    33 Perle, Serial Composition and Atonality, 2.

    34 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 89.

    35 Ibid., 92, 93, 97, 98.

    36 Ibid., 92, 93, 97.

    37 Schaeffer, , 15.

  • 13

    Also Pade notices what she calls a war between Paris and Cologne. She is grieved by the

    conflict since to her it is obvious that both directions are important and needed. They also

    overlap since elektronische Musik will sometimes incorporate recordings of for example

    voices, whereas musique concrte will use electronic sounds from gramophone records.38

    In an article reporting home from the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair, where many works from

    both directions are presented, Pade notes how the audible difference between the two has

    been partially revoked since the living and the mechanical sounds are now processed

    and filtered through the same technical devices.39

    An example of the genres melting together is Stockhausens Gesang Der Jnglinge. It

    combines sine tones and electronically generated noise with a boy soprano chanting ex-

    cerpts from the third chapter of D B k from The Old Testament. The voice is cut

    up so much that the meaning is often lost, and at times it is manipulated to an extend where

    it is hard to tell if it is a human voice or an electronic sound.40

    2.4 Else Marie Pades work with musique concrte

    2.4.1 First steps into the new music

    After hearing about musique concrte on the radio programme Horisont in 1952, Pade is

    instantly captured by this new form of music. In the programme Schaeffer introduces the

    genre and says something that sticks with her: a perfect universe of sound is working

    around us. It reminds her of how as a child from her sickbed, she experienced the world

    around her through sound. She instantly rushes off to Paris to visit Schaeffer at RTF, where

    she is given a tour of the studios.41

    The inspiration for her first piece of musique concrte comes during summer 1953, while

    visiting the amusement park Dyrehavsbakken north of Copenhagen. Her idea is to use the

    sounds around her for musique concrte and combine it with a film-collage from the place.

    She makes a rather simple pitch, which she presents to the head of the newly opened TV-

    38

    Bruland, , 19, 20.

    39 Pade, Tonens Rumfart Tur-Retur, 104105.

    40 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 95, 96.

    41 Bruland, , 20.

  • 14

    department under the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. He accepts her suggestion without

    further discussion.42

    Danish television cannot survive without experiments, he tells her.43

    Its interesting that she decides to accompany her first piece of musique concrte with a

    film montage. It follows in the line of the film medium being first to embrace the electron-

    ic instruments, as well as Ruttmanns Weekend also being a crossover between film and

    music. A reason for Pade to do so can be that the accompaniment of well-known intelligi-

    ble images will make the strange new music more palatable to the public.

    She is provided with a sound and camera crew, and when Dyrehavsbakken open in 1954,

    they start the work. To emphasize the importance of the sound, she insists they record the

    sounds first and take the images later.44

    The recording continues all summer, and by winter they start the editing process. Unfortu-

    nately the technical facilities are far behind compared to what she has seen in Paris. But

    what they can do is play certain sounds backwards,45

    while other sounds are played at half

    or quarter rated speed.46

    For the sequence when the fakir is hammering a nail up his nose, which made very little

    actual noise, they even make use of an electronic sine tone. So apart from being the first

    piece of musique concrte composed in Denmark, it is also the first time in Denmark that

    electronic sound is used in music.47

    2.4.2 The electronic mermaid

    It is not until Pades second project with musique concrte that she becomes conscious of

    electronic sound as a world of its own. She gets a job for the radio to make musique

    concrte to accompany six fairytales, one of which is Hans Christian Andersens The Little

    Mermaid. She has already recorded sounds like waves, laughter, church bells, birds, and

    42

    Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 218, 219.

    43 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 89.

    44 Ibid., 90.

    45 Ibid.

    46 Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 220.

    47 Pade, EMP, 41.

  • 15

    fireworks. But when it comes to the mermaids song, she has a problem. Nothing matches

    the sound she wants.48

    Following a suggestion from one of her technicians, she goes and talks to an engineer

    called Holger Lauridsen, who works on the third floor. She explains to him how she ima-

    gines the mermaids song. It is somewhere between the opera singer Elizabeth Schwarz-

    kopf and a saw blade. He walks over to a huge machine, turns some buttons, and suddenly

    the mermaids song fills the room. She asks him what it is, and he tells her that this is elec-

    tronic music.49

    It turns out Lauridsen is not just anybody. He is internationally known for the invention of

    the MS-stereo system, and he is in contact with Meyer-Eppler in Cologne. He also makes

    himself available for Pade and her technicians, and he comes to play an important role in

    introducing her to the possibilities of electronic music until his death on New Years Eve

    1957.50

    2.4.3 New techniques

    Lauridsen introduces Pade and her technicians to several new techniques including tape

    loops, tape delay, reverberation, and a machine that can change the speed without changing

    the pitch. Since Pade is by no means an engineer herself and constantly in need of techni-

    cians to help her realize her work, they start keeping a technical journal where they note

    how certain effects are achieved.51

    In the case of The Little Mermaid she decides to use electronic sounds to illustrate every-

    thing belonging to the world under the sea, while still using musique concrte for the world

    on land.52

    Pade is always open to new methods of producing sound. In her fairytales she also makes

    use of prepared piano,53

    which is a method invented by John Cage where objects are stuck

    between the pianos strings to drastically alter the sound of the instrument.54

    48

    Bak, Else Marie Pade, 95.

    49 Ibid., 96.

    50 Bruland, .

    51 Pade, EMP, 44, 45.

    52 Bruland, Else Marie Pade og Symphonie , 20.

  • 16

    Often she mixes genres and techniques, but other times she very consciously chooses to

    explore the possibilities of a single method. The latter is the case for her piece Symphonie

    Magntophonique,55

    where she uses only musique concrte to capture the sounds of 24

    hours in Copenhagen and compress them to a 19-minute symphony.

    She makes an agreement with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation that she is allowed to

    use the studios for her own work outside of normal working hours, and if the outcomes is

    good, it will be played on the radio.56

    It is during these long off-hours that she manages to finish both Symphonie Mag-

    ntophonique as well as Seven Circles. Both are to have their world premiere on Danish

    radio during April 1959 in the same programme series called Musik For Atomalderen (Mu-

    sic For The Atomic Age).57

    2.5 Seven Circles

    2.5.1 Inspiration

    In 1958 Pade travels with 3 colleagues from the radio to the worlds fair, Expo 58, in Brus-

    sels. The programme is full of presentations of both musique concrte and elektronische

    Musik, and Pade feels like Alice in Wonderland.58

    It is during this trip that she gets the

    inspiration for her first purely electronic piece Seven Circles.59

    One of the pieces which become a huge source of inspiration is Pome Electronique made

    by the now 74-year-old Varse.60

    The 8-minute piece combines electronic sounds with

    concrete sounds from both musical instruments, machines, and other sources. It is recorded

    on tape and played non-stop in the Phillips Pavilion using no less than 350 speakers. Dur-

    53

    Pade, EMP, 45.

    54 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 82.

    55 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 114.

    56 Ibid., 99.

    57 Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 247.

    58 Pade, Tonens Rumfart Tur-Retur, 104.

    59 Pade, EMP, 47.

    60 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 109.

  • 17

    ing the six months of the exhibition the piece is heard by more than two million people and

    subsequently one of the first pieces of electronic music to reach a mass audience.61

    To Pade the experience is total bliss and she thinks that this must be what Heaven sounds

    like.62

    At Expo 58 Pade also runs into Stockhausen, who recognises her from a lecture he had

    given earlier that same year in Copenhagen on her initiative.63

    They talk and he even asks

    her to help adjust the sound for his show later that day.64

    However, it is another experience which most directly influences her to do Seven Circles.

    The inspiration comes after seeing a show in the planetarium which presents the move-

    ments of the stars across the sky. The presentation is accompanied by music from a com-

    plex stereophonic system so well made that she feels like there must be a speaker hiding

    behind each single star.65

    On the way home from Brussels she starts planning the new piece. She wants to make mu-

    sic which moves in space like the stars over the sky.66

    And since she has from the begin-

    ning associated the electronic sounds with the sky and heaven, there is doubt that this piece

    shall be purely made of electronic sound.67

    Pade draws a sketch, which serves as a partiture for Seven Circles. She has also done this

    for Symphonie Magntophonique, using notes to signify concrete sounds instead of instru-

    ments.68

    But with Seven Circles she ditches note paper and follows Stockhausen who has

    said, We are the first generation who expresses music on graph paper.69

    Whereas Pades first introduction to electronic music comes through Schaeffer and mu-

    sique concrte, with Seven Circles it is clear that Stockhausen is her main inspiration. This

    comes across not only through the choice of working only with electronic sounds, but also

    the use of serialism and the mathematical approach to composing.

    61

    Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 75, 76.

    62 Bruland, , 21.

    63 Pade, EMP, 48.

    64 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 114.

    65 Ibid.

    66 Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 244.

    67 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 114, 164.

    68 Ibid., 101.

    69 Bruland, , 19.

  • 18

    Figure 1: The partiture for Seven Circles

    2.5.2 Execution

    The seven circles referred to in the title are drawn on the partiture as actual circles, all in

    different sizes placed inside each other like the growth rings of a tree trunk. The music is

    then supposed to move inwards towards the center, adding the circles one by one.

    Each circle consists of a serial pattern of notes all spread out with ranges of ninths between

    them (an octave plus one note). When the first circle is over, it will repeat along with the

    second circle. In the second circle the notes are transposed and played in a new serial pat-

    tern. The second circle is also played twice as fast while the notes are only half as long.

    The third circle is then added on top, and it is again twice as fast as the one before. This

    way the increasingly faster patterns are added on top of each other until they are all playing

    at the same time. After that the circles stop one by one, the fastest first, leaving the compo-

    sition to end as calmly as it began.70

    70

    Ibid., 20; Bak, Else Marie Pade, 114; Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 244, 245.

  • 19

    Next to the circles Pade has calculated the length of tape needed for the different lengths of

    notes as well as the actual duration of the notes. It starts with full notes which take 152.4

    cm of tape and play for 4 seconds. It then continues up till the sixth circle where the demi-

    semiquavers (1/32 notes) take only 4.7 cm of tape and play for just 1/8 second.

    With the seventh and final circle she doubles the speed more than once. However, the cal-

    culations on the partiture are suddenly inconsistent. The length of tape noted is 0.6 cm,

    which would mean three doublings since the previous sixth circle, but the duration of the

    note is said to be 1/32 second, which would come from only two doublings of the speed.

    Depending on which instruction is followed (the length of tape or the requested duration of

    the notes), the seventh circle will consist of either 1/128 notes or 1/256 notes.

    An explanation for the discrepancy between tape length and note duration could also be

    that seventh circle is being played at double speed compared to the rest. This however is

    not noted in the partiture. Either way Pade definitely succeeds in her defined goal, which is

    to let the notes accelerate in speed to the point where they melt together.71

    The calculations of tape length and tone duration show, possibly with the seventh circle as

    exception, that changes of playback speed is not used for altering pitch or length of the

    tones. This would also have been very difficult, if not impossible, with the variety and

    ranges of the desired notes. Also in the composition there is no connection between pitch

    and tone length as there would be if the tape speed were used as a tool to change these.

    Instead each tone is produced with a sine generator and afterwards cut into the correct

    lengths. The pieces are then put together in the desired serial order. These edited tone pro-

    gressions can then be recorded on to another tape and finally combined on top of each oth-

    er according to the planned sequence.

    2.5.3 Reception

    The first experiment with En Dag P Dyrehavsbakken has been well received. Several

    newspapers have called it a successful experiment, and when they afterwards interview

    Pade, she makes sure to stress that this is exactly what it is; an experiment.72

    71

    Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 245.

    72 Pade, EMP, 41.

  • 20

    Also the fairy tales have been well received.73

    But as with the first attempt full of images

    from the popular amusement park, the new alien music is here still linked to something

    well-known which people can understand and relate to.

    In 1959, when Pades new works premiere on the special series Musik for Atomalderen,

    things are very different. The elements of entertainment and popular appeal are all gone.

    Now there is only the music strange, avant-garde, and demanding to the listener.74

    This sense of seriousness is only highlighted when a newspaper in a headline quotes an

    employee of the radio saying, We have been living under a blanket of indifference it is

    being sent to electronic cleansing.75

    Both Seven Circles and Symphonie Magntophonique are given a rough ride by the press.

    Though one newspaper notes that Seven Circles is one of the most graceful pieces heard in

    the genre, the same review goes on to call the piece monotonous. This seems to be the

    common consensus about her new compositions; they are repetitive, long drawn, and mo-

    notonous.76

    On a more general level people question if the new sounds even qualify as music. This is

    not just about Pades works, but also the pieces presented on the programme from interna-

    tional composers like Schaeffer, Stockhausen, and Varse. Many people think it is just a

    joke and treat it with nothing but scorn and ridicule.77

    On the last programme of the series, three composers are invited to discuss the new music,

    though only Bengt Hambrus from Sweden agrees to call it music. Knudge Riisager on

    the other hand is very harsh in his critique: I find it directly nauseating, it has been sounds

    which have made me feel physically uncomfortable, and I have seen something dangerous

    and demagogical in them, since they have reminded me of Hitlers speeches during the

    war.78

    73

    Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 248.

    74 Ibid.

    75 Ibid., 251.

    76 Ibid., 247.

    77 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 118; Bruland, , 25.

    78 Donnerborg, Klangen af en stjerne, 248.

  • 21

    An explanation for the strong resistance is of course that the music does sound very unlike

    any form of music heard before. People think that without a clearly recognizable melody, it

    simply cannot qualify as music.79

    Another reason why people find it hard to accept the new sounds as music may simply be

    that the way they are produced is fundamentally different from what has previously been

    known as music. Until this point music has always been dependent on someone to play it

    on an instrument.80

    Even a gramophone record is still a recording of a musician playing

    music on an instrument. Suddenly composers can work in a studio without ever writing

    down a single note, but instead compose their work directly on to tape. In the end the work

    will exist only as a recording and can never be reproduced by any musician. It does repre-

    sent a break so radical that it is easy to understand why someone at the time would think

    that this simply is outside of the definition of music.

    Or as Theodor Adorno puts it: There has never been any form of gramophone-specific

    music.81

    It is worth noting that Schaeffer himself is among the first to ask if the new sounds are ac-

    tually music or a whole new art form.82

    However, at the same time he has named the genre

    musique concrte, so the question is probably as much an attempt to start a debate as it is

    him trying to meet criticism.

    Pades answer to the criticism from her contemporary compatriots is that it is way too early

    to make final assessments on the value of the new kinds of music. In 1957 she writes in

    Dansk Musik Tidsskrift (Danish Music Periodical): It is a known fact that a contemporari-

    ly condemned and denounced music will often just 50 years later have clearly taken its

    place in a natural and necessary development.83

    It turns out she is right. In 2002 when Seven Circles is released on CD along with five con-

    temporary remixes, a critic from the newspaper Information writes that Pades original

    version actually sounds more fresh and modern than most of the remixes. He notes that

    the work possesses a techno-like, pulsating rhythm that is rare to hear in early electronic

    79

    Bak, Else Marie Pade, 118.

    80 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 71, 72.

    81 Adorno, Essays on Music, 277.

    82 Pade, EMP, 42.

    83 Pade, EMP, 139.

  • 22

    music and really makes you think more of contemporary minimalism than the avant-garde

    of the past.84 And Seven Circles is still being played and finding new audiences, for ex-

    ample in June 2104, when it is included in a presentation of Pades music at the Heroines

    of Sound festival at the world famous Berlin club Berghain.85

    Even if the critics and audience in Denmark were not open to Pades work at the time,

    looking back she does seem to be the Danish composer with the most serious involvement

    in the European avant-garde scene of the 1950s. She is in contact with Stockhausen,

    Schaeffer, Pierre Boulez, and John Cage.86

    And Stockhausen will later use her electronic

    piece Glasperlespil II from 1960 as example for his students in his classes on electronic

    music.87

    2.6 Legacy and echoes in contemporary music

    2.6.1 1955-1990: Tapes, turntables, synthesizers, and samplers

    So who has won the battle between musique concrte and elektronische Musik? History

    has shown that Pade is very right in acknowledging the importance of both. Both pioneer-

    ing movements are important steps towards the electronic music we know today. El-

    ektronische Musik and the use of sine generators point towards the invention of the synthe-

    sizer, and musique concrte is the first step in the history of sampling.

    Without actually using a synthesizer, Stockhausen is already working with a primitive

    form of additive synthesis in 1953 for his piece Elektronische Studie I. He is generating

    simple overtone structures simply by recording different tones on top of each other over

    and over again until he is happy with the sound.88

    The first subtractive synthesizer working with filtering is Mark I presented by the record

    label RCA in 1955. It is followed in 1957 by the improved Mark II. These machines still

    take up the space of an entire studio. But in 1964 portable synthesizers are launched by

    84

    Olsen, Syv Cirkler Remixet Af Fem.

    85 Techmeier, Hitler Er Ikke Dd, 24.

    86 Marstal and Okkels, Else Marie Pade, 218.

    87 Bak, Else Marie Pade, 127.

    88 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 192.

  • 23

    both Robert Moog and Don Buchla, and over the following years they become widely used

    in jazz and soul, and later also in rock and funk.89

    The history of sampling is less of a straight line. Though John Cage demonstrates amazing

    foresight when he as early as 1937 pretty much describes the sampler: I believe that the

    use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced

    through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes

    any and all sounds that can be heard.90

    Some of the first to use recordings of noise in popular music are The Beatles. During the

    1960s they are clearly inspired by avant-garde of the 1950s when they explore and push

    the potential of the studio. They play vocal parts backwards, change the speed of the tape

    while recording, and cut up tapes and put them back together randomly. And on the 8-

    minute Revolution 9 they combine more than 45 different sources of sound from classical

    gramophone records over speech, screaming, and real life sounds, to sounds from a jam-

    session.91

    Another important step in the history of sampling is the hip hop culture which evolves in

    New York during the 1970s. Kool DJ Herc develops the technique of cutting, which

    means to extend an otherwise short break beat by using two turntables and two copies of

    the same record. In this way he creates a loop for the MCs to rap on top of. When hip hop

    gets its commercial breakthrough with The Sugarhill Gangs R s Delight in 1979, the

    song is based on the bass line of Chics hit Good Times from the year before. The sample

    is actually replayed, but the single still causes a lawsuit.92

    The same happens in 1982 when Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force put out Planet

    Rock, which establishes the electro genre. The single directly samples both beat and synth

    line from two different Kraftwerk tracks, and it becomes the cause of much debate on the

    topics of financial copyright and intellectual property. The members of Kraftwerk make

    huge compensation claims and win the lawsuit. One of the outcomes of the debate is that

    musicians and producers become aware of clearing their samples by crediting and paying

    89

    Ibid., 191194.

    90 Russcol, The Liberation of Sound, 26.

    91 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 124126.

    92 McLeod, Creative License, 60.

  • 24

    the copyright holders. Or alternatively they make sure to manipulate the samples beyond

    recognition.93

    Another genre where the DJ plays an active role in creating new music from existing rec-

    ords is house music bred in the early 1980s in Chicago. The genre develops as disco DJs

    start remixing the tracks from home on tape, either reels or cassettes, and bring along drum

    machines and extra bass lines from cheap synthesizers. The result is a patchwork of looped

    disco beats, funky bass lines, monotone electronic drums, strident synthetic strings, soul

    vocals, and syncopated salsa riffs played on piano. This collage approach can easily be

    seen as a pop-musical dance floor version of musique concrte.94

    Around the same time techno also develops in Detroit. The genre is named after the track

    Techno City by the duo Cybotron from 1984. Instead of sampling from existing records the

    techno pioneers are more interested in creating original expressions from drum machines

    and synthesizers. Still their methods bear resemblance to the methods used in the 1950s.

    When Cybotron member Juan Atkins in 1980 starts producing his first tracks, it is with the

    help of one synthesizer, two cassette recorders, and a four channel mixer. He first records a

    bass line in the full length of the track, then records this from one tape deck on to the other

    while playing something new on the synthesizer. He repeats this procedure until the track

    is complete.95

    Around 1980 is also when the first samplers are introduced. However, the first models are

    so expensive that only big professional studios can afford them. But in the second half of

    the decade samplers like Ensoniq Mairage and Akais S series are sold at prices which

    make them affordable for home studios.96

    2.6.2 1991-2014: Computers and software

    The single most important development for electronic music since the 1950s until today is

    probably the evolution of computer technology.

    93

    Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 227229, 233, 234.

    94 Ibid., 243, 250.

    95 Ibid., 259261.

    96 Ibid., 276.

  • 25

    Primitive sound-generating computer programs for making music date all the way back to

    the 1950s.97 However, the real shift towards computer technology does not happen before

    the 1990s, when computers get enough processing power to handle and process multiple

    tracks of audio simultaneously and in real-time. This means that all the hardware devel-

    oped until then, such as synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, and tape recorders, can

    now all be replaced by a single computer with a DAW (digital audio workstation) and

    plugins. The computer now very much looks like the delicately controlled musical machine

    Grainger in 1938 was calling for, serving as a direct link between the imagination of the

    composer and the ear of the listener.

    This move from hardware to software multiplies both editing possibilities and ease of

    use.98

    Despite the many extra features and increased flexibilities it is still evident that the

    design of the DAW is based on trying to imitate the hardware based techniques developed

    until then.

    The typical DAW has an editing mode where each track is shown as strips layered horizon-

    tally and parallel to each other playing simultaneously from left to right. This layout can be

    seen both as a reflection of a classical partiture, but the strips are also very reminiscent of

    the way tape has previously been used in the process. The difference of course being that

    in the DAW you can play back multiple tracks at the same time without first recording

    them on the same tape.

    Also the basic editing functions in the DAW are very close to the way Schaeffer and other

    pioneers are editing with tape in the 1950s. Just like the tape, the tracks in a DAW can be

    cut up at any point and put back together in new order or with pieces of other tracks. The

    diagonal cuts made by Schaeffer we now handle with a crossfade and, instead of changing

    the speed of the tape, we can use time stretch to make clips play faster or slower. The add-

    ed bonus is that we can choose if we want to keep the pitch or let it follow the speed

    change. Also the loop, which has previously been done by connecting both ends of a strip

    of tape into a closed circuit, is a basic functionality which the DAW can handle in several

    ways either through copy and paste, by dragging at the end of a clip to prolong it into a

    loop, or by setting start and end markers and making the DAW repeat the material between

    those.

    97

    Russcol, The Liberation of Sound, 109.

    98 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 276.

  • 26

    2.6.3 Fubinis law: Integration of new technologies

    It is interesting to see how most developments in electronic music seem to come about

    when people figure out how to use new technologies in ways they were not intended. This

    is partially the case with many early electronic instruments like The Electric Arclight and

    the Theremin, which both come out of adverse effects of other inventions. In the 1950s

    Schaeffers way of editing with tape probably also goes way beyond what was intended

    with the invention of the electromagnetic recording device. And the sine generators Stock-

    hausen uses are not meant for creating music, but produced for physics experiments.99

    Lat-

    er the DJs take the turntable and change its role from a device used for listening to records

    and start using it actively in creating new genres of music. Another example connected to

    unintended use of electricity is the discovery of distortion when guitar players started turn-

    ing up tube amplifiers beyond what they are built for, or alternatively removing one of the

    output tubes.100

    A theory which eloquently describes the development of new technologies and their inte-

    gration in cultural praxis is Fubinis law formulated by the Italian physicist Eugene G.

    Fubini. According to Fubini the integration of new technology follows four steps: 1) New

    technology is developed to rationalise already existing practices. 2) We discover new

    things we can do with the new technologies, which we could not do before. 3) These new

    processes change the way we work and live our lives. 4) In the end new technologies are

    again developed to rationalise the processes which emerged from the former technological

    advancement. These new technologies will then again be integrated according to the four

    steps.101

    The theory well describes the development from tape recorders and sine generators to

    samplers and synthesizers. The new devises not only save lots of time and work with ex-

    ternal filters and adhesive tape. They also make whole new practices possible. And in the

    99

    Marstal and Okkels, Else Marie Pade, 218219.

    100 Marstal and Moos, Filtreringer, 117.

    101 Ibid., 100, 101.

  • 27

    end these new practices are rationalised when all elements of electronic music production

    are gathered in the DAW on a computer.

    Each new stage in the evolution can still perform the functions of the techniques before,

    only a whole lot easier. There are also examples of contemporary artists using the comput-

    er to make music out of filtering and editing together real life recordings, staying very true

    to Schaeffers original idea of musique concrte. Examples include Matmos A Chance to

    Cut is a Chance to Cure from 2001, where all the sounds come from plastic surgery,102

    and

    Schneider TMs Construction Sounds from 2012, made entirely from the sounds of the

    house renovation which was initially keeping the artist from doing other work.103

    Of course the evolution does not end here. Just like Varse, Schaeffer, Stockhausen, and all

    the other pioneers trying to make sounds never heard before, artists still do this today. With

    each new technology they will be looking for new, often unintended, ways to use it and

    make something new.

    A good example is Radioheads album Kid A from 2000. With this release the band goes

    from classic rock line-up to radically exploring the possibilities of the modern computer-

    based studio. For example they sample their own guitars and cut off the attack, which

    makes the sound completely foreign and unrecognisable. In the opening track they cut up

    the vocals by using the scrubber tool in Pro Tools.104

    This tool lets you play the sound at

    any given point in an audio track, and when moving the mouse back and forth, the sound

    will constantly come from the point where the mouse is placed; whether you go fast or

    slow, forwards or backwards. This is of course only intended to help the editing situation,

    and it has never been meant for this chopped and jittery sound to end up on a final record-

    ing.

    Another curious example in this context is the remix which producer Thomas Knak under

    his Opiate-alias creates for the 2002 collection of remixes of Seven Circles. The beats

    which Knak adds to the track are made of sounds he has recorded from a CD-player while

    holding down the fast forward button.105

    Again a new technology is being used in an unin-

    tended way to make music with sounds never heard before.

    102

    Hegarty, Noise/music, 33.

    103 Daniel, Schneider TMs Construction Sounds, 22, 23.

    104 Leth and Christensen, Album: Radiohead - Kid A.

    105 Olsen, Syv Cirkler Remixet Af Fem.

  • 28

    3 Summary

    When Else Marie Pade in 1959 composes Seven Circles, Denmarks first piece of purely

    electronic music, it follows a 200-year development since the creation of the first known

    electronic musical instrument. However, it is very late in this development that composers

    start taking electronic music serious as an art form with a potential to do something other

    than just imitate already known acoustic instruments.

    There are two main forces driving the early experiments with electricity and music. The

    first is simply the desire to rationalise already existing processes. A clear example of this is

    the electric organ which is simply trying to be a cheaper and more compact version of the

    instrument.

    The other driving force comes from general engineering progresses such as the telegraph,

    the telephone, electric lighting, and the radio. Several electronic musical instruments are

    developed as by-products of these inventions, though most of them remain curious novel-

    ties and are never really put to use.

    The first electronic instrument to achieve international attention and be put in serial pro-

    duction is the Theremin from 1917. Over the following two decades more will follow, but

    though they all make highly futuristic sounds, when they are deployed, it is almost exclu-

    sively for playing violin parts in well-known popular compositions. A notable exception is

    the sound film, which during the 1930s becomes the first medium to use the new instru-

    ments to produce something not heard before.

    During the 1950s the first genres of electronic music are developed. French composer

    Pierre Schaeffer is first when he 1948 formulates his visions of what he calls musique

    concrte. His idea is that all sounds, whether they come from instruments, human voices,

    or noises from real-life recordings, should be treated as equally valid material for compos-

    ing. His most important tool is the tape recorder, which he uses for cutting up sounds and

    changing speed, pitch, and direction of the sounds.

    A few years later in Cologne another direction forms under the label elektronische Musik

    and main figure composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The tape recorder is still used for edit-

    ing, but the sine generator is the main provider of sound material. Elektronische Musik also

    deviates from musique concrte by focussing on strict order in form of mathematical or-

    ganisation and principles of serialism.

  • 29

    During the 1950s Schaeffer and Stockhausen are rather critical of each others methods.

    Meanwhile in Denmark Pade is inspired by both, finding them equally important. And as

    electronic filtering becomes more developed and applied on both genres, the audible dif-

    ference is also diminished. In some works Pade mixes the genres freely; in others she de-

    liberately focusses on cultivating one of the genres in its purest form.

    The inspiration for Seven Circles comes after a visit in a planetarium during the 1958

    Brussels Worlds Fair. Her intention is to make a piece, which feels like the movements of

    celestial bodies, with each note representing an object of its own.

    She makes a partiture, which is actually in the shape of seven circles drawn inside of each

    other, each one smaller than the other. As the work unfolds the circles are added one by

    one, each circle faster than the one before, till they all play simultaneously. After that the

    circles again stop one by one, and the piece ends as it starts with only the first circle play-

    ing.

    Each circle consists of a pattern of serially arranged notes with a range on ninths between

    them. Each note is made on a sine generator, recorded on tape, and cut out in the correct

    length to produce the desired duration. Next to the drawing of the circles Pade has calcu-

    lated the lengths of tape needed for all note values as well as their duration in seconds.

    Seven Circles is first played on the Danish radio in April 1959 in a programme series dedi-

    cated especially to the new forms of music. But the reception from press and public is not

    particularly positive. Seven Circles is called monotonous, and many people question

    whether the new sounds even deserve to be called music.

    It is true that the new genres constitute a radical break from what has until then been

    known as music. But probably more interesting than the aesthetical difference is how the

    new techniques completely change the process of composing and creating music. Before

    there has always been a clear distinction between the composer writing the music with

    notes on paper and the musicians performing it on their instruments. And even if a person

    has been capable of both, it has still been two separate roles in relation to the music.

    When the tape recorder is used for composing, the divide between composer and musician

    is suddenly gone, and the processes become one and the same. The electronic composition

    exists only as a recording and can never be reproduced by any musician on any instrument.

    After two centuries of experiments where electronic instruments have just replaced or

    played along with acoustic ones, this is a way in which the electronic pioneers of the

  • 30

    1950s really change the premises and point out fundamentally new understandings of how

    music can be made.

    Though Schaeffer and Stockhausen in the 1950s disagree on whether real-life recordings

    or electronically generated sounds is the way to go, it is clear today that Pade is right in

    recognising the importance of both. Each approach lay an important part of the foundation

    for the electronic music we know today.

    Elektronische Musik and the use of sine generators point to the invention of the synthesizer

    which becomes popular after the launch of the portable synthesizer in 1964.

    Musique concrte on the other hand is the beginning of the history of sampling in music. It

    is a history continued both by recording artists like The Beatles, exploring the possibilities

    of the studio, as we well as DJs who throughout the 1970s and 1980s develop whole

    new genres of music, using turntables sometimes in combination with tape recorders, syn-

    thesizers, and drum machines. During the 1980s the hardware sampler also makes its en-

    try.

    The single most important development since the 1950s is probably the evolution of com-

    puter technology. During the 1990s the DAW is developed, and together with various

    plug-ins it can completely take over the processes previously handled by synthesizers,

    drum machines, samplers, and tape recorders. While being able to carry out all the tasks of

    the old hardware, the new software also makes many processes much easier and opens up

    new possibilities, which were not there before.

    The development of electronic music in many ways follows Fubinis law. In short it says

    that we develop new technologies to make existing processes easier. But once the new

    technologies have become part of our lives, we will creatively start using them in new

    ways, doing things we could not do before. And in the end these new applications will turn

    into new processes which we will again want to make easier by inventing new technolo-

    gies.

  • 31

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  • 32

    Declaration of Originality

    I hereby declare that this thesis and the work reported herein was composed by and origi-

    nated entirely from me. Information derived from the published and unpublished work of

    others has been acknowledged in the text and references are given in the list of sources.

    Place, Date ............................................... Signature......................................................