While Pierre Schaeffer is often thought of as the father of the electronic music form known as musique concrète the gentleman above, Halim El-Dabh, actually got there several years before, 1944 to be exact. Born in Egypt in 1921, El-Dabh studied agriculture at Cairo University while playing piano and other traditional instruments as a pastime. One day, the student and a friend borrowed a wire recorder — a device predating magnetic tape — from the Middle East Radio Station and hit the streets to capture ambient sounds. El-Dabh recorded a spirit-summoning ritual called a zaar ceremony and ultimately found that he could use the sounds as the raw ingredients for a new composition. In a recent interview with the Electronic Music Foundation, El-Dabh, who is University Professor Emeritus of African Ethnomusicology at Kent State University and continues to compose music, tells the story of his musical career, including this bit about the pioneering 1944 piece listenable above, an excerpt from "The Expression of Zaar":
We had to sneak in (to the ritual) with our heads covered like the women, since men were not allowed in. I recorded the music and brought the recording back to the radio station and experimented with modulating the recorded sounds. I emphasized the harmonics of the sound by removing the fundamental tones and changing the reverberation and echo by recording in a space with movable walls. I did some of this using voltage controlled devices. It was not easy to do. I didn't think of it as electronic music, but just as an experience. I called the piece Ta'abir al-Zaar, (The Expression of Zaar). A short version of it has become known as Wire Recorder Piece. At the time in Egypt, nobody else was working with electronic sounds. I was just ecstatic about sounds.
"White Trash Wins Lotto" is very hard to describe. It's a musical about Axl Rose coming to LA and becoming a rock star. But the music is anything but rock:… READ THE REST
The first time I heard Frank Turner live was at the Space in Hamden, Connecticut, USA (a venue I literally helped to build) in 2008. The English folk-punk singer was… READ THE REST
This serene website is dedicated solely to the song Moon River, composed by Henry Mancini and originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the iconic film Breakfast at Tiffany's. My favorite… READ THE REST
TL;DR: Revamp your digital world with this incredible lifetime license to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro, with its seamless interface and top-notch security, for only $29.97 (Reg. $199) until 11:59 PM on 1/07.… READ THE REST
TL;DR: Save over $350 on a refurbished Apple iPad Pro 10.5" 256GB, plus a free accessories bundle, with this sweet deal on sale for just $315.99 right now. Tech fans, it's time… READ THE REST
TL;DR: The perfect last-minute holiday gift for an aspiring rocker, the 2024 Guitar Lessons Training Bundle is only $15.97 (Reg. $480) until 11:59 PM on 12/25. It's really never too late to make… READ THE REST