Notes on Babbitt's Electronic Music

Just jotting some notes on electronic music..

Interview with Babbitt (1968)
Babbitt says that there are three ways to produce electronic music:
- the tape studio
- the synthesizer
- the computer


finding this article is very timely and i'm very thankful for it! :) especially this is directly from Babbitt describing his works.

i was just getting so confused over one other reading which makes the distinction between ‘computer music’ and ‘tape music’ in the domain of ‘electronic music’. however it does not explain it clearly. most other readings also do not make the distinction even though it is significant.



Other interesting quotations/points raised in this article but not directly relevant to this research:

- pitch is the most impt aspect of musical structure? hmm..

Babbitt says, "As a composer, I still feel that pitch is the single most important aspect of musical structure."


- Babbitt's opinion of electronic music in music education, back in 1968.

"Fowler. In your opinion, what would an eighth- or ninth-grade music teacher have to know in order to introduce electronic music to his students in an interesting way?

Babbitt. The significant issue here is how to develop a child's musicality from every conceivable point of view. The question of the particular medium would just be a question of being able to inform the child in a rudimentary way. I would think that the music educator who is competent to make decisions about a child's musical training could easily acquire the slight amount of information that would be necessary. There's no music educator who couldn't learn to do that in a very, very short time. The information is available. In fact, this issue of the Journal should provide enough such information. There's no reason in the world why the music educator should have to be a technological expert. Very few composers are. I don't have to know how to build an oboe to write for it, and I don't have to know how to build a synthesizer to write for it. The educator doesn't need this technological information either. The educator simply has to be able to describe in very general but accurate terms how these media operate, just enough to arouse the child's interest and avoid misunderstanding."

"It is entirely up to the music educator to decide the complexity of the music appropriate to the development of a child. Whether it be electronic or not, I would insist, is irrelevant."


These are excerpts taken from:
An Interview with Milton Babbitt (1968) from the Music Educators Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3