120 Years of Electronic Music

Ant writes "This web page has a list of 120 years of electronic music from 1870 to 1990."

Why 1990?

[alexatrit]

Why end at 1990? Did 120 years sound more rounded then 130? Haven't there been several advances made in recording technologies since then? MiniDisc, MP3, widespread adoption of compact discs, SACD. Fourteen years is a long time...

Re:Why 1990?

[MoonFog]

As I suspected, the site is fairly old, click on "Introduction":
'120 Years Of Electronic Music' is an ongoing project and the site will be updated on a regular basis (currently v3.0 feb 1998).

Regular basis ..

Re:Why 1990?

[TehHustler]

I expect that the jump from 1990 to 2004 will take a considerable amount of writing, when you think of all the technological advances we have had in such a short amount of time. And as someone else has pointed out, it does say "regular basis"

Stockhausen?

[slavemowgli]

120 years of electronic music, and no mention of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen? How could they leave him out?

Lifted from Bash.org

[The-Bus]

c-rock: Whatever happened to sex drugs and rock n roll? Now we just have aids crack and techno.

Re:in 1990 it ended because

[thrash242]

Far from all electronic music is rave "music". There is a lot of innovative stuff being made today. But, it's just like mainstream rock, rap, whatever...the most visible 90% of any music genre sucks. Of course, "electronic music" isn't a genre per se, it's the way it's made. Anyway, my point is: not all electronic music now is rave "music", just like not all electronic music in the 80s was New Wave.

I'm wondering why they didn't make it until 2000 and make it 130 years of electronic music? Well, the article is actually about instruments, not the actual music (from what I saw, anyway). But plenty of cool isntruments have come out since 1990; both software and hardware.

And I realize that your post was probably intended as humor, but I thought I'd point this out anyway.

Re:Why 1990?

[thrash242]

I agree that they shouldn't have stopped at 1990, but what do MiniDiscs, MP3, etc have to do with electonic music? It's about instruments, not ways of storing music electronically. Country music can be stored in MP3s, but it's certainly not electronic music.

You're right that there have been advances since then, but not about what kind. I think the widespread use of software rather than hardware is the biggest change in the last few years. Modern software synths, samplers and effects now are comparable in sound quality and usually more flexible than their hardware equivalents.

Electric guitar is missing

[Anonymous Coward]

The list has plenty of keyboard instruments but no mention of the electric guitar. The keyboard or the fingerboard are the input device. The sound is basically created electronically.

Yes, I know that the guitar strings vibrate but the sound is nothing like my acoustic guitar.

Re:But who cares about such old history?

[thrash242]

To me, electronic music is the geekiest kind. At least some (ie: not rave crap or piano music played on an electronic keyboard) electronic music. What other kind of musician other than a geeky one sits around staring at a computer screen and in front of boxes with oodles of knobs making bleepy noises? It's not as "cool" or socially accepted as playing guitar, piano, etc. Guitarists and drummers and the like don't have to worry about all the very technical aspects of synths, sequencers, samplers, etc that electronic musicians do. Plus, if you like computers and technology, it seems like you'd want to make or listen to music made possible by computers and technology.

Most people on Slashdot don't seem to be that much into electronic music, which kind of surprises me. Or maybe I'm guessing wrong.

Re:But who cares about such old history?

[WoodenRobot]

There's little geekier than the IDM scene, which seems to thrive on how obscure your tastes can get. There's an immense number of 'bands' that have popped up out there thanks to people using their computers to make the music they want to hear. Although there's a lot of crap out there, there are also some real gems.

It's a shame that people, especially in the US, it seems, think electronic music = bad chart 'techno', and therefore discard an immense amount of cool music. (

Re:Electric guitar is missing

[MBAFK]

I noticed this too, but after a bit of googling I found out probably why it's not on that list:

Source [campusprogram.com]
An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. In contrast, the term electric instrument is used to mean instruments whose sound is produced mechanically, and only amplified electronically - for example an electric guitar.

Re:Why 1990?

[Emperor Igor]

Right. Electronic music is evolving along the same lines as the computer did. It's becoming more and more accessible to the average person to make really complex music tracks at home.

Re:No,

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the microphone and amplifier... Those are electronic... so I guess the person wasn't a robot?

Re:Greatest instrument ever!

[proj_2501]

what model of theremin sounds just like a violin?

Re:Stockhausen?

[iLEZ]

Seems like they have concentrated on the instruments themselves. I reacted to this myself as i expected to see Kraftwerk mentioned somewhere around 1970.

On a side note, i am going to a Kraftwerk concert this week. I am very much looking forward to it. =)