STREAMLINED INSTRUMENTS FOR THE MODERN AGE

by Ivor Darreg

[Published in PACIFIC COAST MUSICIAN, January 5, 1946]

"These modern compositions sound so awkward!" Perhaps you yourself have said this; surely you have heard others say it more than once. Yet can we rightly blame our contemporary composers for this seeming awkwardness? After all, they only try to express their new (and something original!) ideas. Couldn't the trouble be elsewhere--that we are trying to perform our twentieth-century music on nineteenth-century pianos and orchestras?

The instruments we now use are the offspring of the romantic period. Their "state of highest perfection" (at least, that is what the music textbook writers so adoringly call it!) was reached when that period was at its height, so we cannot be surprised to find that such instruments will interpret music written in the romantic style far more faithfully than they will render earlier or later types of music. The present revival of the so-called "ancient instruments" (viols, harpsichord, Flutes a bec, clavichord, etc.)--a movement which has gained considerable force of late--is only a logical reaction to the excessively "Romantic" idea of Bach and his predecessors that the nineteenth-century instruments have been foisting on us.

It is indeed wonderful that we are at last giving the early composers their due in the way just mentioned, but what about our contemporary composers? Though they may not have said it in so many words, twentieth-century composers have often felt a need for more modern, more perfect instruments. Even in the early 1900s there was evidence of this. Examine, for instance, any of Debussy's piano works--you will find innumerable carefully-placed expression marks; yet it is obvious that not all these marks can be interpreted on our present pianos. The works of later composers will reveal much the same thing. Now it would be absurd to say that such marks are all put there for mere ornament--and as for the attitude, taken by some musicians, that the performer is expected through some weird kind of telepathy to transmit to the audience all those nuances of expression that cannot actually be heard by their ears--well, that is too ridiculous for further comment!

"But," you will ask at this point, "are there are truly twentieth-century instruments? When we have so many different kinds of instruments already, what really new ones could be possible?" Fortunately, we do have instruments of a genuinely modern type--the electronic musical instruments. (The term electronic, as opposed to the word electrical, refers to the fact that nearly all of these instruments employ electronic vacuum tubes of the sort used in radio sets.)

Certain of the humbler applications of electronics--the electric phonograph, sound movies, radio, etc.--have been an aid to electronic music because they forced the development of the necessary equipment, but in another way they have been a great hindrance to electronic music: the exploiting of all their marvelous copying and duplicating possibilities has bewildered the musical world into thinking that electronics is only a means for RE-producing the tones already played on conventional instruments; musicians generally do not know that worth-while musical tone can be originated electronically--not just copied from something else.

There are so many different kinds of electronic musical instruments (over 600 United States patents have been granted on them), and they possess so many new tone-colors, that it would be very difficult to classify them all. Since this is not a treatise on electronics, the most we can do is to state that there are two clearly divided main classes: (a) those instruments that originate their tones through electrical circuits, and, (b) those instruments which one plays int eh conventional manner (piano, guitar, violin, etc.), but whose tones are not directly heard--and electrical pickup replaces the soundingboard, and the picked-up tones are amplified by tubes and heard through a loudspeaker. In the first group (electrically-generated tones), some instruments synthesize their timbres, but others have entirely natural tones, no more synthetic than those of a violin. In the second group (ordinary instruments electronically amplified) there are instruments that attempt to sound as much like their conventional counterparts as possible, but others are furnished with apparatus for modifying the tone considerably: a violin may be made to sound like a trumpet, a piano like a harpsichord or organ, a clarinet like an oboe, and so on. And--please note carefully--electronic instruments need not sound mechanical. If built by artists, instead of mere dollar-worshippers, they can be given individualistic, expressive voices.

Truly, electronic instruments place before the modern musician "an embarassment of riches." Musicians in orchestras, as well as those who are instructors, should keep abreast of the new instruments and techniques, and express their wants, needs, and suggestions to those working in the electronic field. To bring artistic musical instruments, rather than mere "gadgets" (however ingenious) into the world, the closest of cooperation will be essential. Composers, too, should write for electronic instruments, if they expect their works to receive proper performances in years to come. Feeling that the responsibility of a composer does not end with the mere setting down of notes, the writer has engaged in the design and construction of electronic musical instruments, as well as in musical composition.

It is to be expected that new instruments will bring with them certain modifications of our musical notation. "Transposing instruments," will, of course, be abolished, and it also seems likely that the alto and tenor C clefs will disappear, because many many (though not all) electronic instruments will have keyboards, and keyboard players are generally unfamiliar with any other clefs than the bass and treble. Extremely high and low notes will become commonplace; as their execution will not longer involve any strain, and their quality will be better, to say nothing of their improved intonation. Because of this, signs will be needed to indicate that the treble staff is to be read one or two octaves higher, or one octave lower than written. A double-bass clef will also be required, because some electronic instruments will go down to the 32-foot octave, an octave lower than present pianos and orchestras extend. (Our existing "8va" markings are too clumsy for these purposes.)

However, we should not be led into an excessive preoccupation with notation problems. New sounds to listen to are far more important than the way they are written down on paper. Too many composers now are writing "music for the eye" while forgetting that, no matter how serious and intensive the work they put into their compositions, and no matter how interesting it may be to the eyes of a scholar, the music is still quite worthless if its complexities are too intricate to be unraveled by the listeners' ears.

With new tone-colors and an extended dynamic range, electronic instruments will do much to make modern music more intelligible. WHat is now played with difficulty and listened to with strain will soon be performed with perfection and enjoyed at first hearing. Still, composers' and arrangers' blunders will not all be turned into masterpieces. Though the electrification of music will bring an exhilarating freedom of expression, it will also confer an increased responsibility. Musicians will need to take care that the changes wrought by electronics are brought about smoothly and gradually.

Some electronic instruments (of the organ, piano and guitar types) have come on the market, so the Electrical Age in Music is already here. However, these instruments give us but a faint hint of what is in store for us. Before long we shall discover that modern--or even ultramodern--music need not be ugly or discordant, when performed in the proper medium.

The past of music has been so glorious that many musicians, lost in admiration for it, have forgotten all about he present and the future. It is too late, though, to turn back the clock to the "good old days." Let's take our noses out of those old musical history books for a while, and consider the great beauties just ahead of us!