An Early Approach to Live music

After reading the Article Gentle Fire An Early Approach To Live Electronic Music I felt I really learned a lot from this article. As an avid listener of Electronic and Techno type music I was surprised to see how far back Electronic music can be traced to. I had absolutely no idea that it was used to underscore things that we call media today such as film, radio, theatre etc… Also I thought it was interesting that a major composer Roberto Gherard used the element of electronic music in his pieces. The only problem is that his work was not really documented well like Beethoven or other composers so there is a very small amount of evidence proving that he did use electronic music in his pieces. It’s always interesting to see how when it comes to the world of electronic music you discover that it wasn’t started here in America. The article mainly discusses the evolution of how electronic music evolved in Britain through the moog synthesizer and how Hugh Davies the author of this article got started in the world of Electronic music and his involvement with the group Gentle Fire. One of Hughes major influences in the world of electronic music was Richard Cardew who was part of the group Stockhausen.
The group Gentle Fire evolved from Hughes setting up a electronic music lab in Goldsmith’s College located in Britain. Hughes met up with his friend Richard Orton a university professor at York University to collaborate in creating the group Gentle Fire. Orton was also skilled in creating electronic music. He established a studio like Hughes at his university. The group Gentle Fire was based on four different kinds of electronic music. The first one was “sounds played on conventional objects”, the second one was sound from “found or adapted objects”, and the third one was sound found on “electronic oscillators” and finally sounds played “from earlier recordings”. This was taught as a class on Saturday mornings by Orton to any musician who was interested in the world of Electronic Music. Every member of the group was talented enough to play more then one instrument.
The group added 4 other members Richard Bernas who played piano, percussion and the tabla, Patrick Harrex who played the violin and percussion, Graham Hearn who played the piano, recorder, VC-3 synthesizer and percussion. Also their was Michael Robinson who played the cello and piano and finally Stuart Jones who played the cello and the electronic guitar. These were all very talented musicians who were capable of creating great things with their many talents in electronic music. After establishing their group they decided to consult the I-ching to see what to do next and where their group would go. I must say that I thought it was a little strange for a group to solely rely on a prophecy like the I-ching but if it got them through their career then so be it. Gentle Fire would later collaborate with popular electronic music groups such as Intermodulation, AMM and Musica Electtronica Viva. The Group gentle fire recorded at famous recording studios such as Abby Road Studios. Overall its amazing how this group evolved and how it grew to become popular.