What is EA Music?

It is obvious that the electronic medium in itself solves none of the composer’s major problems, which have to do with creating a viable style, inventing distinguished thematic material, and articulating form. (George Crumb)

Defining Electroacoustic Music

New York City Electronic Music Festival (NYCEMF) definition:

Electroacoustic music is music whose sound incorporates electronic tools and instruments, including software, in its production or performance. Electroacoustic music often seeks to explore all the sonic possibilities of new technologies, and it includes both works performed live on stage and works created in the studio and played back in concert ...

Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) definition:

Electro-Acoustic music is a term used to describe those musics which are dependent on electronic technology for their creation and/or performance.

Grove Music Online

Music in which electronic technology, now primarily computer-based, is used to access, generate, explore and configure sound materials, and in which loudspeakers are the prime medium of transmission (see also Computers and music, §II). There are two main genres. Acousmatic music is intended for loudspeaker listening and exists only in recorded form (tape, compact disc, computer storage). In live electronic music the technology is used to generate, transform or trigger sounds (or a combination of these) in the act of performance; this may include generating sound with voices and traditional instruments, electro-acoustic instruments, or other devices and controls linked to computer-based systems. Both genres depend on loudspeaker transmission, and an electro-acoustic work can combine acousmatic and live elements.

Leigh Landy in his paper, Electroacoustic Music Studies and Accepted Terminology, discusses many other terms such as: Organized Sound, Sonic Art, Sound Art, Electronic Music, Musique Concréte/Acousmatic Music, Electroacoustic Music, Electronica, Computer Music

Some Helpful Categories

Fixed

• "tape music"

• "fixed media"

• "playback"

• pre-created on media that is played back during a performance

• basically the same every performance

Interactive

• "interactive music"

• "interactive electronics"

• "live electronic music"

• "computer"

• interactive processing is conducted during the performance

• dynamic systems that allow each performance to be different

Digital musicians (EA composers) have the following skills:

• aural awareness (an ability to hear and listen both widely and accurately, linked to an understanding of how sound behaves in space and time)

• cultural knowledge (an understanding of one’s place within a local and global culture coupled with an ability to make critical judgements and a knowledge of recent cultural developments)

• musical abilities (the ability to make music in various ways – performance, improvisation, composition, etc. – using the new technologies)

• technical skills (skill in recording, producing, processing, manipulating and disseminating music and sound using digital technologies).

Hugill, Andrew. The Digital Musician. Taylor & Francis [CAM], 2008.