History of electronic music and what it is all about

The earliest attempts to create noise, sound or even music by using electricity go back to 1874 and before. So there is a long list of artists, engineeres and inventors, who paved the way to modern electronic music. Starting with Elisha Gray - In 1874, he performed the first concert with electronic instruments ever. He was followed by Thaddeuz Cahil in 1898 who showed up and invented the Dynamophon. In 1905 the Composer Edgar Varése. In 1919 Léon Theremin, and many more in the following years. Some of this invented historical electronic instruments are still in use, they are still built, and if you are interested it is possible to buy a new built Theremin. (Sometimes called Aerophone). Click ->this to read about the timeline of historical electronic instruments. Or follow ->that link to read about 120ys of electronic music.

 What I do with synthesizers and other electronic gear

Some day in the late 1970ies I joined this weird family of electronic sound nerds. - As I mentioned before: I´m a storyteller. I tell musical stories. Here you may find out, how that came to be and what I mean by saying "I´m telling musical stories."

Very early in my teens I started to play music, became a guitarplayer in a garageband. We covered catchy tracks from that time ... the one and only selfcomposed piece consisted of exactly two chords and had a playtime of 20 to 40 minutes - depending on circumstances. Every Minute was drifting and swirling to an extreme. - From the first time I listened to electronic music I was open for new worlds of sound. Audible adventures in outer space. - I´m still telling storys about space quests and adventure ever since. Science. Robots. Spacecrafts. Aliens.

Some day I could listen to the album Irrlicht bei Klaus Schlulze. From that very moment I was addicted to that kind of music. I started to be interested in those exotic and totally alien Instruments, called Synthesizer and Vocoder and Sequencer.

  Close encounter of the third kind

Very soon there was a close encounter of the third kind with a real synthesizer. I think it was a Crumar Compac. For the first time I was able to touch such an enigmatic thing. I could fumble and play with it ... and after a few Filtersweeps I was infected by the electronic germ.

At this first real contact with a synthesizer I realized all of a sudden, that beside the huge modular synthesizer systems of those days there was a range of instruments that had a more reasonable size, and therefore a much more reasonable price than for example a Moog-System 55.

Such a huge modular system was worth the value of a small homestead. And the smaller versions where a real snip, and only cost the price of a fancy car.


Electronic dreams & a window pane of sound

A short time after that first meeting with a Crumar-synth, I spotted the unique and famous Synthesizerstudio Bonn and its founder Dirk Matten. This was the first single line store in the world to sell synthesizers and related peripheral items. And it was probably the first shop worldwide where one could get professional advice and guidance on synthesizers. So i went to Bonn, to a small shop in the Franzstrasse.

While I was staring through the windowpane I started drooling on my shoes immediately: there was a collection of the finest synth equipment of all sizes and price categories at hand.

All these priceless electronic legends ... Oberheim, Moog, Sequential Circuits, EMS, Modular Systems. 

How I got there

 Dirk Matten quickly pointed out: there was only one option for someone like me. Small budget, but a big hunger for electronic sounds:

That was a KORG MS20 plus a Stepsequenzer SQ10. There was a lot of music in this small combination. Deal.

Only a short time after that I was forced by my addicted dedication to buy a polyphonic Synth. To do so I had to robb my piggy-bank and pledge my soul to a local bank . - So I added an ARP Quadra to my stock of equipment. That was one of the very first polyphonic Synths … it was capable of creating beautiful pad- and stringsounds. In my mind a little fortune went west for that purpose ... one has to keep in mind, that I went to school at that point of time. I was a pupil still ... 

  Electric music

Before there was some music to be called electronic there was a lot of bands who where electric. - One of them, I would like to mention are The Doors. Their Songs Riders On The Storm, and The End where may be the first songs I ever heard , that put me to a kind of trance while listening to them.

I remember a cracling vinyl-player, repeating the Riders again and again. Somehow this song was - in my case - the one to give the impulse to loop-based music. So in the early days of popular electronic music there was only a small number of artists doing that really pure electronic thing.

There was Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream ... and Kraftwerk … Michael Rother … They were - as for many musicians of my generation - the trailblazers. I shall not forget to mention Pink Floyd´s Meddle, Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Where Here.

Electronic music really rocks

Another important influence is to say Manuel Goettsching with Ashra. The Albums Correlations and Blackouts belong to my all-time-favourites. Klaus Schulze again, his Master-Piece-Album "X". - This list is quite long already, but it still has not come to an end. Electronic music has developed over the years … the number of variants and variations is almost uncountable. Depeche Mode and others who created Synth-Pop or Synth-Rock … Taucher … ATB ... influences from the dancefloor and vice versa. And the list of electronic artists is getting longer and longer daily. Everything influences everything. Everyone enriches everyone.

Although my own music is quite different from Popol Vuh. To label his music as "electronic" would not hit the mark. Popol Vuh stood for a extremley enthralling and creative melange from electronic elements, socalled "worldmusic" and spiritual, meditative influences. Unfortunately Florian Fricke died in 2001, and therefore Popol Vuh came to an end as well. My favourite: Höre der du wagst and the track Brüder des Schattens from the album and soundtrack of Nosferatu.

Cooperation with other musicians

During all these years I only once started to cooperate with somone else: in the early 80s I tried to work together with a friend, who was infected by the electronic germ as well. He bought a Minimoog, a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and an Oberheim OB2.All in all the sound we produced was very nice. But Oberheim, Moog, Korg, Roland, Arp … these brands where not compatible at that time. Midi was not invented yet. So we came to nought because of the deficiency of our technical equipment. And the existance of this duo was for a very very short time.

A silent decade

Well ... in the late 80ies there was a long lasting creative break. All my instruments were sold. (Except my Jupiter 6). This creative break kept on going until the late 90s. The silent decade, so to speak.

After many years of silence I picked my last remaining synth up from the basement to fumble a little. Addiction got me on the spot again, and I decided to invest in some new equipment.

In the end you see ... as a consequence of that very moment when I went downstairs and plugged my last synth to the electric socket, you can visit this website now and find out what it´s all about. The music you can access here was created after the great break. Unfortunately from the time before only a few tapereels remain which I cannot mix again, because I don't have a tape machine available. May be one day I´ll get back to them and find a way to work with those.

My style of music

… my style? I really don´t know. Electronic Pop? Ambient? Downtempo? Chillout? Lounge? Moveass? Outer Space Rock? A little bit of all of it ... I call it "electronic storytelling." Can not be described in written language. You have to listen.