Electro-acoustic Music in Czech Republic

The following study presents a shorted form of the selected chapters of a disserta-tion part dealing with the Czech electro-acoustic music (hereinafter referred to as EAM). 1 The study is in particular engaged in the information available or interpreta-ble to foreign researchers only with difficulties. Basic typology For our purposes, EAM may be specified as a music the sound material of which is generated, or at least in majority elaborated and mediated by an electronic medium. It may be defined as a music genre (in Czech druh, in German Gattung) specific for its selection of material, partly by the methods of its elaboration and its functions. The majority of the contemporary music goes at least at a certain stage through editing in a sound recording room (cut, color adjustment, and reverberation). It is therefore necessary to distinguish more precisely then in the past the core of EAM and so-called transition zones between the electro-acoustic and other music types. The core of EAM consists in the production where the EA means form an integral part of so called semantic gesture 2 , i. e. where the artifact's transition into the acoustic form would be absolutely impossible or would significantly change its character or sense. The transition zones may be defined from a technological or an aesthetic viewpoints. As far as the technological point of view is concerned, the most important aspect is the extent and function of EA means involvement in the syntactic-semantic design. From the aesthetic viewpoint, we can distinguish in the EAM so called intensive transitions from art to non-art, and so called extensive transitions where the dominant position of the aesthetic function reduces in favor of the use functions. 3 The intensive transition of EAM includes numerous examples of exercises (fr. term of P. Schaeffer was solfège from it. solfeggio), experiments, as well as banalities and kitsch. 4 The extensive transition covers strongly occupied field of the film, scenic, and ambient music. Popular music occupies both the aforementioned zones. Another important aspect of EAM is the transition from music to non-music. For that matter, it is useful to distinguish the author's and auditor's viewpoints. 5 The creation within this transition has been developed particularly by Bruitists,