This will be the first in an ongoing series on the Pioneers of Electronic Music. In this series I’ll be spotlighting some of the people who invented electronic instruments that ransformed the musical landscape of the 20th century and forward. I want to focus on the inventors of the machines more so than the artists who used them (though there will definetly be a lot of mentions in the articles as to when and where these machines were used, as well.) This has been a subject that has been of interest to me lately and I’ve been reading about and listening to a lot of electronic music of all eras lately. I’ve always had a casual interest in this stuff, but I used to be much more into Punk/Hardcore, Hip-Hop and Extreme Metal. In 2024 all those things have grown stale for me and have largely become parodies of their former selves. Truthfully, Electronic music is where I really see the innovation happening now, not guitar music. My perspective on this might be a little skewed because I didn’t grow up around it in the same way as the previoiusly mentioned genres. I’ve had a casual interest in it since I was about 13 and discovered groups like The Prodigy and Atari Teenage Riot, so I’m not brand new either, but it always remains a casual side interest and I never went all in on it until recently. For me it still seems very versatile, in a way those other genres don’t in 2024. Given that electronic music predates Rock music by about 50 years and still seems fresh and vital really says a lot about which one is more dynamic and vital. And given this music really started with Futurism, it seems like a logical direction to take the blog in. I’ll be writing about other things this year too, this isn’t going to be the sole subject I talk about all year, but I have at least 3 article ideas I want to write on this subject. I could come up with more ideas too.
So why start with Luigi Russolo? The first answer is fairly obvious. Because he was the first person to attempt to explore the musical possibilities of industrial noise, and this really is where electronic, industrial and noise music all got their start. But also we never got around to covering The Art of Noises by Russolo on the old Futurism Forever podcast, which has always bothered me. It’s an important Futurist text, probably one of the most widely read aside from the original 1909 Manifesto, and I would say it has been one of the most influential ones. It’s hard to imagine what 20th or 21st Century music might have been like without The Art of Noises and Russolo’s innovative noise machines. But as I’ve complained about in the past, Futurism Forever mostly attracted political spergs, not people who were really interested in Futurist art, and while doing that project I never thought an FF Russolo podcast would turn out well. It would be treated as a meme, and would probably be underviewed as there isn’t really any politics to be found here, so I always put it off, until I had the right panel to bring on, which never happened.
Anyways, onto Luigi Russolo and the Art of Noises…
Luigi Russolo did not actually have any formal background in music, but initially got involved in the Futurist movement as a painter. He learned to paint at the Acadamy of Arts in Milan where he studied under the Symbolist painter Cesare Tallone. Initially he was influenced by Impressionist art, but upon reading F.T. Marinetti’s incendiary Futurist Manifesto dove headfirst into the Futurist movement, creating some of the most iconic paintings of the first Futurist wave.
These 3 are among my favourite Futurist works in general. The great thing about
”first wave” futurism from 1909-1915 is all of the participants had very distinct and unique styles from one another. By the second wave Futurism had become more or less an established art style, but at this stage each artist really did have their own unique way to express Futurist dynamism. Russolo’s works are alongside Balla, Baccoini, Cara and Severini for most famous Futurist art works.
Despite, his accomplishments as a painter, Russolo abandoned painting in 1913, to focus on music. Before we get into the Art of Noises by Russolo I would like to briefly look at the Manifesto of Futurist Musicians by Francesco Balilla Pratella and the Destruction of Syntax—Imagination without strings—Words-in-Freedom by F.T. Marinetti.
First, Pratella. The Manifesto of Futurist Musicians was a revolt against the music acadamies in Italy, which were stuck on Opera music. Pratella was bored of Operas. He craved exciting new sounds that would speak to the modern Italian experience and propel Italy into the Future. But all he found in the acadamies were boring traditionalists, who feared anything new and innovative and worked towards dulling the creative energy of Italy’s youth.
”The vegetating schools, conservatories and academies act as snares for youth and art alike. In these hot-beds of impotence, masters and professors, illustrious deficients, perpetuate traditionalism and combat any effort to widen the musical field.
The result is prudent repression and restriction of any free and daring tendency; constant mortification of impetuous intelligence; unconditioned propping-up of imitative and incestuous mediocrity; prostitution of the great glories of the music of the past, used as insidious arms of offense against budding talent; limitation of study to a useless form of acrobatics floundering in the perpetual last throes of a behindhand culture that is already dead.”
Pratella declares:
”Futurism, the rebellion of the life of intuition and feeling, quivering and impetuous spring, declares inexorable war on doctrines, individuals and works that repeat, prolong or exalt the past at the expense of the future. It proclaims the conquest of amoral liberty, of action, conscience and imagination. It proclaims that Art is disinterest, heroism and contempt for easy success.
I unfurl to the freedom of air and sun the red flag of Futurism, calling to its flaming symbol such young composers as have hearts to love and fight, minds to conceive, and brows free of cowardice. And I shout with joy at feeling myself unfettered from all the chains of tradition, doubt, opportunism and vanity.”
So no more boring Opera music, Italy needs a new music for the new modern age. Italy needs Futurist music. While Pratella’s Manifesto has a thirst for the new and a disdain for the past and traditionalism and feel’s at home alongside his Futurist peers, he isn’t really calling for industrial machine noise. He just wants new styles. If you listen to his music, it definetly wasn’t classic Italian Opera music, it is very modern, but the credit for birthing electronic music does not belong to him, it belongs to Russolo. I’m sure Pratella’s work seemed really fresh and new at the time, and his heart was in the right place, but to modern ears, Pratella’s music doesn’t sound as revolutionary or ground breaking as his words would imply. The music Russolo would make a couple years later would be like a comet hitting the planet. Something not of this earth, and uncomparable to anything that had come before it. I look at Pratella’s Manifesto as a call for new music and Russolo’s The Art of Noises is the response.
Now a quick look at F.T. Marinetti’s Destruction of Syntax—Imagination without strings—Words-in-Freedom.
In the section on Onomatopoeia and mathematical symbols, Marinetti writes:
When I said that we must spit on the Altar of Art, I incited the Futurists to liberate lyricism from the solemn atmosphere of compunction and incense that one normally calls by the name of Art with a capital A. Art with a capital A constitutes the clericalism of the creative spirit. I used this approach to incite the Futurists to destroy and mock the garlands, the palms, the aureoles, the exquisite frames, the mantles and stoles, the whole historical wardrobe and the romantic bric-a-brac that comprise a large part of all poetry up to now. I proposed instead a swift, brutal, and immediate lyricism, a lyricism that must seem antipoetic to all our predecessors, a telegraphic lyricism with no taste of the book about it but, rather, as much as possible of the taste of life. Beyond that the bold introduction of onomatopoetic harmonies to render all the sounds and noises of modern life, even the most cacophonic.
Here, Marinetti rejects the classical poetry of yesteryear, with it’s predicatable and cliche use of metaphor and symbolism, familiar and boring rhyme schemes and above all tired sentemantlism about the same old topics of beauty and love and feelings, and all that gay shit. Marinetti wants to rip up the rule book, throw all consideration of grammar and syntax into the gutter and use poetry to imitate the sounds that the new modern man hears everyday. The sounds of industrial machinery and motor engines. Enter Sound in Motion poetry, or poetry that consists of Marinetti imitating these machine sounds in poetry.
So Pratella calls out for a new and modern Italian music in his Manifesto of Futurist Musicians, and F.T. Marinetti is calling out for a new “Sound-in-Motion” poetry where machine sounds will be imitated in a new poetic form. Russolo connects the dots, and applies what Marinetti is talking about in the context of poetry to music. Reject traditional musical sounds in favour of machine noise.
Luigi Russolo publishes the Art of Noises in 1913. It is dedicated to Francesco Balilla Pratella and opens with the declaration:
”Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.”
Today noise envelopes every moment of our existence. And there are all kinds of noises that we hear everyday that, while not being considered “musical”, we have grown accustomed to and even fond of. Most of the music that is popular today would seem like unlistenable noise to people 500 years ago. We adapt to our environments that are in constant flux and they change our perceptions and the paramaters of taste.
As The Art of Noises is the center piece of this article I will post the 8 points of the Manifesto in their entirety:
1.Futurist musicians must continually enlarge and enrich the field of sounds. This corresponds to a need in our sensibility. We note, in fact, in the composers of genius, a tendency towards the most complicated dissonances. As these move further and further away from pure sound, they almost achieve noise-sound. This need and this tendency cannot be satisfied except by the adding and the substitution of noises for sounds.
Futurist musicians must substitute for the limited variety of tones posessed by orchestral instruments today the infinite variety of tones of noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms.
The musician’s sensibility, liberated from facile and traditional Rhythm, must find in noises the means of extension and renewal, given that every noise offers the union of the most diverse rhythms apart from the predominant one.
Since every noise contains a predominant general tone in its irregular vibrations it will be easy to obtain in the construction of instruments which imitate them a sufficiently extended variety of tones, semitones, and quarter-tones. This variety of tones will not remove the characteristic tone from each noise, but will amplify only its texture or extension.
The practical difficulties in constructing these instruments are not serious. Once the mechanical principle which produces the noise has been found, its tone can be changed by following the same general laws of acoustics. If the instrument is to have a rotating movement, for instance, we will increase or decrease the speed, whereas if it is to not have rotating movement the noise-producing parts will vary in size and tautness.
The new orchestra will achieve the most complex and novel aural emotions not by incorporating a succession of life-imitating noises but by manipulating fantastic juxtapositions of these varied tones and rhythms. Therefore an instrument will have to offer the possibility of tone changes and varying degrees of amplification.
The variety of noises is infinite. If today, when we have perhaps a thousand different machines, we can distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination.
We therefore invite young musicians of talent to conduct a sustained observation of all noises, in order to understand the various rhythms of which they are composed, their principal and secondary tones. By comparing the various tones of noises with those of sounds, they will be convinced of the extent to which the former exceed the latter. This will afford not only an understanding, but also a taste and passion for noises. After being conquered by Futurist eyes our multiplied sensibilities will at last hear with Futurist ears. In this way the motors and machines of our industrial cities will one day be consciously attuned, so that every factory will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises.
Dear Pratella, I submit these statements to your Futurist genius, inviting your discussion. I am not a musician, I have therefore no acoustical predilictions, nor any works to defend. I am a Futurist painter using a much loved art to project my determination to renew everything. And so, bolder than a professional musician could be, unconcerned by my apparent incompetence and convinced that all rights and possibilities open up to daring, I have been able to initiate the great renewal of music by means of the Art of Noises.
To make this noise music, Russolo would begin work on building his own noise machines, called Intonarumori. You can watch a demonstration of how these machines looked, worked and sounded here:
It is important to note that these are modern recreations of Russolo’s noise machines. None of his own machines survived WWII. It is also important to note that these were not actually electronic instruments. They are acoustic instruments that are designed to sound like industrial machinery, but the sounds are generated with strings, wind pipes, drum skins etc. While not being electronic instruments, this is where much of the theoretical groundwork of electronic music was laid. The first electronic instrument was the Theremin and it’s sound was generated by electric oscillators. Musique Concrete was the first real electronic music movement and that got started in the 1940’s, by Pierre Schaeffer, but that is a story for a different day.
Pratella himself would utilize Russolo’s noise machines in L'Aviatore Dro.
Russolo’s Noise music was predictably received with outrage, riot and violence, with the general public not yet being ready for noise music. Really, even today, noise music is largely misunderstood and has never really attracted a broad audience. Still though, it endears, and those who like it really love it.
At a series of concerts in Paris after WWI, Russolo’s music was met with loud chantings, sneers and boo’s from the Dadaists. Although the two movements were friendly initially, relations between the two movements had begun to sour and Marinetti had been beefing with Tzara. Their beef was partially political, with Futurism allying itself with the increasingly reactionary Fascist movment, and Dada as conceived by Tzara remained staunchly anti-political, but their beef was also on artistic grounds. Tzara felt that although Futurism was initially revolutionary, fresh and new, a certain formality had begun to settle in the Futurist ranks and Tzara was having none of it. “We are fed up with the Cubist and futurist academies: these academies are nothing but formal thought laboratories." Truth is Marinetti was jealous of the success and attention that Dada was receiving in Paris, and the concerts were held largely as a provocation to the Dadaists. Needless to say, the Dadaists had to be thrown out. But this was the kind of reaction that had become typical of Russolo’s performances.
After the raucaus Paris concerts, Russolo would continue to build his noise machines, fine tuning their mechanics, trying to increase their tonal range, trying to build a super machine that could produce multiple different noises. This work was largely funded by Marinetti himself, as there was not a wide audience or support base for the work that Russolo was engaging in. He was respected in Avant-Garde circles, but he struggled and lived in poverty for much of his life, while trying to invent the new noise that would propel Italy into the Future.
Later in life, Russolo would return to painting, but gone were the Futurist themes of Technology and Machinery. In his later work he would return to a naturalist Impressionist style, painting mostly landscapes, a trend shared by many of the surviving members of Futurisms First wave.
To close, I feel that a lot of “futurists” you see online get stuck on the destructive aspects of Futurism, and just kind of ignore the creative aspects of Futurism, and avant-garde art in general. Yes there are a lot of calls to destroy the art of the past in Futurist Manifestos, but they actually spent a lot more time creating new forms of expression than destroying old art. The fact that Marinetti was first and formost a poet seems to be lost on many who identify with futurism now, and approach it purely through a political lense. Here at BM I try to present what these movement actually were and wanted to accomplish, and I try not to put my own spin on everything. When I deviate from these guys I’m usually pretty open that that’s what I’m doing. But in this irony poisoned age authenticity is too much to expect from most in the internet attention seeking economy. Futurism is up there with Nietzsche for most misrepresented in internet discourse, with seemingly everyone who reads them imposing their own bullshit onto them. Futurisms real legacy is in the art it produced. That’s where you can find it’s enduring influence on today’s culture. There are poltical implications in the art, but those are mostly no longer relevant to the 21st century, and the Futurists never really had much political influence anywhere. Noise and Electronic music however are still relevant, and started with Luigi Russolo and the Art of Noises.
This article was a great read! Very nice to see where electronic music first took its baby steps