Thursday 12th November
The next sound you will hear is energy; in fact all sound is energy – or the release of energy. We are told that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it just is. And when released in one form it will be absorbed into another; in the case of musical notes, the sound waves created will carry on until they hit some substance which will absorb their energy – namely our ears which will transfer these sound waves into messages for our brains to interpret. Physics lesson for the day over, the philosophical one remains of what does music mean? And nobody questioned that more than Jean-Michel Jarre. He was and remains a pioneer of electronic music. Along with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and a few other, mostly European, musicians he has redefined what Music was and whether sounds in themselves can indeed be music.
I first heard electronic music in the theme music to Doctor Who, which seemed incredible to my ears; I wasn’t even sure if it was music, more a swirling hyponotic noise which somehow pleased my ears and brain. And maybe we should forget that whole first paragraph and simply measure whether our brains like what we hear, whether it be Bach, Sinatra or Ozygene. And though I bought a few of JM Jarre’s records it is Oxygene which is his most famous and popular piece, and my favourite too. There was even a single from it in the charts. Jean-Michel was also a pioneer in staging huge concerts with innovative light shows, often projected onto buildings and where the presence of the musicians is almost unimportant, just the effect of the Son et Lumiere created. I saw one such concert at Versailles in the early eighties, and watched too from Beckton his Docklands concert. I am not sure I can really discern whether his music is actually any good or not, but it is certainly pleasant to the ear. He has also been hugely influential in creating the Dance music of today, and the development of the synthesizer which though some may argue ruined music is used extensively by almost everyone today. So chapeaux off to M. Jarre and his revolutionary music; he even has a piece of music far out in space, ‘Music for Supermarkets’ – recorded as a one-off and the tapes then burnt.
He continues to write and record music, or maybe just dissonant sounds – who knows? It all depends on the energy which is released and how those sound waves are interpreted by the individual brains they fall upon.
