Kraftwerk, the most influential electronic music band in 70’s and 80’s, was formed by Ralf Hutter and Florian Scheider from Dusseldorf, Germany in 1970. Their music was innovative to music at that time. The primary songwriters and leaders of kraftwerk, Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter met and started as a duo in Organisation. After short period time as Organisation, they started the band Kraftwerk. Even though they worked with many different musicians as band members, Florian and Ralf were the only main members. Their music was fully experimental. They used repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies and electronic instrumentation. Kraftwerk are considered pioneers in electronic music history and electronic instrumentation and devices.
Kraftwerk truly helped development of music technology and electronic instruments such as the vocoder, the electronic drum kit and synthesizers. They always tried to create unique sounds with electronic devices in their Kling Klang Studio and even created their own instruments. They built an electronic drum pad that triggers synthetic percussion sounds. They even created conceptual electronic instruments such as light beam activated drum cage triggered sounds by arm movements. Kraftwerk was the first band that used the music sequencer. Their experimental effort with creating electronic instruments had a huge effect on today’s electronic music and technology.
Kraftwerk was one of the early users of the conceptual album form. Before the Kraftwerk, most albums were track based. Each song in the album had different lyrics and idea. However, Kraftwerk put one concept to the album and each track was connected to the main theme of the album. These types of albums gave an artistic impression and uniqueness to kraftwerk. This conceptual album concept and totally new sound allowed kraftwerk to become revolutionary artists. Their music has influenced other artists in many different genres of music. Cabaret Voltaire, Gary Numan, Joy Division, New Order, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, and many other electronic music bands were probably influenced and developed by Kraftwerk, even if it was in indirect ways.
2 years ago, I had a chance to use a vocorder. It wasn’t impressive back then because I got used to the hi-tech instruments. However, I never thought about creating vocoders or some sort of electronic instrument. I think their music was an experiment and a challenge to them. They successfully created their own music with their own technology. It is so impressive to me that the music form 30 years ago still has a huge influence on today’s music.
Kraftwerk truly helped development of music technology and electronic instruments such as the vocoder, the electronic drum kit and synthesizers. They always tried to create unique sounds with electronic devices in their Kling Klang Studio and even created their own instruments. They built an electronic drum pad that triggers synthetic percussion sounds. They even created conceptual electronic instruments such as light beam activated drum cage triggered sounds by arm movements. Kraftwerk was the first band that used the music sequencer. Their experimental effort with creating electronic instruments had a huge effect on today’s electronic music and technology.
Kraftwerk was one of the early users of the conceptual album form. Before the Kraftwerk, most albums were track based. Each song in the album had different lyrics and idea. However, Kraftwerk put one concept to the album and each track was connected to the main theme of the album. These types of albums gave an artistic impression and uniqueness to kraftwerk. This conceptual album concept and totally new sound allowed kraftwerk to become revolutionary artists. Their music has influenced other artists in many different genres of music. Cabaret Voltaire, Gary Numan, Joy Division, New Order, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, and many other electronic music bands were probably influenced and developed by Kraftwerk, even if it was in indirect ways.
2 years ago, I had a chance to use a vocorder. It wasn’t impressive back then because I got used to the hi-tech instruments. However, I never thought about creating vocoders or some sort of electronic instrument. I think their music was an experiment and a challenge to them. They successfully created their own music with their own technology. It is so impressive to me that the music form 30 years ago still has a huge influence on today’s music.
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