Lazarev S. Electronic Music as a Sociocultural Phenomenon (the Second Half of the XX — the Beginning of the XXI Centuries)

In the dissertation electronic music has been considered by the author as a socio-cultural phenomenon for the first time in Ukrainian science and special attention was paid to non-academic streams. Sociocultural perspective allowed the author to discover a number of electronic music phenomena, based on their analysis. The author introduced the following terms: “the complication of choice phenomenon”, which appears in the sphere of the electronic music consumption, the essence of this phenomenon is expressed in the listeners’ necessity to be well educated in sound engineering and musicology to make a choice in the excessive number of offers; the “virtual individualization” definition refers to the process of interaction between virtuality and individuality in the sphere of mass musical culture, in particular on the example of mass communications usage and namely, social networks in the field of electronic music; it was also established that the new “virtual sound paradigm” replaces the traditional forms of the creative process in the sphere of musical activity which is expressed in the priority of virtual musical instruments (software) usage by authors as well as virtual processing devices and sequencers instead of hardware and also availability of the first ones, is especially clearly manifested in the field of electronic music. The classification of non-academic streams of electronic music was offered on the basis of the research conducted. The author’s “fractal-holographic” principle of the electronic music classification has been introduced that allows to identify the independence of a certain stylistic direction by the extreme components in a certain number of composition-indicators presence in it (examples of extreme as ultimate from commercial ones on the one hand to non-commercial ones on the other hand, and extreme ones as borderline with other musical streams). A differentiation of the electronic music works according to the “ternary principle” was suggested by the author. The basic principle of the classification of non-academic streams in electronic music defined according to the rhythmic pattern was clarified. Eight main basic styles of non-academic electronic music were defined and analyzed. Characteristic features of Ukrainian non-academic electronic music were identified. Among them besides usage of timbres of national authentic instruments, original melodism and cordocentricity features were revealed. These conclusions along with the analysis of musical compositions made by domestic authors of non-academic electronic music streams (in the amount of more than 3000) allowed the author to confirm the appearance of specific Ukrainian streams and to ascertain the formation of the original Ukrainian electronic sound.