But I'm wondering what we're including under the umbrella of "electronic music"

I'm assuming that we're referring to any and all music that relies significantly on electronic instruments (in the broadest sense of the word) for its realization?

I think that insofar as electronic music has introduced entirely new methods of creating music, and that those methods have impacted not just electronic music as a whole but also traditionally non-electronic genres... I can get with that idea. I think it's amazing that music like, for instance, Owen Pallett's stuff is pretty reliant on a number of methods that have come out of electronic music, even if in its final form the actual use of electronics is less prominent. (not to say he doesn't use electronics in the final music... I'm thinking, I guess, of his fondness for flurries and stabs of super-fast notes that remind me of a sampled horn burst or something like that, even if he has them played by a real strings)

I think the trick here is keeping in mind that the electronic "revolution" is indeed one of method. That sampling, splicing (for lack of a better word), sound manipulation, etc. are techniques that have been picked up by non-electronic communities and musicians, and that that is where its biggest impact lies. While jazz impacted popular music as a whole through its general style(s), for sure, I think what made *more* of an impact was its immediate collaborative structure and its opening up of traditional ideas of composition.



-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~