Janet Beat facts for kids

Janet Eveline Beat, born on December 17, 1937, is a Scottish composer. She also teaches music and writes about it.

Her Early Life and Studies

Janet Beat was born in Streetly, Staffordshire, England. She loved music from a young age. She learned to play the piano and the horn. She studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire (which was then called the Birmingham School of Music). Later, she went to Birmingham University to study music, earning her first degree in 1960. She continued her studies and received a Master of Arts degree in 1968.

After finishing university, Janet started teaching music. She taught at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Her musical compositions have been performed all over the world.

A Pioneer in Electronic Music

Janet Beat is known as one of the first women in Great Britain to create electronic music. She started making her "musique concrete" pieces in the late 1950s. This type of music uses recorded sounds from everyday life, which are then changed and put together to make a new piece. A famous electronic music pioneer, Daphne Oram, helped and encouraged her.

Janet's music is inspired by many different things. She uses sounds from nature and industry. She also gets ideas from music outside of Europe. She uses music technology to explore new sounds. This includes using "microtonality," which means using musical notes that are smaller than the usual half-steps on a piano.

These influences also made her music for regular instruments very special. For example, in "Study of the Object no 3" (1970) for voices, she created a "graphic score." This is a type of musical notation that uses pictures and symbols instead of traditional notes. She called it a "sound sculpture." She also explored quarter-tone fingerings for the horn in her piece "Hunting Horns are Memories" (1977). Janet is also interested in how time passes in music. She has experimented with "polymetric" and "polytempi" music, where different parts of the music play at different speeds or rhythms at the same time.

Janet Beat's work is kept in the British Music Collection archive. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. She works as a Curatorial Consultant at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.

Her Musical Works

Janet Beat writes music for many different things. She composes for musical instruments, and she creates electronic music just for tape or with computers. She has written music for orchestras, small groups of instruments (chamber ensembles), theatre shows, and films.

Here are some of her selected works:

• After Reading 'Lessons of the War', a piece for violin and piano.
• 2 Caprices for solo flute: "Dialogue" and "Krishna's Hymn to the Dawn."
• "Capriccii vol 1" for piano.
• "Fanfare for Haydn."
• "Arabesque for guitar."
• "Vincent" Sonata for solo violin.
• "5 Projects for Joan" for solo cello.
• "Fireworks in Steel" for solo trumpet.
• "Concealed Imaginings" for piano quintet.
• "String Quartet no 1."
• "Harmony in Autumn" for 4 horns.
• "The Splendour Falls.." for 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba.
• "En Plein Air" for wind octet.
• "Harmony in Opposites" for flute, viola and harp.
• "Encounter" for flute, cello and harp (a version of the above).
• "Mexican Night of the Dead" for clarinet and violin.
• "Apsara Music 1" for SSA (for three female voices).
• "Sylvia Myrtea" for SSAA (for four female voices).
• "Canite Tuba" for SATB (for mixed choir).
• "Piano Sonata."
• 5 Stücke for oboe.
• Circe for viola solo (1974).
• Equinox Rituals: Autumn for viola and piano (1996).
• Piano Quintet: The Dream Magus for viola with 2 violins, cello and piano (2000).
• Gedenkstück für Kaethe for clarinet and viola (2003).
• Study of the object no 3 for female choir.

Some of her pieces are published by Furore Verlag in Germany. You can find her unpublished music and recordings at The Scottish Music Centre.

Awards and Recognition

Janet Beat has received several awards for her work.

• In 1962, she won the Cunningham Award.
• In 2019, she was given the very first Scottish Women in Music Lifetime Achievement Award. This award will now be known as the 'Janet Beat SWIM Lifetime Achievement Award' in her honor.