021-062 History of Electronic Music Pioneers

8/8/2019 021-062 History of Electronic Music Pioneers

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D A V I D D U N N

When intellectual formulations are treated simply

by relegating them to the past and permitting the

s imp le pas sa ge of time to s ubs titute for dev elopm ent,

the s us picion is jus tified that s uch form ulations h ave

not really b een m as tered, but rather they are beingsuppressed .

Th eodor W. Adorn o

It is th e h istorical nece s s ity, if there is a historical

neces sity in history , that a new de cade of electronic

television s hould follow to the pas t de cade of elec-

tronic m us ic.

Nam J u ne Paik (1965 )

I N T R O D U C T I O N :

Historical facts reinforce th e obvious realization

tha t the major cu l tura l impetus which spawned

video image experimentation was the American

Sixties. As a respons e to th at cu ltural c lima te, it was

more a perceptua l movemen t tha n a n ar t ist ic one in

the s ense th at i ts pra ctit ioners desired an electronic

equivalen t to th e sens ory an d ph ysiological tremen -

du ms which came to l ife du ring the Vietna m War.

Principal among these was the psychedelic experi-ence with i ts radical experiential assault on the

na tu re of perception an d visu al phenom ena. Armed

with a new visual ontology, whatever art image-

ma king tradit ion informed th em it was less a cine-

ma tic one tha n a n overt cou nter-cultu ral reaction to

television as a ma instream insti tut ion an d pu rveyor

of images that were deemed politically false. The

violence of technology that television personified,

both metap horically and literal ly throu gh th e war

images i t disseminated, represented a source for

renewal in the electronic reconstruction of archaic

perception.

It is s pecifically a concern for th e expan sion of

human perception through a technological strate-

gem th at l inks those tu mu ltu ous years of aesth eticand technical experimentation with the 20th cen-

tury history of modernist exploration of electronic

poten tials, pr imar ily exemplified by th e linea ge of

art ist ic research init ia ted b y electronic soun d a nd

music experimentation beginning as far back as

1906 with the invention of the Telha rmon ium. This

essa y traces some of tha t early history an d its

implications for our curr ent historical predicam ent.

The other ess ential argum ent pu t forth here is tha t

a more recent period of video experimentation,beginning in the 1960's, is only one of the later

chap ters in a history of fai led u topian ism th at

dominates the a rt ist ic exploration an d u se of tech-

nology thr oughout th e 20th centu ry.

The following pa ges pres ent an hist orical context

for the specific focus of this exhibition on early

pioneers of electronic art. Prior to the 1960s, the

focus is, of necessity, predominantly upon elec-

tronic soun d tool ma king and electroacous tic aes-

thetics as an tecedan t to the more relevan t discus-

sion of the emergence of electronic image genera-t ion/ processing tools and a esth etics. Our intention

is to fram e this ima ge-mak ing tradit ion within th e

realization that many of its concerns were first

art iculated within a n a u dio technology domain a nd

tha t th ey repeat , within t he h igher frequency spec-

tru m of visu al informa tion, s imilar iss ues encoun -

tered within th e electronic mu sic/ sou nd ar t t radi-

t ions. In fact , i t can be argued that many of the

innovators within this period of electronic image-

making evolved directly from participation in the

A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS

D a v i d D u n n

Photo : Sa lva to re Ma rtirano s SALMAR CO NSTRUCTION, 196972, set up fo r co nc ert a t Sta teUniversity of New York (SUNY), Sto nyb roo k, Lon g Islan d . Courtesy of Sa lva to re Ma rtirano


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E I G E N W E L T D E R A P P A R A T E W E L T

electronic music experimentation of that time period.

Since th e exhibition itself att emp ts t o depict these ind ividua ls

and their art through the perspective of the actual means of

production, as exemplified by the generative tools, it must be

pointed out that the physical objects on display are not to be

regarded as aes the t ic objects per s e but ra ther a s ins t ru mentswhich facili ta te the a rt icu lat ion of both aesth etic produ cts a nd

ideological viewpoint s.It is p redom inantly th e process w hich is on

exhibit. In th is regard we have at temp ted to present the ideas an d

artwork which emerged from th ese process es as intr ins ic parts of

ideological systems which m u st a lso be fram ed with in an historical

context. We ha ve th erefore provided access to th e video/ au dio art

an d other cu ltur al artifacts directly from th is text (i.e., barcodes)

as it unfolds in chronological sequence. Likewise, this essay

discuss es this history with a n emp ha sis on iss u es which reinforce

a systemic process view of a complex set of dialectics (e.g.

modernist versus representationist aesthetics, and art ist ic ver-su s ind u stria l / technocratic ideologies).

E A R L Y P I O N E E R S :

On e of th e persist ent r ealities of h istory is th at th e facts which

we inheri t as descriptions of historical events are not neutral .

They are invested with the b ias es of individu al an d/ or grou p

participants, those who have survived or, more significantly,

those who have acquired sufficient power to control how thathist ory is written . In a ttem pting to compile this ch ronology, it h as

been my intention to present a story whose major signposts

include those who have made substantive contributions but

rema in un celebrated, in a ddit ion to th ose figures wh o ha ve merely

become famous for being fam ous . The read er sh ould bear in m ind

tha t th is is a brief chron ology that mu st of necessi ty neglect other

events an d individu als whose work was ju st as valid. I t is a lso an

important featu re of this h istory tha t th e art ist ic us e of technology

ha s too often b een criticized as an indication of a de-h u ma nizing

trend by a cu ltu re which actu ally emb races s uch technology in

most other facets of its d eepest fabric . It app ears t o abh or tha twhich mirrors i ts fund am ental workings a nd yet offers an al ter-

na tive to its own violence. In view of th is s u sp icion I have ch osen

to write this chronology from a position that regards the artistic

acqu isition of techn ology as on e of th e few aren as where a creative

critiqu e of th e so-called techn ological era h as been poss ible.

One of the earl iest documented musical instruments based

upon electronic principles was the CLAVECIN LECTRIQUE

designed b y the jesu it priest J ean-Baptiste Delaborde in Fran ce,

1759. The device used a keyboard control based upon simple

electrosta tic principles.

All barco de s in this article p ertain

to the MUSIC stations.


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D A V I D D U N N

The s pirit of inven tion wh ich imm ediately preceeded th e tur n

of th is century was synchronous wi th a cu l tura l en thusiasm

abou t th e new technologies th at was u np recedented. Individuals

such as Bell , Edison, and Tesla became culture heroes who

u sh ered in a n ideology of ind u stria l progress foun ded u pon th e

power of harnessed electricity. Amongst this assemblage ofinventor indu str ialists was DR. THADDEUS CAHILL, inventor of

the electric typewriter, designer and builder of the first musical

syn th esizer an d, by defau lt, originator of indu st rial mu zak. While

a few attempt s to bu ild electronic mu sical instru men ts were mad e

in th e la te 19th centu ry by Elisha Gray, Erns t Lorenz, an d Will iam

Duddell, they were fairly tentative or simply the curious bypro-

du cts of other research into electrical phen omena . One exception

was the mu sical ins tru men t called th e CHORALCELO bu il t in the

United St ates by Melvin L. Severy and George B. Sin clair between

188 8 an d 190 8. Ca h ills invention, th e TELHARMONIUM, how-

ever, remains th e most am bitious a t tempt to constru ct a viableelectronic musical instrument ever conceived.

Working a gainst incredible techn ical difficulties, Ca hill su c-

ceeded in 1900 to construct the first prototype of the TELHAR-

MONIUM an d b y 190 6, a fairly com plete rea lization of his vision .

This electro-mechanical device consisted of 145 rheotome/

altern ators capa ble of produ cin g five octaves of var iable har mon ic

content in imitation of orchestral tone colors. Its prinicipal of

operat ion con sisted of wha t we now refer to as a dditive synth esis

an d was controlled from two touch-sen sit ive keyboards capable

of t imbral , amplitude and other art iculatory selections. SinceCah ills ma chine was inven ted b efore electron ic amp lification was

available he had to build al ternators that produced more than

10,000 wat ts . As a resu l t the ins t rument was qui te immense ,

weighing approximately 200 tons. When it was shipped from

Holyoke, Massachusetts to New York City, over thirty railroad

flatcars were enlisted in th e effort.

While Cahills initial intention was simply to realize a truly

sophist icated electronic instrument that could perform tradi-

tional repetoire, he quickly pursued its industrial application in

a p lan to provide direct mu sic to homes a nd offices as the s trategy

to fu n d its cons tru ction. He foun ded th e New York Electric Mus icCompan y with this intent an d began to su pply realt ime perform-

ances of popular c lassics to subscribers over te lephone l ines.

Ult imately the bu siness fai led du e to ins u rmou nta ble techn ical

an d legal difficulties, ceas ing operations in 191 1.

The Telharm onium an d i ts inventor represent s one of the m ost

sp ectacu lar examp les of one side of a recu rren t dialectic which we

will see demonstrated repeatedly throughout the 20th century

h istory of th e ar tistic u se of electronic tech nology. Cah ill person i-

fies the industrial ideology of invention which seeks to imitate

more efficiently the status quo. Such an ideology desires to


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summarize existent knowledge through a new technology and

th ereby provide a m ar keta ble repres enta tion of cur ren t reality. In

contr as t to th is view, th e moder nist ideology evolved to a ss ert a n

an ti-representa tionist u se of techn ology which sou ght to expan d

human perception through the acquisi t ion of new technical

mean s. It desired to seek the u nk nown as new phen omenologicalan d experiential u nders tan dings which sh attered models of the

so-called real.

The modern ist agend a is br illian tly su m ma rized by the follow-

ing quote by Hu go Ball:

It is true that for us art is not an end in itself, we hav e lost too m any

of our illus ions for that. Art is for us an occas ion for social criticis m ,

and for real und erstand ing of the a ge w e live in...Dad a w as not a

school of artists, but an alarm signal against declining values,

routine an d sp eculations, a des perate app eal, on b eha lf of all form s

of art, for a creative bas is on w hich to build a new and universalcons ciousn es s of art.

Many comp osers at the beginn ing of this centu ry dreamed of

new electronic technologies that could expand the palette of

soun d and tu nings of which mu sic and m us ica l ins t ru ments th en

consisted. Their interest was not to use the emerging electronic

potential to imitate exista nt forms, b u t ra ther to go beyond wh at

was already known. In the same year that Cahil l f inalized the

Telharmonium and moved it to New York City, the composer

FERRUCCIO BUSONI wrote h is Entw urf einer neuen s thetik derTonkunst (Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music) wherein he

proposed th e necessi ty for an expans ion of the chroma tic scale

and new (possibly electrical) instruments to realize it. Many

composers emb raced th is idea an d began to conceptua lize what

such a music should consist of. In the following year, the

Au str alian compos er PERCY GRAINGER was already con vin ced

tha t his concept ofFREE MUSICcould only be realized th rou gh

use of electro-mechanical devices. By 1908 the Futurist Mani-

festo was pu blish ed an d th e modernist ideology began its a rt ists

revolt a gains t exista nt social an d cu ltural valu es. In 19 13 Lu igi

Russolo wrote The A rt of Nois e , declaring that the evolution ofmusic is paralled by the multiplication of the machine. By the

end of th at year, RUSSOLO AND UGO PIATTI ha d con st ru cted a n

orchestra of e lectro-mechanical noise instruments ( intonaru-

mori) capable of realizing their vision of a sound art which

shattered the musical sta tus quo. Russolo desired to create a

sound based art form out of the noise of modern life. His noise

intoning devices presented their array of howlers, boomers,

crack lers , scraper s, exploders, bu zzers, gurglers, and wh istles to

bewildered au diences in Italy, LONDON, an d fin ally Paris in 192 1,

where he gained the at tention of Varse and Stravinsky. Soon


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D A V I D D U N N

after this concert the instruments were apparently only used

commercially for generating sound effects and were abandoned

by Russ olo in 1 930.

Throu ghout th e second d ecade of the 20th centu ry there was

an u np recedented am oun t of experimental mu sic activity much

of which involved discourse about the necessity for new instru-m enta l resou rces cap ab le of realizing the em ergin g theories which

rejected tr adit ional composit ional processes. Composers su ch a s

Ives, Sa tie, Cowell, VARSE, a nd Sch oenberg were a dvan cing the

stru ctura l an d ins tru men tal resou rces for mu sic . It was into this

intellectual c limate, and into th e cultura l cha nges brou ght on by

th e Ru ss ian Revolut ion, th at LEON THEREMIN (Lev Sergeyevich

Termen) intr oduced th e Aetherophone (la ter known as the Ther-

emin), a new electronic instrument based on radio-frequency

oscillation s cont rolled by han ds m oving in s pa ce over two ant en-

nae. The extraordinary flexibility of the instrument not only

allowed for th e perform an ce of tra ditiona l repetoire bu t also a widera nge of n ew effects. The th eatr icality of its playing techn ique an d

the u niqueness of it s s ound made th e Theremin the m ost rad ica l

mu sical instru men t innovation of the early 20th centu ry.

The success of the Theremin brought i ts inventor a modest

celebrity statu s. In the following years he intr oduced th e instru -

ment to Vladimir Lenin, invented one of the earliest television

devices, a n d m oved to New York City. Th ere h e gave con certs with

Leopold Stokowski, entertained Albert Einstein and married a

black dancer named Lavinia Williams. In 1932 he collaborated

with t h e electron ic im age p ioneer MARY ELLEN BUTE to disp layma them atical formu las on a CRT synchron ized to m u sic . He also

cont inued to invent n ew inst ru ments su ch as the Rhythmicon, a

complex cross-rhythm instrument produced in collaboration

with HENRY COWELL. Upon his return to the Soviet Union in

1938, Theremin was placed under house arrest and directed to

work for the s tate on commu nications an d s u rveil lan ce techn olo-

gies until his retirement in the late 1960s.

In ma ny ways, Leon Theremin r epresents an arch etypal ex-

am ple of th e artist/ engineer whose brilliant initial career is

coopted by industry or government. In his case the irony is

part icularly poignan t in th at he invented his instru men ts in thefu ll flowering of th e Bolsh evik enth u sias m for progress ive cultu re

u n der Lenin a n d s u bs equen tly fell prey to Sta lins ideology of fear

an d repress ion. Therem in was prevented u nti l 1991 (at 95 years

of age) from s teppin g foot ou tside th e USSR becaus e he poss ess ed

class ified informa tion a bou t rad ar a nd s u rveillan ce tech nologies

tha t h ad been obsolete for years . This s u ppress ion of inn ovation

thr ough ins t itu t iona l amb ivalence, cens orship or co-optation is

also one of the r ecurren t pa tterns of the a rt ist ic u se of techn ology

thr oughout th e 20th centu ry. Wha t often begins with th e desire

to expan d h u ma n p erception ends with commoditization or direct


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repression.

By the end of th e 192 0s a large ass ortm ent of new electronic

musical instruments had been developed. In Germany JRG

MAGER ha d been experiment ing with th e design of n ew electronic

instru men ts. The most s u ccess fu l was the SPHROPHON, a ra dio

frequency oscil la tor ba sed k eyboard ins tru men t cap able of pro-du cing qu ar ter-tone divisions of th e octave. Magers ins tru men ts

used loudspeakers wi th unique dr iver systems and shapes to

achieve a variety of sounds. Maurice Martenot introduced his

Ondes Marten ot in Fra nce where the ins tru men t rapidly gained

acceptance with a wide assortment of established composers.

New works were written for the ins tru men t by Milha u d, Honegger,

Jolivet, VARSE and eventually MESSIAEN who wrote Fte de s

Belles Eaux for an ensem ble of six Ond es Martenots in 1937 an d

later as a solo instru men t in h is 3 PETITES LITURGIES of 194 4.

The On des Martenot was ba sed u pon s imilar techn ology as the

Theremin a nd Sph rophon bu t in t roduced a mu ch more sophis-ticated a n d flexible control str ategy.

Other new inst ru ments in t roduced a roun d th is t ime were the

Dynap h one of Rene Bertra nd , the Hellertion of Bru n o Helberger

and Peter Lertes, and an organlike synthesis instrument de-

vised by J . Givelet and E. Cou pleau x which u sed a p u nch ed paper

roll control system for au dio oscillators cons tru cted with over 700

vacuum tubes. One of the longest lived of this generation of

electronic instruments was the TRAUTONIUM of Dr. Friedrich

Trau twein. This keyboard instr u men t was bas ed upon d ist inctly

different techn ology tha n t he p rinciples p revious ly m entioned. Itwas one of the first ins tru men ts to u se a n eon-tube oscilla tor an d

its u niqu e sou n d could be s electively filtered du ring performa n ce.

Its resonance filters could emphasize specific overtone regions.

The instr u men t was developed in conjun ction with the Hochsch u le

f r Mus ic in Berlin where a research program for composit ional

manipulation of phonograph recordings had been founded two

years earlier in 1928. The composer PAUL HINDEMITH partici-

pated in both of these endeavors, composing a Concertino for

Trautonium and String Orchestra and a sound montage based

u pon ph onograph record m an ipu lations of voice and instru men ts.

Other composers who wrote for the Trau tonium inclu ded RichardStrau ss a nd Werner Egk. The greatest virtu oso of this instru men t

was th e composer OSKAR SALA who performed on it, and m ad e

techn ical improvemen ts , into th e 195 0s. Also abou t this tim e,

the composer Robert Beyer published a curious paper about

space or room music entitled Das Problem der Kommender

Musik that gained little attention from his colleagues (Beyers

subsequent role in the history of electronic music will be dis-

cus sed later).

The German experiments in phon ograph ma nipu lation cons ti-

tute one of the first attempts at organizing sound electronically


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D A V I D D U N N

tha t was n ot based u pon an ins tru men tal model. While this ini t ia l

at tempt at the st ipulation of sound events through a kind of

scu lptu ral mou ldin g of recorded m aterials was s hort lived, it set

in m otion on e of th e principle app roach es to electron ic compos i-

t ion to become dom ina nt in decades to come: the electronic mu sic

s tu dio . Other a t tempts a t a n on- inst ru menta l approach to soundorgan ization began in 19 30 within both the USSR and Germ an y.

With the invention of optical sound tracks for film a number of

theorists become inspired to experiment with synthetic sound

generated through standard animation fi lm techniques. In the

USSR two centers for this research were established: A.M.

Avzaa m ov, N.Y. Zhelins ky, an d N.V. VOINOV experim en ted a t th e

Scientific Experimental Film Institute in Leningrad while E.A

SCHOLPO and G.M. Rimski-Korsakov performed similar re-

search at th e Leningrad Conservatory. In th e sam e year, Bauh au s

ar t i s t s performed exper iments wi th hand-drawn waveforms

converted into sound through photoelectric cells. Two otherGerman artists, RUDOLPH PFENNINGER and OSCAR FISCH-

INGER worked s epar ately at a bou t th is tim e exploring synt hetic

sou nd genera tion th rough techn iqu es th at were similar to Voinov

an d Avzaan ov.

A dramatic increase in new electronic instruments soon

appeared in subsequent years. All of them seem to have had

fas cina ting if not ou trightly absu rd n am es: the Sonorous Cross;

th e ELECTROCHORD; the On diolin e; th e CLAVIOLINE; th e Ka-

leidoph on; the Electron ium Pi; th e Mu ltimon ica; the Pian ophon ;

the Tuttivox; the Mellertion; the Emicon; the Melodium; theOscillion; the Magnetton; the Photophone; the Orgatron; the

Photon a; an d th e PARTITUROPHON. While mos t of these ins tru -

men ts were inten ded to produce new sonic resources, some were

intended to replicate familiar instrumental sounds of the pipe

organ variety. It is precisely th is des ire to replicate t he fam iliar

which spa wned th e other ma jor tradit ion of e lectronic ins tru men t

design: the large fam ilies of electric organ s a nd pian os th at b egan

to ap pea r in t h e ear ly 19 30 s. LAURENS HAMMOND bu ilt h is first

electronic organ in 1 929 u sing the sa me tone-wheel process as

Cah ills Telharm onium . Electronic organs bu ilt in th e following

years b y Hamm ond in clu ded th e NOVACHORD and th e Solovox.While Hammonds organs were rejected by pipe organ enthusi-

as ts b ecaus e its a ddit ive synth esis technique s oun ded too elec-

tron ic, h e was t h e first to achieve both st ab le inton ation th rou gh

synchronized electromechanical sound generators and mass

produ ction of an electronic mu sical ins tru men t, set t ing a prece-

dent for popular acceptance. Hammond also patented a spring

reverberation technique that is still widely used.

The Warbo Formant Organ (1937) was one of the first truly

polyphonic electronic instruments that could be considered a

predecessor of curren t e lectronic organs . Its designer the Germ an


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engineer HARALD BODE was one of the central figures in the

history of e lectronic mu sic in both Eu rope and the United States.

Not only did he contribu te to instru men t design from th e 1930 s

on, he was one of the principle engineers in establishing the

clas sic tape mu sic studios in Eu rope. His contr ibu tions stra ddled

the two ma jor design tradit ions of new sou nd s versu s imitat ion oftradit ional ones without much bias since he was primarily an

engineer interested in providing tools for a wide range of musi-

cian s. Other ins tru men ts which he sub sequen tly bu ilt included

th e Melodium , th e MELOCHORD an d th e Polychord (Bodes other

contributions will be discussed later in this essay).

By the la te 1930s there was an increase of experimental

activity in both Europe and the United States. 1938 saw the

inst allation of th e ANS Synt hes izer at th e Moscow Experiment al

Mus ic Stu dio. JOHN CAGE began his long fas cin ation with elec-

tronic sou nd s ources in 1939 with th e presentation ofImaginary

Lands cape No. 1 , a live perform an ce work wh ose score includesa part for disc recordings performed on a variable speed ph ono-

graph. A nu mb er of similar works u ti liz ing recorded soun d a nd

electronic sou n d sou rces followed. Cage ha d also been on e of th e

most active proselytizers for electronic music through his writ-

ings, as were Edgard Vars e, J oseph Sch illin ger, Leopold Stokow-

sk i, Henr y Cowell, Carlos Ch avez an d PERCY GRAINGER. It was

during the 1930s that Grainger seriously began to pursue the

building of technological tools capable of realizing his radical

concept ofFREE MUSICnota ted as spa t ia l non- tempered s t ruc-

tu res on graph pa per. He comp osed su ch a work for an ens embleof four Theremins (1937) and began to collaborate with Burnett

Cross t o design a s eries of synch ronized oscil la tor inst ru men ts

controlled by a paper tape roll mechanism. These instruments

saw a n u mb er of incarna tions u nti l Graingers death in 1961.

In 193 9 Homer Du dley created t h e voder an d th e vocoder for

non -mu sical applications ass ociated with s peech an alysis. The

VODER was a keyboard-operated encoding ins tru men t consist-

ing of ban dpas s cha nn els for the simu lation of resonan ces in th e

hu ma n voice. It also cont ained tone an d n oise sou rces for imitating

vowels a nd consona nts . The VOCODER was the correspond ing

decoder which consisted of an analyzer and synthesizer foranalyzing and then reconsti tut ing the same speech. Besides

being one of th e first s oun d m odification devices, th e vocoder was

to take on an important role in electronic music as a voice

process ing device th at is still widely in u se tod ay.

The im porta nt tech nical achievemen ts of th e 1930s included

the first successful te levision transmission and major innova-

t ions in au dio recording. Since th e tu rn of the centu ry, research

into improving upon the magnetic wire recorder, invented by

VALDEMAR POULSEN, had steadily progressed. A variety of

improvements ha d been ma de, most n otably the u se of e lectrical


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D A V I D D U N N

amplification and the invention of the Alternating Current bias

technique. The next ma jor imp rovement was th e replacement of

wire with st eel ba nd s, a fairly su ccessful techn ology tha t played

a s ignificant role in th e secret p olice of th e Nazi par ty. The Ger ma n

scientist Fritz Pfleumer had begun to experiment with oxide-

coated paper and plast ic tape as early as 1927 and the I .G.Farben indu strie intr oduced th e first pra ctical plast ic recording

tape in 1932. The m ost s uccessful of the ear ly ma gnetic recording

devices was un doubt edly the AEG Magnetophone introdu ced in

1935 at the Berlin Radio Fair. This device was to become the

prototypical ma gnetic tape recorder a nd was vastly su perior to th e

wire recorders t hen in u se. By 1945 the Magnetophone ad opted

oxide-coated p ap er ta pe. After World War II the pa ten ts for th is

technology were trans fered to the Un ited Sta tes a s war booty an d

fu rth er imp rovemen ts in tap e techn ology progress ed ther e. Wide-

sprea d commercial ma nu factu ring and distr ibut ion of ma gnetic

tape recorders becam e a reality by 1950.The influence of World War II upon the arts was obviously

dra stic. Most experimen tal creative activity ceased a nd techn ical

inn ovation was almos t exclu sively dominat ed by military needs .

Eu ropean mu sic was th e most seriou sly affected with electronic

music research remaining dormant unti l the la te 1940s. How-

ever, with ma gnetic tape r ecording techn ology now a rea lity, a n ew

period of rapid innovation took place. At the center of this new

activity was the ascendancy of the tape music studio as both

compos itiona l tool an d resea rch ins titut ion . Tap e recordin g revo-

lutionized electronic music more than any other single event inthat i t provided a f lexible means to both store and manipulate

sou nd events . The res u lt was t he defin ing of electronic mu sic as

a true genre. While the history of this genre before 1950 has

primarily focused upon instrument designers, after 1950 the

emphasis shifts towards the composers who consolidated the

techn ical gains of th e first h alf of th e 20th centu ry.

Jus t p r io r t o the e ve n t o f t he t a pe r e c o rde r , P IERRE

SCHAEFFER had begun his experiments with manipulation of

ph onograph recordings a n d qu ickly evolved a t heoretical position

which he named Musique Concrte in order to emphasize the

scu lptu ral aspect of how the sou nd s were man ipu lated. Scha efferpredominant ly used s ounds of the environment tha t had been

recorded through microphones onto disc and later tape. These

sou nd objects were then m an ipu lated as pieces of sou nd tha t

could be sp liced into new time relat ionsh ips, processed th rough

a variety of devices, tr an sp osed to different frequ ency registers

thr ough ta pe speed variat ions , an d u lt imately combined into a

mon tage of variou s m ixtu res of sou nd s ba ck onto tape. In 1 948

Schaeffer was joined by the engineer Jacques Poull in who

su bs equen tly played a significant r ole in t he tech nical evolu tion

of tape m u sic in Fra nce. Tha t sa me year saw th e init ia l broadcast


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of Musique Concrte over French Radio and was billed as a

concert de bruits. The composer PIERRE HENRY then joined

Schaeffer and Poull in in 1949. Together they constructed the

SYMPHONIE POUR UN HOMME SEUL, one of th e tru e clas sics of

the genre completed before they ha d a ccess to tape recorders.

By 195 0 Sch aeffer an d Henr y were workin g with m agnetic tapean d th e evolu tion of mu sique concrte proceeded at a fast pace.

The first pu blic performan ce was given in t ha t s am e year a t th e

cole Norm ale de Mus ique. In th e following year, Fren ch Nationa l

Radio inst alled a soph isticated stu dio for the Group for Res ea rch

on Mus ique Concrte . Over th e next few years s ignifican t comp os-

ers b egan to be at tr acted to th e stu dio including Pierre Boulez,

Michel Philippot, Jean Barraqu, Phillipe Arthuys, EDGARD

VARSE, an d OLIVIER MESSIAEN. In 195 4 Vars e comp osed th e

tape par t toDSERTS for orchest ra an d tape a t th e s tudio and th e

work s aw its infam ous premiere in December of tha t year.

Since Musique Concrte was both a musical and aestheticresearch project, a variety of theoretical writings emerged to

art icu late the movemen ts pr ogress . Of prin cipa l importa n ce was

Sch aeffers book A la recherche dune musique concrte. In it h e

describes th e grou ps experiments in a p seu do-scientific m an ner

tha t forms a lexicon of sou nd s a nd their dist inctive chara cteris-

t ics which sh ould determine composit ional cri teria an d organiza-

tion. In collaboration with A. Moles, Schaeffer specified a classi-

fication system for acoustical material according to orders of

ma gnitu de an d other cri teria . In ma ny ways these efforts set th e

direction for th e posit ivist ph ilosophical bias tha t h as dominatedthe research emp ha sis of electronic mu sic ins t itu t ions in Fran ce

an d elsewhere.

The s onic and mu sical char acterist ics of early mu sique con-

crte were pejoratively descr ibed by Olivier Messiaen as conta in-

ing a h igh level of su rrea listic agony an d litera ry descriptivism .

Th e movement s evolu tion sa w most of th e par ticipa ting compos-

ers in clu ding Sch aeffer m ove away from th e extreme d islocations

of sou nd an d d istort ion a ssociated with i ts early composit ions

an d s imp le techn iqu es. Underlying the early works was a fari ly

cons istent p h ilosoph y best exemp lified by a stat emen t by Schaef-

fer:

I belong to a gen eration w hich is largely torn by d ua lis m s . The

catechism taught to men w ho are now middle-aged w as a tradi-

tional one, traditionally ab s urd: spirit is oppose d to m atter, poetry

to technique, progress to trad ition, individua l to the group a nd how

m uch else. From a ll this it takes jus t one m ore s tep to conclud e tha t

the world is absurd, full of unbearable contradictions. Thus a

violent d es ire to deny , to des troy one of the concepts , es pecially in

the rea lm of form , w he re, according to Malrau x, the A bs olute is

coined . Fashion faintheartedly a pproved this n ihilism .


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D A V I D D U N N

If mu s ique concrte w ere to contribute to this m ovem en t, if, has tily

adopted, stupidly understood, it had only to add its additional

bellow ing, its n ew negation, after so m uch s m earing of the lines ,

de nial of golden rules (su ch as that of the s cale), I should consider

my self rather unw elcome. I have the right to jus t ify m y dem and,

and the duty to lead possible successors to this intellectuallyhones t w ork , to the exten t to w hich I hav e helped to discover a new

w ay to create sound, and the mea ns as yet approxima teto give

it form.

.. . Photography, whether the fact be denied or admitted, has

comp letely ups et painting, jus t as the recording of sound is about

to ups et m us ic .... For all tha t, trad itiona l m us ic is not de nied ; an y

more than the theatre is s upplanted by the cinem a. Something new

is ad ded : a n ew art of sound . Am I wrong in s till calling it mus ic?

While the tape studio is still a major technical and creativeforce in electronic mu sic, its early history ma rks a s pecific period

of tech nical a nd stylist ic activity. As recording tech nology began

to reveal itself to composers , man y of whom h ad b een an xious ly

await ing such a breakthrough, some composers began to work

under the auspices of broadcast radio stat ions and recording

stu dios with professional tape recorders a nd test equipmen t in off

hours . Others began to sc roun ge and s hare equipment wherever

possible, forming informal cooperatives based upon available

techn ology. While Schaeffer was defining mu siqu e concrte, oth er

independen t composers were experimen ting with tap e an d elec-tronic soun d sou rces. The end of 1940 s s aw French composer

Paul Boisselet compose some of the earliest live performance

works for inst ru men ts, ta pe recorders an d electronic oscilla tors.

In the Un ited States , Bebe and Louis Barron began th eir pioneer-

ing experimen ts with ta pe collage. As ear ly as 1 948 t he Can ad ian

composer/ engineer Hu gh Le Caine was hired by the National

Research Coun cil of Can ad a to begin b u ilding electronic mu sical

in s t rume n t s .

In p ara llel to all of th ese even ts, a n other m ajor lineage of tap e

studio activity began to emerge in Germany. According to the

German ph ysicist Werner Meyer-Eppler the events comprisingthe German electronic music history during this t ime are as

follows. In 1948 the inventor of the Vocoder, Homer Dudley,

dem ons tra ted for Meyer-Epp ler his device. Meyer-Epp ler su bs e-

qu ently us ed a ta pe recording of th e Vocoder to illus tra te a lectu re

h e gave in 194 9 calledDeve lopm en tal Poss ibilities of S ound. In th e

au dience was the aforementioned Robert Beyer, n ow employed a t

the Northwest German Radio, Cologne. Beyer must have been

profoun dly impressed by the p resenta tion since i t was decided

that lectures should be formulated on the topic of electronic

music for the International Summer School for New Music in


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Darm stad t th e following year. Much of the s u bsequ ent lecture by

Meyer-Epp ler conta ined m ater ial from h is clas sic book, Electronic

Tone Generation, Electronic Music, and Synthetic Speech .

By 1951 Meyer-Eppler began a series of experiments with

synthetically generated sounds using Harald Bodes Melochord

an d an AEG m agnet ic tap e recorder. Togeth er with Robert Beyerand Herbert Eimert , Meyer-Eppler presented his research as a

rad io program called Th e World of Soun d of Electronic Mu sic

over Germ an Radio, Cologne. This b road cas t h elped to convin ce

officials a n d tech nicians of th e Cologn e rad io st ation to sp ons er

an official studio for electronic music. From its beginning the

COLOGNE STUDIO differen tiated itself from th e Mus ique Con crte

activities in Paris by limiting itself to pure electronic sound

sou rces that could be man ipu latd th rough precise composit ional

techniques derived from Serialism.

While one of the earliest compositional outcomes from the

influence of Meyer-Eppler was Bruno Madernas collaborationwith h im entitledMusica s u d ue Dim ens ioni for flute, percu ss ion,

and loudspeaker, most of the other works that followed were

strictly concerned with utilizing only electronic sounds such as

pu re sine-waves. One of the first a t temp ts at creating th is labor

inten sive form of stu dio bas ed a dditive syn th esis wa s KARLHEINZ

STOCKHAUSEN who crea ted h is tude out of pure s ine-waves at

the Paris studio in 1952. Similar works were produced at the

Cologne facilities by Beyer and Eimert at about this time and

subsequently followed by the more sophist icated at tempts by

Stockhausen , Studie I (1953) and STUDIE II(1954). In 1954 apublic concert was presented by Cologne radio that included

works by Stockhausen, Goeyvaerts, Pousseur, Gredinger, and

Eimert . Soon other composers began working at the Cologne

st u dio inclu din g Koen ig, Heiss , Klebe, KAGEL, LIGETI, BRN an d

ERNST KRENEK. The later compos er com pleted h is Sp iritus In-

telligentiae Sanctus at the Cologne studio in 1956. This work

along with Stockhausens GESA NG DER J NGLINGE, composed

at th e sam e tim e, signify th e end of th e sh ort-lived pu re electronic

emphasis c laimed by the Cologne school. Both works used

electronically-genera ted s oun ds in combination with techniques

and soun d s ources ass ocia ted with mu sique concr te.While the distinction u su ally posited between th e early Paris

an d Cologne sch ools of tape mu sic composit ion em pha sizes ei ther

the n atu re of the sou nd s ources or the presence of an organ iza-

t iona l bias su ch a s Serial ism , I tend to view this dist inction m ore

in terms of a r eorgan ization a t m id-centu ry of the representa tion-

ist versus modernist dialect which appeared in prior decades.

Even though Schaeffer and his colleagues were consciously

aligned in overt ways with the Futu rists concern with noise, they

tended to rely on dra ma tic expression th at was depen dent u pon

illusionistic associations t o the sou nds u nd ergoing deconstru ction.


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D A V I D D U N N

The early Cologne s chool ap pear s to ha ve been con cerned with a n

au then tic an d d idactic display of the electronic ma terial an d i ts

prima ry codes a s if it were poss ible to reveal the m etap hysical an d

intrinsic nature of the material as a new perceptual resource.

Obvious ly th e techn ical limitations of th e stu dio at tha t time, in

addit ion to the aesthetic dema nds imp osed by the cur rent issu esof musicality, made their initial pursuit too problematic.

Concurren t with th e tape stu dio developments in France and

German y there were s ignifican t a dvances occuring in t he United

States. While there was not yet any significant institutional

su pport for the experimental work being purs u ed by ind ependent

composers, some informal projects began to emerge. The Music

for Magnetic Tap e Project was form ed in 1 951 by J OHN CAGE, Ea rle

Brown, Christian Wolff, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman and

lasted u nti l 1954. Since the group h ad n o perman ent facil ity, they

relied on borrowed t ime in commercial sou nd stu dios s u ch as tha t

ma inta ined b y Bebe and Louis Barron or u sed borrowed equ ip-ment that they could share. The most important work to have

emerged from this collective was Cages WILLIAMS MIX. The

composit ion used hundreds of prerecorded sounds from the

Barr ons libra ry as th e sou rce from wh ich t o fu lfill the dem an ds

of a meticulously notated score that specified not only the

categories of sounds to be used at any part icular t ime but a lso

how th e sou nd s were to be sp liced an d edited. The work requ ired

over nine months of intensive labor on the part of Cage, Brown

and Tudor to assemble. While the final work may not have

sounded to untutored ears as very dist inct from the other tapeworks produced in France or Cologne at the same t ime, i t

neverth eless represented a radical composit ional an d p hilosophi-

cal challenge to these other schools of thought.

In the same year as Cages Williams Mix , VLADIMIR USSA-

CHEVSKY gave a p u blic dem ons tra tion of his t ape m u sic experi-

ments at Columbia University. Working in almost complete

isolat ion from th e other experimen ters in Eu rope and the Un ited

States, Ussachevsky began to explore tape manipulation of

e lectronic and instru men tal soun ds with very limited resources.

He was soon joined by OTTO LUENING and the two began to

compose in earnest some of the first tape composit ions in theUnited States at the home of Henry Cowell in Woodstock, New

York: Fantas y in Space,Low Speed, and Son ic Contours . The works ,

after com pletion in Us sa ch evskys living room in New York a n d in

th e bas emen t st u dio of Artu ro Toscan inis Riverda le h ome, were

presen ted at the Mus eum of Modern Art in October of 1952.

Throughout the 1950s important work in electronic music

experimentation only accelerated at a rapid pace. In 1953 an

Italian electron ic m u sic stu dio (Stu dio de Fonologia) was esta b-

lish ed a t th e Radio Au dizioni Italian e in Milan. Du ring its ear ly

years the st u dio at tra cted man y importa nt intern ationa l figu res


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inclu din g LUCIANO BERIO, Niccolo Ca st iglioni, Aldo Clem en ti,

Bru n o Mad ern a, LUIGI NONO, J ohn Cage, Henr i Pous seu r, And r

Boucourechliev, and Bengt Hambra eus . Stud ios were also estab -

l ished at the Phil ips research labs in Eindhoven and at NHK

(J apa nese Broadcasting System ) in 19 55. In th at sa me year th e

David Sarnoff Laboratories of RCA in Princeton, New Jerseyintroduced the OLSON-BELAR SOUND SYNTHESIZER to the

pu blic . As i ts n am e states , this instr um ent is generally cons idered

the first modern synthesizer and was built with the specific

intention of synth esizing tradit ional instru men tal t imbres for th e

ma nu factu re of popular m u sic . In a n interest ing reversal of the

usual industria l absorption of art ist ic innovation, the machine

proved inappropriate for i ts original intent and was la ter used

entirely for electronic music experimentation and composition.

Since the device was ba sed u pon a combination of addit ive an d

su btractive synth esis stra tegies, with a control system cons ist ing

of a pu nch ed paper r oll or tab-card programm ing sch eme, it wasan extremely soph isticated inst ru m ent for its time. Not only could

a composer generat e, comb ine a nd filter sou nd s from the m achines

tu ning-fork oscilla tors an d wh ite-noise generators, s oun ds could

be input from a microphone for modification. Ultimately the

devices design philosophy favored fairly classical concepts of

mu sical stru cture su ch as precise control of twelve-tone pitch

ma terial and wa s th erefore favored by compos ers working with in

the serial genre.

The first composers to work with the Olson-Belar Sound

Synthesizer (later known as the RCA Music Synthesizer) wereVLADIMIR USS ACHE VSKY, O TTO LEUNING a n d MILTON BAB-

BITT who ma na ged to initially gain access to it at t he RCA Lab s.

Within a few years this trio of composers in addition to Roger

Sessions m an aged to acqu ire the device on a perma nen t bas is for

th e newly esta blish ed Colu m bia-Princeton Electronic Mus ic Cent er

in New York City. Becau se of its ad van ced facilities an d p olicy of

encoura gemen t to contempora ry composers, the center a t tracted

a large nu m ber of intern ationa l figu res s u ch a s ALICE SHIELDS,

PRIL SMILEY, Michiko Toyam a, B lent Arel, Mar io Davidovsk y,

Halim El-Dabh , Mel Powell , Ja cob Druckm an , Cha rles Wourinen,

an d Edgard Varse.In 1 958 t he Universi ty of Illinois a t Cha mp aign/ Urban a esta b-

lished the Studio for Experimental Music. Under the initial

direction of LEJ AREN HILLER th e st u dio becam e one of the m ost

important centers for e lectronic music research in the United

States. Two years earlier, Hiller, who was also a professional

chem ist, ap plied h is scientific knowledge of digital comp u ters to

th e comp osition of th eILLIAC S UITE FOR S TRING QUARTET, one

of the first a t tempts at s erious compu ter-aided m u sical composi-

t ion. In su bsequ ent years th e resident facu lty conn ected with the

Studio for Experimental Music included composers HERBERT


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D A V I D D U N N

BRN, KENNETH GABURO , a n d S ALVATORE MARTIRANO alon g

with the engineer James Beauchamp whose Harmonic Tone

Generator was one of the m ost interest ing special soun d generat-

ing ins tru men ts of the period.

By th e end of th e decade PIERRE SCHAEFFER h ad r eorgan-

ized th e Paris stu dio into th e Groupe de Recherches de Musicalesand had abandoned the term musique concrte . His staff was

joined a t th is time by LUC FERRARI an d Fra nois-Berna rd Mach e,

an d later by Fran ois Ba yle an d Berna rd Parm egiani. The Greek

compos er, a rch itect a n d m ath ema tician YANNIS XENAKIS wa s

also working at the Paris facil i ty as was LUCIANO BERIO.

Xena kis produ ced his clas sic compos itionDIAMORPHOSES in 195 7

in which h e formu lated a t heory of dens ity chan ge which intro-

duced a new ca tegory of sounds and s t ruc ture in to musique

concrte.

In addit ion to th e ma jor techn ical developments an d bu rgeon-

ing stu dios jus t outl ined th ere was a lso a dra ma tic increas e in th eactu al composit ion of su bsta ntial works. From 1950 to 196 0 th e

vocabu lary of tap e mu sic sh ifted from th e fairly pu re experiment al

works wh ich ch ara cterized the class ic Paris an d Cologn e schools

to more complex and expressive works which explored a wide

range of compositional styles. More and more works began to

appea r by the m id-1950s wh ich a ddress ed th e concept of com-

bining taped sou nd s with l ive ins tru men ts a nd voices. There was

also a tentat ive interest , and a few attempts, a t incorporating

taped electronic soun ds into th eatrical works. While the ran ge of

issu es being explored was extrem ely broa d, mu ch of th e work inthe variou s ta pe stu dios was an extens ion of the Serialism which

dominated instrumental music . By the end of the decade new

stru ctura l concepts began to emerge from working with th e new

electronic sound sources that influenced instrumental music .

This expan sion of t imbral an d organizationa l resources br ought

strict Serialism into question.

In order to summarize the activity of the classic tape studio

period a b rief su rvey of som e of th e ma jor works of th e 195 0s is

called for. This list is not intended to be exhaustive but only to

provide a few points of reference:

194 9) Scha effer an d Henr y: S YMPHONIE POUR UN HOMME S EUL

1951) Grainger: FREE MUSIC

1952 ) Maderna: Musica s u d ue Dim ens ioni; Cage: Williams Mix ;

Leuning: Fantas y in S pace; Ussa chevsky: Sonic Contours ; Brau :

Concerto de Jan vier

1953) Schaeffer and Henry: ORPHE; S tockhausen: Studie I


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36


1954) Varse: DSERTS ; S tockhausen: Stud ie II; Leun ing and

Ussachevsky: A Poem in Cycles and Bells

1955 ) B. & L. Barron: sou nd track to Forbidd en Planet

1956) Krenek: Spiritus Intelligentiae Sanctus ; S toc kha use n :GES ANG DER J NGLINGE; Berio:Mutazioni; Madern a:Notturno;

Hiller: ILLIAC SUITE FOR STRING QUARTET

1957) Xenakis: DIAMORPHOSES; Pousseur : Scambi; Badings:

Evolutionen

1958) Varse: POME LECTRONIQUE; Ligeti: ARTIKULATION;

Kagel: Transicin I; Cage: FONTANA MIX; Berio: THEMA

OMAGGIO A JOYCE; Xenakis: Concret P-H II; Pousseu r : RIMES

POUR DIFFRENTES SOURCES SONORES

19 59 ) Kagel: Transicin II; Cage: INDETERMINACY

1960) Berio: Differences ; Gerhard: Collages ; Maxfield: NIGHT

MUSIC; Ashley: The Fourth of July ; Takemitsu: Water Music;

Xenakis: Orient-Occident III

By 1960 the evolution of the tape studio was progressingdram atically. In Eu rope the inst i tu t iona l sup port only increased

and saw a mu tua l in te res t a r i se from both th e broadcast cente rs

an d from acad emia. For insta nce i t was in 1 960 th at th e electronic

mu sic studio at the Philips research labs was tr an sferred to the

INSTITUTE OF SONOLOGY at t h e Univers ity of Utrech t. While

in the United States i t was always the universi t ies that estab-

lished serious electronic music facilities, that situation was

problema tic for certain composers wh o resisted the ins t i tut iona l

mileau. Composers such as Gordon MUMMA and ROBERT

ASHLEY h ad b een working ind epen den tly with t ap e mu sic since

1956 by gath ering together th eir own techn ical resources. Othercomposers who were interested in u sing electronics foun d th at

the ta pe medium was u ns u ited to their ideas. J OHN CAGE, for

instance, came to reject the whole aesthetic that accompanied

tap e comp osition as incompa tible with h is philosoph y of indeter-

mina cy and live performan ce. Some composers began to s eek out

other technical solutions in order to specify more precise com-

posit ional control than the tape s tu dio could provide th em. It was

into th is climate of sh ifting needs th at a variety of n ew electronic

devices em erged.

The coming of the 1960s saw a gradual cultural revolution


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D A V I D D U N N

which was co-synchronous with a dist inct acceleration of new

m edia techn ologies. While the invention of th e tran sistor in 1 948

at Bell Laboratories h ad begun to imp act e lectronic ma nu factu r-

ing, i t was during the early 1960s that major advances in

electronic design took shape. The subsequent innovations and

their impact upon electronic music were multifold and anyunderstanding of them must be couched in separate categories

for th e sa ke of convenience. Th e categories to b e delinea ted a re 1)

th e emergen ce of th e voltage-contr olled a na log synth esizer; 2) th e

evolution of computer music; 3) live electronic performance

practice; and 4) the explosion of multi-media. However, it is

important tha t the read er appreciate that th e techn ical categories

u nd er discus sion were never exclu sive bu t in fact interpen etrated

freely in th e comp osition al an d perform an ce styles of m u sician s.

It is a lso n ecess ary to point out tha t an y chara cterization of one

form of techn ical means as su perior to an other (i .e . comp u ters

versu s s ynthesizers) is n ot inten tiona l . It is th e au thors conten -t ion th at th e very na tu re of the s ymbiosis between m achine an d

art ist is su ch th at each ins tru men t, stu dio facility, or comp ut er

program yields i ts own working method and unique art ist ic

produce. Preferences between technological resources emerge

from a match between a certain machine and the imaginative

intent of an art ist , an d n ot from qu alit ies th at a re hierarchically

germane to the history of technological innovation. Claims for

tech n ological efficien cy ma y be relevan t to a very lim ited con text

bu t are u lt ima tely absu rd when viewed from a broader pers pec-

tive of actu al creat ive ach ievemen t.

1 ) T H E V O L T A G E - C O N T R O L L E D

A N A L O G S Y N T H E S I Z E R

A definition : Unfortu n ately th e term syn th esizer is a gross

misnomer. Since there is nothing synthetic about the sounds

generat ed from th is c lass of an alog electronic ins tru men ts, an d

since they do not synth esize other sou nd s, th e term is m ore the

result of a conceptual confusion emanating from industria l

nonsense about how these instruments imitate tradit ionalacoustic ones. However, since the term has stuck, becoming

progress ively more ingrained over th e years, I will u se th e term for

th e s ake of convenience. In reality the a na log voltage-controlled

synthesizer is a collection of waveform and noise generators,

modifiers (such as filters, ring modulators, amplifiers), mixers

an d control devices pa ckaged in modu lar or int egrated form. The

generators produce an electronic signal which can be patched

through the modifiers and into a mixer or amplifier where it is

ma de au dible throu gh lou dspea kers. This s equence of intercon-

nections consti tutes a signa l path which is determined by mean s


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of patch cords, switches, or matrix pinboards. Changes in the

behaviors of the devices (such as pitch or loudness) along the

signal path are controlled from other devices which produce

contr ol voltages. Th ese contr ol voltage sources can be a keyboar d,

a ribbon con troller, a ran dom voltage sou rce, an en velope gener a-

tor or an y oth er compa tible voltage source.The story of th e an alog syn th esizer ha s n o single beginn ing.

In fact, its genesis is a n excellen t exam ple of how a good idea often

emerges simu ltan eous ly in different geograph ic locations to fulfill

a generalized n eed. In this cas e the n eed was to consolidate th e

various electronic sou nd genera tors, m odifiers an d contr ol de-

vices distribu ted in fairly bu lky form th rou ghou t the class ic tap e

stu dio. The reason for doing th is was quite stra ight forward: to

provide a person al electronic system to ind ividua l compos ers th at

was s pecifically design ed for mu sic composition a nd / or live

performan ce, an d which ha d th e approxima te technical capab il-

ity of th e clas sic tap e st u dio at a lower cost. The geogra ph ic localeswhere this simultaneously occurred were the east coast of the

United States, San Fran cisco, Rome an d Aus tral ia .

The concept of modu lari ty us u ally ass ociated with t he an alog

synthesizer must be credited to Harald Bode who in 1960

completed the construction of his MODULAR SOUND MODIFI-

CATION SYSTEM. In m an y ways th is device pred icted th e m ore

concise and powerful modular synthesizers that began to be

designed in the early 1960 s an d cons isted of a r ing m odulator,

envelope follower, tone-burst-responsive envelope generator,

voltage-controlled amplifier, filters, mixers, pitch extractor,compara tor an d frequen cy divider, an d a tape loop repeater. This

device ma y have ha d som e in direct in fluen ce on Robert Moog bu t

th e idea for h is modu lar synt hes izer app ears to ha ve evolved from

an other set of c ircum sta nces.

In 1963, MOOG was selling transistorized Theremins in kit

form from his home in Ithaca, New York. Early in 1964 the

composer Herbert Deutsch was using one of these instruments

and the two began to discuss the application of solid-state

technology to the design of new ins tru men ts a nd s ystems. These

discu ss ions led Moog to complete his first pr ototype of a m odu lar

electronic music synthesizer la ter that year. By 1966 the firstprodu ction m odel was a vailable from th e new compan y he ha d

formed to produ ce this instru men t. The first systems which Moog

produced were principally designed for studio applications and

were generally large modular assemblages that contained volt-

age-controlled oscillators, filters, voltage-controlled amplifiers,

envelope generat ors, a nd a t rad itiona l style keyboard for voltage-

control of the other m odules. Interconn ection between th e mod-

u les was a chieved throu gh patch cords. By 1969 Moog saw th e

necessity for a sma ller portable ins tru men t and b egan t o man u -

factu re th e Mini Moog, a concise vers ion of the st u dio system t h at


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D A V I D D U N N

conta ined a n oscillator ba n k, filter, mixer, VCA an d k eyboard. As

an instru men t des igner Moog was always a practical engineer. His

ba sically comm ercial bu t egalitar ian p hilosoph y is bes t exempli-

fied by some of th e advertising copy which a ccompa nied th e Mini

Moog in 1969 an d resu lted in i ts becoming the m ost widely us ed

synth esizer in t he mu sic indu stry:

R.A. Moog, Inc. built its first s y nth es izer comp onen ts in 19 64 . At

that t ime, the electronic music synthesizer was a cumbersome

laboratory curiosity, virtua lly un k now n to the lis ten ing pu blic.

Toda y , the Moog sy nthe s ize r ha s proven its indispe ns ability th rough

its widespread acceptance. Moog synthesizers are in use in hun-

dreds of s tudios ma intained by universities , recording com pan ies ,

and private compose rs throughout the w orld. Dozen s of su cces sfu l

recordings, film scores , and concert pieces hav e be en realize d on

Moog s yn thes ize rs . The bas ic sy nthes izer concept as d eveloped by

R.A. Moog, Inc., as w ell as a large nu m ber of technological inn ova-tions , have literally revolutionized th e contem porary m us ical s cene,

and hav e be en ins trum ental in bringing electronic m us ic into the

m ainstream of popular listen ing.

In d es igning the Mini Moog, R. A. Moog en gine ers ta lked w ith

hund reds of mu sicians to f ind out w hat they w anted in a perform-

ance s yn thesizer. Many prototypes w ere built over the pas t tw o

years, and tried out by musicians in actual live-performance

situations. Mini Moog circuitry is a combination of our time-proven

and reliable designs with the latest developments in technologyand electronic components .

The resu lt is an ins trum ent w hich is applicable to stu dio composi-

tion as m uch as to live pe rform ance, to elem entary and high s chool

music education as much as to university instruction, to the

demands of commercial music as much as to the needs of the

experimental avant garde. The Mini Moog offers a truly unique

combina tion of vers atility , play ability , conven ience, an d reliab ility

at an em inen tly reasonab le price.

In contrast to Moogs industria l stance, the rather counter-cu ltu ra l design ph ilosop h y of DONALD BUCHLA an d h is voltage-

controlled synthesizers can partially be attributed to the geo-

graphic locale and cultural c ircumstances of their genesis. In

1961 San Fran cisco was beginning to emerge as a m ajor cultur al

center with several van guard comp osers organizing concerts a nd

other performance events. MORTON SUBOTNICK was starting

h is career in electronic mu sic experimen tat ion, a s were PAULINE

OLIVEROS, Ram on Sen der a n d TERRY RILEY. A pr imitive stu dio

ha d been st arted at t he San Fran cisco Cons ervatory of Music by

Sender wh ere he an d Oliveros ha d begun a s eries of experimental


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mu sic concerts. In 196 2 this equipment a nd oth er resources from

electronic su rplus sou rces were pooled together b y Sender an d

Su botnick to form th e San Fran cisco Tape Mus ic Center which

was later m oved to Mills College in 1 966 . Becau se of the s evere

limitat ions of the equipmen t, Sub otnick an d Send er sought ou t

the h elp of a comp etent engineer in 1962 to realize a design theyhad concocted for an optically based sound generating instru-

men t. After a few failu res a t h irin g an engineer th ey met DONALD

BUCHLA who realized their design but subsequently convinced

them tha t th is was th e wrong approach for s olving th eir equip-

ment needs . The ir s ubs equent d iscus sions resu l ted in th e con-

cept of a m odular s ystem. Su botnick describes th eir idea in the

following terms:

Our idea w as to build th e black box tha t w ould b e a palette for

com posers in their home s . It w ould be th eir s tudio. The idea w as to

des ign it so that it w as lik e an a nalog com puter. It w as not a mu sicalins trum ent bu t it w as m odular.. .It w as a collection of modules of

voltage-controlled en velope gene rators a nd it ha d s eque ncers in it

right off the bat.. .It w as a collection of modu les that y ou w ould put

together. There w ere no tw o sy stem s the sa me until CBS bought

it. . .Our goal was that it should be under $400 for the entire

instrument and we came very close. Thats why the original

ins trum ent I fundraised for wa s und er $500.

Bu chlas design a ppr oach differed m ar kedly from Moog. Right

from th e sta rt Bu chla rejected the idea of a synth esizer an d h asresisted the word ever since. He never wanted to synthesize

fam iliar s oun ds b ut rath er emph asized n ew timb ral possibil it ies.

He stress ed the complexity tha t could arise out of ran domn ess

and was intrigued with the design of new control devices other

than the s tan dard keyboard . He su mm arizes h is ph ilosophy an d

distingu ishes it from Moogs in th e followin g sta temen t:

I w ould sa y th at ph ilosoph ically th e prim e difference in our

approaches was that I separated sound and structure and he

didnt. Control voltages were interchangeable with audio. The

ad van tage of that is that he required only one k ind of connector andthat modules could serve more than one purpose. There were

s everal draw back s to that k ind of general approach, one of them

being that a m odule des igned to w ork in the s tructural dom ain at

the sa me t ime as the aud io doma in has to ma ke compromises . DC

offset doesnt make any difference in the sound domain but it

m ak es a big difference in the structural dom ain, wh ereas h armonic

dis tortion m ak es very little d ifference in the control area b ut it can

be ve ry s ignificant in the aud io areas . You also have a m atter of jus t

being able to discern w hats h appen ing in a s y stem by look ing at

it. If you h av e a v ery com plex pa tch, its nice to be a ble to tell w ha t


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D A V I D D U N N

as pect of the patch is the structural part of the mu sic vers us w hat

is the s ignal path an d s o on. Theres a big difference in w hethe r you

de al w ith linea r versus exponen tial functions at the control level

and that was a very inhibiting factor in Moogs more general

approach.

Uncertainty is the b as is for alot of my w ork . One alwa y s operates

s omew here betw een the totally predictable and the totally u npre-

dictable an d to me the s ource of uncertainty , as w e called it, w as

a w ay of aiding the compos er. The pred ictabilities could be h ighly

de fined or y ou could ha ve a s equen ce of totally rand om nu m bers.

We h ad voltage control of the rand omne ss and of the rate of chan ge

so that you could randomize the rate of change. In this way you

could ma k e patterns that w ere of more interest than pa tterns that

are totally random .

While the early Buchla instruments contained many of thesa me modu lar fu nctions a s the Moog, i t a lso contained a num ber

of unique devices such as i ts random control voltage sources,

sequencers and voltage-controlled spatial panners. Buchla has

maintained his unique design philosphy over the intervening

years produ cing a series of highly advanced instru men ts often

incorporating hybrid digital circuitry and unique control inter-

faces.

The oth er ma jor voltage-contr olled syn th esizers to ar ise at th is

t ime (1964) were th e Synket, a highly portable ins tru men t bu il t by

Pau l Ketoff, an d a u nique m achine d esigned by Tony Fur se inAustralia. According to composer Joel Chadabe, the SYNKET

resulted from discussions between himself , Otto Leuning and

J OHN EATON while th ese composers were in residence in Rome.

Don Buch la in his Berkeley, Ca lifornia studio w ith seve ral of his c reat ions, late 1970s. Co ute sy of Do n Buchla .


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Chadabe had recently inspected the developmental work of

Robert Moog and conveyed this to Eaton and Leuning. The

engineer Pau l Ketoff was enlisted to bu ild a perform an ce oriented

instru men t for Eaton who su bsequ ently became the virtu oso on

this s ma ll synthesizer, us ing i t extensively in su bsequ ent years.

The machine built by Furse was the initial foray into electronicinstru men t design by th is bri lliant Austra lian en gineer. He later

becam e the p rincipal figu re in th e design of som e of th e earliest

an d m ost s ophist icated d igital synth esizers of the 1 970s.

After th ese initial efforts a n u m ber of oth er Amer ican des ign ers

an d m an u factu rers followed th e lead of Buch la an d Moog. One of

th e mos t su ccessful was th e ARP SYNTHESIZER bu ilt by Tonu s,

Inc. with design innovations by the team of Dennis Colin and

David Friend. The studio version of the ARP was introduced in

1970 an d ba sically imitated m odular featu res of the Moog an d

Buchla instruments. A year la ter they introduced a smaller

portable version wh ich included a p reset patch ing scheme tha tsimp lified th e in str u men ts fun ction for the average pop-orien ted

performing mu sician . Other man u factu rers inclu ded EML, makers

of th e ELECTRO-COMP, a sm all synt hes izer oriented to th e edu -

cationa l mar ket; OBERHIEM, on e of th e earliest p olyphon ic syn-

th esizers ; m u Son ics SONIC V SYNTHES IZER; PAIA, m ak ers of a

synthesizer in kit form; Roland; Korg; and the highly sophisti-

cated l ine of modu lar an alog synthesizer s ystems d esigned a nd

manufactured by Serge Tcherepnin and referred to as Serge

Modu lar Mu sic System s.

In Europe the major man ufacturer was un doubt edly EMS, aBritish company founded by its chief designer Peter Zinovieff.

EMS buil t the Synthi 100, a large integrated system which

introduced a matrix-pinboard patching system, and a small

portable synthesizer based on similar design principles initially

called t he Put ney b u t later m odified into th e SYNTHI A or Port-

abella . This la ter ins tru men t became very popular with a nu mb er

of composers who used it in live performance situations.

One of the more interesting footnotes to this history of the

analog synthesizer is the rather problematic relat ionship that

ma ny of the des igners h ave had with commercialization an d th e

subsequent solution of manufacturing problems. While thecommercial potential for th ese instru men ts became evident very

early on in th e 1960 s, th e different a esth etic an d des ign p hiloso-

ph ies of the en gineers dema nded tha t th ey deal with this realiza-

tion in different ways. Bu chla, wh o early on got bu rn t by larger

corporate interests, has dealt with the burden of marketing by

essen tially remaining a cottage indu stry, ass embling an d m arket-

ing his instru men ts from h is h ome in Berkeley, California . In the

case of MOOG, who a s a fairly comp etent bu sinessm an grew a

sm all bu siness in his h ome into a dist inctly comm ercial endeavor,

even h e ultima tely left Moog Mu sic in 1 977 , after th e com pan y had


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D A V I D D U N N

been acquired by two larger corporations, to pursue his own

design interests .

I t is important to remember that the advent of the analog

voltage-contr olled synth esizer occurr ed within th e context of th e

continu ed development of the ta pe stu dio which n ow included th e

synthesizer as an essential part of i ts new identi ty as theelectronic mu sic studio. It was est imated in 196 8 tha t 556 n on-

private electronic music studios had been established in 39

count ries. An est imated 5,14 0 composit ions existed in the m e-

dium by tha t t ime .

Some of the lan dm ark voltage-contr olled syn th esizer compo-

sitions of the 1960s include works created with the manufac-

tured machines of Buchla and Moog but other devices were

certainly also used extensively. Most of these works were tape

composit ions tha t u sed t he s ynthesizer as resour ce. The following

list includes a few of the representative tape compositions and

works for ta pe with live performer s m ade du ring the 19 60s withsynthesizers and o ther sound s ources .

1960) Stockhau sen: KONTAKTE; Mache: Volumes ;

1961) Berio: VISAGE; Dockstader: TWO FRAGMENTS FROM

APOCALYPSE

1962) Xenakis: BOHOR I; Philippot: tude III; Parmegiani:

DANSE;

1963) Bayle : PORTRAITS DE LOISEAU-QUI-NEXISTE-PAS ;

Nordheim: EPITAFFIO

1964 ) Babbit t : Ensem bles for Sy nthesizer; Brn : Futility ; Nono:

LA FABBRICA ILLUMINATA

1965) Gaburo: LEMON DROPS, Mima roglu : Agony ; Davidovsky:

Sy nchronism s No. 3 ;

1966) Oliveros: I OF IV; Druckman: Animu s I ;

1967 ) Su botnick: S ILVER APPLES OF THE MOON; Eaton: CON-

CERT PIECE FOR S YN-KET AND SYMPHONY ORCHES TRA; Koenig:

Terminus X; Sm iley: ECLIPSE;

1968) Carlos: Switched-On Bach ; Gaburo: DANTES JOYNTE;

Nono: CONTRA PPUNTO DIALETTICO ALLA MENTE


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1969 ) Wuorinen: TIMES ENCOMIUM; Ferrari: MUSIC PROME-

NADE

19 70 ) Arel: S tereo Electronic Mus ic No. 2; Lu cier:I AM S ITTING IN

A ROOM

2 ) C O M P U T E R M U S I C

A distinction : Analog refers to systems where a physical

qua nti ty is repres ented by an an alogou s ph ysical qua nti ty. The

tradit ional audio recording chain demonstrates this quite well

since each stage of tran slat ion th roughou t cons ti tutes a ph ysical

system th at is an alogou s to th e previous one in th e chain. The

flu ctua tions of a ir molecules which consti tute s oun d are tra ns -

lated into flu ctua tions of e lectrons by a m icrophone diaph ram .

Thes e electrons are th en converted via a bias cu rrent of a ta perecorder into patterns of magnetic particles on a piece of tape.

Upon playback the process can be reversed result ing in these

fluctuations of electrons being amplified into fluctuations of a

loudspeaker cone in space. The final displacement of air mole-

cules results in an analogous representation of the original

sounds that were recorded. Digital refers to systems where a

ph ysical qua nti ty is repres ented th rough a count ing process. In

digital computers this counting process consists of a two-digit

binary coding of electrical on-off switching states. In computer

mu sic the resultan t digita l code represents the various p aram e-ters of sou nd an d i ts organ ization.

As early as 195 4, th e comp oser YANNIS XENAKIS h ad u sed a

compu ter to a id in calculating th e velocity tra jectories of glissa n di

for his orch estr al composition Metastasis . Since his backgroun d

inc luded a s t rong mathema t ica l educa t ion , th is was a n a tu ra l

development in keeping with his formal interest in combining

math emat ics and mu sic. The search th a t h ad begun ear l ie r in th e

centu ry for new soun ds a nd organ izing principles th at could be

ma them atically rat ionalized h ad b ecome a dominan t issu e by the

mid-1950s. Serial composers like MILTON BABBIT had been

dream ing of an app ropriate m achine to as sist in complex com-pos ition al organ izat ion. While th e RCA Mus ic Synth esizer fu lfilled

mu ch of this need for Babb it t , other composers d esired even more

ma chine-a ss isted contr ol. LEJ AREN HILLER, a former s tu den t of

Babbitt, saw the compositional potential in the early generation

of digital computers and generated the Illiac Suite for string

qua rtet as a dem onstr at ion of this promise in 19 56.

Xenak is continu ed to develop, in a m u ch m ore sophist icated

man ner , h is u n ique approach to compu ter-ass is ted ins t ru menta l

composit ion. Between 19 56 an d 1962 h e composed a n u mber of

works such as Morisma-Amorisma using the computer as a


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D A V I D D U N N

m ath ema tical aid for finalizing calcu lations th at were ap plied to

instru men tal scores. Xenak is s tated th at h is u se of probabilist ic

theories a nd the IBM 7090 compu ter enab led h im to advance . . .a

form of compos ition wh ich is not th e object in itelf, bu t an idea in

itself, th at is to sa y, the b eginn ings of a fam ily of compos itions .

The ear ly vision of why compu ters s h ould be ap plied to mu sicwas elegan tly express ed by the s cient ist Hein z Von Foerst er:

Accepting the possibilities of extensions in sounds and scales,

how d o we d etermine the new rules of sy nchronism and s ucces-

sion?

It is at this point, w here the com plexity of the problem a ppea rs to

get out of han d, that compu ters com e to our as sistan ce, not m erely

as ancillary tools but as essential components in the complex

process of gen erating aud itory s igna ls tha t fulfill a va riety of new

principles of a generalized aesthetics and are not confined toconven tional methods of s ound gene ration by a given s et of m us ical

ins trum ents or scales n or to a given s et of rules of sy nchronism and

succession based upon these very instruments and scales. The

search for those new principles, algorithms, and values is, of

course, in its elf sy m bolic for our tim es .

The actual use of the computer to generate sound first

occurr ed at Bell Labs where Max Math ews u sed a primitive digital

to analog converter to demonstrate this possibil i ty in 1957.

Mathews becam e th e central figu re at Bell Labs in th e techn icalevolution of computer generated sound research and composi-

t iona l program ming with compu ter over th e next decade. In 196 1

h e was joined by the com poser J AMES TENNEY who h ad r ecently

graduated from the University of Illinois where he had worked

with Hiller and Ga bu ro to finish a ma jor th eoretical thes is entitled

Meta / Hod os For Tenn ey, the Bell Lab residen cy was a signifi-

cant opportunity to apply his advanced theoretical thinking

(involving the application of theories from Gestalt Psychology to

music and sound perception) into the composit ional domain.

From 19 61 to 19 64 h e comp leted a s eries of works which includ e

what are p robably the first serious composit ions us ing the MUSICIV program of Max Mathews and Joan Miller and therefore the

first serious composit ions using computer-generated sounds:

Nois e S tudy , Four Stochastic Studies , Dialogue , Stochastic String

Qua rtet, Ergodos I, Ergodos II, an d PHAS ES.

In the following extraordinarily candid statement, Tenney

descr ibes h is pioneering efforts at Bell Lab s:

I arrived at the Bell Telephone Lab oratories in S epte m ber, 196 1,

w ith the follow ing m us ical and intellectual baggage:

1. n um erous ins trum ental compositions reflecting the influen ce of


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Webern and Varse;

2. tw o tape-pieces , produ ced in the Electronic Mus ic Laboratory at

the University of Illinois - both employing familiar, concrete

sound s, m odif ied in various w ay s;

3. a long pape r (Meta / Hod os , A Phe nom enology of 20th Centu ry

Music and an Approach to the Study of Form, June, 1961), inw hich a de s criptive term inology an d certain s tructural principles

w ere dev eloped , borrow ing he avily from Ges talt psy chology . The

central point of the pa per involves theclang, or prim ary au ral Ges talt,

an d ba s ic law s of perceptual organiza tion of clan gs, clan g-eleme nts ,

and sequences (a high-order Gestalt-unit consisting of several

clangs).

4. A d iss atis faction w ith all the p urely sy nthetic electronic mu s ic

that I had hea rd up to that time, pa rticularly w ith respe ct to t imbre ;

5. idea s s tem m ing from m y s tudies of acous tics, electronics an d -

especially - information theory, begun in Hillers class at the

University of Illinois; and finally6. a grow ing interest in the w ork a nd idea s of John Cage.

I leave in March, 1964, with:

1. s ix tape -com positions of computer-generated soun ds - of w hich

all but the first w ere also com posed by m ean s of the com puter, and

s everal ins trum ental pieces w hose com position involved the com-

puter in one w ay or another;

2. a far better und erstand ing of the phy s ical bas is of t imbre, an d

a s ens e of having achieved a s ignificant extens ion of the range of

t imbres poss ible by sy nthetic mean s;

3. a curious history of renunciations of one after another of thetrad itional attitude s about m us ic, due prim arily to grad ually m ore

thorough as s im ilation of the ins ights of John Cage.

In m y tw o-and -a-half yea rs here I hav e begun m any m ore comp o-

s itions tha n I have completed, as k ed m ore ques tions tha n I could

find answers for, and perhaps failed more often than I have

s ucceeded . But I think it could n ot have bee n m uch different. The

med ium is ne w and requires n ew w ay s of think ing and feeling. Two

y ears a re hardly enough to hav e become th oroughly acclim ated to

it, but the proces s h as at leas t begun.

In 1965 the research at Bell Labs resulted in the successfulreproduction of an instru men tal t imb re: a tru mp et waveform was

recorded an d then converted into a nu merical representa tion a nd

when converted back into analog form was deemed virtually

indistingu isab le from its sou rce. This a ccomp lishm ent by Mathews,

Miller an d th e Fren ch com poser J EAN-CLAUDE RISSET ma rks

th e beginn ing of th e recapitulation of th e traditional represen ta-

tionist versus modernist dialectic in the new context of digital

compu ting. When contras ted against Tenn eys u se of the com-

pu ter to obta in entirely novel waveforms an d str u ctu ral com plexi-

t ies, th e u se of su ch imm ense techn ological resources to repro-duce the s ound of a t ru mpet , appeared to man y composers to be


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D A V I D D U N N

a gigan tic exercise in misplaced concreteness . When seen in the

su bsequ ent historical light of the recent b reakth roughs of digita l

recording and s am pling technologies th at can be traced back to

th is initial experiment , the original comp u ting expen se certain ly

ap pear s t o ha ve been vind icated. However, th e dialectic of repre-

sent ationism a nd m odernism h as on ly become m ore problema ticin the intervening years.

The development of computer music has from its inception

been s o crit ically linked to a dvances in ha rdware a nd software

tha t i ts pra ctit ioners ha ve, un ti l recently, consti tut ed a dist inct

class of specialized enthusiasts within the larger context of

e lectronic mu sic . The ch allenge that early comp u ters a nd com-

puting environments presented to creative musical work was

immen se. In r etrospect , the task of learn ing to program an d pit

ones musical intel l igence against the machine constraints of

those ear ly days n ow takes on an almost h eroic aire . In fact , the

developmen t of compu ter m u sic compos ition is d efinitely linkedto the evolution of greater interface tran spa rency su ch th at th e

task of composit ion could be freed up from the other arduous

tas ks as sociated with p rogram ming. The first stage in th is evolu -

t ion was the d esign of specific mu sic-oriented p rogram s su ch a s

MUSIC IV. Th e 1960 s s aw gradu al add itions to th ese langu ages

such as MUSIC IVB (a greatly expanded assembly language

version b y Godfrey Win h am an d Hu ber t S. Howe); MUSIC IVBF (a

fortra n version of MUSIC IVB); an d MUSIC360 (a m u sic pr ogram

written for th e IBM 360 comp u ter by Barr y Vercoe). The com poser

Char les Dodge wrote during th is t ime ab out th e inten t of thes emu sic programs for sound synthesis :

It is through s imulating the operations of an ide al electronic m us ic

studio with an unlimited amount of equipment that a digital

compu ter sy nthesizes sound . The f irst computer sound sy nthesis

program tha t w as truly gene ral purpos e (i.e., one tha t could, in

theory, produce any sound) was created at the Bell Telephone

Laboratories in the late 195 0s . A comp ose r us ing such a p rogram

m us t typ ically provide : (1) Stored fu nctions w hich w ill reside in the

compu ters mem ory represen ting w aveforms to be used by the uni t

genera tors of the program. (2) Instruments of his own designw hich logically interconne ct thes e uni t g enera to rs . (Unit gen-

e r a t o r s are su bprogram s th at s imu late all the s ound gen eration,

modification, and storage devices of the ideal electronic music

studio.) The computer instrumentsp lay the notes of the compo-

s ition. (3)Notes may correspond to the familiar pitch in time or,

alternatively , may represe nt som e conven ient w ay of dividing the

tim e continuu m .

By the end of the 196 0s compu ter soun d synth esis research

sa w a large nu mber of new programs in operation a t a variety ofacadem ic and p rivate inst i tut ions. The dem an ds of the m edium

Documents

021-062 History of Electronic Music Pioneers