The Electronium, created by

Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist, record producer, and inventor of electronic instruments. Though Scott never scored cartoon soundtracks, his music is ...

, is an early combined electronic

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

and

algorithmic composition Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpoin ...

generative music Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. Historical background In 1995 whilst working with SSEYO's Koan software (built by Tim Cole and Pete Col ...

machine. Its place in history is unusual, because while in intention it is analogous to the digital algorithmic composition systems that would follow it, it was implemented entirely as an analog electronic machine. Development was begun in 1959, with a workable unit by 1969. Scott, however, never ceased to modify and further develop the device by the time of his death in 1994. Chusid, Irwinbr>Beethoven-in-a-box: Raymond Scott's electronium
Contemporary Music Review,18(3):9-14 1999. It was one of the very few electronic creations of Scott to be sold to a customer, as he was normally highly secretive about his devices. A single Electronium machine was sold to

Motown Records Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmant ...

, following a 1969 meeting between Scott and Motown's

Berry Gordy Berry Gordy III (born November 28, 1929), known professionally as Berry Gordy Jr., is a retired American record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record la ...

. The initial contract required that Scott visited Motown for three months to teach staff how the machine is used. This culminated in the 1971 hiring of Scott to serve as director of Motown's electronic music and research department in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, California, a position that Scott held until 1977.Stanley Warnow (2010). "Deconstructing Dad" documentary

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

, http://scottdoc.com/. No Motown recordings using Scott's electronic inventions have yet been publicly identified. Guy Costa, Head of Operations and Chief Engineer at Motown from 1969 to 1987, said about Scott's hiring: Scott later said he "spent 11 years and close to a million dollars developing the Electronium." Much remains to be discovered about the machine's functionality, since detailed documentation on its workings are not currently available, and the single remaining machine is not in working order. In a patent application, Scott wrote that "The entire system is based on the concept of Artistic Collaboration Between Man and Machine, (…) The new structures being directed into the machine are unpredictable in their details, and hence the results are a kind of duet between the composer and the machine." Adding to the difficulty of defining what the Electronium was and how it worked is the fact that it was never finished. Scott continued to develop it during his employment at Motown, and after his dismissal there he carried on working on the machine, stopping only when his deteriorating health abruptly halted him from carrying on, after his first of several strokes. The Electronium is currently owned by

Devo Devo (, originally ) is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a ...

's co-founder and lead singer

Mark Mothersbaugh Mark Allen Mothersbaugh (; born May 18, 1950) is an American composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of the new wave band Devo, whose " Whip It" was a top 2 ...

, who has initiated efforts towards its restoration. In 2017,

Brian Kehew Brian Kehew (born September 22, 1964) is an American, Los Angeles-based, musician and record producer. He is a member of The Moog Cookbook and co-author of the ''Recording The Beatles'' book, an in-depth look at the Beatles' studio approach. Li ...

began working on the restoration of the Electronium, in an effort partially financed by

Gotye Wouter André "Wally" De Backer (born 21 May 1980), better known by his stage name Gotye ( ), is a Belgian-Australian multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. The name "Gotye" is a pronunciation respelling of "Gauthier", the French cognat ...

."Can Synthesizers Compose Music? Nearly 50 Years Ago, This One Could".
LA Weekly, June 20, 2017. Retrieved 2021-01-24.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Raymond Scott website

Website for "Deconstructing Dad" documentary

Video
showing the Electronium, discussion starts at 1:37. Synthesizers

See also

References

External links