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Electronic music is a
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based
music technology Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to compose, notate, playback or record songs or pieces; or to analyze or edit music. History The earli ...
in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroacoustic music). Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator,
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and
loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or ...
s. Such electromechanical devices include the
telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as the Dynamophone) was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. , filed 1896-02-04. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was hear ...
, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar."The stuff of electronic music is electrically produced or modified sounds. ... two basic definitions will help put some of the historical discussion in its place: purely electronic music versus electroacoustic music" ()Electroacoustic music may also use electronic
effect unit An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion/overdrive, often used with electric guitar in ele ...
s to change sounds from the natural world, such as the sound of waves on a beach or bird calls. All types of sounds can be used as source material for this music. Electroacoustic performers and composers use microphones, tape recorders, and digital samplers to make live or recorded music. During live performances, natural sounds are modified in real-time using electronic effects and
audio console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic instr ...
s. The source of the sound can be anything from ambient noise (traffic, people talking) and nature sounds to live musicians playing conventional acoustic or electro-acoustic instruments ()
The first electronic musical devices were developed at the end of the 19th century. During the 1920s and 1930s, some electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions featuring them were written. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape allowed musicians to tape sounds and then modify them by changing the tape speed or direction, leading to the development of electroacoustic
tape music Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco. Career Prior to founding ...
in the 1940s, in Egypt and France. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds. Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was also created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s 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 counterpo ...
with computers was first demonstrated in the same decade. During the 1960s, digital
computer music Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ...
was pioneered, innovation in
live electronics Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
took place, and Japanese electronic musical instruments began to influence the music industry. In the early 1970s, Moog synthesizers and Japanese drum machines helped popularize synthesized electronic music. The 1970s also saw electronic music begin to have a significant influence on
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, with the adoption of
polyphonic synthesizer Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophoni ...
s, electronic drums, drum machines, and
turntables A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
, through the emergence of genres such as disco, krautrock, new wave, synth-pop, hip hop, and
EDM EDM or E-DM may refer to: Music * Electronic dance music * Early Day Miners, American band Science and technology * Electric dipole moment * Electrical discharge machining * Electronic distance measurement *Entry, Descent, and landing demonstrat ...
. In the early 1980s mass-produced digital synthesizers, such as the
Yamaha DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980 ...
, became popular, and
MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...
(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was developed. In the same decade, with a greater reliance on synthesizers and the adoption of programmable drum machines, electronic popular music came to the fore. During the 1990s, with the proliferation of increasingly affordable music technology, electronic music production became an established part of popular culture. In Berlin starting in 1989, the
Love Parade The Love Parade (german: Loveparade) was a popular electronic dance music festival and technoparade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held annually in Berlin from 1989 to 2003 and in 2006, then from 2007 to 2010 in the Ruh ...
became the largest street party with over 1 million visitors, inspiring other such popular celebrations of electronic music. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Pop electronic music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form and more connected with the mainstream than preceding forms which were popular in niche markets.


Origins: late 19th century to early 20th century

At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments. These initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances. The audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments. While some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the
Telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as the Dynamophone) was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. , filed 1896-02-04. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was hear ...
synthesized the sound of several orchestral instruments with reasonable precision. It achieved viable public interest and made commercial progress into streaming music through
telephone network A telephone network is a telecommunications network that connects telephones, which allows telephone calls between two or more parties, as well as newer features such as fax and internet. The idea was revolutionized in the 1920s, as more and mor ...
s. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments. Ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of
microtonal music Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of ...
allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential ''Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music'' (1907).
Futurists Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
such as
Francesco Balilla Pratella Francesco Balilla Pratella (Lugo, Italy February 1, 1880 – Ravenna, Italy May 17, 1955) was an Italian composer, musicologist and essayist. One of the leading advocates of Futurism in Italian music, much of Pratella's own music betrays little o ...
and
Luigi Russolo Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto ''The Art of Noises'' (1913). He is often regarded as one of ...
began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto ''
The Art of Noises ''The Art of Noises'' ( it, L'arte dei Rumori) is a Futurist manifesto written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella. In it, Russolo argues that the human ear has become accustomed to the ...
'' (1913)..


Early compositions

Developments of the
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...
led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
,
ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , "Martenot waves") or ondes musicales ("musical waves") is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. A player ...
and
trautonium The Trautonium is an electronic synthesizer invented in 1930 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon afterwards Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's de ...
were commercially produced by the early 1930s.; From the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as
Joseph Schillinger Joseph Moiseyevich Schillinger ( Russian: Иосиф Моисеевич Шиллингер, (other sources: ) – 23 March 1943) was a composer, music theorist, and composition teacher who originated the Schillinger System of Musical Compositio ...
to adopt them. They were typically used within orchestras, and most composers wrote parts for the theremin that could otherwise be performed with string instruments. Avant-garde composers criticized the predominant use of electronic instruments for conventional purposes. The instruments offered expansions in pitch resources that were exploited by advocates of microtonal music such as Charles Ives,
Dimitrios Levidis Dimitrios Levidis ( el, Δημήτριος Λεβίδης; 8 April 1885 or 1886, Athens - 29 May 1951, Palaio Faliro) was a Greek composer, later naturalized French (1929). Background He descended from an aristocratic family with Byzantine root ...
, Olivier Messiaen and Edgard Varèse. Further,
Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...
used the theremin to abandon fixed tonation entirely, while Russian composers such as Gavriil Popov treated it as a source of noise in otherwise-acoustic noise music.


Recording experiments

Developments in early recording technology paralleled that of electronic instruments. The first means of recording and reproducing audio was invented in the late 19th century with the mechanical phonograph. Record players became a common household item, and by the 1920s composers were using them to play short recordings in performances. The introduction of
electrical recording A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...
in 1925 was followed by increased experimentation with record players.
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ' ...
and
Ernst Toch Ernst Toch (; 7 December 1887 – 1 October 1964) was an Austrian composer of classical music and film scores. He sought throughout his life to introduce new approaches to music. Biography Toch was born in Leopoldstadt, Vienna, into the family ...
composed several pieces in 1930 by layering recordings of instruments and vocals at adjusted speeds. Influenced by these techniques, John Cage composed '' Imaginary Landscape No. 1'' in 1939 by adjusting the speeds of recorded tones. Composers began to experiment with newly developed
sound-on-film Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...
technology. Recordings could be spliced together to create
sound collage In music, montage (literally "putting together") or sound collage ("gluing together") is a technique where newly branded sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage. This is often done throu ...
s, such as those by
Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...
,
Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, Constructivism (art), constructivism, surrealism ...
,
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...
,
Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...
and
Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov (russian: Дзига Вертов, born David Abelevich Kaufman, russian: Дави́д А́белевич Ка́уфман, and also known as Denis Kaufman; – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsre ...
. Further, the technology allowed sound to be graphically created and modified. These techniques were used to compose soundtracks for several films in Germany and Russia, in addition to the popular '' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' in the United States. Experiments with graphical sound were continued by Norman McLaren from the late 1930s.


Development: 1940s to 1950s


Electroacoustic tape music

The first practical audio
tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...
was unveiled in 1935. Improvements to the technology were made using the
AC bias Tape bias is the term for two techniques, AC bias and DC bias, that improve the fidelity of analogue tape recorders. DC bias is the addition of direct current to the audio signal that is being recorded. AC bias is the addition of an inaud ...
ing technique, which significantly improved recording fidelity. As early as 1942, test recordings were being made in stereo. Although these developments were initially confined to Germany, recorders and tapes were brought to the United States following the end of World War II. These were the basis for the first commercially produced tape recorder in 1948. In 1944, before the use of magnetic tape for compositional purposes, Egyptian composer
Halim El-Dabh Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had ...
, while still a student in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, used a cumbersome
wire recorder Wire recording or magnetic wire recording was the first magnetic recording technology, an analog type of audio storage in which a magnetic recording is made on a thin steel wire. The first crude magnetic recorder was invented in 1898 by Valde ...
to record sounds of an ancient '' zaar'' ceremony. Using facilities at the Middle East Radio studios El-Dabh processed the recorded material using reverberation, echo, voltage controls and re-recording. What resulted is believed to be the earliest tape music composition. The resulting work was entitled ''The Expression of Zaar'' and it was presented in 1944 at an art gallery event in Cairo. While his initial experiments in tape-based composition were not widely known outside of Egypt at the time, El-Dabh is also known for his later work in electronic music at the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Location The CMC is hou ...
in the late 1950s.


Musique concrète

Following his work with Studio d'Essai at
Radiodiffusion Française Radiodiffusion Française (RDF) was a French public institution responsible for public service broadcasting. Created in 1944 as a state monopoly (replacing Radiodiffusion Nationale), RDF worked to rebuild its extensive network, destroyed during t ...
(RDF), during the early 1940s,
Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...
is credited with originating the theory and practice of musique concrète. In the late 1940s, experiments in sound-based composition using
shellac Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and ...
record players were first conducted by Schaeffer. In 1950, the techniques of musique concrete were expanded when magnetic tape machines were used to explore sound manipulation practices such as speed variation (
pitch shift Pitch shifting is a sound recording technique in which the original pitch of a sound is raised or lowered. Effects units that raise or lower pitch by a pre-designated musical interval ( transposition) are called pitch shifters. Pitch and tim ...
) and tape splicing. On 5 October 1948, RDF broadcast Schaeffer's ''Etude aux chemins de fer''. This was the first " movement" of ''Cinq études de bruits'', and marked the beginning of studio realizations and musique concrète (or acousmatic art). Schaeffer employed a
disc cutting lathe upPresto 8N Disc Cutting Lathe (1950) used by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to record radio programs A disc cutting lathe is a device used to transfer an audio signal to the modulated spiral groove of a blank master disc for the productio ...
, four turntables, a four-channel mixer, filters, an echo chamber, and a mobile recording unit. Not long after this, Pierre Henry began collaborating with Schaeffer, a partnership that would have profound and lasting effects on the direction of electronic music. Another associate of Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse, began work on ''
Déserts ''Déserts'' (1950–1954) is a piece by Edgard Varèse for 14 winds (brass and woodwinds), 5 percussion players, 1 piano, and electronic tape."Blue" Gene Tyranny (2010). " Déserts for brass, percussion, piano & tape, ''AllMusic.com''. The piece ...
'', a work for chamber orchestra and tape. The tape parts were created at Pierre Schaeffer's studio and were later revised at Columbia University. In 1950, Schaeffer gave the first public (non-broadcast) concert of musique concrète at the
École Normale de Musique de Paris The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, Île-de-France, France. At the time of the school's foundation in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot, Alfred Cortot. The term ''école normale'' (Eng ...
. "Schaeffer used a
PA system A public address system (or PA system) is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume (loudness) of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound sou ...
, several turntables, and mixers. The performance did not go well, as creating live montages with turntables had never been done before." Later that same year, Pierre Henry collaborated with Schaeffer on ''Symphonie pour un homme seul'' (1950) the first major work of musique concrete. In Paris in 1951, in what was to become an important worldwide trend, RTF established the first studio for the production of electronic music. Also in 1951, Schaeffer and Henry produced an opera, ''Orpheus'', for concrete sounds and voices. By 1951 the work of Schaeffer, composer-percussionist Pierre Henry, and sound engineer Jacques Poullin had received official recognition and The Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète, Club d 'Essai de la
Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF; ''French Radio and Television Broadcasting'') was the French national public broadcaster television organization established on 9 February 1949 to replace the post-war "''Radiodiffusion Française''" ...
was established at RTF in Paris, the ancestor of the ORTF.


Elektronische Musik

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...
worked briefly in Schaeffer's studio in 1952, and afterward for many years at the WDR Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music. 1954 saw the advent of what would now be considered authentic electric plus acoustic compositions—acoustic instrumentation augmented/accompanied by recordings of manipulated or electronically generated sound. Three major works were premiered that year: Varèse's ''Déserts'', for chamber ensemble and tape sounds, and two works by
Otto Luening Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music. Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene, a conduct ...
and
Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar District ...
: ''Rhapsodic Variations for the Louisville Symphony'' and ''A Poem in Cycles and Bells'', both for orchestra and tape. Because he had been working at Schaeffer's studio, the tape part for Varèse's work contains much more concrete sounds than electronic. "A group made up of wind instruments, percussion and piano alternate with the mutated sounds of factory noises and ship sirens and motors, coming from two loudspeakers.". At the German premiere of ''Déserts'' in Hamburg, which was conducted by
Bruno Maderna Bruno Maderna (21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian conductor and composer. Life Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later decided to take the name of his mother, Caterina Carolina Maderna.Interview with Maderna‘s th ...
, the tape controls were operated by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The title ''Déserts'' suggested to Varèse not only "all physical deserts (of sand, sea, snow, of outer space, of empty streets), but also the deserts in the mind of man; not only those stripped aspects of nature that suggest bareness, aloofness, timelessness, but also that remote inner space no telescope can reach, where man is alone, a world of mystery and essential loneliness." In Cologne, what would become the most famous electronic music studio in the world, was officially opened at the radio studios of the
NWDR Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR; ''Northwest German Broadcasting'') was the organization responsible for public broadcasting in the German Länder of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia from 22 September 1945 to ...
in 1953, though it had been in the planning stages as early as 1950 and early compositions were made and broadcast in 1951. The brainchild of
Werner Meyer-Eppler Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist. Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
, Robert Beyer, and
Herbert Eimert Herbert Eimert (8 April 1897 – 15 December 1972) was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer. Education Herbert Eimert was born in Bad Kreuznach. He studied music theory and compo ...
(who became its first director), the studio was soon joined by Karlheinz Stockhausen and
Gottfried Michael Koenig Gottfried Michael Koenig (5 October 1926 – 30 December 2021)"In Memoriam Got ...
. In his 1949 thesis ''Elektronische Klangerzeugung: Elektronische Musik und Synthetische Sprache'', Meyer-Eppler conceived the idea to synthesize music entirely from electronically produced signals; in this way, ''elektronische Musik'' was sharply differentiated from French ''musique concrète'', which used sounds recorded from acoustical sources. In 1953, Stockhausen composed his '' Studie I'', followed in 1954 by '' Elektronische Studie II''—the first electronic piece to be published as a score. In 1955, more experimental and electronic studios began to appear. Notable were the creation of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio at the
NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...
in Tokyo founded by
Toshiro Mayuzumi Toshiro Mayuzumi (黛 敏郎 ''Mayuzumi Toshirō'' ; 20 February 1929 – 10 April 1997) was a Japanese composer known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew i ...
, and the Philips studio at Eindhoven, the Netherlands, which moved to the
University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
as the Institute of Sonology in 1960. "With Stockhausen and
Mauricio Kagel Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer. Biography Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
in residence, olognebecame a year-round hive of charismatic avante-gardism." on two occasions combining electronically generated sounds with relatively conventional orchestras—in ''
Mixtur ''Mixtur'', for orchestra, 4 sine-wave generators, and 4 ring modulators, is an orchestral composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1964, and is Nr. 16 in his catalogue of works. It exists in three versions: the ...
'' (1964) and '' Hymnen, dritte Region mit Orchester'' (1967). Stockhausen stated that his listeners had told him his electronic music gave them an experience of "outer space", sensations of flying, or being in a "fantastic dream world".


Japan

The earliest group of electronic musical instruments in Japan,
Yamaha Magna Organ This is a list of products made by Yamaha Corporation. This does not include products made by Bösendorfer, which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corporation since February 1, 2008. For products made by Yamaha Motor Company, see the ...
was built in 1935.Before the Second World War in Japan, several "electrical" instruments seem already to have been developed (''see :ja:電子音楽#黎明期''), and in 1935 a kind of "''electronic''" musical instrument, the
Yamaha Magna Organ This is a list of products made by Yamaha Corporation. This does not include products made by Bösendorfer, which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corporation since February 1, 2008. For products made by Yamaha Motor Company, see the ...
, was developed. It seems to be a multi-timbral keyboard instrument based on electrically blown free reeds with pickups, possibly similar to the
electrostatic reed organ An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed ...
s developed by Frederick Albert Hoschke in 1934 then manufactured by Everett and
Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...
until 1961.
however, after World War II, Japanese composers such as
Minao Shibata ; September 29, 1916, Tokyo – February 2, 1996, Tokyo) was a Japanese composer. Minao studied botany at Tokyo University, graduating in 1939, and made further studies in the fine arts while studying music privately with Saburo Moroi and playin ...
knew of the development of electronic musical instruments. By the late 1940s, Japanese composers began experimenting with electronic music and institutional sponsorship enabled them to experiment with advanced equipment. Their infusion of
Asian music Asian music encompasses numerous musical styles originating in many Asian countries. Musical traditions in Asia * Music of Central Asia ** Music of Afghanistan (when included in the definition of Central Asia) ** Music of Kazakhstan ** Music ...
into the emerging genre would eventually support Japan's popularity in the development of music technology several decades later.. Following the foundation of electronics company
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...
in 1946, composers
Toru Takemitsu TORU or Toru may refer to: * TORU, spacecraft system * Toru (given name), Japanese male given name * Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western ...
and Minao Shibata independently explored possible uses for electronic technology to produce music. Takemitsu had ideas similar to musique concrète, which he was unaware of, while Shibata foresaw the development of synthesizers and predicted a drastic change in music. Sony began producing popular magnetic tape recorders for government and public use.. The avant-garde collective Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop), founded in 1950, was offered access to emerging audio technology by Sony. The company hired Toru Takemitsu to demonstrate their tape recorders with compositions and performances of electronic tape music. The first electronic tape pieces by the group were "Toraware no Onna" ("Imprisoned Woman") and "Piece B", composed in 1951 by Kuniharu Akiyama.. Many of the electroacoustic tape pieces they produced were used as incidental music for radio, film, and theatre. They also held concerts employing a
slide show A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be manu ...
synchronized with a recorded soundtrack. Composers outside of the Jikken Kōbō, such as
Yasushi Akutagawa was a Japanese composer and conductor. His father was Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Biography Akutagawa was born and raised in Tabata, Tokyo, the son of writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa studied composition with Kunihiko Hashimoto, Kan'ichi S ...
, Saburo Tominaga, and
Shirō Fukai was a Japanese composer.The Japan biographical encyclopedia & who's who: Issue 3 Rengō Puresu Sha - 1964 "FUKAI Shiro (1907- ) Composer. Musical critic. Born in Akita Prefecture. Graduated from the Science Section of the Seventh Higher School ( ...
, were also experimenting with
radiophonic The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electron ...
tape music between 1952 and 1953. Musique concrète was introduced to Japan by
Toshiro Mayuzumi Toshiro Mayuzumi (黛 敏郎 ''Mayuzumi Toshirō'' ; 20 February 1929 – 10 April 1997) was a Japanese composer known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew i ...
, who was influenced by a Pierre Schaeffer concert. From 1952, he composed tape music pieces for a comedy film, a radio broadcast, and a radio drama.. However, Schaeffer's concept of ''
sound object In musique concrete and electronic music theory the term sound object (originally ''l'objet sonore'') is used to refer to a primary unit of sonic material and often specifically refers to recorded sound rather than written music using manuscript o ...
'' was not influential among Japanese composers, who were mainly interested in overcoming the restrictions of human performance.. This led to several Japanese electroacoustic musicians making use of serialism and
twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
s, evident in
Yoshirō Irino was a Japanese composer. Biography Irino was born in Soviet Vladivostok. He attended high school in Tokyo and went on to study economics at Tokyo Imperial University (now University of Tokyo). After World War II, Irino, along with colleagues ...
's 1951 dodecaphonic piece "Concerto da Camera", in the organization of electronic sounds in Mayuzumi's "X, Y, Z for Musique Concrète", and later in Shibata's electronic music by 1956.. Modelling the NWDR studio in Cologne, established an NHK electronic music studio in Tokyo in 1954, which became one of the world's leading electronic music facilities.The NHK electronic music studio was equipped with technologies such as tone-generating and audio processing equipment, recording and radiophonic equipment, ondes Martenot,
Monochord A monochord, also known as sonometer (see below), is an ancient musical and scientific laboratory instrument, involving one (mono-) string ( chord). The term ''monochord'' is sometimes used as the class-name for any musical stringed instrument h ...
and
Melochord Harald Bode (October 19, 1909 – January 15, 1987) was a German engineer and pioneer in the development of electronic musical instruments. Biography Harald Bode was born in 1909 in Hamburg, Germany. At the age of 18 he lost his parents an ...
, sine-wave oscillators, tape recorders,
ring modulator In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...
s,
band-pass filter A band-pass filter or bandpass filter (BPF) is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects (attenuates) frequencies outside that range. Description In electronics and signal processing, a filter is usually a two-port ...
s, and four- and eight-channel mixers. Musicians associated with the studio included Toshiro Mayuzumi, Minao Shibata, Joji Yuasa,
Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions usin ...
, and Toru Takemitsu. The studio's first electronic compositions were completed in 1955, including Mayuzumi's five-minute pieces "Studie I: Music for Sine Wave by Proportion of Prime Number", "Music for Modulated Wave by Proportion of Prime Number" and "Invention for Square Wave and Sawtooth Wave" produced using the studio's various tone-generating capabilities, and Shibata's 20-minute stereo piece "Musique Concrète for Stereophonic Broadcast".


United States

In the United States, electronic music was being created as early as 1939, when John Cage published '' Imaginary Landscape, No. 1'', using two variable-speed turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano, and cymbal, but no electronic means of production. Cage composed five more "Imaginary Landscapes" between 1942 and 1952 (one withdrawn), mostly for percussion ensemble, though No. 4 is for twelve radios and No. 5, written in 1952, uses 42 recordings and is to be realized as a magnetic tape. According to Otto Luening, Cage also performed ''
Williams Mix ''Williams Mix'' (1951–1953) is a 4'15" musique concrete composition by John Cage for eight simultaneously played independent quarter-inch magnetic tapes. The first octophonic music, the piece was created by Cage with the assistance of Earle B ...
'' at Donaueschingen in 1954, using eight loudspeakers, three years after his alleged collaboration. ''Williams Mix'' was a success at the
Donaueschingen Festival The Donaueschingen Festival (german: Donaueschinger Musiktage, links=no) is a festival for new music that takes place every October in the small town of Donaueschingen in south-western Germany. Founded in 1921, it is considered the oldest festiva ...
, where it made a "strong impression". The Music for Magnetic Tape Project was formed by members of the New York School ( John Cage,
Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since ...
, Christian Wolff,
David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...
, and
Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...
),. and lasted three years until 1954. Cage wrote of this collaboration: "In this social darkness, therefore, the work of Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff continues to present a brilliant light, for the reason that at the several points of notation, performance, and audition, action is provocative.". Cage completed ''Williams Mix'' in 1953 while working with the Music for Magnetic Tape Project."Carolyn Brown arle Brown's wifewas to dance in Cunningham's company, while Brown himself was to participate in Cage's 'Project for Music for Magnetic Tape.'... funded by Paul Williams (dedicatee of the 1953 ''Williams Mix''), who—like Robert Rauschenberg—was a former student of Black Mountain College, which Cage and Cunnigham had first visited in the summer of 1948" (). The group had no permanent facility, and had to rely on borrowed time in commercial sound studios, including the studio of Bebe and Louis Barron.


Columbia-Princeton Center

In the same year
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
purchased its first tape recorder—a professional
Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...
machine—to record concerts. Vladimir Ussachevsky, who was on the music faculty of Columbia University, was placed in charge of the device, and almost immediately began experimenting with it. Herbert Russcol writes: "Soon he was intrigued with the new sonorities he could achieve by recording musical instruments and then superimposing them on one another.". Ussachevsky said later: "I suddenly realized that the tape recorder could be treated as an instrument of sound transformation." On Thursday, 8 May 1952, Ussachevsky presented several demonstrations of tape music/effects that he created at his Composers Forum, in the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University. These included ''Transposition, Reverberation, Experiment, Composition'', and ''Underwater Valse''. In an interview, he stated: "I presented a few examples of my discovery in a public concert in New York together with other compositions I had written for conventional instruments." Otto Luening, who had attended this concert, remarked: "The equipment at his disposal consisted of an Ampex tape recorder . . . and a simple box-like device designed by the brilliant young engineer, Peter Mauzey, to create feedback, a form of mechanical reverberation. Other equipment was borrowed or purchased with personal funds.". Just three months later, in August 1952, Ussachevsky traveled to Bennington, Vermont, at Luening's invitation to present his experiments. There, the two collaborated on various pieces. Luening described the event: "Equipped with earphones and a flute, I began developing my first tape-recorder composition. Both of us were fluent improvisors and the medium fired our imaginations." They played some early pieces informally at a party, where "a number of composers almost solemnly congratulated us saying, 'This is it' ('it' meaning the music of the future)." Word quickly reached New York City. Oliver Daniel telephoned and invited the pair to "produce a group of short compositions for the October concert sponsored by the American Composers Alliance and Broadcast Music, Inc., under the direction of
Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appear ...
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After some hesitation, we agreed. . . . Henry Cowell placed his home and studio in Woodstock, New York, at our disposal. With the borrowed equipment in the back of Ussachevsky's car, we left Bennington for Woodstock and stayed two weeks. . . . In late September 1952, the travelling laboratory reached Ussachevsky's living room in New York, where we eventually completed the compositions." Two months later, on 28 October, Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening presented the first Tape Music concert in the United States. The concert included Luening's ''Fantasy in Space'' (1952)—"an impressionistic virtuoso piece" using manipulated recordings of flute—and ''Low Speed'' (1952), an "exotic composition that took the flute far below its natural range." Both pieces were created at the home of Henry Cowell in Woodstock, New York. After several concerts caused a sensation in New York City, Ussachevsky and Luening were invited onto a live broadcast of NBC's Today Show to do an interview demonstration—the first televised electroacoustic performance. Luening described the event: "I improvised some lutesequences for the tape recorder. Ussachevsky then and there put them through electronic transformations." The score for ''
Forbidden Planet ''Forbidden Planet'' is a 1956 American science fiction film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, and directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on an original film story by Allen Adler and Irvi ...
'', by
Louis and Bebe Barron Bebe Barron ( – ) and Louis Barron ( – ) were two American pioneers in the field of electronic music. They are credited with writing the first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in the United States, and the first entirely ele ...
,"From at least Louis and Bebbe Barron's soundtrack for ''The Forbidden Planet'' onwards, electronic music—in particular synthetic timbre—has impersonated alien worlds in film" (). was entirely composed using custom-built electronic circuits and tape recorders in 1956 (but no synthesizers in the modern sense of the word).


Australia

The world's first computer to play music was
CSIRAC CSIRAC (; ''Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer''), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-gener ...
, which was designed and built by
Trevor Pearcey Trevor Pearcey (5 March 1919 – 27 January 1998) was a British-born Australian scientist, who created CSIRAC, one of the first stored-program electronic computers in the world. Born in Woolwich, London, he graduated from Imperial College in 19 ...
and Maston Beard. Mathematician Geoff Hill programmed the CSIRAC to play popular musical melodies from the very early 1950s. In 1951 it publicly played the
Colonel Bogey March The "Colonel Bogey March" is a British march that was composed in 1914 by Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts (1881–1945) (pen name Kenneth J. Alford), a British Army bandmaster who later became the director of music for the Royal Marines at Plymouth ...
, of which no known recordings exist, only the accurate reconstruction. However,
CSIRAC CSIRAC (; ''Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer''), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-gener ...
played standard repertoire and was not used to extend musical thinking or composition practice. CSIRAC was never recorded, but the music played was accurately reconstructed. The oldest known recordings of computer-generated music were played by the
Ferranti Mark 1 The Ferranti Mark 1, also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer in its sales literature, and thus sometimes called the Manchester Ferranti, was produced by British electrical engineering firm Ferranti Ltd. It was the world's first commer ...
computer, a commercial version of the
Baby An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...
Machine from the
University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...
in the autumn of 1951. The music program was written by
Christopher Strachey Christopher S. Strachey (; 16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design and computer time-sharing.F. J. Corbató, et al. ...
.


Mid-to-late 1950s

The impact of computers continued in 1956.
Lejaren Hiller Lejaren Arthur Hiller Jr. (February 23, 1924, New York City – January 26, 1994, Buffalo, New York)Lejaren Hi ...
and Leonard Isaacson composed ''
Illiac Suite ''Illiac Suite'' (later retitled String Quartet No. 4)Andrew Stiller, "Hiller, Lejaren (Arthur)", ''Grove Music Online'' (reviewed December 3, 2010; accessed December 14, 2014). is a 1957 composition for string quartet which is generally agreed t ...
'' for string quartet, the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
ic composition. "... Hiller postulated that a computer could be taught the rules of a particular style and then called on to compose accordingly." Later developments included the work of
Max Mathews Max Vernon Mathews (November 13, 1926 in Columbus, Nebraska, USA – April 21, 2011 in San Francisco, CA, USA) was a pioneer of computer music. Biography Mathews studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and the Ma ...
at
Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
, who developed the influential
MUSIC I Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
program in 1957, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music.
Vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...
technology was also a major development in this early era. In 1956, Stockhausen composed ''
Gesang der Jünglinge ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The vo ...
'', the first major work of the Cologne studio, based on a text from the ''
Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology ...
''. An important technological development of that year was the invention of the Clavivox synthesizer 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 ...
with subassembly by
Robert Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesi ...
. In 1957, Kid Baltan ( Dick Raaymakers) and
Tom Dissevelt Thomas Dissevelt (4 March 1921, Leiden – 1989) was a Dutch composer and musician. He is known as a pioneer in the merging of electronic music and jazz. He married Rina Reys, sister of Rita Reys, in 1946. Tom Dissevelt was also known as bass ...
released their debut album, ''Song Of The Second Moon'', recorded at the Philips studio in the Netherlands. The public remained interested in the new sounds being created around the world, as can be deduced by the inclusion of Varèse's ''
Poème électronique ''Poème électronique'' (English Translation: "Electronic Poem") is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned L ...
'', which was played over four hundred loudspeakers at the Philips Pavilion of the 1958
Brussels World Fair Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (french: Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles de 1958, nl, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Bel ...
. That same year,
Mauricio Kagel Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer. Biography Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
, an Argentine composer, composed ''Transición II''. The work was realized at the WDR studio in Cologne. Two musicians performed on the piano, one in the traditional manner, the other playing on the strings, frame, and case. Two other performers used tape to unite the presentation of live sounds with the future of prerecorded materials from later on and its past of recordings made earlier in the performance. In 1958, Columbia-Princeton developed the
RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer The RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer (nicknamed ''Victor'') was the first programmable electronic synthesizer and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, w ...
, the first programmable synthesizer. Prominent composers such as Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Halim El-Dabh, Bülent Arel and
Mario Davidovsky Mario Davidovsky (March 4, 1934 – August 23, 2019) was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions ca ...
used the
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
Synthesizer extensively in various compositions. One of the most influential composers associated with the early years of the studio was Egypt's
Halim El-Dabh Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had ...
who, after having developed the earliest known electronic tape music in 1944, became more famous for ''Leiyla and the Poet'', a 1959 series of electronic compositions that stood out for its immersion and seamless
fusion Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole. Fusion may also refer to: Science and technology Physics *Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
of electronic and
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
, in contrast to the more mathematical approach used by serial composers of the time such as Babbitt. El-Dabh's ''Leiyla and the Poet'', released as part of the album ''
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Location The CMC is hou ...
'' in 1961, would be cited as a strong influence by a number of musicians, ranging from Neil Rolnick,
Charles Amirkhanian Charles Benjamin Amirkhanian (born January 19, 1945; Fresno, California) is an American composer. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian origin. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music. Perfor ...
and Alice Shields to rock musicians Frank Zappa and
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (WCPAEB) was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group created music that possessed an eerie, and at times sinister atmosphere, and contained material that was ...
. Following the emergence of differences within the GRMC (Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète) Pierre Henry, Philippe Arthuys, and several of their colleagues, resigned in April 1958. Schaeffer created a new collective, called
Groupe de Recherches Musicales A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation. Air and aviation groups The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches ...
(GRM) and set about recruiting new members including
Luc Ferrari Luc Ferrari (February 5, 1929 – August 22, 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music. He was a founding member of RTF's Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongsid ...
,
Beatriz Ferreyra Beatriz Mercedes Ferreyra (born 21 June 1937) is an Argentine composer. She lives and works in Hameau de Hodeng, France. Early work and study Ferreyra was born in Cordoba, Argentina, and studied piano with Celia Bronstein in Buenos Aires. S ...
,
François-Bernard Mâche François-Bernard Mâche (born 4 April 1935, Clermont-Ferrand) is a French composer of contemporary music. Biography Born into a family of musicians, he is a former student of Émile Passani and Olivier Messiaen and has also received a diplom ...
,
Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...
, Bernard Parmegiani, and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou. Later arrivals included
Ivo Malec Ivo Malec (30 March 1925, in Zagreb – 14 August 2019, in Paris) was a Croatian-born French composer, music educator and conductor. One of the earliest Yugoslav composers to obtain high international regard, his works have been performed by s ...
, Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and
François Bayle François Bayle (born 27 April 1932, in Toamasina, Madagascar) is a composer of Electronic Music, Musique concrète. He coined the term ''Acousmatic Music''. Career In the 1950s he studied with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Sto ...
.


Expansion: 1960s

These were fertile years for electronic music—not just for academia, but for independent artists as synthesizer technology became more accessible. By this time, a strong community of composers and musicians working with new sounds and instruments was established and growing. 1960 witnessed the composition of Luening's ''Gargoyles'' for violin and tape as well as the premiere of Stockhausen's ''
Kontakte ''Kontakte'' ("Contacts") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958–60 at the ''Westdeutscher Rundfunk'' (WDR) electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig. The score is Nr. 12 ...
'' for electronic sounds, piano, and percussion. This piece existed in two versions—one for 4-channel tape, and the other for tape with human performers. "In ''Kontakte'', Stockhausen abandoned traditional musical form based on linear development and dramatic climax. This new approach, which he termed 'moment form', resembles the 'cinematic splice' techniques in early twentieth-century film." The
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
had been in use since the 1920s but it attained a degree of popular recognition through its use in science-fiction film soundtrack music in the 1950s (e.g.,
Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...
's classic score for ''
The Day the Earth Stood Still ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' (a.k.a. ''Farewell to the Master'' and ''Journey to the World'') is a 1951 American science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. It stars Michael Re ...
''). In the UK in this period, the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electroni ...
(established in 1958) came to prominence, thanks in large measure to their work on the BBC science-fiction series '' Doctor Who''. One of the most influential British electronic artists in this period was Workshop staffer
Delia Derbyshire Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including her electronic arrangement of the theme ...
, who is now famous for her 1963 electronic realisation of the iconic ''Doctor Who'' theme, composed by
Ron Grainer Ronald Erle Grainer (11 August 1922 – 21 February 1981) was an Australian composer who worked for most of his professional career in the United Kingdom. He is mostly remembered for his television and film score music, especially the theme mus ...
. During the time of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
fellowship for studies in electronic music (1958)
Josef Tal Josef Tal ( he, יוסף טל; September 18, 1910 – August 25, 2008) was an Israeli composer. He wrote three Hebrew operas; four German operas, dramatic scenes; six symphonies; 13 concerti; chamber music, including three string quartets; ins ...
went on a study tour in the US and Canada. He summarized his conclusions in two articles that he submitted to UNESCO. In 1961, he established the ''Centre for Electronic Music in Israel'' at
The Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public university, public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein ...
of Jerusalem. In 1962,
Hugh Le Caine Hugh Le Caine (May 27, 1914 – July 3, 1977) was a Canadian physicist, composer, and instrument builder. Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in northwestern Ontario. At a young age, he began making musical instruments. In yo ...
arrived in Jerusalem to install his ''Creative Tape Recorder'' in the centre. In the 1990s Tal conducted, together with Dr. Shlomo Markel, in cooperation with the
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology ( he, הטכניון – מכון טכנולוגי לישראל) is a public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion ...
, and the
Volkswagen Foundation The Volkswagen Foundation (German: ''VolkswagenStiftung'') is the largest German private nonprofit organization involved in the promotion and support of academic research. It is not affiliated to the present company, the Volkswagen Group. It wa ...
a research project ('Talmark') aimed at the development of a novel musical notation system for electronic music. Milton Babbitt composed his first electronic work using the synthesizer—his ''Composition for Synthesizer'' (1961)—which he created using the RCA synthesizer at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. The collaborations also occurred across oceans and continents. In 1961, Ussachevsky invited Varèse to the Columbia-Princeton Studio (CPEMC). Upon arrival, Varese embarked upon a revision of ''Déserts''. He was assisted by
Mario Davidovsky Mario Davidovsky (March 4, 1934 – August 23, 2019) was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions ca ...
and Bülent Arel. The intense activity occurring at CPEMC and elsewhere inspired the establishment of the
San Francisco Tape Music Center The San Francisco Tape Music Center, or SFTMC, was founded in the summer of 1962 by composers Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick as a collaborative, "non profit corporation developed and maintained" by local composers working with tape recorders a ...
in 1963 by
Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the foun ...
, with additional members
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...
,
Ramon Sender Ramón Sender Barayón (born October 29, 1934) is a composer, visual artist and writer. He was the co-founder with Morton Subotnick of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1962. He is the son of Spanish writer Ramón J. Sender. Education ...
, Anthony Martin, and
Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for ...
. Later, the Center moved to
Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...
, directed by
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...
, where it is today known as the Center for Contemporary Music."A central figure in post-war electronic art music,
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...
. 1932is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. west coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music." from CD liner notes, "Accordion & Voice", Pauline Oliveros, Record Label: Important, Catalog number IMPREC140: 793447514024.
Pietro Grossi was an Italian pioneer of computer composition and tape music, who first experimented with electronic techniques in the early sixties. Grossi was a cellist and composer, born in Venice in 1917. He founded the S 2F M (Studio de Fonologia Musicale di Firenze) in 1963 to experiment with electronic sound and composition. Simultaneously in San Francisco, composer Stan Shaff and equipment designer Doug McEachern, presented the first "Audium" concert at San Francisco State College (1962), followed by work at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...
(1963), conceived of as in time, controlled movement of sound in space. Twelve speakers surrounded the audience, four speakers were mounted on a rotating, mobile-like construction above.. In an SFMOMA performance the following year (1964), ''San Francisco Chronicle'' music critic Alfred Frankenstein commented, "the possibilities of the space-sound continuum have seldom been so extensively explored". In 1967, the first Audium, a "sound-space continuum" opened, holding weekly performances through 1970. In 1975, enabled by seed money from the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, a new Audium opened, designed floor to ceiling for spatial sound composition and performance. "In contrast, there are composers who manipulated sound space by locating multiple speakers at various locations in a performance space and then switching or panning the sound between the sources. In this approach, the composition of spatial manipulation is dependent on the location of the speakers and usually exploits the acoustical properties of the enclosure. Examples include Varese's ''Poeme Electronique'' (tape music performed in the Philips Pavilion of the 1958 World Fair, Brussels) and Stan Schaff's ''Audium'' installation, currently active in San Francisco." Through weekly programs (over 4,500 in 40 years), Shaff "sculpts" sound, performing now-digitized spatial works live through 176 speakers.
Jean-Jacques Perrey Jean Marcel Leroy (; 20 January 1929 – 4 November 2016), popularly known as Jean-Jacques Perrey, was a French electronic music performer, composer, producer, and promoter. He is considered a pioneer of pop electronica.Gershon Kingsley Gershon Kingsley (born Götz Gustav Ksinski; October 28, 1922 – December 10, 2019) was a German-American composer, a pioneer of electronic music and the Moog synthesizer, a partner in the electronic music duo Perrey and Kingsley, founde ...
and solo. A well-known example of the use of Moog's full-sized
Moog modular synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...
is the 1968 ''
Switched-On Bach ''Switched-On Bach'' is the debut album by American composer Wendy Carlos, originally released under her birth name Walter Carlos in October 1968 by Columbia Records. Produced by Carlos and Rachel Elkind, the album is a collection of pieces by Jo ...
'' album by
Wendy Carlos Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving ...
, which triggered a craze for synthesizer music. In 1969
David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...
brought a
Moog modular synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...
and Ampex tape machines to the
National Institute of Design The National Institutes of Design (NIDs) are a group of autonomous public design universities in India, with the primary institute, founded in 1961, in Ahmedabad, with extension campuses in Gandhinagar and Bengaluru. The other NIDs are loc ...
in Ahmedabad with the support of the
Sarabhai family The Sarabhai family is a prominent Indian family active in several fields. The patriarch, Ambalal Sarabhai, was a leading industrialist. While he created significant wealth, his children interested themselves in a wide variety of other endeavou ...
, forming the foundation of India's first electronic music studio. Here a group of composers Jinraj Joshipura, Gita Sarabhai, SC Sharma, IS Mathur and Atul Desai developed experimental sound compositions between 1969 and 1973


Computer music

Musical melodies were first generated by the computer
CSIRAC CSIRAC (; ''Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer''), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-gener ...
in Australia in 1950. There were newspaper reports from America and England (early and recently) that computers may have played music earlier, but thorough research has debunked these stories as there is no evidence to support the newspaper reports (some of which were obviously speculative). Research has shown that people ''speculated'' about computers playing music, possibly because computers would make noises, but there is no evidence that they actually did it. The world's first computer to play music was
CSIRAC CSIRAC (; ''Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer''), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-gener ...
, which was designed and built by
Trevor Pearcey Trevor Pearcey (5 March 1919 – 27 January 1998) was a British-born Australian scientist, who created CSIRAC, one of the first stored-program electronic computers in the world. Born in Woolwich, London, he graduated from Imperial College in 19 ...
and Maston Beard in the 1950s. Mathematician Geoff Hill programmed the CSIRAC to play popular musical melodies from the very early 1950s. In 1951 it publicly played the "
Colonel Bogey March The "Colonel Bogey March" is a British march that was composed in 1914 by Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts (1881–1945) (pen name Kenneth J. Alford), a British Army bandmaster who later became the director of music for the Royal Marines at Plymouth ...
" of which no known recordings exist. However,
CSIRAC CSIRAC (; ''Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer''), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-gener ...
played standard repertoire and was not used to extend musical thinking or composition practice which is current computer-music practice. The first music to be performed in England was a performance of the British National Anthem that was programmed by
Christopher Strachey Christopher S. Strachey (; 16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design and computer time-sharing.F. J. Corbató, et al. ...
on the Ferranti Mark I, late in 1951. Later that year, short extracts of three pieces were recorded there by a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
outside broadcasting unit: the National Anthem, "
Ba, Ba Black Sheep "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" is an English nursery rhyme, the earliest printed version of which dates from around 1744. The words have not changed very much in two and a half centuries. It is sung to a variant of the 1761 French melody ''Ah! vous dira ...
", and "
In the Mood "In the Mood" is a popular big band-era jazz standard recorded by American bandleader Glenn Miller. "In the Mood" is based on the composition " Tar Paper Stomp" by Wingy Manone. The first recording under the name "In the Mood" was released by ...
" and this is recognised as the earliest recording of a computer to play music. This recording can be heard a
this Manchester University site
Researchers at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch declicked and restored this recording in 2016 and the results may be heard on
SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming s ...
. The late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s also saw the development of large mainframe computer synthesis. Starting in 1957, Max Mathews of Bell Labs developed the MUSIC programs, culminating in MUSIC V, a direct digital synthesis language.
Laurie Spiegel Laurie Spiegel (born September 20, 1945) is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software ''Music Mouse''. Sh ...
developed the algorithmic musical composition software " Music Mouse" (1986) for
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
, Amiga, and Atari computers.


Stochastic music

An important new development was the advent of computers to compose music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds.
Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...
began what is called ''musique stochastique'', or '' stochastic music'', which is a composing method that uses mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under a set of parameters. Xenakis used computers to compose pieces like ''ST/4'' for string quartet and ''ST/48'' for orchestra (both 1962), ''Morsima-Amorsima'', ''ST/10'', and ''Atrées''. He developed the computer system
UPIC UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique CEMAMu) is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer Iannis Xenakis. It was developed at the ''Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales'' ( CEMAMu) in Paris, and was ...
for translating graphical images into musical results and composed ''Mycènes Alpha'' (1978) with it.


Live electronics

In Europe in 1964,
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...
composed '' Mikrophonie I'' for
tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
, hand-held microphones, filters, and potentiometers, and ''Mixtur'' for orchestra, four sine-wave generators, and four
ring modulator In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...
s. In 1965 he composed '' Mikrophonie II'' for choir, Hammond organ, and ring modulators. In 1966–1967,
Reed Ghazala Qubais Reed Ghazala (born 1953), an American author, photographer, composer, musician and experimental instrument builder, is recognized as the "father of circuit bending," having discovered the technique in 1966, pioneered it, named it, and taug ...
discovered and began to teach " circuit bending"—the application of the creative short circuit, a process of chance short-circuiting, creating experimental electronic instruments, exploring sonic elements mainly of timbre and with less regard to pitch or rhythm, and influenced by John Cage's
aleatoric music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the ...
concept."This element of embracing errors is at the centre of Circuit Bending, it is about creating sounds that are not supposed to happen and not supposed to be heard (). In terms of musicality, as with electronic art music, it is primarily concerned with timbre and takes little regard for pitch and rhythm in a classical sense. ... . In a similar vein to Cage's aleatoric music, the art of Bending is dependent on chance, when a person prepares to bend they have no idea of the outcome" ().
Cosey Fanni Tutti Cosey Fanni Tutti (born Christine Carol Newby; 4 November 1951) is an English performance artist, musician and writer, best known for her time in the avant-garde groups Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. Tutti first performed under the name ...
's performance art and musical career explored the concept of 'acceptable' music and she went on to explore the use of sound as a means of desire or discomfort.
Wendy Carlos Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving ...
performed selections from her album ''Switched-On Bach'' on stage with a synthesizer with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; another live performance was with Kurzweil Baroque Ensemble for "Bach at the Beacon" in 1997. In June 2018,
Suzanne Ciani Suzanne Ciani (; born June 4, 1946) is an American musician, sound designer, composer, and record label executive who found early success in the 1970s with her electronic music and sound effects for films and television commercials. Her career ha ...
released ''LIVE Quadraphonic'', a live album documenting her first solo performance on a Buchla synthesizer in 40 years. It was one of the first quadraphonic vinyl releases in over 30 years.


Japanese instruments

In the 1950s,. : the first model by JVC was "EO-4420" in 1958. See also the Japanese Wikipedia article: " w:ja:ビクトロン#機種". Japanese electronic musical instruments began influencing the international music industry.. : the first model by
Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
was "D-1" in 1959."
Russell Hartenberger (2016)
''The Cambridge Companion to Percussion'', p. 84
Cambridge University Press
Ikutaro Kakehashi , also known by the nickname Taro, was a Japanese engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He founded the musical instrument manufacturers Ace Tone, Roland Corporation, and Boss Corporation, and the audiovisual electronics company ATV Corporation. ...
, who founded
Ace Tone Ace Electronic Industries Inc., or Ace Tone was a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, including electronic organs, analogue drum machines, and electronic drums, as well as amplifiers and effects pedals. Founded in 1960 by Ikutaro Kake ...
in 1960, developed his own version of electronic percussion that had been already popular on the overseas electronic organ. At
NAMM The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...
1964, he revealed it as the R-1 Rhythm Ace, a hand-operated percussion device that played electronic drum sounds manually as the user pushed buttons, in a similar fashion to modern electronic drum pads. In 1963,
Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, th ...
released the Donca-Matic DA-20, an electro-mechanical drum machine. In 1965, Nippon Columbia patented a fully electronic drum machine. Korg released the Donca-Matic DC-11 electronic drum machine in 1966, which they followed with the Korg Mini Pops, which was developed as an option for the Yamaha Electone electric organ. Korg's Stageman and Mini Pops series were notable for "natural metallic percussion" sounds and incorporating controls for drum "
breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...
and fill-ins." In 1967, Ace Tone founder
Ikutaro Kakehashi , also known by the nickname Taro, was a Japanese engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He founded the musical instrument manufacturers Ace Tone, Roland Corporation, and Boss Corporation, and the audiovisual electronics company ATV Corporation. ...
patented a preset rhythm-pattern generator using
diode matrix A diode matrix is a two-dimensional grid of wires: each "intersection" wherein one-row crosses over another has either a diode connecting them, or the wires are isolated from each other. It is one of the most popular techniques for implementing a ...
circuit similar to the Seeburg's prior filed in 1964 (See Drum machine#History), which he released as the FR-1 Rhythm Ace drum machine the same year. It offered 16 preset patterns, and four buttons to manually play each instrument sound ( cymbal,
claves Claves (; ) are a percussion instrument consisting of a pair of short, wooden sticks about 20–25 centimeters (8–10 inches) long and about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter. Although traditionally made of wood (typically rosewood, ebony o ...
,
cowbell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...
and bass drum). The rhythm patterns could also be cascaded together by pushing multiple rhythm buttons simultaneously, and the possible combination of rhythm patterns were more than a hundred. Ace Tone's Rhythm Ace drum machines found their way into
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
from the late 1960s, followed by Korg drum machines in the 1970s. Kakehashi later left Ace Tone and founded Roland Corporation in 1972, with Roland synthesizers and drum machines becoming highly influential for the next several decades. The company would go on to have a big impact on
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, and do more to shape popular electronic music than any other company.
Turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA sys ...
has origins in the invention of
direct-drive turntable A direct-drive turntable is one of the three main phonograph designs currently being produced. The other styles are the belt-drive turntable and the idler-wheel type. Each name is based upon the type of coupling used between the platter of the ...
s. Early
belt-drive turntable There are three main types of phonograph turntable drives being manufactured today: the belt-drive, idler-wheel and direct-drive systems; the names are based upon the type of coupling used between the platter of the turntable and the motor. In a ...
s were unsuitable for turntablism, since they had a slow start-up time, and they were prone to wear-and-tear and breakage, as the belt would break from backspin or scratching. The first direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now
Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...
), based in
Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
, Japan. It eliminated belts, and instead employed a motor to directly drive a platter on which a vinyl record rests.Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld
''The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies'', page 515
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable on the market, and the first in their influential Technics series of turntables. It was succeeded by the Technics SL-1100 and SL-1200 in the early 1970s, and they were widely adopted by hip hop musicians, with the SL-1200 remaining the most widely used turntable in DJ culture for several decades.Six Machines That Changed The Music World
''
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
'', May 2002


Jamaican dub music

In Jamaica, a form of popular electronic music emerged in the 1960s, dub music, rooted in sound system culture. Dub music was pioneered by studio engineers, such as Sylvan Morris,
King Tubby Osbourne Ruddock (28 January 1941 – 6 February 1989), better known as King Tubby, was a Jamaican sound engineer who greatly influenced the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s. Tubby's innovative studio work, which saw him elevate the ...
, Errol Thompson,
Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry; 20 March 1936 – 29 August 2021) was a Jamaican record producer, composer and singer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development o ...
, and
Scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosoph ...
, producing
reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
-influenced experimental music with electronic sound technology, in recording studios and at sound system parties. Their experiments included forms of tape-based composition comparable to aspects of '' musique concrète'', an emphasis on repetitive rhythmic structures (often stripped of their harmonic elements) comparable to minimalism, the electronic manipulation of spatiality, the sonic electronic manipulation of pre-recorded musical materials from mass media, deejays toasting over pre-recorded music comparable to
live electronic music Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
, remixing music,
turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA sys ...
,Nicholas Collins, Julio d' Escrivan Rincón (2007)
''The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music'', page 49
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...
and the mixing and scratching of vinyl. Despite the limited electronic equipment available to dub pioneers such as King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry, their experiments in remix culture were musically cutting-edge.Nicholas Collins, Margaret Schedel, Scott Wilson (2013)
''Electronic Music: Cambridge Introductions to Music'', page 20
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...
King Tubby, for example, was a sound system proprietor and electronics technician, whose small front-room studio in the Waterhouse ghetto of western Kingston was a key site of dub music creation.


Late 1960s to early 1980s


Rise of popular electronic music

In the late 1960s, pop and rock musicians, including
the Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by the ...
and
the Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
, began to use electronic instruments, like the
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
and Mellotron, to supplement and define their sound. In his book ''Electronic and Experimental Music'', Thom Holmes recognises the Beatles' 1966 recording "
Tomorrow Never Knows "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released in August 1966 as the final track on their album ''Revolver'', although it was the firs ...
" as the song that "ushered in a new era in the use of electronic music in rock and pop music" due to the band's incorporation of tape loops and reversed and speed-manipulated tape sounds. Also in the late 1960s, the music duo
Silver Apples Silver Apples were an American electronic rock group from New York, active between 1967 and 1970, before reforming in the mid-1990s. It was composed of Simeon (born Simeon Oliver Coxe III, June 4, 1938 – September 8, 2020), who performed ...
and experimental rock bands like
White Noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines ...
and
the United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, are regarded as pioneers in the electronic rock and electronica genres for their work in melding psychedelic rock with oscillators and synthesizers. The 1969 instrumental " Popcorn" written by Gershon Kingsley for ''Music To Moog By'' became a worldwide success due to the 1972 version made by
Hot Butter Hot Butter were an American instrumental band fronted by the keyboard player and studio musician Stan Free. The other band members were John Abbott, Bill Jerome, Steve Jerome, and Danny Jordan and Dave Mullaney. They were best known for their 19 ...
. By the end of the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer took a leading place in the sound of emerging
progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...
with bands including Pink Floyd, Yes,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer Emerson, Lake & Palmer (informally known as ELP) were an English progressive rock supergroup formed in London in 1970. The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitar, producer) and Carl Palmer (drums, percus ...
, and
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
making them part of their sound. Instrumental prog rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk,
Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...
, Can,
Neu! Neu! (; German for "New!"; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plan ...
, and
Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...
to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with
Roxy Music Roxy Music are an English rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter—and bassist Graham Simpson. The other longtime members are Phil Manzanera (guitar), Andy Mackay (saxophone ...
), would be a major influence on subsequent
electronic rock Electronic rock is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music, featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s, when rock bands began incorporating electronic instrum ...
..
Ambient dub Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It ...
was pioneered by King Tubby and other Jamaican
sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
ists, using DJ-inspired ambient electronics, complete with drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. It featured layering techniques and incorporated elements of world music, deep basslines and harmonic sounds.. Techniques such as a long echo delay were also used. Other notable artists within the genre include
Dreadzone Dreadzone are a British electronic music group. They have released eight studio albums, two live albums, and two compilations. Career Dreadzone were formed in London, England in 1993 when ex-Big Audio Dynamite drummer Greg Roberts teamed up ...
,
Higher Intelligence Agency Higher Intelligence Agency (HIA) is the main electronic music project of Birmingham, UK-based Bobby Bird. They were featured on Warp's 1994 ''Artificial Intelligence II'' compilation. Biography HIA was formed by Bird in 1992 around the same tim ...
,
The Orb The Orb are an English electronic music group founded in 1988 by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty. Known for their psychedelic sound, the Orb developed a cult following among clubbers "coming down" from drug-induced highs. Their influential 19 ...
, Ott,
Loop Guru Loop Guru is a worldbeat group consisting of bassist/guitarist Salman Gita (born Sam Dodson) and programmer Jamuud (born David Muddyman). They first met around 1980 and initially played together in The Transmitters and released their debut sin ...
, Woob and
Transglobal Underground Transglobal Underground (sometimes written as Trans-Global Underground) is an English electro-world music group, specializing in a fusion of western, Asian and African music styles (sometimes labelled world fusion and ethno techno). Their f ...
. Dub music influenced electronic musical techniques later adopted by hip hop music when Jamaican immigrant
DJ Kool Herc Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican-American DJ who is credited with contributing to the development of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in the 1970s through his "Back to ...
in the early 1970s introduced Jamaica's sound system culture and dub music techniques to America. One such technique that became popular in hip hop culture was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables in alternation, extending the b-dancers' favorite section. The turntable eventually went on to become the most visible electronic musical instrument, and occasionally the most virtuosic, in the 1980s and 1990s. Electronic rock was also produced by several Japanese musicians, including
Isao Tomita , often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realiz ...
's ''Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock'' (1972), which featured Moog synthesizer renditions of contemporary pop and rock songs, and Osamu Kitajima's progressive rock album ''Benzaiten'' (1974). The mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as
Jean Michel Jarre Jean-Michel André Jarre (; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanie ...
,
Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...
, Tomita and
Klaus Schulze Klaus Schulze (4 August 1947 – 26 April 2022) was a German electronic music pioneer, composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried and was a member of the Krautrock bands Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and The Cosmic Jokers ...
who were significant influences on the development of new-age music. The ''hi-tech'' appeal of these works created for some years the trend of listing the electronic musical equipment employed in the album sleeves, as a distinctive feature. Electronic music began to enter regularly in radio programming and top-sellers charts, as the French band
Space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually cons ...
with their debut studio album '' Magic Fly'' or Jarre with ''
Oxygène ''Oxygène'' (, en, Oxygen) is the third studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre. It was first released in France in December 1976 by Disques Motors, and distributed internationally in 1977 by Polydor Records. J ...
''. Between 1977 and 1981, Kraftwerk released albums such as '' Trans-Europe Express'', ''
The Man-Machine ''The Man-Machine'' (german: link=no, Die Mensch-Maschine) is the seventh studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk. It was released on May 1978 by Kling Klang in Germany and by Capitol Records elsewhere. A further refinement of the ...
'' or ''
Computer World ''Computer World'' (german: link=no, Computerwelt) is the eighth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released on 10 May 1981. The album deals with the themes of the rise of computers within society. In keeping with the album's co ...
'', which influenced subgenres of electronic music. In this era, the sound of rock musicians like
Mike Oldfield Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and document ...
and
The Alan Parsons Project The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompan ...
(who is credited the first rock song to feature a digital
vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...
in 1975, ''
The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myst ...
'') used to be arranged and blended with electronic effects and/or music as well, which became much more prominent in the mid-1980s.
Jeff Wayne Jeffry Wayne (born 1 July 1943) is an American-British composer, musician and lyricist. In 1978, he released ''Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds'', his musical adaptation of H. G. Wells' science-fiction novel ''The War of ...
achieved a long-lasting success with his 1978 electronic rock musical version of ''
The War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by ''Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appear ...
''.
Film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...
s also benefit from the electronic sound. During the 1970s and 1980s, Wendy Carlos composed the score for ''
A Clockwork Orange ''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to: * ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess ** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel *** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
'', '' The Shining'' and ''
Tron ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action- adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer ...
''. In 1977,
Gene Page Eugene Edgar Page Jr. (September 13, 1939 – August 24, 1998) was an American conductor, composer, arranger and record producer, most active from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s. His sound can be heard in the arrangements he did for Jeffer ...
recorded a disco version of the hit theme by John Williams from Steven Spielberg film ''
Close Encounters of the Third Kind ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story ...
''. Page's version peaked on the R&B chart at #30. The score of 1978 film '' Midnight Express'' composed by Italian synth-pioneer Giorgio Moroder won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
, as did it again in 54th Academy Awards, 1981 the score by
Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...
for ''Chariots of Fire''. After the arrival of punk rock, a form of basic electronic rock emerged, increasingly using new digital technology to replace other instruments. The American duo Suicide (band), Suicide, who arose from the punk scene in New York, utilized drum machines and synthesizers in a hybrid between electronics and punk on their Suicide (1977 album), eponymous 1977 album. Synth-pop pioneering bands which enjoyed success for years included Ultravox with their 1977 track "Hiroshima Mon Amour" on ''Ha!-Ha!-Ha!'', Yellow Magic Orchestra with their Yellow Magic Orchestra (album), self-titled album (1978), The Buggles with their prominent 1979 debut single ''Video Killed the Radio Star'',"'The Buggles' by Geoffrey Downes" (liner notes). ''The Age of Plastic'' 1999 reissue. Gary Numan with his solo debut album ''The Pleasure Principle (album), The Pleasure Principle'' and single ''Cars (song), Cars'' in 1979, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with their 1979 single ''Electricity (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song), Electricity'' featured on their Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (album), eponymous debut album, Depeche Mode with their first single ''Dreaming of Me'' recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 album ''Speak & Spell (album), Speak & Spell'', A Flock of Seagulls with their 1981 single ''Talking (A Flock of Seagulls song), Talking'', New Order (band), New Order with ''Ceremony (New Order song), Ceremony'' in 1981, and The Human League with their 1981 hit ''Don't You Want Me'' from their third album ''Dare (album), Dare''.. The definition of
MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...
and the development of digital audio made the development of purely electronic sounds much easier, with audio engineers, producers and composers exploring frequently the possibilities of virtually every new model of electronic sound equipment launched by manufacturers. Synth-pop sometimes used synthesizers to replace all other instruments, but it was more common that bands had one or more keyboardists in their line-ups along with guitarists, bassists, and/or drummers. These developments led to the growth of synth-pop, which after it was adopted by the New Romantic movement, allowed synthesizers to dominate the pop and rock music of the early 1980s until the style began to fall from popularity in the mid-to-end of the decade. Along with the aforementioned successful pioneers, key acts included Yazoo (band), Yazoo, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Talk Talk, Japan (band), Japan, and Eurythmics. Synth-pop was taken up across the world, with international hits for acts including Men Without Hats, Trans-X and Lime (band), Lime from Canada, Telex (band), Telex from Belgium, Peter Schilling, Sandra (singer), Sandra, Modern Talking, Propaganda (band), Propaganda and Alphaville (band), Alphaville from Germany, Yello from Switzerland and Azul y Negro from Spain. Also, the synth sound is a key feature of Italo-disco. Some synth-pop bands created futuristic visual styles of themselves to reinforce the idea of electronic sounds were linked primarily with technology, as Americans Devo and Spaniards Aviador Dro. Keyboard synthesizers became so common that even heavy metal music, heavy metal rock bands, a genre often regarded as the ''opposite'' in aesthetics, sound and lifestyle from that of electronic pop artists by fans of both sides, achieved worldwide success with themes as 1983 ''Jump (Van Halen song), Jump'' by Van Halen and 1986 ''The Final Countdown (song), The Final Countdown'' by Europe (band), Europe, which feature synths prominently.


Proliferation of electronic music research institutions

(EMS), formerly known as Electroacoustic Music in Sweden, is the Swedish national centre for electronic music and
sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
. The research organisation started in 1964 and is based in Stockholm. STEIM is a center for experimental musical instrument, research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. STEIM has existed since 1969. It was founded by Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, , Reinbert de Leeuw, and Konrad Boehmer. This group of Dutch composers had fought for the reformation of Amsterdam's feudal music structures; they insisted on Bruno Maderna's appointment as musical director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and enforced the first public fundings for experimental and improvised electronic music in the Netherlands. IRCAM in Paris became a major center for computer music research and realization and development of the Sogitec 4X computer system, . featuring then revolutionary real-time digital signal processing. Pierre Boulez's ''Répons'' (1981) for 24 musicians and 6 soloists used the 4X to transform and route soloists to a loudspeaker system. Barry Vercoe describes one of his experiences with early computer sounds:


Keyboard synthesizers

Released in 1970 by Moog Music, the Minimoog, Mini-Moog was among the first widely available, portable, and relatively affordable synthesizers. It became once the most widely used synthesizer at that time in both popular and electronic art music. Patrick Gleeson, playing live with Herbie Hancock at the beginning of the 1970s, pioneered the use of synthesizers in a touring context, where they were subject to stresses the early machines were not designed for. In 1974, the Studio for Electronic Music (WDR), WDR studio in Cologne acquired an EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer, which many composers used to produce notable electronic works—including Rolf Gehlhaar's ''Fünf deutsche Tänze'' (1975), Karlheinz Stockhausen's ''Sirius (Stockhausen), Sirius'' (1975–1976), and John McGuire (composer), John McGuire's ''Pulse Music III'' (1978). Thanks to Miniaturization, miniaturization of electronics in the 1970s, by the start of the 1980s keyboard synthesizers, became lighter and affordable, integrating into a single slim unit all the necessary audio synthesis electronics and the piano-style keyboard itself, in sharp contrast with the bulky machinery and "Cable management, cable spaguetty" employed along with the 1960s and 1970s. First, with analog synthesizers, the trend followed with digital synthesizers and samplers as well (see below).


Digital synthesizers

In 1975, the Japanese company
Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
licensed the algorithms for frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis) from John Chowning, who had experimented with it at Stanford University since 1971.. Yamaha's engineers began adapting Chowning's algorithm for use in a digital synthesizer, adding improvements such as the "key scaling" method to avoid the introduction of distortion that normally occurred in analog systems during frequency modulation. In 1980, Yamaha eventually released the first FM digital synthesizer, the Yamaha GS-1, but at an expensive price. In 1983, Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the Yamaha DX7, DX7, which also used FM synthesis and would become one of the best-selling synthesizers of all time. The DX7 was known for its recognizable bright tonalities that was partly due to an Oversampling, overachieving sampling rate of 57 kHz. The Korg Poly-800 is a synthesizer released by
Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, th ...
in 1983. Its initial list price of $795 made it the first fully programmable synthesizer that sold for less than $1000. It had 8-voice polyphony with one Digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) per voice. The Casio CZ synthesizers#CZ-101, Casio CZ-101 was the first and best-selling Phase distortion synthesis, phase distortion synthesizer in the Casio Casio CZ synthesizers, CZ line. Released in November 1984, it was one of the first (if not the first) fully programmable polyphonic synthesizers that was available for under $500. The Roland D-50 is a digital synthesizer produced by Roland Corporation, Roland and released in April 1987. Its features include subtractive synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analogue synthesis-styled layout design. The external Roland PG-1000 (1987–1990) programmer could also be attached to the D-50 for more complex manipulation of its sounds.


Samplers

A sampler (musical instrument), sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument which uses sound recordings (or "Sampling (music), samples") of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar riff from a funk song) or found sounds (e.g., sirens and ocean waves). The samples are loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. These sounds are then played back using the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, Music sequencer, sequencer or another triggering device (e.g., electronic drums) to perform or compose music. Because these samples are usually stored in digital memory, the information can be quickly accessed. A single sample may often be pitch shift, pitch-shifted to different pitches to produce musical scale (music), scales and chord (music), chords. Before computer memory-based samplers, musicians used tape replay keyboards, which store recordings on analog tape. When a key is pressed the tape head contacts the moving tape and plays a sound. The Mellotron was the most notable model, used by many groups in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but such systems were expensive and heavy due to the multiple tape mechanisms involved, and the range of the instrument was limited to three octaves at the most. To change sounds a new set of tapes had to be installed in the instrument. The emergence of the digital signal processing, digital sampler made sampling far more practical. The earliest digital sampling was done on the Electronic Music Studios, EMS Musys system, developed by Peter Grogono (software), David Cockerell (hardware and interfacing), and Peter Zinovieff (system design and operation) at their London (Putney) Studio c. 1969. The first commercially available sampling synthesizer was the Sampler (musical instrument)#Computer Music Melodian, Computer Music Melodian by Harry Mendell (1976). First released in 1977–1978, the Synclavier#Synclavier I, Synclavier I using FM synthesis, re-licensed from
Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
, and sold mostly to universities, proved to be highly influential among both electronic music composers and music producers, including Mike Thorne, an early adopter from the commercial world, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology, and distinctive sounds. The first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer was the Australian-produced Fairlight CMI, first available in 1979. These early sampling synthesizers used wavetable sample-based synthesis.Martin Russ
''Sound Synthesis and Sampling'', page 29
, CRC Press


Birth of MIDI

In 1980, a group of musicians and music merchants met to standardize an interface that new instruments could use to communicate control instructions with other instruments and computers. This standard was dubbed Musical Instrument Digital Interface (
MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...
) and resulted from a collaboration between leading manufacturers, initially Sequential Circuits, Oberheim Electronics, Oberheim, Roland Corporation, Roland—and later, other participants that included
Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
,
Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, th ...
, and Kawai (company), Kawai. A paper was authored by Dave Smith (engineer), Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits and proposed to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981. Then, in August 1983, the MIDI Specification 1.0 was finalized. MIDI technology allows a single keystroke, control wheel motion, pedal movement, or command from a microcomputer to activate every device in the studio remotely and synchrony, with each device responding according to conditions predetermined by the composer. MIDI instruments and software made powerful control of sophisticated instruments easily affordable by many studios and individuals. Acoustic sounds became reintegrated into studios via sampling (music), sampling and sampled-ROM-based instruments. Miller Puckette developed graphic signal-processing software for Sogitec 4X, 4X called Max (software), Max (after
Max Mathews Max Vernon Mathews (November 13, 1926 in Columbus, Nebraska, USA – April 21, 2011 in San Francisco, CA, USA) was a pioneer of computer music. Biography Mathews studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and the Ma ...
) and later ported it to Apple Macintosh, Macintosh (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for Opcode Systems, Opcode) for real-time MIDI control, bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background.


Sequencers and drum machines

The early 1980s saw the rise of bass synthesizers, the most influential being the Roland TB-303, a bass synthesizer and Music sequencer, sequencer released in late 1981 that later became a fixture in electronic dance music, particularly acid house. One of the first to use it was Charanjit Singh (musician), Charanjit Singh in 1982, though it wouldn't be popularized until Phuture's "Acid Tracks" in 1987.. Music sequencers began being used around the mid 20th century, and Tomita's albums in mid-1970s being later examples. In 1978, Yellow Magic Orchestra were using computer-based technology in conjunction with a synthesiser to produce popular music,. making their early use of the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer sequencer. Drum machines, also known as rhythm machines, also began being used around the late-1950s, with a later example being Osamu Kitajima's progressive rock album ''Benzaiten'' (1974), which used a rhythm machine along with electronic drums and a synthesizer. In 1977, Ultravox's "Hiroshima Mon Amour (song), Hiroshima Mon Amour" was one of the first singles to use the metronome-like percussion of a Roland TR-77 drum machine. In 1980, Roland Corporation released the Roland TR-808, TR-808, one of the first and most popular programmable drum machines. The first band to use it was Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1980, and it would later gain widespread popularity with the release of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" and Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock (song), Planet Rock" in 1982. The TR-808 was a fundamental tool in the later Detroit techno scene of the late 1980s, and was the drum machine of choice for Derrick May (musician), Derrick May and Juan Atkins.


Chiptunes

The characteristic lo-fi sound of chip music was initially the result of early computer's sound chips and sound cards' technical limitations; however, the sound has since become sought after in its own right. Common cheap popular sound chips of the first home computers of the 1980s include the MOS Technology SID, SID of the Commodore 64 and General Instrument AY-3-8912, General Instrument AY series and clones (like the Yamaha YM2149) used in the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX compatibles and Atari ST models, among others.


Late 1980s to 1990s


Rise of dance music

Synth-pop continued into the late 1980s, with a format that moved closer to dance music, including the work of acts such as British duos Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and The Communards, achieving success along much of the 1990s. The trend has continued to the present day with modern nightclubs worldwide regularly playing electronic dance music (EDM). Today, electronic dance music has radio stations, websites, and publications like ''Mixmag'' dedicated solely to the genre. Despite the industry's attempt to create a specific EDM brand, the initialism remains in use as an umbrella term for multiple genres, including dance-pop, House music, house, techno, Electro (music), electro, and Trance music, trance, as well as their respective subgenres.Richard James Burgess (2014), ''The History of Music Production''
page 115
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
EDM – Electronic Dance Music
Armada Music
Moreover, the genre has found commercial and cultural significance in the United States and North America, thanks to the wildly popular big room house/EDM sound that has been incorporated into the U.S. pop music and the rise of large-scale commercial raves such as Electric Daisy Carnival, Tomorrowland (festival), Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival.


Electronica

On the other hand, a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing became known under the " electronica" umbrella which was also a music scene in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. According to a 1997 ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' article, "the union of the nightclub, club community and Independent record label, independent labels" provided the experimental and trend-setting environment in which electronica acts developed and eventually reached the mainstream, citing American labels such as Astralwerks (The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Future Sound of London, Fluke (band), Fluke), Moonshine Music, Moonshine (DJ Keoki), Sims Records, Sims, and City of Angels (The Crystal Method) for popularizing the latest version of electronic music.


2000s and 2010s

As computer technology has become more accessible and music software has advanced, interacting with music production technology is now possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional performance, musical performance practices: for instance, laptop computer, laptop performance (''laptronica''), live coding and Algorave. In general, the term Live PA refers to any live performance of electronic music, whether with laptops, synthesizers, or other devices. Beginning around the year 2000, some software-based virtual studio environments emerged, with products such as Propellerhead's Reason (software), Reason and Ableton Live finding popular appeal. Such tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in microprocessor technology, it is now possible to create high-quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances have democratized music creation, leading to a massive increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music available to the general public via the internet. Software-based instruments and effect units (so-called "plugins") can be incorporated in a computer-based studio using the VST platform. Some of these instruments are more or less exact replicas of existing hardware (such as the Roland D-50, ARP Odyssey, Yamaha DX7, or Korg M1). In many cases, these software-based instruments are sonically indistinguishable from their physical counterpart.


Circuit bending

Circuit bending is the modification of battery-powered toys and synthesizers to create new unintended sound effects. It was pioneered by Reed Ghazala in the 1960s and Reed coined the name "circuit bending" in 1992.


Modular synth revival

Following the circuit bending culture, musicians also began to build their own modular synthesizers, causing a renewed interest in the early 1960s designs. Eurorack became a popular system.


See also

* Clavioline * Electronic sackbut * List of electronic music genres * New Interfaces for Musical Expression * Ondioline * Spectral music * Tracker music * Timeline of electronic music genres ;Live electronic music * List of electronic music festivals * Live electronic music


Footnotes


Sources

* * * * * * * *
archive
on 10 March 2011) * *
Online reprint
, NASA Ames Research Center Technical Memorandum facsimile 2000. * * * * * * * * * (First published in German in ''Melos'' 39 (January–February 1972): 42–44.) * * * * * (Excerpt exist o
History of Experimental Music in Northern California
* * * * * * * * * * (cloth); (pbk); (ebook). * *
Abstract
* * * * * * * * (at webcitation.org) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . Also published in German, as * * * * * * * * * . *


Further reading

* * * . Guide ID: A520831 (Edited). * * * * * (Originally published: New York: Twayne, 1998) * * * * * Chekalin, Mikhael (n.d.).
A. Patterson Light & Sound

itunes.apple.com Best of Electronic Music
* * * * Dorschel, Andreas, Gerhard Eckel, and Deniz Peters (eds.) (2012). ''Bodily Expression in Electronic Music: Perspectives on Reclaiming Performativity''. Routledge Research in Music 2. London and New York: Routledge. . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (US title: ; New York: Routledge, 1999 ) * * . English version as . Second English version as * * * * * * Strange, Allen (1983), ''Electronic Music: Systems, Technics, and Controls'', second ed. Dubuque, Iowa: W.C. Brown Co. . * * * * *


External links

*
History of Electroacoustic Music – Timeline

Electronic Music Foundation

History and Development of Electronic Music
{{DEFAULTSORT:Electronic Music Electronic music, 19th century in music 19th-century music genres 20th century in music 20th-century music genres 21st century in music 21st-century music genres Audio engineering New media Sound effects