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Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology 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, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. 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 units 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 consoles. 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 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 with computers was first demonstrated in the same decade. During the 1960s, digital computer music 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, with the adoption of polyphonic synthesizers, electronic drums, drum machines, and turntables, through the emergence of genres such as disco, krautrock, new wave, synth-pop, hip hop, and EDM. In the early 1980s mass-produced digital synthesizers, such as the Yamaha DX7, became popular, and MIDI (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 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 A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream ...
through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments. Ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music 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 and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in timbre 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 th ...
'' (1913)..


Early compositions

Developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s.; From the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger 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 Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...
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, Olivier Messiaen and Edgard Varèse. Further, Percy Grainger 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 in 1925 was followed by increased experimentation with record players. Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch 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 ''Imaginary Landscape No. 1'' is a composition for records of constant and variable frequency, large chinese cymbal and string piano by American composer John Cage and the first in the series of Imaginary Landscapes. It was composed in 1939. Co ...
'' in 1939 by adjusting the speeds of recorded tones. Composers began to experiment with newly developed sound-on-film technology. Recordings could be spliced together to create sound collages, 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, surrealism, poetry, sound, paint ...
, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Walter Ruttmann and Dziga Vertov. 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 was unveiled in 1935. Improvements to the technology were made using the AC biasing 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, while still a student in Cairo, used a cumbersome wire recorder 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 in the late 1950s.


Musique concrète

Following his work with
Studio d'Essai The ''Studio d'Essai'', later ''Club d'Essai'', was founded in 1942 by Pierre Schaeffer, played a role in the activities of the French resistance during World War II, and later became a center of musical activity. In 1942 the French composer and ...
at Radiodiffusion Française (RDF), during the early 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer is credited with originating the theory and practice of musique concrète. In the late 1940s, experiments in sound-based composition using shellac 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) and
tape splicing Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...
. 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, 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. "Schaeffer used a PA system, 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 was established at RTF in Paris, the ancestor of the ORTF.


Elektronische Musik

Karlheinz Stockhausen 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 and Vladimir Ussachevsky: ''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, 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 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, Robert Beyer, and Herbert Eimert (who became its first director), the studio was soon joined by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig. 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 ''Studie I'' (English: Study I) is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1953. It lasts 9 minutes 42 seconds and, together with his '' Studie II'', comprises his work number ("opus") 3. History The composition was ...
'', 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 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 as the Institute of Sonology in 1960. "With Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in residence, olognebecame a year-round hive of charismatic avante-gardism." on two occasions combining electronically generated sounds with relatively conventional orchestras—in '' Mixtur'' (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 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 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 in 1946, composers Toru Takemitsu 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 Jikken Kōbō (実験工房, official English name: "Experimental Workshop") was one of the first avant-garde artist collectives active in postwar Japan. It was founded in Tokyo in 1951 by a group of artists working in various media. Until its di ...
(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 synchronized with a recorded soundtrack. Composers outside of the Jikken Kōbō, such as Yasushi Akutagawa, 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 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'' 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 techniques, evident in Yoshirō Irino's 1951
dodecaphonic 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 ...
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 , 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 terrestria ...
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 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 and ...
, 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 filters, and four- and eight-channel
mixer Mixer may refer to: Electronics * DJ mixer, a type of audio mixing console used by disc jockeys * Electronic mixer, electrical circuit for adding signal voltages * Frequency mixer, electrical circuit that creates new frequencies from two signals ...
s. Musicians associated with the studio included Toshiro Mayuzumi, Minao Shibata, Joji Yuasa, Toshi Ichiyanagi, 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 ''Imaginary Landscape No. 1'' is a composition for records of constant and variable frequency, large chinese cymbal and string piano by American composer John Cage and the first in the series of Imaginary Landscapes. It was composed in 1939. Co ...
'', 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, 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, Christian Wolff, David Tudor, and Morton Feldman),. 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 wife Arle is a place name which may refer to: * Arle, Cheltenham, a district of Gloucestershire, England * Arle Grove, a nature reserve in Gloucestershire, England * River Arle, alternative name for the River Alre, Hampshire, England * Arle, Occitan ...
was 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 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 elec ...
.


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 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 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'', by Louis and Bebe Barron,"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, 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, of which no known recordings exist, only the accurate reconstruction. However, CSIRAC 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 computer, a commercial version of the Baby Machine from the University of Manchester in the autumn of 1951. The music program was written by Christopher Strachey.


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 H ...
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 algorithmic 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 at Bell Laboratories, who developed the influential MUSIC I program in 1957, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music. Vocoder 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 v ...
'', the first major work of the Cologne studio, based on a text from the '' Book of Daniel''. An important technological development of that year was the invention of the
Clavivox The Clavivox was a keyboard sound synthesizer and sequencer developed by American composer Raymond Scott beginning in 1952. He applied for a patent in December 1956 and was granted on Feb. 3, 1959. Scott had earlier built a theremin as a toy for ...
synthesizer by Raymond Scott with subassembly by Robert Moog. In 1957, Kid Baltan (
Dick Raaymakers Dick Raaijmakers (Maastricht, 1 September 1930 – The Hague, 4 September 2013), also known as Dick Raaymakers or Kid Baltan, was a Dutch composer, theater maker and theorist. He is considered a pioneer in the field of electronic music and tape mu ...
) 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 Le ...
'', which was played over four hundred loudspeakers at the Philips Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World Fair. That same year, Mauricio Kagel, 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, wi ...
, the first programmable synthesizer. Prominent composers such as Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Halim El-Dabh, Bülent Arel and Mario Davidovsky used the RCA 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 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 of electronic and folk music, 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'' 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. 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 (GRM) and set about recruiting new members including Luc Ferrari,
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. Sh ...
, François-Bernard Mâche, Iannis Xenakis,
Bernard Parmegiani Bernard Parmegiani (27 October 1927 − 21 November 2013) was a French composer best known for his electronic or acousmatic music. Biography Between 1957 and 1961 he studied mime with Jacques Lecoq, a period he later regarded as important to his ...
, 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 ...
, 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'' 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 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's classic score for '' The Day the Earth Stood Still''). In the UK in this period, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (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, who is now famous for her 1963 electronic realisation of the iconic ''Doctor Who'' theme, composed by Ron Grainer. During the time of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
fellowship for studies in electronic music (1958) Josef Tal 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 of Jerusalem. In 1962, Hugh Le Caine 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, and the Volkswagen Foundation 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 and Bülent Arel. The intense activity occurring at CPEMC and elsewhere inspired the establishment of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1963 by Morton Subotnick, 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 Center ...
,
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. 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 w ...
, 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 Center ...
, 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 Center ...
. 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 Pietro Grossi (15 April 1917, in Venice – 21 February 2002, in Florence) was an Italian composer pioneer of computer music, visual artist and hacker ahead of his time. He began experimenting with electronic techniques in Italy in the early sixt ...
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 (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, 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 experimented with Schaeffer's techniques on tape loops and was among the first to use the recently released Moog synthesizer developed by Robert Moog. With this instrument he composed some works with Gershon Kingsley and solo. A well-known example of the use of Moog's full-sized Moog modular synthesizer is the 1968 '' Switched-On Bach'' album by Wendy Carlos, which triggered a craze for synthesizer music. In 1969 David Tudor brought a Moog modular synthesizer and Ampex tape machines to the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad with the support of the Sarabhai family, 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 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, 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" of which no known recordings exist. However, CSIRAC 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 "God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, b ...
that was programmed by Christopher Strachey on the Ferranti Mark I, late in 1951. Later that year, short extracts of three pieces were recorded there by a BBC outside broadcasting unit: the National Anthem, " Ba, Ba Black Sheep", and " In the Mood" 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 se ...
. 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''. ...
developed the algorithmic musical composition software "
Music Mouse ''Music Mouse'' is an algorithmic musical composition software developed by Laurie Spiegel. Spiegel's best known and most widely used software, "Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument" (1986) is for Macintosh, Amiga and Atari computers. The " in ...
" (1986) for
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
, 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 began what is called ''musique stochastique'', or ''
stochastic music Stochastic (, ) refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselve ...
'', 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 for translating graphical images into musical results and composed ''Mycènes Alpha'' (1978) with it.


Live electronics

In Europe in 1964, Karlheinz Stockhausen composed '' Mikrophonie I'' for tam-tam, 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 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 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'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 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 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 JVC (short for Japan Victor Company) is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as , the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for ...
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 was "D-1" in 1959."Russell Hartenberger (2016)
''The Cambridge Companion to Percussion'', p. 84
Cambridge University Press
Ikutaro Kakehashi, who founded Ace Tone in 1960, developed his own version of electronic percussion that had been already popular on the overseas electronic organ. At NAMM 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 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 The Mini Pops were a number of early analog drum machines from the Japanese musical equipment company Korg during the late 1960s and the 1970s. The machines were based around a number of preset rhythm patterns, such as waltz, samba, rhumba, bossa ...
, which was developed as an option for the
Yamaha Electone Electone is the trademark used for electronic organs produced by Yamaha. With the exception of the top end performance models, most Electones are based on the design of the spinet electronic organ. Current models are completely digital and contai ...
electric organ. Korg's Stageman and Mini Pops series were notable for "natural metallic percussion" sounds and incorporating controls for drum " breaks and fill-ins." In 1967, Ace Tone founder Ikutaro Kakehashi 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, cowbell 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 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, and do more to shape popular electronic music than any other company. Turntablism has origins in the invention of direct-drive turntables. Early belt-drive turntables 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), based in Osaka, 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 book ...
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 Technics SL-1200 is a series of direct-drive turntables originally manufactured from October 1972 until 2010, and resumed in 2016, by Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic Corporation) under the brand name of Technics. S means "Stereo", L means "P ...
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'', 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, 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, producing reggae-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 A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...
toasting over pre-recorded music comparable to live electronic music, remixing music, turntablism,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 Pr ...
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 Pr ...
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 and
the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
, began to use electronic instruments, like the theremin 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" 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 and experimental rock bands like White Noise and the United States of America, 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. By the end of the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer took a leading place in the sound of emerging progressive rock with bands including Pink Floyd,
Yes Yes or YES may refer to: * An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no Education * YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US * YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talent ...
, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 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, Can, Neu!, and Faust 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), would be a major influence on subsequent electronic rock.. Ambient dub was pioneered by King Tubby and other Jamaican sound artists, 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, Higher Intelligence Agency, The Orb, Ott, Loop Guru,
Woob Woob is the stage name of Paul Frankland, an English ambient musician who started recording in the early 1990s. Woob's albums combine elements of ambient, downtempo and space music, with samples from field recordings, movies and television. ...
and Transglobal Underground. Dub music influenced electronic musical techniques later adopted by hip hop music when Jamaican immigrant DJ Kool Herc 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 A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'' or , "virtuous", Late Latin ''virtuosus'', Latin ''virtus'', "virtue", "excellence" or "skill") is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fi ...
, in the 1980s and 1990s. Electronic rock was also produced by several Japanese musicians, including Isao Tomita's ''Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock'' (1972), which featured Moog synthesizer renditions of contemporary pop and rock songs, and
Osamu Kitajima Osamu Kitajima (喜多嶋 修), also known by the pseudonym Justin Heathcliff, is a Japanese musician, producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. History After studying the classical guitar and the piano as a child, in the 1960s Kitajima wa ...
's progressive rock album ''Benzaiten'' (1974). The mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Tomita and Klaus Schulze 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 with their debut studio album ''
Magic Fly ''Magic Fly'' is the debut studio album by French band Space. It was released in April 1977 by Disques Vogue. The album reached No. 11 on the UK Albums Chart and included the hit single of the same name, which reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Cha ...
'' 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'', which influenced subgenres of electronic music. In this era, the sound of rock musicians like Mike Oldfield and The Alan Parsons Project (who is credited the first rock song to feature a digital vocoder in 1975, '' The Raven'') 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 achieved a long-lasting success with his 1978 electronic rock musical version of '' The War of the Worlds''. Film scores 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''. In 1977, Gene Page recorded a disco version of the hit theme by John Williams from Steven Spielberg film '' Close Encounters of the Third Kind''. 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, as did it again in 1981 the score by Vangelis 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, who arose from the punk scene in New York, utilized drum machines and synthesizers in a hybrid between electronics and punk on their 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! ''Ha!-Ha!-Ha!'' is the second album by British pop group Ultravox, at that time known as "Ultravox!", with an exclamation mark, as a nod to Neu!. Although the group would later achieve fame and commercial success with lead singer Midge Ure the ...
'', Yellow Magic Orchestra with their 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'' and single '' Cars'' in 1979, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with their 1979 single '' Electricity'' featured on their eponymous debut album, Depeche Mode with their first single ''
Dreaming of Me "Dreaming of Me" is the debut single by British electronic band Depeche Mode. It was recorded in December 1980 at Blackwing Studios and originally released in February 1981 in the UK via Mute Records. It was not commercially released in the Unit ...
'' recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 album '' Speak & Spell'', A Flock of Seagulls with their 1981 single '' Talking'', New Order with '' Ceremony'' in 1981, and The Human League with their 1981 hit '' Don't You Want Me'' from their third album ''
Dare Dare may refer to: Places * Dare, East Timor, a city * Darè, Italy, a commune * Dare County, North Carolina, United States * Dare, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community Name * Dare (name), a list of people and fictional c ...
''.. The definition of MIDI 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, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Talk Talk,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
, and Eurythmics. Synth-pop was taken up across the world, with international hits for acts including Men Without Hats, Trans-X and Lime from Canada, Telex from Belgium,
Peter Schilling Peter Schilling (born Pierre Michael Schilling; 28 January 1956) is a German synthpop musician whose songs often feature science-fiction themes like aliens, astronauts and catastrophes. He is best-known for his 1983 hit single "Major Tom (Comin ...
, Sandra, Modern Talking, Propaganda and Alphaville from Germany, Yello from Switzerland and
Azul y Negro Azul y Negro is a Spanish synthpop music duo that was founded in 1981 by Carlos García-Vaso, a multi instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, and Joaquín Montoya: (b. 1950 Cartagena). Career Azul y Negro were pioneers of synth and electro ...
from Spain. Also, the synth sound is a key feature of
Italo-disco Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco) is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the early 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, p ...
. 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 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 Jumping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living (e.g., robotic) mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory. Jump or Jumping also may refer to: Places * Jump, Kentucky or Jump S ...
'' by Van Halen and 1986 '' The Final Countdown'' by
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, 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. The research organisation started in 1964 and is based in Stockholm. STEIM is a center for 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 Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Althoug ...
, Peter Schat,
Dick Raaymakers Dick Raaijmakers (Maastricht, 1 September 1930 – The Hague, 4 September 2013), also known as Dick Raaymakers or Kid Baltan, was a Dutch composer, theater maker and theorist. He is considered a pioneer in the field of electronic music and tape mu ...
, , 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 The Sogitec 4X was a digital sound processing workstation developed by Giuseppe di Giugno at IRCAM (Paris) in the 1980s. It was the last large hardware processor before the development of the ISPW. Later solutions combined control and audio proce ...
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 Barry Lloyd Vercoe (born 1937) is a New Zealand-born computer scientist and composer. He is best known as the inventor of Csound, a music synthesis language with wide usage among computer music composers. SAOL, the underlying language for the ...
describes one of his experiences with early computer sounds:


Keyboard synthesizers

Released in 1970 by Moog Music, the 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 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'' (1975–1976), and John McGuire's ''Pulse Music III'' (1978). Thanks to 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 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 licensed the algorithms for frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis) from John Chowning, who had experimented with it at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
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 Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and computing. In analog ...
. 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
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 ...
, 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 overachieving sampling rate of 57 kHz. The Korg Poly-800 is a synthesizer released by Korg 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-101 is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...
was the first and best-selling phase distortion synthesizer in the Casio 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 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 is an electronic or digital musical instrument which uses sound recordings (or " 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,
sequencer Sequencer may refer to: Technology * Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically * DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...
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-shifted to different pitches to produce musical scales and 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 sampler made sampling far more practical. The earliest digital sampling was done on the 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 Computer Music Melodian by
Harry Mendell Harry Mendell is an American inventor and computer designer. In the 1970s and 1980s he worked in electronics, specifically with computers and music. He invented the first digital sampling synthesizer. The American musician Stevie Wonder bought M ...
(1976). First released in 1977–1978, the Synclavier I using FM synthesis, re-licensed from Yamaha, 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 Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments ...
.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) and resulted from a collaboration between leading manufacturers, initially Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Roland—and later, other participants that included Yamaha, Korg, and Kawai. A paper was authored by 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 and sampled-ROM-based instruments. Miller Puckette developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after Max Mathews) and later ported it to
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
(with Dave Zicarelli extending it for 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
sequencer Sequencer may refer to: Technology * Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically * DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...
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 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 The Roland MC-8 MicroComposer by the Roland Corporation was introduced in early 1977 at a list price of US$4,795 (¥1,200,000 JPY). It was one of the earliest stand-alone microprocessor-driven CV/Gate music sequencers, following EMS '' Sequencer ...
sequencer. Drum machines, also known as rhythm machines, also began being used around the late-1950s, with a later example being
Osamu Kitajima Osamu Kitajima (喜多嶋 修), also known by the pseudonym Justin Heathcliff, is a Japanese musician, producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. History After studying the classical guitar and the piano as a child, in the 1960s Kitajima wa ...
'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" was one of the first singles to use the metronome-like percussion of a
Roland TR-77 is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has fact ...
drum machine. In 1980, Roland Corporation released the 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" 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 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 SID of the Commodore 64 and 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, techno, electro, and 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 book ...
EDM – Electronic Dance Music
Armada Music Armada Music is a Dutch independent record label that specialises in releasing electronic dance music. The name Armada derives from the first two letters of the founders' first names: Armin van Buuren, Maykel Piron and David Lewis. Signed a ...
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 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'' article, "the union of the club community and 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 Fluke may refer to: Biology * Fluke (fish), a species of marine flatfish * Fluke (tail), the lobes of the tail of a cetacean, such as dolphins or whales, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and metriorhynchids. * Fluke (flatworm), parasiti ...
), Moonshine (
DJ Keoki George Lopez (born October 23, 1966), known by his stage name DJ Keoki or Keoki Franconi, is a Salvadoran-American electronic musician, among other genres, DJ. Born in El Salvador and raised in Hawaii, Keoki began advertising himself as "supersta ...
), 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 musical performance practices: for instance, laptop performance (''
laptronica 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 ...
''), 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 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 The clavioline is an electronic keyboard instrument, a forerunner to the analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles. The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker ...
* Electronic sackbut * List of electronic music genres * New Interfaces for Musical Expression * Ondioline *
Spectral music Spectral music uses the acoustic properties of sound – or sound spectra – as a basis for composition. Definition Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where compositional decisions are often informe ...
* Tracker music *
Timeline of electronic music genres A timeline of electronic music genres, with a date of origin, the locale of origin, and music samples. See also *List of electronic music genres *Electronic music * Electronic dance music * Styles of house music * List of trance genres Refere ...
;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 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