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Electronic music broadly is a group of that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based and software, or general-purpose (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means (electroacoustic music). Pure electronic instruments depend entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, , or : no need to be previously generated by mechanical means and then converted into electrical signals. On the other hand, electromechanical instruments have mechanical parts such as strings or hammers that generate the sound waves, together with electric elements including magnetic pickups, and that convert the acoustic waves into electrical signals, process them and convert them back into sound waves. Such electromechanical devices include the , , and ."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 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 . 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 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 by Karlheinz Stockhausen. 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 was pioneered, innovation in took place, and Japanese electronic musical instruments began to influence the . In the early 1970s, and helped popularize synthesized electronic music. The 1970s also saw electronic music begin to have a significant influence on , with the adoption of polyphonic synthesizers, , drum machines, and , through the emergence of genres such as , , new wave, , hip hop and electronic dance music (EDM). In the early 1980s, mass-produced digital synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 became popular which saw development of the (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). 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."Electronically produced music is part of the mainstream of popular culture. Musical concepts that were once considered radical—the use of environmental sounds, ambient music, turntable music, digital sampling, computer music, the electronic modification of acoustic sounds, and music made from fragments of speech-have now been subsumed by many kinds of popular music. Record store genres including new age, rap, hip-hop, electronica, techno, jazz, and popular song all rely heavily on production values and techniques that originated with classic electronic music" (). "By the 1990s, electronic music had penetrated every corner of musical life. It extended from ethereal sound-waves played by esoteric experimenters to the thumping syncopation that accompanies every pop record" (). In Berlin starting in 1989, the 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. In recent years, electronic music has gained popularity in the Middle East, with artists from Iran and Turkey blending traditional instruments with ambient and techno influences. 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 the sound of several orchestral instruments with reasonable precision. It achieved viable public interest and made commercial progress into through telephone networks.

Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments. encouraged the composition of allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (1907). Futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and began composing to evoke the sound of . They predicted expansions in allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises (1913)."To present the musical soul of the masses, of the great factories, of the railways, of the transatlantic liners, of the battleships, of the automobiles and airplanes. To add to the great central themes of the musical poem the domain of the machine and the victorious kingdom of Electricity." Quoted in ..


Early compositions
Developments of the led to electronic instruments that were smaller, , and more practical for performance. In particular, the , and were commercially produced by the early 1930s.;

From the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger and Maria Schuppel to adopt them. They were typically used within orchestras, and most composers wrote parts for the theremin that could otherwise be performed with string instruments.

Avant-garde composers criticized the predominant use of electronic instruments for conventional purposes. The instruments offered expansions in pitch resources that were exploited by advocates of microtonal music such as , Dimitrios Levidis, and Edgard Varèse. Further, 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 .


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 . 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. and composed several pieces in 1930 by layering recordings of instruments and vocals at adjusted speeds. Influenced by these techniques, composed Imaginary Landscape No. 1 in 1939 by adjusting the speeds of recorded tones.

Composers began to experiment with newly developed technology. Recordings could be spliced together to create , such as those by , , Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and . Further, the technology allowed sound to be . 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 from the late 1930s.

(2014). 9781135950187, Routledge. .


Development: 1940s to 1950s

Electroacoustic tape music
The first practical audio was unveiled in 1935. Improvements to the technology were made using the technique, which significantly improved recording fidelity. abstract. 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., scu.edu 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 , while still a student in , used a cumbersome 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 at Radiodiffusion Française (RDF), during the early 1940s, is credited with originating the theory and practice of musique concrète. In the late 1940s, experiments in sound-based composition using 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 () and ."Musique Concrete was created in Paris in 1948 from edited collages of everyday noise" ().

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 realizationsNB: To the pioneers, an electronic work did not exist until it was "realized" in a real-time performance (). 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, 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, 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 .


Elektronische Musik, Germany
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 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 , 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 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 (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 , followed in 1954 by —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 in Tokyo founded by , and the Philips studio at , the Netherlands, which moved to the University of Utrecht as the Institute of Sonology in 1960.

"With Stockhausen and in residence, Cologne became a year-round hive of charismatic avant-gardism."(): "... at Northwest German Radio in Cologne (1953), where the term 'electronic music' was coined to distinguish their pure experiments from musique concrete..." on two occasions combining electronically generated sounds with relatively conventional orchestras—in (1964) and (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"."In 1967, just following the world premiere of , Stockhausen said about the electronic music experience: '... Many listeners have projected that strange new music which they experienced—especially in the realm of electronic music—into extraterrestrial space. Even though they are not familiar with it through human experience, they identify it with the fantastic dream world. Several have commented that my electronic music sounds "like on a different star", or "like in outer space." Many have said that when hearing this music, they have sensations as if flying at an infinitely high speed, and then again, as if immobile in an immense space. Thus, extreme words are employed to describe such experience, which is not "objectively" communicable in the sense of an object description, but rather which exist in the subjective fantasy and which are projected into the extraterrestrial space'" ().


United States
In the United States, electronic music was being created as early as 1939, when John Cage published Imaginary Landscape, No. 1, using two variable-speed turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano, and cymbal, but no electronic means of production. Cage composed five more "Imaginary Landscapes" between 1942 and 1952 (one withdrawn), mostly for percussion ensemble, though No. 4 is for twelve radios and No. 5, written in 1952, uses 42 recordings and is to be realized as a magnetic tape. According to Otto Luening, Cage also performed 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 (, , Christian Wolff, , and ),. 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 Earle 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.


Columbia-Princeton Center
In the same year Columbia University purchased its first tape recorder—a professional 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. . . . 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 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 flute sequences for the tape recorder. Ussachevsky then and there put them through electronic transformations."

The score for , 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).


USSR
In 1929, invented the "" (la ), comparable to the principle of the . «АНС», шумофон и терменвокс: как зарождалась советская электронная музыка . In Russian In the 1930s, Nikolai Ananyev invented "sonar", and engineer Alexander Gurov — neoviolena, I. Ilsarov — ilston., Журнал «Техника — молодёжи», № 3 за 1960 год. Автор: Б.Орлов In Russian and A. Ivanov — . Composer and inventor was engaged in scientific work on sound synthesis and conducted a number of experiments that would later form the basis of Soviet electro-musical instruments. Советская электронная музыка. In Russian

In 1956 Vyacheslav Mescherin created the , which used theremins, electric harps, electric organs, the first synthesizer in the USSR "Ekvodin", and also created the first Soviet reverb machine. The style in which Meshcherin's ensemble played is known as "Space age pop". In 1957, engineer Igor Simonov assembled a working model of a noise recorder (electroeoliphone), with the help of which it was possible to extract various timbres and consonances of a noise nature. In 1958, designed , one of the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizers.

Founded by Murzin in 1966, the Moscow Experimental Electronic Music Studio became the base for a new generation of experimenters – , , Sándor Kallós, Sofia Gubaidulina, , and Vladimir Martynov. By the end of the 1960s, musical groups playing light electronic music appeared in the USSR. At the state level, this music began to be used to attract foreign tourists to the country and for broadcasting to foreign countries. Забытая мелодия. В архивах фирмы грамзаписи обнаружена музыка, приговорённая сорок лет назад к уничтожению. Баканов Константин. Новые Известия July 2005 . In Russian In the mid-1970s, composer Alexander Zatsepin designed an "orchestrolla" – a modification of the mellotron. Татьяна Анциферова: «У меня не было желания покорять мир...». In Russian

The Baltic Soviet Republics also had their own pioneers: in , in — Gedrus Kupriavicius, in — Opus and Zodiac.


Australia
The world's first computer to play music was , which was designed and built by 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, 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 Machine from the University of Manchester in the autumn of 1951. The music program was written by Christopher Strachey.


Japan
Among the earliest group of electric musical instruments in Japan was the Yamaha Magna Organ, an electroacoustic instrument built in 1935.Before the Second World War in Japan, several "electrical" instruments seem already to have been developed ( see ), and in 1935 a kind of " electronic" musical instrument, the Yamaha Magna Organ, was developed. It seems to be a multi-timbral keyboard instrument based on electrically blown with pickups, possibly similar to the electrostatic reed organs developed by Frederick Albert Hoschke in 1934 then manufactured by Everett and Wurlitzer until 1961. After World War II, Japanese composers such as began to learn of the development of electronic musical instruments in other countries. 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 in 1946, composers 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 and predicted a drastic change in music. Sony began producing popular recorders for government and public use..

The avant-garde collective Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop), founded in 1950, was offered access to emerging audio technology by Sony. The company hired Toru Takemitsu to demonstrate their tape recorders with compositions and performances of electronic tape music. The first electronic tape pieces by the group were "Toraware no Onna" ("Imprisoned Woman") and "Piece B", composed in 1951 by Kuniharu Akiyama.. Many of the electroacoustic tape pieces they produced were used as incidental music for radio, film, and theatre. They also held concerts employing a synchronized with a recorded soundtrack. Composers outside of the Jikken Kōbō, such as Yasushi Akutagawa, Saburo Tominaga, and Shirō Fukai, were also experimenting with tape music between 1952 and 1953.

Musique concrète was introduced to Japan by , who was influenced by a concert. From 1952, he composed tape music pieces for a comedy film, a radio broadcast, and a radio drama.. However, Schaeffer's concept of 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 and twelve-tone techniques, evident in Yoshirō Irino's 1951 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, an electronic music studio was established by Mayuzumi in Tokyo in 1954, which became one of the world's leading electronic music facilities. The studio was equipped with technologies such as tone-generating and audio processing equipment, recording and radiophonic equipment, , and , sine-wave , tape recorders, , , and four- and eight-channel . Musicians associated with the studio included Toshiro Mayuzumi, Minao Shibata, Joji Yuasa, , 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".


Mid-to-late 1950s
The impact of computers continued in 1956. and composed for , the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using 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 at Bell Laboratories, who developed the influential program in 1957, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music. technology was also a major development in this early era. In 1956, Stockhausen composed Gesang der Jünglinge, 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 synthesizer by with subassembly by .

In 1957, Kid Baltan () and 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, which was played over four hundred loudspeakers at the Philips Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World Fair. That same year, , an 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 first programmable synthesizer. Prominent composers such as Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, , , Halim El-Dabh, Bülent Arel and used the Synthesizer extensively in various compositions. One of the most influential composers associated with the early years of the studio was Egypt's 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 fusion of electronic and , in contrast to the more mathematical approach used by 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 , Charles Amirkhanian and to rock musicians 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 , , François-Bernard Mâche, , Bernard Parmegiani, and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou. Later arrivals included , Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and François Bayle.


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 's Gargoyles for violin and as well as the premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's 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 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., '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 . One of the most influential British electronic artists in this period was Workshop staffer , who is now famous for her 1963 electronic realisation of the iconic Doctor Who theme, composed by . Other composers of electronic music active in the UK included (who established his first studio in 1955), , Hugh Davies, , , and .. ' Four Electronic Music Concerts

During the time of the fellowship for studies in electronic music (1958) Israeli composer 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, Canadian composer 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.

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.

Collaborations also occurred across oceans and continents. In 1961, American composer Vladimir Ussachevsky invited Edgar Varèse from France to the Columbia-Princeton Studio (CPEMC). Upon arrival, Varèse embarked upon a revision of his work Déserts. He was assisted by and Bülent Arel.

The intense activity occurring at CPEMC and elsewhere inspired the establishment of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1963 by , with additional members , Ramon Sender, Anthony Martin, and .

Later, the Center moved to , directed by , and has since been renamed Center for Contemporary Music."A central figure in post-war electronic art music, b. is 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.

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 (SFMOMA, 1963), conceived of as in time, controlled movement of sound in space. Twelve speakers surrounded the audience, and four speakers were mounted on a rotating, mobile-like construction above.. In an SFMOMA performance the following year (1964), the 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 ( performed in the of the 1958 World Fair, Brussels) and Stan Schaff's Audium installation, currently active in San Francisco.", online reprint .[10] Audium Archives Music Journal, January 1977. 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 's techniques on tape loops and was among the first to use the recently released Moog synthesizer developed by . With this instrument he composed some works with and solo. A well-known example of the use of Moog's full-sized Moog modular synthesizer is the 1968 album by , which triggered a craze for synthesizer music. In 1969 brought a Moog modular synthesizer and Ampex tape machines to the National Institute of Design in with the support of the , forming the foundation of India's first electronic music studio. Here a group of composers Jinraj Joshipura, , 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 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 , which was designed and built by 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, played standard repertoire and was not used to extend musical thinking or composition practice which is current computer-music practice.

The first music to be performed in England was a performance of the British National Anthem that was programmed by Christopher Strachey on the Ferranti Mark I, late in 1951. Later that year, short extracts of three pieces were recorded there by a 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 at 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 .

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 , a direct digital synthesis language. developed the algorithmic musical composition software "" (1986) for Macintosh, , and computers.


Stochastic music
An important new development was the advent of computers to compose music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. began what is called musique stochastique, or , 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 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 , hand-held microphones, filters, and potentiometers, and Mixtur for orchestra, four generators, and four . In 1965 he composed Mikrophonie II for choir, Hammond organ, and ring modulators.

In 1966–1967, discovered and began to teach ""—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 's 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.Cosey Fanni Tutti. "Throbbing Gristle Personnel: Cosey Fanni Tutti" (extract from Throbbing Gristle's 1986 album CD1. Brainwashed.com. Retrieved 21 April 2021.

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.

(2025). 9780190053475, Oxford University Press.
In June 2018, 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,
(1993). 9784924360013, Diamond Lead Company.
. : the first model by was "EO-4420" in 1958. See also the Japanese Wikipedia article: "".
Japanese electronic musical instruments began influencing the international .
(2025). 9781135949631, Routledge.
. : 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 in 1960, developed his own version of electronic percussion that had been already popular on the overseas electronic organ. At the 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.Matt Dean (2011), The Drum: A History, page 390,

In 1963, released the Donca-Matic DA-20, an electro-mechanical . In 1965, patented a fully electronic drum machine. Korg released the Donca-Matic DC-11 electronic drum machine in 1966, which they followed with the Korg Mini Pops, which was developed as an option for the 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 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 (, , and ). 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 from the late 1960s, followed by Korg drum machines in the 1970s. Kakehashi later left Ace Tone and founded Roland Corporation in 1972, with and becoming highly influential for the next several decades. The company would go on to have a big impact on , and do more to shape popular electronic music than any other company.

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 World of DJs and the Turntable Culture, page 43, Hal Leonard Corporation, 2003 The first direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at (now ), Billboard, 21 May 1977, page 140 based in , 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 In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable on the market, and the first in their influential Technics series of turntables. It was succeeded by the Technics SL-1100 and SL-1200 in the early 1970s, and they were widely adopted by hip hop musicians, with the SL-1200 remaining the most widely used turntable in DJ culture for several decades. Six Machines That Changed The Music World, Wired, May 2002


Jamaican dub music
In Jamaica, a form of popular electronic music emerged in the 1960s, , rooted in sound system culture. Dub music was pioneered by studio engineers, such as Sylvan Morris, , Errol Thompson, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Scientist, producing -influenced experimental music with electronic sound technology, in recording studios and at sound system parties.
(2025). 9780819574428, Wesleyan University Press.
Their experiments included forms of comparable to aspects of musique concrète, an emphasis on repetitive rhythmic structures (often stripped of their harmonic elements) comparable to , the electronic manipulation of spatiality, the sonic electronic manipulation of pre-recorded musical materials from mass media, deejays toasting over pre-recorded music comparable to live electronic music, music, ,Nicholas Collins, Julio d' Escrivan Rincón (2007), The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music, page 49, Cambridge University Press and the mixing and scratching of vinyl.Andrew Brown (2012), Computers in Music Education: Amplifying Musicality, page 127,

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 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. Dubbing Is A Must: A Beginner's Guide To Jamaica's Most Influential Genre, Fact.


Late 1960s to early 1980s

Rise of popular electronic music
In the late 1960s, pop and rock musicians, including the Beach Boys and , began to use electronic instruments, like the and , to supplement and define their sound. The first bands to utilize the would be on their 1967 song "Strange Days" and on their album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., also in 1967. 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 duos , Beaver and Krause, and experimental rock bands like White Noise, the United States of America, Fifty Foot Hose, and Gong are regarded as pioneers in the electronic rock and 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 .

(2025). 9781527509405, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. .
(2012). 9780571271917, Faber & Faber. .

The Moog synthesizer was brought to the mainstream in 1968 by , a bestselling album of Bach compositions arranged for Moog synthesizer by American composer . The album achieved critical and commercial success, winning the 1970 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording.

In 1969, formed the world's first synthesizer ensemble called the Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company in Ithaca, New York.

By the end of the 1960s, the took a leading place in the sound of emerging with bands including , Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Genesis making them part of their sound. Instrumental prog rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like , , Cluster, Can, Neu!, and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy "", along with the work of (for a time the keyboard player with ), would be a major influence on subsequent ..

was pioneered by King Tubby and other Jamaican , using DJ-inspired electronics, complete with drop-outs, echo, equalization and psychedelic electronic effects. It featured layering techniques and incorporated elements of , deep and harmonic sounds.. Techniques such as a long echo delay were also used.

(1995). 9781852423827, Serpent's Tail. .
Other notable artists within the genre include , Higher Intelligence Agency, , Ott, , and Transglobal Underground.
(2025). 9780634017889, Hal Leonard Corporation. .

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 culture was playing two copies of the same record on two turntables in alternation, extending the ' favorite section.Nicholas Collins, Margaret Schedel, Scott Wilson (2013), Electronic Music: Cambridge Introductions to Music, page 105, Cambridge University Press The turntable eventually went on to become the most visible electronic musical instrument, and occasionally the most , in the 1980s and 1990s.

Electronic rock was also produced by several Japanese musicians, including 's Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock (1972), which featured Moog synthesizer renditions of contemporary pop and rock songs, and 's progressive rock album Benzaiten (1974). The mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as Jean Michel Jarre, , and who were significant influences on the development of . 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

(2025). 9781904994008, Guinness World Records Ltd..
or Jarre with Oxygène. Between 1977 and 1981, Kraftwerk released albums such as Trans-Europe Express, and , which influenced subgenres of electronic music.

In this era, the sound of rock musicians like and The Alan Parsons Project (who is credited the first rock song to feature a digital 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. achieved a long-lasting success with his 1978 electronic rock musical version of The War of the Worlds.

also benefit from the electronic sound. During the 1970s and 1980s, Wendy Carlos composed the score for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and . In 1977, recorded a disco version of the hit theme by from 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 won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1979, as did it again in 1981 the score by for Chariots of Fire. After the arrival of , 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.

pioneering bands which enjoyed success for years included with their 1977 track "Hiroshima Mon Amour" on Ha!-Ha!-Ha!, Yellow Magic Orchestra with their self-titled album (1978), with their prominent 1979 debut single Video Killed the Radio Star,"'The Buggles' by Geoffrey Downes" (liner notes). The Age of Plastic 1999 reissue. 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, with their first single Dreaming of Me 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..

The definition of and the development of made the development of purely electronic sounds much easier, with , 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 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, , , , , Japan, and .

Synth-pop was taken up across the world, with international hits for acts including Men Without Hats, and Lime from Canada, Telex from Belgium, , Sandra, , Propaganda and Alphaville from Germany, from Switzerland and Azul y Negro from Spain. Also, the synth sound is a key feature of .

Some synth-pop bands created futuristic visual styles of themselves to reinforce the idea of electronic sounds were linked primarily with technology, as Americans and Spaniards .

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 by and 1986 The Final Countdown

(1987). 9789170244087, Wiken.
by Europe, which feature synths prominently.


Proliferation of electronic music research institutions
(EMS), formerly known as Electroacoustic Music in Sweden, is the Swedish national centre for electronic music and [[sound art]]. The research organisation started in 1964 and is based in Stockholm.
     

(1969-2021) was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was founded by , , , , , Reinbert de Leeuw, and . 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. From 1981-2008, was artistic director, and his live-electronic instruments like the or The Hands inspired international artists to work at STEIM which entertained a residency program since 1992.

in Paris became a major center for computer music research and realization and development of the Sogitec 4X computer system, . featuring then revolutionary real-time digital signal processing. 's Répons (1981) for 24 musicians and 6 soloists used the 4X to transform and route soloists to a loudspeaker system.

describes one of his experiences with early computer sounds: (c. 1983) at IRCAM machine room in 1989]]


Keyboard synthesizers
Released in 1970 by , the 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."In 1969, a portable version of the studio Moog called the Minimoog Model D, became the most widely used synthesizer in both popular music and electronic art music" . , playing live with 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. "Yes, I used until I went with Herbie (Hancock) in 1970. Then I used a 2600 because I couldn't use the Moog on stage. It was too big and cranky; every time we transported it, we would have to pull a module out, and I knew I couldn't do that on the road, so I started using ARP's."

In 1974, the WDR studio in Cologne acquired an EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer, which many composers used to produce notable electronic works—including 's Fünf deutsche Tänze (1975), Karlheinz Stockhausen's Sirius (1975–1976), and John McGuire's Pulse Music III (1978).

Thanks to 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 "" 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 , who had experimented with it at Stanford University since 1971.. Yamaha's engineers began adapting Chowning's algorithm for use in a digital synthesizer, adding improvements such as the "key scaling" method to avoid the introduction of distortion that normally occurred in analog systems during frequency modulation.

In 1980, Yamaha eventually released the first FM digital synthesizer, the Yamaha GS-1, but at an expensive price. In 1983, Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the DX7, which also used FM synthesis and would become one of the best-selling synthesizers of all time. The DX7 was known for its recognizable bright tonalities that was partly due to an of 57 kHz.

The Korg Poly-800 is a synthesizer released by 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 with one Digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) per voice.

The Casio CZ-101 was the first and best-selling phase distortion synthesizer in the 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 (or "samples") of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar from a song) or (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 , or another triggering device (e.g., ) 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 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 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 (system design and operation) at their London (Putney) Studio c. 1969.

The first commercially available sampling synthesizer was the Computer Music Melodian by (1976).

First released in 1977–1978, the Synclavier I using , re-licensed from Yamaha, and sold mostly to universities, proved to be highly influential among both electronic music composers and music producers, including , 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 , first available in 1979. These early sampling synthesizers used wavetable sample-based synthesis.Martin Russ, Sound Synthesis and Sampling, page 29 ,


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 () and resulted from a collaboration between leading manufacturers, initially Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Roland—and later, other participants that included Yamaha, , 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.

developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after ) and later ported it to (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for ) [25]. 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 , the most influential being the Roland TB-303, a bass synthesizer and released in late 1981 that later became a fixture in electronic dance music, particularly . One of the first to use it was Charanjit Singh in 1982, though it would not be popularized until 's "" in 1987.. 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 -based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer sequencer.

, also known as rhythm machines, also began being used around the late-1950s, with a later example being 's progressive rock album Benzaiten (1974), which used a rhythm machine along with and a synthesizer. In 1977, 's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" was one of the first singles to use the -like percussion of a Roland TR-77 drum machine. In 1980, Roland Corporation released the TR-808, one of the first and most popular programmable . The first band to use it was Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1980, and it would later gain widespread popularity with the release of 's "" and '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 .


Chiptunes
The characteristic lo-fi sound of chip music was initially the result of early computer's and ' technical limitations; however, the sound has since become sought after in its own right.

Common cheap popular sound chips of the first of the 1980s include the SID of the Commodore 64 and General Instrument AY series and clones (like the Yamaha YM2149) used in the , , compatibles and 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 , 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 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 , , , electro, and , as well as their respective subgenres.Richard James Burgess (2014), The History of Music Production, page 115, Oxford University Press EDM – Electronic Dance Music, Moreover, the genre has found commercial and cultural significance in the United States and North America, thanks to the wildly popular big room house/EDM sound that has been incorporated into the U.S. pop music "House Music: How It Sneaked Its Way Into Mainstream Pop" by Kia Makarechi, The Huffington Post, 11 August 2011 and the rise of large-scale commercial 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 "" umbrella
(2025). 9780840029768, .
(2025). 9780879306281, Backbeat Books. .
which was also a music scene in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. According to a 1997 Billboard article, "the union of the 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 (the Chemical Brothers, , the Future Sound of London, Fluke), (), and City of Angels (the Crystal Method) for popularizing the latest version of electronic music.


Indie electronic
The category "indie electronic" (or "indietronica") has been used to refer to a wave of groups with roots in who embraced electronic elements (such as synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and computer programs) and influences such as early electronic composition, krautrock, synth-pop, and dance music. Recordings are commonly made on using digital audio workstations.

The first wave of indie electronic artists began in the 1990s with acts such as (who used vintage gear) and Disco Inferno (who embraced modern sampling technology), and the genre expanded in the 2000s as and software synthesizers came into common use. Other acts included Broadcast, , Múm, the Postal Service, Skeletons, and School of Seven Bells. Independent labels associated with the style include , , , and Ghostly International.


2000s and 2010s
As computer technology has become more accessible and has advanced, interacting with music production technology is now possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional practices: for instance, performance ( ), and . In general, the term 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 finding popular appeal.—Best Audio Editing Software of the Year—1st Abelton Live, 4th Reason. Best Audio DJ Software of the Year—Abelton Live. Such tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in 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).


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. became a popular system.


See also
Live electronic music
  • List of electronic music festivals
  • Live electronic music


Footnotes

Sources


Further reading
  • 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. .
  • Strange, Allen (1983), Electronic Music: Systems, Technics, and Controls, second ed. Dubuque, Iowa: W.C. Brown Co. .


External links

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