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78-529: Kontakte ( German: [kɔnˈtaktə] , 'contacts') is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen , realized in 1958–60 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig . The score is Nr. 12 in the composer's catalogue of works, and is dedicated to Otto Tomek  [ de ] . The title of

156-405: 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

234-466: A slide show synchronized with a recorded soundtrack. Composers outside of the Jikken Kōbō, such as Yasushi Akutagawa , Saburo Tominaga, and Shirō Fukai , were also experimenting with radiophonic tape music between 1952 and 1953. Musique concrète was introduced to Japan by Toshiro Mayuzumi , who was influenced by a Pierre Schaeffer concert. From 1952, he composed tape music pieces for a comedy film,

312-509: A 192-page score. Over the course of a year, 600 sounds were assembled and recorded. Cut tape segments for each occurrence of each sound were accumulated on the score. Then the cut segments were spliced to one of eight tapes, work finished on January 16, 1953. The premiere performance (realization) of the 4'15" work was given on March 21, 1953, at the University of Illinois , Urbana. In Cologne, elektronische Musik , pioneered in 1949–51 by

390-465: 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 in 1939 by adjusting

468-998: A number of musicians, ranging from Neil Rolnick , Charles Amirkhanian 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 , François-Bernard Mâche , Iannis Xenakis , Bernard Parmegiani , and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou . Later arrivals included Ivo Malec , Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and François Bayle . These were fertile years for electronic music—not just for academia, but for independent artists as synthesizer technology became more accessible. By this time,

546-697: 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,

624-465: 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 piece "Concerto da Camera", in

702-752: 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 , 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, [Cologne] became

780-460: 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)

858-458: A single control", thereby realizing a longstanding goal of total serialism . On the other hand, " Kontakte is arguably the last of Stockhausen's tape pieces in which serial proportions intervene decisively at anything but the broad formal level". The most famous moment, at the very center of the work, is a potent illustration of these connections: a high, bright, slowly wavering pitch descends in several waves, becoming louder as it gradually acquires

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936-457: A snarling timbre, and finally passes below the point where it can be heard any longer as a pitch. As it crosses this threshold, it becomes evident that the sound consists of a succession of pulses , which continue to slow until they become a steady beat. With increasing reverberation , the individual pulses become transformed into tones once again. Stockhausen also made advances over his previous electronic composition, Gesang der Jünglinge , in

1014-567: 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

1092-454: A year-round hive of charismatic avant-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". In

1170-483: 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),

1248-468: Is most recognizable in its 4/4 form and more connected with the mainstream than preceding forms which were popular in niche markets. 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

1326-718: Is to be realized as a magnetic tape. According to Otto Luening, Cage also performed Williams Mix 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,

1404-768: The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the late 1950s. Following his work with Studio d'Essai 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 . On 5 October 1948, RDF broadcast Schaeffer's Etude aux chemins de fer . This

1482-507: The Ensemble of electro-musical instruments  [ ru ] , 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

1560-532: The Sonic Arts Network ) in the UK. The Computer Music Journal and Organised Sound are the two most important peer-reviewed journals dedicated to electroacoustic studies, while several national associations produce print and electronic publications. There have been a number of festivals that feature electroacoustic music. Early festivals, such as Donaueschingen Festival , founded in 1921, were some of

1638-476: The tape recorder as its central musical source. The music can utilise pre-recorded sound fragments and the creation of loops, which can be altered and manipulated through techniques such as editing and playback speed manipulation. The work of Halim El-Dabh is perhaps the earliest example of tape (or, in this case, Wire recording ) music. El-Dabh's The Expression of Zaar , first presented in Cairo, Egypt, in 1944,

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1716-432: The telharmonium , Hammond organ , electric piano and electric guitar . 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

1794-486: 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 ). Electroacoustic music Tape music is an integral part of musique concrète , which uses

1872-445: 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 took place, and Japanese electronic musical instruments began to influence the music industry . In the early 1970s, Moog synthesizers and drum machines helped popularize synthesized electronic music. The 1970s also saw electronic music begin to have

1950-681: 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

2028-475: 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, Mauricio Kagel , an Argentine composer, composed Transición II . The work was realized at

2106-450: 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

2184-608: 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

2262-454: 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

2340-597: 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 ,

2418-748: The ancestor of the ORTF . 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

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2496-641: 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

2574-417: The composer Herbert Eimert and the physicist Werner Meyer-Eppler , was based solely on electronically generated (synthetic) sounds, particularly sine waves . The beginning of the development of electronic music has been traced back to "the invention of the valve [vacuum tube] in 1906". The precise control afforded by the studio allowed for what Eimert considered to be the subjection of everything, "to

2652-412: 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 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

2730-617: 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 by Karlheinz Stockhausen . Electronic music was also created in Japan and the United States beginning in

2808-597: 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 (Experimental Workshop), founded in 1950,

2886-402: 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

2964-740: 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. In the mid-1970s, composer Alexander Zatsepin designed an "orchestrolla" – a modification of the mellotron. The Baltic Soviet Republics also had their own pioneers: in Estonian SSR — Sven Grunberg , in Lithuanian SSR — Gedrus Kupriavicius, in Latvian SSR — Opus and Zodiac . The world's first computer to play music

3042-438: 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

3120-546: 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

3198-417: The first to include electroacoustic instruments and pieces. This was followed by ONCE Festival of New Music in the 1950s, and since the 1960s, there has been a growth of festivals that focus exclusively on electroacoustic music. Alongside paper presentations, workshops and seminars, many of these events also feature concert performances or sound installations created by those attending or which are related to

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3276-528: 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

3354-637: 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

3432-592: The help of which it was possible to extract various timbres and consonances of a noise nature. In 1958, Evgeny Murzin designed ANS synthesizer , 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 – Eduard Artemyev , Alexander Nemtin  [ ru ] , Sándor Kallós , Sofia Gubaidulina , Alfred Schnittke , and Vladimir Martynov . By

3510-547: The influential manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). 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 and Maria Schuppel to adopt them. They were typically used within orchestras, and most composers wrote parts for

3588-473: The instruments. While some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium synthesized the sound of several orchestral instruments with reasonable precision. It achieved viable public interest and made commercial progress into streaming music through telephone networks . Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments. Ferruccio Busoni encouraged

3666-1059: The international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression , the Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, and the Ars Electronica Festival (Linz, Austria). A number of national associations promote the art form, notably the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) in Canada, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) in the US, the Australasian Computer Music Association in Australia and New Zealand, and Sound and Music (previously

3744-461: The last element of the single note", to serial permutation , "resulting in a completely new way of composing sound"; in the studio, serial operations could be applied to elements such as timbre and dynamics. The common link between the two schools is that the music is recorded and performed through loudspeakers, without a human performer. The majority of electroacoustic pieces use a combination of recorded sound and synthesized or processed sounds, and

3822-813: The organization of electronic sounds in Mayuzumi's "X, Y, Z for Musique Concrète", and later in Shibata's electronic music by 1956. Modelling the NWDR studio in Cologne, established an NHK electronic music studio in Tokyo in 1954, which became one of the world's leading electronic music facilities. The NHK electronic music studio was equipped with technologies such as tone-generating and audio processing equipment, recording and radiophonic equipment, ondes Martenot, Monochord and Melochord , sine-wave oscillators , tape recorders, ring modulators , band-pass filters , and four- and eight-channel mixers . Musicians associated with

3900-553: The popular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the United States. Experiments with graphical sound were continued by Norman McLaren from the late 1930s. 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

3978-482: The principle of the theremin . In the 1930s, Nikolai Ananyev invented "sonar", and engineer Alexander Gurov — neoviolena, I. Ilsarov — ilston., A. Rimsky-Korsakov  [ ru ] and A. Ivanov — emiriton  [ ru ] . Composer and inventor Arseny Avraamov 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. In 1956 Vyacheslav Mescherin created

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4056-413: 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,

4134-471: The realm of spatial composition, adding the parameters of spatial location, group type, register, and speed. Kontakte is composed in four channels, with loudspeakers placed at the corners of a square surrounding the audience. With the aid of a "rotation table", consisting of a rotatable loudspeaker surrounded by four microphones , he was able to send sounds through and around the auditorium with unprecedented variety. There are several published editions of

4212-445: 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

4290-449: The schism between Schaeffer's and Eimert's approaches has been overcome, the first major example being Karlheinz Stockhausen 's Gesang der Jünglinge of 1955–56. Circuit bending is the creative short-circuiting of low voltage , battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects , children's toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators. Emphasizing spontaneity and randomness,

4368-1148: The score, in part because of the two versions of the piece, and in part because of the transfer of copyright from Universal Edition to the Stockhausen-Verlag in the mid 1990s. Universal Edition refers to both versions of the work as No. 12, whereas the Stockhausen-Verlag distinguishes the electroacoustic version as No. 12½. Electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments , circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers ) 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

4446-483: The second version of Kontakte . The score is divided into sixteen sections with many subsections, numbered I A–F, II, III, IV A–F, V A–F, VI, VII A–F,VIII A–F, IX A–F, X, XI A–F, XII A 1 BA 2 , XIII A, A b , A d , A e , A f B–F, XIV, XV A–F, and XVI A–E [and F]. According to the composer, "In the preparatory work for my composition Kontakte , I found, for the first time, ways to bring all properties [i.e., timbre , pitch , intensity , and duration ] under

4524-482: 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 , Kurt Schwitters , 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

4602-666: 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". The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson composed Illiac Suite for string quartet ,

4680-546: The studio of Bebe and Louis Barron . In the same year Columbia University 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

4758-571: 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 , followed in 1954 by Elektronische Studie II —the first electronic piece to be published as

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4836-496: 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

4914-399: The tape recorder. Ussachevsky then and there put them through electronic transformations." The score for Forbidden Planet , by Louis and Bebe Barron , was entirely composed using custom-built electronic circuits and tape recorders in 1956 (but no synthesizers in the modern sense of the word). In 1929, Nikolai Obukhov invented the " sounding cross " (la croix sonore ), comparable to

4992-527: The techniques of circuit bending have been commonly associated with noise music , though many more conventional contemporary musicians and musical groups have been known to experiment with "bent" instruments. Important centers of research and composition can be found around the world, and there are numerous conferences and festivals which present electroacoustic music, notably the International Computer Music Conference ,

5070-412: The theremin that could otherwise be performed with string instruments . Avant-garde composers criticized the predominant use of electronic instruments for conventional purposes. The instruments offered expansions in pitch resources that were exploited by advocates of microtonal music such as Charles Ives , Dimitrios Levidis , Olivier Messiaen and Edgard Varèse . Further, Percy Grainger used

5148-403: 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 . 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

5226-400: 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

5304-580: The work "refers both to contacts between instrumental and electronic sound groups and to contacts between self-sufficient, strongly characterized moments . In the case of four-channel loudspeaker reproduction , it also refers to contacts between various forms of spatial movement". The composition exists in two forms: (1) for electronic sounds alone, designated "Nr. 12" in the composer's catalog of works, and (2) for electronic sounds, piano , and percussion , designated "Nr. 12½. A further, theatrical work, Originale (Nr. 12⅔), composed in 1961, incorporates all of

5382-465: 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. The group had no permanent facility, and had to rely on borrowed time in commercial sound studios, including

5460-556: Was CSIRAC , which was designed and built by Trevor Pearcey 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

5538-579: 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 Clavivox synthesizer by Raymond Scott with subassembly by Robert Moog . In 1957, Kid Baltan ( Dick Raaymakers ) and Tom Dissevelt released their debut album, Song Of The Second Moon , recorded at

5616-482: Was an early work using musique concrète –like techniques similar to those developed in Paris during the same period. El-Dabh would later become more famous for his work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center , where in 1959 he composed the influential piece Leiyla and the Poet . Composer John Cage 's assembly of the Williams Mix serves as an example of the rigors of tape music. First, Cage created

5694-415: Was built in 1935. however, after World War II, Japanese composers such as Minao Shibata 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

5772-419: 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

5850-732: 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

5928-540: 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 . The earliest group of electronic musical instruments in Japan, Yamaha Magna Organ

6006-482: 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

6084-416: 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

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