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25-466: Earlier 20th century electronic instruments such as the Telharmonium or the theremin were manually operated. The RCA combined diverse electronic sound generation with a music sequencer , which proved a huge attraction to composers of the day, who were growing weary of creating electronic works by splicing together individual sounds recorded on sections of magnetic tape . The RCA Mark II featured

50-439: A binary sequencer using a paper tape reader analogous to a player piano , that would send instructions to the synthesizer, automating playback from the device. The synthesizer would then output sound to a synchronized record lathe next to the machine. The resulting recording would then be compared against the punch-tape score, and the process would be repeated until the desired results were obtained. The sequencer features of

75-442: A white noise source). The synthesizer was difficult to configure, requiring extensive patching of analog circuitry prior to running a score. Little attempt was made to teach composition on the synthesizer, and with few exceptions the only persons proficient in the machine's use were the designers at RCA and the engineering staff at Columbia who maintained it. Princeton University composer Milton Babbitt , though not by any means

100-477: A mark of aesthetic progress (continuing with contemporary computer -based sequencers) generated high expectations for the Mark II, and contributed to the increased awareness of electronic music as a viable new art form. An album featuring the instrument and its capabilities was issued by RCA (LM-1922) in 1955. The synthesizer had a four-note variable polyphony (in addition to twelve fixed-tone oscillators and

125-724: A music teacher, September 5, 1959, and was with her until his death. Luening set songs to words by Oscar Wilde , Emily Dickinson , Lord Byron , Walt Whitman , William Blake , Percy Bysshe Shelley , Sharpe, Naidu, Hermann Hesse , and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . A selection of those recorded include "She walks in Beauty", "Farm Picture", "Little Vagabond", "Young Love", "Wake the serpent not", "Requiescat", "Venilia", "Locations and Times", "Noon Silence", "Visor'd", "Infant Joy", "Good-night", "I faint, I perish", "Transience", "At Christmas time/In Weihnachtszeiten", "Ach! wer bringt die schönen Tage", Songs of Emily Dickinson, "Love's Secret", "Harp

150-540: A number of reasons. The instrument was immense in size and weight. This being an age before vacuum tubes had been invented, it required large electric dynamos which consumed great amounts of power in order to generate sufficiently strong audio signals. In addition, problems began to arise when telephone broadcasts of Telharmonium music were subject to crosstalk and unsuspecting telephone users would be interrupted by strange electronic music. By 1912, interest in this revolutionary instrument had changed, and Cahill's company

175-426: A number of ways. For instance, its sound output came in the form of connecting ordinary telephone receivers to large paper cones—a primitive form of loudspeaker . Cahill stated that electromagnetic diaphragms were the most preferable means of outputting its distinctive sound. There are no known recordings of its music. The Telharmonium was retailed by Cahill for $ 200,000. The Telharmonium's demise came for

200-467: A telephone receiver. Cahill built three versions. Each was an advancement over the features of its predecessor. By 1901, Cahill had constructed a working model, to seek financial backing for a finished machine. The Mark I weighed 7 tons. The 1906 model, had 145 separate electric generators. The Mark II weighed almost 200 tons, was 60 feet long, had multiple keyboards and controls, and required at least two players. The 1911, last Telharmonium,

225-479: Is considered to be the first electromechanical musical instrument. In 1890's, Thaddeus Cahill was a lawyer living in Washington DC who invented devices for Pianos and Typewriters. The final design, patented in 1897, had twelve separate alternating-current generators , to generate electric waves, to produce the twelve basic tones of the musical scale, that would be controlled by a keyboard and heard through

250-521: The Dynamophone ) was an early electrical organ , developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was heard on the receiving end by means of " horn " speakers. Like the later Hammond organ , the Telharmonium used tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis . It

275-581: The Columbia Computer Music Center facility on 125th Street in New York City , where it is bolted to the floor in the office of Professor Brad Garton . Media Overall Olson-Belar composing machine (circa 1950) RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer, Mark I  (circa 1955) RCA Mark II Electronic Music Synthesizer (circa 1958) Computer compositions Telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as

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300-523: The Mark III, weighed almost 200 tons, was 60 feet long, had multiple keyboards and controls, and required at least two players, was installed in a special performance room in New York City. A small number of performances were given for live audiences, in addition to the telephone transmissions. Performances in New York City (some at "Telharmonic Hall", 39th and Broadway) were well received by

325-503: The RCA were of particular attraction to modernist composers of the time, especially those interested in writing dodecaphonic music with a high degree of precision. The RCA is cited by composers of the day as contributing to the rise of musical complexity , because it allowed composers the freedom to write music using rhythms and tempos that were impractical, if not impossible, to realize on acoustic instruments . The allure of precision as

350-589: The cost of the synthesizer in the hopes of being able to eliminate their unionized radio orchestra. In 1959, the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center acquired the machine from RCA. At Columbia-Princeton, Milton Babbitt used it extensively. His tape and tape and instrument pieces were realized using the RCA Mark II, including his masterpiece Philomel , for synthesized sound and soprano. The RCA remains housed at

375-1205: The early potential of synthesizers and special editing techniques for electronic music. An October 28, 1952 concert with Vladimir Ussachevsky at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City introduced Fantasy in Space , flute recordings manipulated on magnetic tape, and led to an appearance on The Today Show with Dave Garroway . Luening was co-founder, along with Ussachevsky, of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1958. He also co-founded Composers Recordings, Inc. in 1954, with Douglas Moore and Oliver Daniel . He died in New York City in 1996. His notable students include Chou Wen-chung , Charles Wuorinen , Joan Tower , John Corigliano , Harvey Sollberger , Faye-Ellen Silverman , Dave Soldier , Sol Berkowitz , Elliott Schwartz , Bernard Garfield , Norma Wendelburg , and Karl Korte . See: List of music students by teacher: K to M#Otto Luening . He married Ethel Codd on April 19, 1927, and divorced in 1959. He married Catherine Brunson,

400-507: The historical interest of the RCA, besides its association with the Electronic Music Center, comes from a number of amusing and possibly apocryphal stories told regarding the synthesizer. One common story is that Ussachevsky and Otto Luening effectively conned RCA into building the machine, claiming that a synthesizer built to their specifications would "replace the symphony orchestra," prompting RCA executives to gamble

425-400: The instrument corresponded to a single note, and, to broaden its possibilities, Cahill added several extra tonewheels to add harmonics to each note. This, combined with organ -like stops and multiple keyboards (the Telharmonium was polyphonic), as well as a number of foot pedals, meant that every sound could be sculpted and reshaped — the instrument was noted for its ability to reproduce

450-519: The machine obsolete by its tenth birthday, having been surpassed by more reliable and affordable solid state modular synthesizers such as the Buchla and Moog modular synthesizer systems. It was prohibitively expensive to replicate, and an RCA Mark III, though conceived by Belar and Olsen, was never constructed. Nor was RCA to remain in the synthesizer business, prompting Columbia to purchase enough spare parts to build two duplicate synthesizers. Much of

475-499: The only person to use the machine, is the composer most often associated with it, and was its biggest advocate. A number of important pieces in the electronic music repertoire were composed and realized on the RCA. Babbitt's Vision and Prayer and Philomel both feature the RCA, as does Charles Wuorinen 's 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Music -winning piece Time's Encomium . Over time it fell into disrepair, and it remains only partly functional. The last composer to get any sound out of

500-415: The public in 1906, with Mark Twain among the appreciative audience. In these presentations, the performer sat at a console to control the instrument. The actual mechanism was so large it occupied an entire room; wires from the controlling console were fed discreetly through holes in the auditorium floor, into the instrument room below. The Telharmonium foreshadowed modern electronic musical equipment in

525-443: The sounds of common orchestral woodwind instruments such as the flute , bassoon , clarinet , and also the cello . The Telharmonium needed 671 kilowatts of power and had 153 keys that allowed it to work properly. Otto Luening Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor , and flutist. He was an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music . Luening

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550-476: The synthesizer was R. Luke DuBois , who used it for a fifty-one second piece on the Freight Elevator Quartet 's Jungle Album in 1997. Although part of the history of electronic music, the RCA was seldom used. Made to United States Air Force construction specifications (and even sporting a USAF oscilloscope ), its active electronics were constructed entirely with vacuum tubes , rendering

575-750: Was also an actor and stage manager for James Joyce 's English Players Company. He returned to the United States in 1924, and appeared mainly as a conductor of operas, in Chicago and the Eastman School of Music . His conducting premieres included Virgil Thomson 's The Mother of Us All , Gian Carlo Menotti 's The Medium , and his own Evangeline . Luening's tape music, including A Poem in Cycles & Bells , Gargoyles for Violin & Synthesized Sound , and Sounds of New Music demonstrated

600-684: Was born in Milwaukee , Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene Luening , a conductor and composer, and Emma ( nee Jacobs), an amateur singer. When he was 12, his family moved to Munich , where he studied music at the State Academy of Music . At age 17, he moved to Switzerland and attended the Municipal Conservatory of Music in Zürich and University of Zurich , where he studied with Ferruccio Busoni and Philipp Jarnach , and

625-468: Was declared not successful in 1914. Cahill died in 1934; his younger brother retained the Mark I for decades, but was unable to interest anyone in it. This was the last version to be scrapped, in 1962. Telharmonium tones were described as "clear and pure" — referring to the electronic sine wave tones it was capable of producing. However, it was not restricted to such simple sounds. Each tonewheel of

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