Computer music stands out quite distinctly among the myriad of musical expressions that have emerged over centuries, and that has a lot to do with the tool at the center of it. Today, more than half a century after computers and music started officially entwining into a common history, we can see a plume of inventions and discoveries that stretch back and forth across the spectrum of the digital world we occupy today. Computer music boasts a versatile, shapeshifting identity—quite unlike other kinds of music, which are rather commonly rooted in specific cultures, locales, and traditions. Although conventional forms of music are not static—they too merge, diverge, and change—in the digital domain, the changes happen much faster, and the computer acts as a generalized tool that can be molded into any function, rapidly adapting to new needs and contexts. Moreso, a computer can be many things simultaneously and at one instant: a novel musical instrument, an orchestra of instruments, a sound synthesis lab, a composer's notepad and assistant, a recording studio, an analysis and processing tool for acoustic and auditory research, and more.
Computers changed music, and in return, music has also altered how we perceive and understand computers. Our relationship with these machines is perhaps best illustrated in an analogy to cycling tides of awe and fear, embrace and denial, curiosity and caution. On the one hand, computers have historically challenged established structures, often completely disrupting and altering them. The looming threat that people perceive from machines can be observed in the anxieties expressed in cultural artifacts produced at different stages of the digital revolution. Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), James Cameron's The Terminator (1984), Wachowski's The Matrix (1999), Alex Proyas's I, Robot (2004)—all these iconic sci-fi films across the ages tell in one way or another a story of how machines acquire intelligence, and get out of control, presenting an existential threat to humankind. With recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence development, the unease and uncertainty around the topic do not seem to subside.
Simultaneously, computers imbued our societies with an immeasurable amount of positive changes across fields and areas, vastly simplifying previously tedious work processes like data processing, as well as handling priorly unimaginable tasks like sequencing the human genome or decoding languages of non-human species. Moreover, computer culture has also contributed immensely to the project of democratization of knowledge, allowing for a unique virtual infrastructure for fast and efficient sharing of information, connection, and cooperation. There is also a great number of films underlying the positive side of machines, perhaps best articulated through their unique form of non-organic sentience, portrayed by the loveable robots R2-D2 and C-3PO in George Lucas's Star Wars franchise, or through the complex intimate relationship between a man and an unbodied artificial intelligence named Samantha in Spike Jonze's Her (2013).
Music presents a unique angle to look at our relationships with machines, as the relationship between one of the most emotive arts and computers, reflects both the conflict and the harmony that resonates through the decades of rapid evolution. For many, if not most, composers, music-makers, sound artists, and sound designers, computers take up the central role in their workflows today. How exactly did we get here, what have we discovered along the way, and where are we going from the strange and fascinating historical moment we are in now?
In this two-part series, I will explore the intricate relationship between digital technology and music. Outlining the historical currents within the field, I will attempt to demonstrate how computers altered our relationship with music, in a way that no other instrument managed to before. Furthermore, I will try to trace a few distinct pathways the field has split into, emphasizing distinct techniques, ideas, and approaches. Starting with the earliest digital "bleeps and bloops," we will see how these experiments led to decades of fascinating research and discovery, eventually culminating in a dynamic and varied ecosystem of music, sound, and instrument creation. Along the way, I will introduce key figures and inventions that have influenced and guided the development of the field. We will also discuss certain foundational computer music concepts and their application in sound work. Lastly, we will ponder over the cultural impact of computers, and the state of the field today in a world increasingly populated by growing and developing non-organic intelligence.
The Evolution of a Musical Instrument: A Bicycle Built For (More Than) Two
Before the first musical instruments were invented, music was generally expressed and permeated through voice. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors sang songs, and whistled melodies for thousands of years. However, a significant change occurred around 40,000 years ago, as evidenced by the archaeological discovery of a flute made from the hollow wing bone of a griffon vulture in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm city in southwestern Germany. While earlier forms of music were expressed through vocalizations, bodily rhythms, and interactions with natural surroundings, the advent of the flute marks the first clear separation of the source of musical creation from the human body. Thus, concretely this bone flute marks the earliest form of music technology.
Forty millennia later, in Stanley Kubrick's esteemed sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1967), the voice of HAL 9000—an artificial intelligence run amok—sings Harry Dacre's "Daisy Bell" ("A Bicycle Built for Two"), gradually slowing down in pitch, as it withers away due to the main character, Dr. Dave Bowman disconnects the murderous machine from power. In this scene, Kubrick reflects on the then-recent vocal-tract synthesis experiment curated by Max Mathews, John L. Kelly, and Carol C. Lochbaum, at Bell Labs in 1961. The team, as media have often put it, has "taught the computer to sing". In an eerily remarkable expression of symmetry, once again a voice, albeit this time uncannily artificial, became the symbol of computers becoming musical.
Douglas Keislar, a composer and researcher, outlines the evolution of music technology in The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music (Dean, 2009) as a series of abstractions, disjunctions, and proliferations. Abstractions are inventions that act as extensions of human faculties, such as musical instruments being an abstraction of the voice, or music notation being an abstraction of a musical performance. Disjunctions occur when new technology supersedes human capacity and decouples the previously established relationships, as seen when musical instruments separate sound production from the body, and notation separates symbolic musical representation from actual sonic expression. Proliferation manifests in the transformative effects on how musicians interact with musical instruments and, at times, the music itself. It is evident in how general musical instruments increase the range, dynamics, and timbral palette beyond a human voice, and notation allows for increased complexity and duration of musical compositions, as well as their preservation in documented form through space and time.
Keislar further suggests that a computer, representing a generalization of a musical tool, is the pinnacle of these processes, culminating in a continuously flexible and adaptable framework for interacting with music. As the author summarizes: "The technology of computer music incorporates and extends the capabilities of previous tools and previous human roles."
Today, a good seventy-plus years into the digital revolution, we are witnessing its paradigm-altering effects in nearly everything that has to do with sound and music. Computer music diverged in many directions. By nature, it is an open and innovation-welcoming field that thrives on experimentation and pushing the boundaries of our relationship with music and sound. Although It started in the academic institutions of the world, largely because of the incredibly high costs of computer systems then, the knowledge, technology, and practices eventually escaped into a global pool of independent developers and creative communities that fuel the field with an unfathomable amount of contributions.
Importantly, computer music is not merely a genre of the past but a dynamic field that continues to grow, develop, and change. One of the defining character traits of the field is its intersectionality with other fields such as interactive media and UI design, digital arts, acoustics and psychoacoustics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, musicology and ethnomusicology, number theory, data science, physics, and more. The overlaps and interconnections historically affected the development of distinct methodologies and approaches. For example, microsound and granular synthesis that was being developed and theorized over the decades by influential composers like Iannis Xenakis, Barry Truax, and Curtis Roads draws heavily on the concepts of particle physics. On the other hand, Maryanne Amacher used the instrument to investigate unique psychoacoustic phenomena enabled by human biology. The range is vast.
Many inventions and discoveries that emerged from the ongoing research within the field have found their way into commercial musical software and hardware, as well as disseminated freely, following the ethos of unrestricted knowledge accessibility and focus on user freedoms—both rooted deeply in the origins of the computing culture.
Decades of computer music research are ingrained into the fabric of the modern world found across the spectrum from the music-making apps on our smartphones, tablets, and laptops, to novel hardware devices, and musical instruments like Monome Norns (pictured above), Shbobo Shnth and Shtar, Empress Effects ZOIA, and others. Companies like Electrosmith and Bela offer affordable programmable microprocessors that anyone can use to develop their unique musical instruments, effects, and processors.
This ubiquity was perhaps somewhat anticipated by the field's trailblazers. However, the changes occurred at an unprecedented speed. In just over half a century, we now coexist with artificial intelligence, which, in the realm of music alone, can create anything from a fully composed new score in the style of any existing or past composer to fully produced, mixed, and mastered popular music tracks with vocals and original lyrics. It is crucial to recognize the unique position of this moment in time and to reflect on how it affects and transforms our relationship with musical and sonic arts. How exactly did we get here, and where is it all going?
1950s: Early Years
Although many factors anticipated the arrival of computer music, from speculative concepts and experiments with automated musical machines ages earlier to revolutionary technological breakthroughs of the last two centuries, the emergence of the field in it modern sense is commonly traced back to a composition created by Lejaren Hiller in collaboration with chemist/composer Leonard Isaacson. Illiac Suite, also known as String Quartet No.4 (1957), was not an electronic piece per se, but resulted from four musical experiments where a computer, the ILLIAC I at the University of Illinois, was programmed to generate compositional material for a string ensemble. Here, both Hiller and Isaacson, professors at the time, explored various algorithms for generating musical materials, including predefined rules, set theory, Markov chains, as well as random and chance operations.
Simultaneously, nearly eight hundred miles northeast, at Bell Labs' renowned Murray Hill research facility, Max Mathews, often cited as the father of computer music (and pictured below), was beginning his own research. Although the famous computer rendition of "A Bicycle Built For Two" would not be heard until 1962, Mathews originally laid out the groundwork by creating the MUSIC I in 1957—the first dedicated program for generating and manipulating electronic sound which marked the beginning of the influential MUSIC-N series.
Running on an IBM 704 mainframe computer, MUSIC I allowed composers to interact with sound through a textual interface, instructing the machine to generate and manipulate electronic tones. Despite its rudimentary functionality and sub-par sonic results, this program became the cornerstone for digital synthesis using a computer. The mathematical theorem developed a decade earlier by Claude Shannon, suggested that any digital information could be transmitted error-free below a certain bandwidth threshold, as well as encouragement from prominent composers like Vladimir Ussachevsky, Edgard Varèse, and Milton Babbitt inspired Mathews to continue the project.
MUSIC II (1958) expanded on the initial ideas, offering a more modular framework for greater flexibility and sound complexity. However, the project truly reached a pivotal point with MUSIC III (1960), which introduced unit generators (Ugens)—building blocks that composers could recombine to create unique virtual musical instruments. MUSIC III also differentiated between instrument definitions (orchestra) and note sequences (score), a standard maintained in subsequent versions. MUSIC IV and V continued to refine these ideas, enhancing digital synthesis and user experience, with MUSIC V marking the last version involving Mathews directly. However, the torch was passed to other researchers and composers who developed alternative variants and extensions, including MUSIC 360, MUSIC 11, and notably, Csound, one of the most enduring evolutions of the MUSIC-N lineage. Although it would also be fair to suggest that in one way or another nearly all contemporary creative sound and music environments, be it SuperCollider, Pure Data, ChucK, or Max (named after Mathews), all in one way or another evolved out of the foundational work done with MUSIC-N.
It would also be inaccurate to view the history of computer music as something fully separate from analog synthesis. The two domains influenced and intermingled with each other. Analog electronic instruments, predating digital systems by decades, included iconic inventions like Thaddeus Cahill’s Telharmonium (1896) and Lev Termen’s Theremin (1920). However, it was only in the 1950s, the same decade that marked the origin of computer music, that analog synthesizers began to take shape fully. The same year that Illiac Suite was published and Mathews completed MUSIC-I, the RCA MKII synthesizer (pictured above) was installed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson, RCA Mark II comprised a room-sized collection of analog sound modules controlled by a binary sequencer. The punch-card-operated programmable sequencer attracted composers seeking precise control over sound parameters, with Vladimir Ussachevsky contributing ideas during the design of the instrument and Milton Babbitt, among others, extensively composing with and for the RCA Mark II. The RCA synthesizer was one of the first hybrid analog-digital systems, and while this design was initially decided on primarily due the deficiencies in computational power of digital technology, many instruments in today's world adhere to the elements of such design approach, mixing analog and digital elements to make unique instruments with distinct sonic character, and powerful control features.
1960s: Computer Music Everywhere At The Same Time
The era of the 1960s is surrounded with an aureole of radical cultural and technological transformations, with a range of current-shifting developments. During this time, Robert Moog and Donald Buchla began to actively conceptualize and materialize the analog synthesizer, first as discrete functions in a modular format and later as standalone integrated instruments. Although the virtual modular environment of Max Mathews' MUSIC-N predated the early analog modular systems, both sought to offer open solutions for creative work with electronic sound in their respective domains. However, analog modular systems became more popular among experimenting composers due to their tactile nature, and crucially, because interaction with sound was in real-time. Computers, promising as they were, could only process complex music performance and sound synthesis data offline. The process was tedious: specify the task, start the rendering, then wait for a long time before a few seconds of sound were ready to listen to.
Despite these limitations, significant advancements in digital sound synthesis were made during the mid-60s. French composer Jean-Claude Risset, who joined the Bell Labs research team in 1964, played a crucial role in demonstrating the vast creative possibilities of digital synthesis. Among his numerous contributions was the first successful synthesis case of accurately synthesizing the sound of a trumpet, which was a valuable testament to the computer's potential to simulate real-world instruments. Alongside Roger Shepard, Risset also developed the psychoacoustic phenomenon known as the Shepard-Risset tone, an audio illusion of an infinitely rising or falling pitch (and later speeding up/slowing down rhythm). With this, the composer-researchers illustrated the computer's capability to surpass the sonic abilities of acoustic instruments, offering a much extended palette for timbre and spectrum manipulation, including early experiments with FM synthesis, which slightly foreshadowed John Chowning’s later work.
Peter Zinovieff
Across the Atlantic in London, young mathematician Peter Zinovieff, motivated by the desire to find a radically new work framework after leaving a disdained position at the Air Ministry, ventured into electronic music. His initial setup, a tape recorder and a few oscillators, quickly expanded into a sophisticated electronic studio, rivaling many commercial and state-sponsored studios at the time. Zinovieff's early experiments with a transistor-based sequencer eventually led to a collaboration with electronics engineer David Cockerell. Cockerell's suggestion to incorporate a computer transformed Zinovieff's project, leading to the acquisition of two PDP8 minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation in 1966—reportedly being the first case of such computers owned privately.
With the addition of these machines to the studio, Zinovieff and Cockerell were joined by computer scientist Peter Gogorno, forming the foundation of EMS, a company that would later produce iconic instruments like the Synthi-100 and VCS-3. Gogorno designed a simple computer language to interpret composers' ideas, which became the interface for the hybrid system, MUSYS. Sensing an increasing public interest in computer music, Zinovieff initiated a series of solo computer music concerts at Queen Elizabeth’s Hall, showcasing the impressive capabilities of his system to large audiences. In 1968, in one of such performances, Zinovieff presented his composition Partita for Unattended Computer, marking the first public performance of a solo computer.
Meanwhile, in Finland, physics student Erkki Kurrenniemi was hired by the musicologist Erik Tawastjerna at the University of Helsinki's Institute of Musicology to build equipment for their Electronic Music Studio. While lacking a formal budget, Kurrenniemi was given creative freedom and access to the electronic components. This unique arrangement allowed him to pivot from the tape-centric workflow of electronic music to an innovative digital ecosystem. Between 1964 and 1967, he developed the 'integrated synthesizer,' a system conceptually similar to Columbia-Princeton's RCA synthesizer, featuring a digital sequencer and digitally controlled oscillators. His collaborations with composers Ralph Lundsten and Leo Nilsson, and later Osmo Linderman, led to the creation of pioneering instruments like the Andromatic and the DICO (Digitally Controlled Oscillator). By 1970, confident in his developments, Kurrenniemi established Digelius Electronics Finland Oy to market his futuristic DIMI (Digital Music Instrument) series, setting a precedent in the evolution of digital music instruments.
Erkki Kurenniemi
During the 1970s digital technology began to rapidly pick up scale and speed. What set Erkki Kurrenniemi apart from many other entities experimenting with electronic sounds, was that in many ways he was guided by a strong philosophical conviction of an inevitable future integration between biological systems and machines. Kurrenniemi's DIMI instruments, all based on biofeedback processes, exemplified this. In 1971, he developed DIMI-O, which used an optical interface to translate body movement into musical data. A dancer could "compose" music in real-time, controlling sound parameters through her movements. Following this, Kurrenniemi introduced DIMI-S, aka the "Sexophone," in 1972, which generated sound through electric conductivity via skin contact between performers. A year later, he created DIMI-T/Encephalophone, controlled by brain activity.
Despite his innovative approach, the lack of substantial institutional support for his experimental developments made it difficult for Kurrenniemi’s company, Digelius Electronics Finland Oy, to sustain operations into the late '70s, prompting him to shift gears towards artistic practice and research. However, a resurgence of interest in the mid-2000s brought Kurrenniemi back to instrument design with DIMI-H, a software instrument based on his theories of mathematical harmonies developed in the 1980s. But let’s get back for now.
The 1970s: Computer Music Through The Stars
The 1970s also witnessed a profound shift in the general public's perception of computers, influenced heavily by their portrayal in science fiction as malevolent forces. Laurie Spiegel, a resident composer at Bell Labs during this period, noted in a 2017 interview that until the mid-to-late '70s, computers were predominantly found in industrial, commercial, and institutional settings. Early computer music composers, therefore, often faced criticism for allegedly "dehumanizing" music. However, these composers also turned out to be instrumental in demonstrating that computers could indeed serve as powerful tools for expressive and emotive music creation. A testament to this is Laurie Spiegel's work, "Kepler's Harmony of the World," which in 1977 was selected to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, a massive NASA-led project which launched the record into open space on its spacecraft, hoping that one day it will reach an external civilization, which would be presented with one of the most magnificent aspect of life on our planet—Earth's music in all of its mind-boggling diversity.
Spiegel created this piece using the Bell Labs' GROOVE system—a digital-analog hybrid developed in 1970 by Max Mathews and F. Richard Moore. The system was specifically designed to overcome the slow processing speeds of early digital computers, thus enabling real-time music creation by separating control signals, managed by a computer, from sound signals processed by analog hardware. This setup allowed composers to dynamically interact with their compositions, making real-time adjustments. As such, the GROOVE system was a pivotal development in making computer music more intuitive and expressive.
Spiegel also worked with the Bell Labs Digital Synthesizer, also known as the Alles Machine or, simply, Alice. Designed by Hal Alles between 1975-77, this 16-bit experimental additive machine was one of the first fully digital synthesizers. It featured a microcomputer, a digital sound engine, and various input controllers, enabling rich sound creation and manipulation.
Meanwhile, significant developments in computer music were also gaining traction from the international community fostering the establishment of the first research centers dedicated specifically to computer music and digital sound technology. In 1974-1975, John Chowning acquired funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and founded the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. In France, Pierre Boulez founded IRCAM in 1977, setting up a facility at the Centre Pompidou in Paris to advance both musicological and technological research. Both centers became unique multidisciplinary innovation hubs that to this day remain at the cutting edge of computer music research.
By the end of the decade, computer music technologies were also penetrating the commercial synthesizer market. Instruments like the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and Yamaha CS-80, both released by 1978, were famously the first commercially available synthesizers under digital control. The era also saw the introduction of complete music workstations like the New England Digital's Synclavier and Fairlight's Computer Musical Instrument (CMI), which integrated sampling, editing, and sequencing capabilities with digital synthesis, embodying the computer as a central fixture in musical studios. This integration allowed composers unprecedented freedom to innovate with sound creation and arrangement, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of music technology.
The first version of the Synclavier, released in 1977, was quite different from the widely-known Synclavier II. Conceived in collaboration between the composer Jon Appleton, electronics professor Sydney A. Alonso, and software programmer Cameron Jones, the instrument was initially focused on FM synthesis, a sound design method that was extensively researched and formulated by John Chowning, and that NED re-licensed from Yamaha.
The Synclavier II, released in 1980 (and pictured above), marked a significant expansion of the original concept, particularly inspired by the ideas brought in by the music producer and sound synthesist, Denny Jaeger. The redefined instrument featured an extended ability to stack up to four independent synth voices, and a modular design that allowed its users to expand the system over the years. The inclusion of comprehensive sequencing tools, additive synthesis, and, importantly, 16-bit user-sampling capabilities added in 1982 further broadened the sonic potential of the instrument, eventually solidifying its status as a "tapeless digital recording studio." This made Synclavier particularly popular as a sound design tool for film and television, however, a few high-level artists that could afford to pay the nearly $200k price tag, such as Frank Zappa, Michael Jackson, Suzanne Ciani, and Laurie Anderson, at least for a period made it a centerpiece of their creative workflows.
Alongside NED's innovative developments, in Sydney, Australia two high-school friends Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, dissatisfied with the sonic possibilities of the existing analog systems, embarked on a journey to develop an advanced digital synthesizer. They've named their company Fairlight after a boat that has been daily cruising along the coastline as they were working on the instrument.
Their initial plan was to develop an instrument that could accurately synthesize models of existing acoustic sounds. The idea was once again, a hybrid that would marry a collection of Moog-like analog sound modules with a precise digital control system, however, it soon proved to be impractical and the duo adopted a powerful Motorola 6800 microprocessor to handle both performance and sound synthesis aspects. Eventually, instead of demanding physical modeling algorithms, it was decided to implement PCM sampling as the primary synthesis method in the instrument, where a sound could be recorded onto the memory of the machine, processed, and then played back polyphonically at different speeds to simulate the transposition. This is perhaps where the term "sampling", as applied to music, originates. Vogel and Ryrie specifically used this term to describe their process. With the help of Motorola consultant Tony Furse, Fairlight designed the Computer Musical Instrument aka the CMI. The instrument has overseen several transformations between the initial stages in 1978 (QASAR M8) and the widely known Series II released in 1982, eventually settling on a recognizable modular design comprising a piano-style keyboard, a processing unit, and a screen with a futuristic light pen control interface.
Page R Sequencer
The CMI Series II also introduced the wildly popular Page R sequencer, replacing the Music Composition Language from Series I heavily criticized for its convoluted implementation. A significantly consequential aspect of the Page R sequencer was its attraction to people who wanted to compose music but couldn't effectively express themselves via a keyboard instrument. The ability to program music note by note through a visual interface was a liberating step for many seeking democratization of music production.
The CMI Series II also came with a floppy disk packed with a collection of samples, among the most memorable of which was the ORCH5, an orchestral hit captured from the rendition of Stravinsky's "Firebird," which eventually made its way to several era-defining songs, including Michael Jackson's "Dangerous", Afrika Baambaata's "Planet Rock", and New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle". While this sample certainly wasn't the actual reason for the CMI's nickname of "orchestra in a box" it certainly suits the title.
The "tapeless studio" or "orchestra in a box" concepts, although associated with the Synclavier and the CMI respectively, also vividly depict the general vector of technological evolution during that era. The studios of the past were rooms filled with bulky equipment entangled in webs of cables; the studios of the future would be integrated digital systems capable of facilitating all original studio tasks, and more.
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By the mid-1980s both CMI and Synclavier II, continuously upgrading and improving, were some of the most advanced electronic musical instruments in the world. However, their costs remained high, and as more affordable samplers, and digital synthesizers started entering the market, instruments like the Akai S900 (1986), Ensoniq's Mirage (1984), and of course the DX-series from Yamaha, the sales for both Fairlight and NED began plummeting. The arrival of personal computers was another major factor that eventually led to the dissolution of both brands. That said, the legacy of those instruments was immense, and it still lives on in the forms of plugin emulations such as Peter Vogel CMI and Synvlavier V by Cameron Jones in collaboration with Arturia, as well as the new hardware desktop synth by the re-branded Synclavier Digital—Regen.
To be continued…
From the advent of the first microprocessors in the early 1970s like the Intel 4004 to the rise of groundbreaking institutions like CCRMA and IRCAM, and the creation of the Fairlight and NED digital workstations, the 1970s were a transformative era for computer music. This period not only cemented its role on the global stage but also broadened its reach into numerous new areas. As we continue our series, we’ll transition into the 1980s—a vibrant decade when computer music, while still nurtured by academia, began to ripple through the wider public consciousness, inspiring a myriad of creative communities across the globe.
We’ll explore iconic musical instruments like the Yamaha DX-7 and peek into the roots of subculture movements like the demoscene. As we trace the evolution of computer music through these decades of technological innovation and cultural shifts, we invite you to stay tuned for more insights into how these changes have influenced the current music scene and what possibilities lie ahead in this ever-evolving field.
