Here is a timeline of some of the significant technological innovations and musical compositions discussed in class.
1787 — The composition of Musikalisches Würfenspiel, attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and considered to be one of the earliest examples of algorithmic composition; the roll of dice was used to choose a measure of music from among a collection of possibilities, and after several such dice rolls a full composition would have been completed by assembling suitable measures. There were literally quadrillions of possible compositions that theoretically could be generated by this system.
…
1877 — Invention of the phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison, a device that recorded sound by inscribing an indentation into a tinfoil sheet on a cylinder such that the variations in the indentation were analogous to the amplitude of the sound; the sound of the stylus being dragged lightly on that surface at a later time could be amplified to audible level, allowing the previously inscribed sound to be heard back.
1886 — Invention of the graphophone by Alexander Graham Bell, which differed from the phonograph in that it inscribed the sound horizontally on wax-covered cardboard cylinders, making the recordings better-sounding and more durable.
1887 — Emile Berliner patented the gramophone, which etched the sound horizontally in a spiral on a wax-coated disc. The disc would prove to be the preferred recording format.
1896 — Invention of the telharmonium, generally considered the first electronic instrument, by Thaddeus Cahill, whose idea was for the sound of the telharmonium to be transmitted via telephone lines to homes and places of business, which would license the music service for a fee.
1899 — Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin, which was recorded by the composer on a player piano scroll in the early 20th century; the player piano was a significant music storage/retrieval invention of the turn of the 20th century that enjoyed popularity in the first quarter of that century.
1920 — Invention of the theremin (a.k.a. thereminvox) by Leon Theremin, an electronic musical instrument that could be performed (could be controlled in its pitch and its volume) without the performer physically touching the instrument.
1924 — Ballet Mécanique by George Antheil was a large composition for pianos, player pianos, percussion instruments, sirens, and airplane propellers; it was intended to accompany a film of the same name by Fernand Léger.
1928 — The theremin was patented in the U.S. It would later be the first product manufactured by synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, and would still later be used as a special melodic effect in compositions such as Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys and the theme for the TV show Star Trek.
1932 — The first commercially available electric guitar was produced by Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp. Guitars were amplified to compete in loudness with other band instruments. The fact that the vibration of the guitar’s strings was transduced into an electrical signal meant that its sound could be easily altered and distorted to get an extremely wide range of timbres, which were exploited by rock musicians.
1935 — The Gibson guitar company announces its production of the ES-150 “Electric Spanish” archtop electric guitar. Gibson remains one of the foremost manufacturers of electric guitars, the makers of several famous models popular among rock guitarists, including the Les Paul, the ES-335, the SG, and the Flying V.
1935 — The Magnetophon tape recorder was developed by AEG Telefunken in Germany, featuring lightweight tape (instead of the heavy, dangerous metal tape used in some prior devices) and a ring-shaped magnetic head. Although not commercially available for about another decade, this was the fundamental design of later models.
1948 — The Ampex company in America, with financial backing from radio star Bing Crosby, produced a commercially available tape recorder, the Model 200. The availability of tape recording made it much easier to record large amounts of sound material for radio broadcasts and records.
1948 — Etude aux chemins de fer by Pierre Schaeffer was one of the first examples of musique concrète, music composed entirely of recorded non-instrumental sounds. He recorded railroad sounds on discs, and developed techniques of looping, editing, and mixing to compose music with those sounds.
1950 — Alan Turing describes a definition of artificial intelligence in his article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence“.
1956 — Louis and Bebe Barron produced a soundtrack score for the film Forbidden Planet that consisted entirely of electronic sounds they generated with their own homemade circuitry. The musicians’ union convinced MGM not to bill their work as music, so they were credited with “electronic tonalities”.
1956 — German composer Karheinz Stockhausen composed Gesang der Jünglinge for electronic and concrete sounds.
1956 — Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson programmed the Illiac I computer at the University of Illinois to compose the Illiac Suite for string quartet, the earliest example of algorithmic music composition carried out by a computer.
1958 — Edgard Varèse composed Poème électronique for electronic and concrete sounds, which was composed to be played out of multiple speakers inside the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, an innovative building design credited to Le Corbusier but largely designed by architect/engineer/composer Iannis Xenakis.
1958 — Luciano Berio composed Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), a tape composition in which the initial “theme” is a reading by Cathy Berberian of text written by James Joyce, and the recording is used as the source material for the remainder of the composition, made by editing and mixing Berberian’s taped voice.
1950s — Early experimentation in the musical application of computers included attempts at algorithmic composition by Hiller and Isaacson (resulting in the Illiac Suite in 1956) and work on audio and voice synthesis at Bell Labs, resulting in Max Mathews‘s MUSIC programming language, the precursor to many subsequent similar music programming languages (known collectively as Music N languages).
1950s — American expatriate composer Conlon Nancarrow composed the majority of his Studies for Player Piano during this decade, including Study No. 21, also known as Canon X, a composition in which two melodic lines constantly change tempo in opposite ways. Nancarrow punched the notes of his compositions into player piano scrolls by hand. The mechanical means of performing the music permitted him to explore musical ideas involving very complex rhythm and tempo relationships that are practically impossible for human performers.
1961 — Max Mathews and others at Bell Labs synthesize a singing voice and a piano in a completely digitally-produced rendition of the song Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two).
1964 — Understanding Media, a critique of media and technology by Marshall McLuhan.
1968 — Revolution 9, a musique concrète composition by The Beatles (credited to Lennon-McCartney, but composed primarily by John Lennon with the assistance of Yoko Ono and George Harrison), demonstrating the artists’ interest in avant garde contemporary art and music. It was remarkable for a popular rock group of their stature to include such music on an album rock music.
1968 — Switched-On Bach was an album of compositions by Baroque-period German composer Johann Sebastian Bach performed (with overdubbing) on a Moog modular synthesizer by Wendy Carlos. The album popularized the sound of electronic music and even made it to the Billboard Top 40 and won three Grammy awards.
1968 — Composer Steve Reich noticed that when a suspended microphone swung past a loudspeaker it momentarily produced a feedback tone. This inspired him to make Pendulum Music, a piece in which several suspended microphones are swung pendulum-like over loudspeakers to produce feedback tones periodically. The tones happened at different periodicities based on the rate at which each microphone swung, creating an unpredictable rhythmic counterpoint. This type of piece was consistent with the conceptual art of the 1960s, in which the idea behind the creation of the artwork was considered more important than, or even considered to be, the artwork itself. It’s also an example of process music, in which a process is enacted and allowed to play out, and the result of that process is the composition. It led to other process pieces by Reich (and soon by others, too) such as his tape loop pieces It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out, and instrumental process pieces such as Piano Phase.
1960s — Robert Moog developed the voltage-controlled modular synthesizer, made famous by Wendy Carlos’s album Switched-On Bach, and used by various experimental composers and popular musicians. The synthesizer consisted of a cabinet filled with diverse sound-generating and sound-processing modules that could be interconnected with patch cords in any way the user desired. A significant feature was the ability to use oscillators not only as sound signals but also as control signals to modulate the frequency of other oscillators, the gain of amplifiers, and the cutoff frequency of filters.
1972 — The end of the tune From the Beginning by Emerson, Lake & Palmer includes a Moog modular synthesizer solo. The Moog modular was included in studio recordings of several rock bands of that period. However, the later Minimoog synthesizer proved more popular for live performances for various reasons, especially its relative simplicity and compactness.
1976 — The Minimoog synthesizer included a pitchbend wheel and a modulation wheel next to the keyboard for additional expressive control. Few people mastered the Minimoog (and the pitchbend wheel) more than Chick Corea, who used the Minimoog in the jazz-rock group Return to Forever. The tune Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant includes a good example of Corea’s prowess on the Minimoog.
1977 — Producer-composer Giorgio Moroder was the producer of the disco hit I Feel Love by Donna Summer, in which the instrumental accompaniment is completely electronic.
1978 — Giorgio Moroder is well known for composing the film score Midnight Express, the Chase theme of which typifies the driving rhythmic periodic electronic sequences in the score. Moroder used a wide range of synthesizers (Moog, Minimoog, ARP, etc.) and other electronic keyboards.
1978 —The German band Kraftwerk composed synthesizer music that seemed to comment on the mechanization and dehumanization of modern technological society. Their song The Robots, composed with synthesizers such as the Minimoog, overtly sings of cyberbeings, but may in fact be a commentary on class disparities, evoking a dehumanized working class.
1980 — John Searle published “Minds, Brains, Programs“, an article disputing Alan Turing’s definition of intelligence.
early 1980s — The MIDI protocol for communication between digital instruments was established by music manufacturers.
1980s — David Cope began to develop his Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI) software, which composed music convincingly in the style of famous composers.
1985 — Degueudoudeloupe is an algorithmic composition by Christopher Dobrian composed and synthesized by computer (programmed by the composer) exploring computer decision making in metric modulations, and using continually changing tuning systems.
1989 — The Vanity of Words by Roger Reynolds uses computer algorithms to edit and process the voice of baritone Philip Larson reciting text by Milan Kundera, resulting in a digital form of musique concrète, in concept not unlike the 1958 composition Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) by Luciano Berio.
1991 — Entropy, an algorithmic composition for computer-controlled piano and computer graphics by Christopher Dobrian, exploring the use of changing statistical probabilities as a way of organizing a musical composition.
1994 — Textorias for computer-edited guitar by Arthur Kampelas demonstrates how intricate digital editing can be used to organize a highly gestural modern-day musique concrète composition.
1995 — Barrage No. 4, a composition for computer-edited electric guitar sounds by John Stevens, a digital form of musique concrète; the guitar sounds are very noisy and of radically changing pitch, defying classification as traditional instrumental sound.
1997 — Rag (After Joplin) is a piano rag composed by David Cope‘s artificially intelligent EMI software emulating the musical style of famous ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Cope’s software draws on databases of compositions by famous composers, and reorders moments of those compositions, resulting in new works that are remarkably similar stylistically to the composer’s actual works.
1998 — There’s Just One Thing You Need To Know is a computer music composition by Christopher Dobrian for computerized piano (Yamaha Disklavier), synthesizer, and interactive computer system in which the computer responds to the performed piano music with synthesizer accompaniment and even algorithmic improvisations of its own.
2000 — Microepiphanies: A Digital Opera is a full-length theatrical music and multimedia performance by Christopher Dobrian and Douglas-Scott Goheen in which the music, sound, lights, and projections are all controlled by computer in response to the actions of the live performers onstage, without there being any offstage technicians running the show.
2003 — Mannam is a composition by Christopher Dobrian for daegeum (Korean traditional bamboo flute) and interactive computer system, featuring interactive processing of the flute’s sound as well as synthesized and algorithmically-arranged accompaniments.
2005 — Data.Microhelix by Ryoji Ikeda, exclusively used digital “glitches” as the fundamental musical material, an example of the so-called “aesthetics of failure”.
2011 — Eigenspace by Mari Kimura employed the “augmented violin” gesture-following system developed at IRCAM to control the type of audio processing that would be applied to her violin sound in real time.
2013 — Modus 01 by Danny Sanchez used sounds triggered by piano to make an interactive combination of piano and glitch.