A very brief History

Henrik von Coler

2020-11-05 13:47

Beginnings of Computer Music

Digital sound synthesis dates back to the first experiments of Max Mathews at Bell Labs in the 1950s. Mathews created the MUSIC programming language for generating musical sounds through additive synthesis on an IBM 704. The Silver Scale, realized by Newman Guttman in 1957, is (probably) the first ever digitally synthesized piece of music (Roads, 1980):

MUSIC and its versions (I, II, III, ...) are direct or indirect ancestors to most recent languages for sound processing. Although the first experiments sound amusing from todays perspective, Mathews already grasped the potential of the computer as a musical instrument:

“There are no theoretical limitations to the performance of the computer as a source of musical sounds, in contrast to the performance of ordinary instruments.” (Mathews, 1963)

Mathews created the first digital musical pieces himself, but in order to fully explore the musical potential, he was joined by composers, artists and other researchers, such as Newman Guttman, James Tenney and Jean Claude Risset. Later, the Bell Labs were visited by renowned composers of various genres, including John Cage, Edgard Varèse and Laurie Spiegel (Park, 2009).

References

John Chowning. Turenas: the realization of a dream. Proc. of the 17es Journées d’Informatique Musicale, Saint-Etienne, France, 2011.
[BibTeX▼]

@article{chowning2011turenas,
    author = "Chowning, John",
    journal = "Proc. of the 17es Journées d’Informatique Musicale, Saint-Etienne, France",
    title = "{Turenas: the realization of a dream}",
    year = "2011"
}

Bilbao, Stefan. Numerical Sound Synthesis. Wiley Online Library, 2009. ISBN 9780470749012. doi:10.1002/9780470749012.
[BibTeX▼]

@book{bilbao2009numerical,
    author = "{Bilbao, Stefan}",
    title = "{Numerical Sound Synthesis}",
    publisher = "Wiley Online Library",
    year = "2009",
    isbn = "9780470749012",
    doi = "10.1002/9780470749012",
    subtitle = "{Finite Difference Schemes and Simulation in Musical Acoustics}"
}

Ananya Misra and Perry R Cook. Toward Synthesized Environments: A Survey of Analysis and Synthesis Methods for Sound Designers and Composers. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2009). 2009.
[BibTeX▼]

@inproceedings{misra2009toward,
    author = "Misra, Ananya and Cook, Perry R",
    title = "{Toward Synthesized Environments: A Survey of Analysis and Synthesis Methods for Sound Designers and Composers}",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2009)",
    year = "2009",
    location = "Montreal, Canada"
}

Tae Hong Park. An interview with max mathews. Computer Music Journal, 33(3):9–22, 2009.
[BibTeX▼]

@article{park2009interview,
    author = "Park, Tae Hong",
    title = "An interview with max mathews",
    journal = "Computer Music Journal",
    volume = "33",
    number = "3",
    pages = "9--22",
    year = "2009",
    publisher = "MIT Press"
}

Julius O. Smith. Viewpoints on the History of Digital Synthesis. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, 1–10. 1991.
[BibTeX▼]

@inproceedings{smith2005viewpoints,
    author = "Smith, Julius O.",
    title = "{Viewpoints on the History of Digital Synthesis}",
    booktitle = "{ Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference}",
    year = "1991",
    pages = "1–10"
}

Curtis Roads and Max Mathews. Interview with max mathews. Computer Music Journal, 4(4):15–22, 1980.
[BibTeX▼]

@article{roads1980interview,
    author = "Roads, Curtis and Mathews, Max",
    title = "Interview with max mathews",
    journal = "Computer Music Journal",
    year = "1980",
    volume = "4",
    number = "4",
    pages = "15--22",
    publisher = "JSTOR"
}

Max V Mathews. The Digital Computer as a Musical Instrument. Science, 142(3592):553–557, 1963.
[BibTeX▼]

@article{mathews1963digital,
    author = "Mathews, Max V",
    title = "{The Digital Computer as a Musical Instrument}",
    journal = "Science",
    year = "1963",
    volume = "142",
    number = "3592",
    pages = "553--557",
    publisher = "JSTOR"
}