Electro-acoustic Music

Electro-acoustic Music as an umbrella term which includes:

Musique concrete
- Perre Schaeffer originated the idea
- processing pre-recorded sound material
- starts with an already rich sound material
- works metioned in class:
  - Pierre Scheffer - Etude aux chemins de fer
  - Edgard Varese - Poeme electronique
  - Iannis Xenakis - Concrete PH
Electronic music (early attempts)
- Karlheinz Stockhausen, Herbert Eimert, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Herbert Brun, etc.
- Using oscillators, mixers, tape recorders, filters, ring modulators, etc.
- strict control over the makeup of the sound
- works mentioned in class:
  - Stockhausen - Electronic study II
  - Stockhausen - Gesang der Junglinge
Tape music (early attempts in the US)
- John Cage. Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening
- works mentioned in class:
  - John Cage - Williams Mix
  - First concert of electroacoustic music in the US, 1952, at UIUC.
Voltage controlled equipment (synthesizers)
- Moog
- Buchla
- Harmonic Tone Generator - Jame Beauchamp at UIUC
- works mentioned in class:
  - Walter Carlos - Switched on Bach album
  - Mario Davidovsky - Synchronism I
  - Scott Wyatt - Still Hidden Laughs
MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
- A protocol that allows computers and synthesizers to communicate. Before 1980, the approximate advent, of MIDI that was not always possible.
Computer music
- Computer-assisted Composition
  - Lejaren Hiller at UIUC, - Illiac Suite
- Computer sound synthesis
  - Max Mathews at Bell Labs.