tags: music mus-407 electroacoustic computer digital audio
Computer Music
TODO: clean up notes
History of Computer Music
See: [music-n]
Early Computer Music at Illinois
1957, Illinois faculty Lejaren Hiller & Leonard Isaacson
- both chemists/[composers]
- created the Illiac Suite, a four-movement string quartet
- first musical score to be generated by a computer using the ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), built/acquired in 1952
- first computer at the U of I; 2.8k [vacuum tubes], 10ft tall, 5 ton weight
- components currently on display in Siebel Center lobby
Two important academic centers founded ca. 1957-1958:
Two more computer music centers established in the 1970s:
IRCAM: Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique
- est. Paris, 1970, by Pierre Boulez
CCRMA: Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics
- est. Stanford University, CA, 1976, by John Chowning and Leland Smith
Both are still active hubs for [electroacoustic]/computer music today.
In the early decades of computer music, computer music was being created at institutional centers rather than in homes since mainframe computers were very expensive and required a high level of specialized knowledge.