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:

1. [University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios]
2. [Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center]

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.