Think Garageband is New?

Electronic and Computer Music BY NATHAN BREWER, IEEE HISTORY CENTER Computers play an integral part in today’s music industry. From recording and production to composition, many of today’s popular artists use computers in their work. While it may evoke images of high-tech and sophisticated machinery, computer music and electronic music are not recent phenomena; electronic music has been produced for over a century, and music has been made using computers since before the era of rock and roll. While the widespread use of computers in recording and production may have only gained favor within the mainstream industry in the past 30 years, the genre has a very rich and deep history. Electro-acoustic instrumentation dates back to the mid 18th century with the Denis d'or (1753) and the Clavecin électrique (1759). The Denis d’or is known only through written accounts, but diagrams from the Clavecin électrique survive. The Clavecin électrique employs a globe generator which charges a pair of bells hanging from iron bars, and a musician can press a key which will oscillate a clapper between the bells, producing a certain note. These instruments were developed almost a century before the phonautograph (1857), the earliest known device for sound recording. Clavecin électrique Elisha Gray’s acoustic telegraph (1875) is widely considered to be the first synthesizer. Other electronic instruments would soon follow; the Telharmonium, developed byThaddeus Cahill between 1892 and 1914, was one of the first to be used for live performances. The instrument was used for playing live in a music hall and its music would be broadcast over telephone lines. However, its enormous size (over 200 tons and 60 feet in length) and tendency to cause crosstalk on its telephone broadcasts ultimately caused the instrument to fall out of favor. Other early electronic instruments such as theAudion Piano (1915), the Theremin (1920), the Croix Sonore (1926), and the Hammond Organ (1934) proved to be more successful. These instruments led to new approaches to sound and music composition that was previously not possible with traditional instruments. "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music," published in 1907 by Ferruccio Busoni, was one of the most influential papers in the development of electronic music. It discussed several approaches to music now made possible, including microtuning, which is the use of scales based on increments smaller than semitones. Futurist Luigi Russolo’s "The Art of Noises" also took an avant-garde approach, valuing noises such as roars, whistling and buzzing. In 1914, the first concert to perform Russolo’s manifesto featuring his Intonarumori, acoustical noise instruments, was so ill received that it caused a riot. These ideas and approaches to music later influenced electronic avant-garde composers such as Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Pierre Henry, George Antheil and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Luigi Russolo’s Intonarumori The advent of the computer furthered the possibilities of electronic music composition. The first computer used for playing music was the CSIR Mk1, developed in Sydney in the late 1940s by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Built and designed by Trevor Pearcy and Maston Beard and programmed by Geoffrey Hill, the CSIR Mk1 publicly played "Colonel Bogey" in 1951. Later renamed the CSIRAC in 1955, the machine was programmed to accept a punched paper data tape in standard music notation. No recordings of the CSIRAC exist, and the first known recorded computer generated music was a medley of "God Save the King," "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "In the Mood" played by the Ferranti Mark 1 at the end of 1951. Hired by Bell Labs in 1954, Max Mathews is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of computer music. Mathews wrote MUSIC-I, which was the first program to produce digital audio through use of an IBM 704 computer; the CSIRAC and Ferranti only produced analog audio. With John Chowning, Mathews helped set up a computer music program using the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s computer system in 1964. Chowning would later develop the FM synthesis algorithm in 1967, and founded the Center for Computer Research and Musical Acoustics in 1975. The Center for Computer Research and Musical Acoustics would later employ John Pierce, a long time employee of Bell Labs, who contributed pioneering work to digital speech synthesis. CSIRAC, Photo Courtesy John O’Neill Early computers used for music could not process data fast enough to play in real time, but could be used to generate scores. One of the first composers to utilize computers was Iannis Xenakis.  Nathan Brewer is Global History Network Administrator and Librarian at the IEEE History Center at the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at:www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org. Copyright © 2011 IEEE

Innovation: Quotes and Ideas

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away." — Linus Pauling "The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions." — Anthony Jay "That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time." — John Stuart Mill "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration." — Thomas Edison "Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not?" — Robert Kennedy "In every work of genius, we recognize our once rejected thoughts." — Ralph Waldo Emerson "Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things." — Theodore Levitt "The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams." — W. Arthur Porter

Innovation and Education- Barack Obama

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.
Barack Obama

From Brainy Quotes

Backyard Ecology

Link: check out what these kids in Ohio are doing to bring ecology into the backyard!


blackandn2green.blogspot.com/.../urban-swag-urban-agriculture-innovation. htm

Innovation Zone: What's Up?

April 27, 2011

Hey! This is the blog site for the upcoming exciting, adventurous learning center in South Portland, Maine
called the Innovation Zone. Working with the South Portland Library, the Boys and Girls Club,
Zoey's Room and the Dremel Instructable programs, we will provide an every changing, ever challenging
space for teens to explore arts, science, technology, robotics, rocketry, wave energy and media design.

We are in the process of setting up. What we need now are interested teens, art students, older adults, mentors
advisors, and instructors to help set up a fantastic, safe, center for exploration and setting personal goals.

Please get in touch. Post a blog comment. Or write to:

ali.james011@gmail.com