Voice of the Computer: Risset+Tenney++ early electronic

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Voice of the Computer-- Max V. Mathews: Masquerades (1963); Slider; Swansong / Jean-Claude Risset: Computer Suite from 'Little Boy' (1968) / James Tenney: Stochastic Quartet (1963) / Wayne Slawson: Wishful Thinking About Winter / Roger N. Shepard: Shepard's Tones / John R. Pierce: Eight-Tone Canon (1966). Decca DL 710180

Excellent and rare 1970 lp with pioneering experimental electronic works composed at Bell Labs on early IBM mainframes (including the 7090 and 7094) during the 50s and 60s, representing some of the earliest ever computer-produced music. Some tracks, like Risset's, are beautiful and complex multi-movement compositions, while others are fascinating studies of microtuning, psychoacoustic phenomena, and mathematical experiments in synthesized sound. This lp documents for the first time the eerie Shepard's Tones (aka the auditory staircase illusion), in which all relative pitch discrimination information has been eliminated from a set of tones, resulting in "an impression of continuously ascending and descending sequences of pitches... whereas in actuality every 12th pitch is identical." In Mathews' Masquerades, the computer takes several precomposed themes and randomly transposes and modulates their elements onto each other; the title of the piece was suggested to Mathews by John Cage. Pierce's work explores the use of synthetic overtones to achieve "control over the way in which the various tones of a chord blend together." Mathews' Swansong is of particular historic value as "the birth cry of interactive graphic composing... the score was drawn directly on the computer using a TV picture tube attached to the computer and a special light pen which allows lines to be drawn directly on the screen of the tube... Only a few minutes ensued between finishing the score and listening to the result. Hence, it was easy for the composer to revise and develop his ideas..." Of course, these principles have become the basis of all modern digital audio software; a couple of decades later, Miller Puckette, while working at IRCAM, would create the MAX digital audio graphical programming environment, named in honor of Mathews. This essential lp is the sequel/companion to the equally legendary Music from Mathematics album and ranks among the greatest of early electronic collections.

In the late 1950s, Bell Labs hosted the first musicians to experiment with computers, and as a result of the release of this music on lp they later attracted composers Edgard Varese and Jean-Claude Risset to work at their studios. Pierce was a pioneering early electronic composer, a psychoacoustician, an engineer regarded as the father of communications satellites, and a science fiction author; he worked directly with Varese and Risset. Mathews is generally considered the very first computer musician; he programmed the software used to create many of the pieces on this lp (such as Music I and II) and would go on to invent many digital audio techniques, hardware, and software (including Music 360). He also worked with Jon Appleton, and at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez. Tenney studied under Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo, Henry Brant, and Varese, and worked with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Harry Partch, John Cage, and Conlon Nancarrow. Risset is a composer, pianist, and theoretician who studied music under Andre Jolivet and also studied mathematics and physics; he worked at IRCAM with Boulez, at Bell Labs where he met Vladimir Ussachevsky and worked with Edgard Varese, John R. Pierce, James Tenney, and Max Mathews, and as the first computer-based composer at the legendary INA-GRM musique concrete studios (center of study for electroacoustic pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Michel Chion, Luc Ferrari, Francois Bernard Mache, Ivo Malec, Bernard Parmegiani, Michel Redolfi, Ragnar Grippe, Jon Appleton, Jean Michel Jarre, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis). The IBM 7090 computer was also used by Iannis Xenakis and Lejaren Hiller as a compositional tool. Other references for this lp: Gottfried Michael Koenig, Herbert Eimert, Milton Babbitt, Barry Vercoe, Autechre, Aphex Twin...

Vinyl Condition: ex+
Cover Condition: vg+ (light wear; promo stamp on back; small tear on front and on 2 corners; small stains on back)

I have another Risset lp for sale. Check out my other auctions this week for more avant garde/experimental, early electronic/electroacoustic/synthesizer, 20th century classical, minimalism, free jazz, psych, and space age pop.









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