From Analog to Digital: The Computer and the Digital Equipment Win Recognition as Compositional Tools

Abstract

In the 1970s, composers interested in the new working techniques manifested an obvious desire to complement analog technology with digital technology. Among the early attempts, worthy of merit in the field of using the computer as a tool for writing music, we find the contribution of Lejaren Hiller in collaboration with Leonard Isaacson and Iannis Xennakis that started building his textures with the aid of the computer, determining the possible combinations resulting from the probability calculus. Writing music with the help of the computer appealed to many important composers, such as Gottfried Michael Koenig, Max Mathews, Morton Subotnick, and Jean-Claude Risset. In 1977, the latter founded, with Pierre Boulez, one of the most prestigious new music research centres dedicated to new music, IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique). As in the last fifty years, computer music programs developed spectacularly, a list of important composers, software, research, and composition centers is mentioned.