The computer music movement of the 1960’s, 70s and 80’s created the technology that established the sound of music as we know it today. We unearth the stories behind that movement, as well as some trippy music that demonstrates how music grew into the electronic sounds we take for granted now. In Season 2, we take a deep dive into the music of Stanley Jordan, a jazz master who combines musical virtuosity with a lifelong love of the technology. In Season 1, we told the story of a group of music-loving computer engineers who happened upon some musicians who were enamored with a new IBM computer at the Engineering Quadrangle at Princeton University in 1963.
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The computer music movement of the 1960’s, 70s and 80’s created the technology that established the sound of music as we know it today. We unearth the stories behind that movement, as well as some trippy music that demonstrates how music grew into the electronic sounds we take for granted now. In Season 2, we take a deep dive into the music of Stanley Jordan, a jazz master who combines musical virtuosity with a lifelong love of the technology. In Season 1, we told the story of a group of music-loving computer engineers who happened upon some musicians who were enamored with a new IBM computer at the Engineering Quadrangle at Princeton University in 1963.
This episode is the story of what happened when a Princeton composer, who was inspired to create some of the most challenging music ever written, decided it could be most reliably performed by a machine. His work to realize that machine led to the birth of the electronic synthesizer as a device upon which one could compose music. And it led, indirectly, to the digital music revolution.
The device wasn’t a computer – it was an early analog synthesizer in Manhattan, co-owned by Princeton and Columbia.
This episode will take you inside Milton Babbitt’s work with his “robot orchestra.” You’ll get to hear the music it made, and how Babbitt and the engineers who built it carved out a path that would lead to digital music as know it today.
Composers & Computers
The computer music movement of the 1960’s, 70s and 80’s created the technology that established the sound of music as we know it today. We unearth the stories behind that movement, as well as some trippy music that demonstrates how music grew into the electronic sounds we take for granted now. In Season 2, we take a deep dive into the music of Stanley Jordan, a jazz master who combines musical virtuosity with a lifelong love of the technology. In Season 1, we told the story of a group of music-loving computer engineers who happened upon some musicians who were enamored with a new IBM computer at the Engineering Quadrangle at Princeton University in 1963.
