Music Programming Systems

Issues of ubiquitous music archaeology: Shared knowledge, simulation, terseness, and ambiguity in early computer music

“…In modern systems this is almost never the case. Waveforms are normally defined over the full length of the table, sometimes with an extra guard point added, as for instance in Csound (Lazzarini et al, 2016), for interpolation purposes. We expect that the mechanism of a shorter function length in MUSIC V may have been used for the same purpose.…”

“…Our target is to reconstruct the sonic materials through the use of original software. In situations where developing a replica is not practical or methodologically appropriate, we resort to currently available software or hardware environments, for instance, Csound (Lazzarini et al, 2016), as we have done earlier in the study of modulation synthesis experiments. When reconstructing computer-music products of the 1961-1969 period, the choice of Csound is not arbitrary: this language sits at the end of a development line directly connected to the first acoustic compiler (MUSIC III).…”

“…• A replica of an early music-programming system, MUSIC V (Mathews et al, 1969); • The reproduction of computer-music scores and designs either within this environment or by means of its modern counterpart, Csound 6 (Lazzarini et al, 2016); and • The recovery and synthesis of two representative artworks of the analogue-digital transition, Jean-Claude Risset's The Computer Suite for Little Boy (1969) (henceforth Little Boy) and James Tenney's For Ann (Rising) (1969).…”