Computer Music Center
Encyclopedia
The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University
is the oldest center for electronic
and computer music
research in the United States
. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
The CMC is housed on 125th Street in New York City
. It consists of a large graduate research facility specializing in computer music and multimedia research, as well as a number of composition
and recording studio
s for student use. Projects to come out of the CMC since the 1990s include:
The Computer Music Center has no degree program of its own, and draws students from throughout the Columbia community, primarily from the departments of music
, computer science
, electrical engineering
, visual arts
, film
, intellectual property law
, and psychology
. The director of the CMC is Brad Garton
, and the CMC offers classes taught by George Lewis
, Terry Pender, Douglas Repetto, and R. Luke DuBois
, as well as a large number of visiting faculty who give seminars every year.
professors Vladimir Ussachevsky
and Otto Luening
, and Princeton University
professors Milton Babbitt
and Roger Sessions
. Originally concerned with experiments in music composition
involving the new technology of reel-to-reel tape
, the studio soon branched out into all areas of electronic music research. The Center was officially established with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation
in 1959 which was used to finance the acquisition of the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer
from its owner, RCA.
The flagship piece of Center equipment, the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, was delivered to the Center in 1957 after it was developed to Ussachevsky and Babbitt's specifications. The RCA (and the Center) were re-housed in Prentis Hall, a building off the main Columbia campus on 125th Street. A number of significant pieces in the electronic music repertoire were realized on the Synthesizer, including Babbitt's Vision and Prayer and Charles Wuorinen
's Time's Encomium. In 1961 Columbia Records
released an album titled simply Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
, which was produced principally on the RCA synthesizer
.
Most of the luminaries in the field of electronic music (and avant-garde
music in general) visited, worked, or studied at the Electronic Music Center, including Edgard Varèse
, Halim El-Dabh
, Bülent Arel
, Mario Davidovsky
, Charles Dodge
, Pril Smiley
, Alice Shields
, Wendy Carlos
, and Luciano Berio
. The Center also acted as a consulting
agency for other electronic music studios in the Western Hemisphere
, giving them advice on optimum studio design and helping them to purchase equipment, etc.
The staff engineers at the Center under Peter Mauzey
developed a large variety of customized equipment designed to solve the needs of the composers working at the center. These include early prototypes of tape delay
machines, quadraphonic
mixing consoles, and analog triggers designed to facilitate interoperability
between other (often custom-made) synthesizer equipment. The Center also had a large collection of Buchla
, Moog
, and Serge Modular synthesizers.
By the late 1970s the Electronic Music Center was rapidly nearing obsolescence as the classical analog tape techniques it used were being surpassed by parallel work in the field of computer music
. By the mid 1980s the Columbia and Princeton facilities had ceased their formal affiliation, with the Princeton music department strengthening its affiliation with Bell Labs
and founding a computer music studio under Godfrey Winham
and Paul Lansky
(see Princeton Sound Lab
).
The original Columbia facility was re-organized in 1995 under the leadership of Brad Garton
and was renamed the Columbia University Computer Music Center.
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
is the oldest center for electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and computer music
Computer music
Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition...
research in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
The CMC is housed on 125th Street in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It consists of a large graduate research facility specializing in computer music and multimedia research, as well as a number of composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
and recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
s for student use. Projects to come out of the CMC since the 1990s include:
- Real-Time CmixReal-time CmixReal-Time Cmix is one of the MUSIC-N family of computer music programming languages. RTcmix is descended from the MIX program developed by Paul Lansky at Princeton University in 1978 to perform algorithmic composition using digital audio soundfiles on a VMS mainframe computer. After synthesis...
- PeRColate
- dorkbotDorkbotDorkbot is a group of affiliated organizations worldwide that sponsor grassroots meetings of artists, engineers, designers, scientists, inventors, and anyone else working under the very broad umbrella of electronic art...
- ArtBotsArtBotsArtBots is an international robot talent show held in New York City and other cities. It is sponsored by a variety of arts organizations, produced by an army of volunteers, and is directed by dorkbot founder Douglas Repetto....
The Computer Music Center has no degree program of its own, and draws students from throughout the Columbia community, primarily from the departments of music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
, visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, intellectual property law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, and psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
. The director of the CMC is Brad Garton
Brad Garton
Brad Garton is an American composer and computer musician who is professor of music at Columbia University.He has written, or helped to write, a number of computer music applications, including Real-Time Cmix, music synthesis and signal processing language for real time composition. He received...
, and the CMC offers classes taught by George Lewis
George Lewis (trombonist)
George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...
, Terry Pender, Douglas Repetto, and R. Luke DuBois
R. Luke DuBois
Roger Luke DuBois is an American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.-Biography:...
, as well as a large number of visiting faculty who give seminars every year.
History
The forerunner of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was a studio founded in the early 1950s by Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
professors Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Kirilovitch Ussachevsky was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music.-Biography:...
and Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
, and Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
professors Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
and Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
. Originally concerned with experiments in music composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
involving the new technology of reel-to-reel tape
Tape Music
Tape Music is an experimental 10" vinyl release by Jack Dangers. The vinyl release was coupled with the album Sounds Of The 20th Century No2 when released as a flexi disc vinyl....
, the studio soon branched out into all areas of electronic music research. The Center was officially established with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
in 1959 which was used to finance the acquisition of the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer
RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer
The RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer was the first programmable electronic music synthesizer and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957...
from its owner, RCA.
The flagship piece of Center equipment, the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, was delivered to the Center in 1957 after it was developed to Ussachevsky and Babbitt's specifications. The RCA (and the Center) were re-housed in Prentis Hall, a building off the main Columbia campus on 125th Street. A number of significant pieces in the electronic music repertoire were realized on the Synthesizer, including Babbitt's Vision and Prayer and Charles Wuorinen
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. His catalog of more than 250 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works...
's Time's Encomium. In 1961 Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
released an album titled simply Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (album)
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was an album of electronic music released in 1961. It was the recording of a concert performed at the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University on May 9 and 10, 1961. The stereo version was MS 6566 and the monophonic version was ML 5966...
, which was produced principally on the RCA synthesizer
RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer
The RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer was the first programmable electronic music synthesizer and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957...
.
Most of the luminaries in the field of electronic music (and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
music in general) visited, worked, or studied at the Electronic Music Center, including Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, Halim El-Dabh
Halim El-Dabh
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh is an Egyptian-born American composer, performer, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who has had a career spanning six decades...
, Bülent Arel
Bülent Arel
Bülent Arel was a Turkish-born composer of contemporary classical music and electronic music.He was born in Istanbul, and studied composition at the Ankara Conservatory and sound engineering in Paris...
, Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...
, Charles Dodge
Charles Dodge
Charles Dodge may refer to:* Charles Cleveland Dodge, Brigadier General during the American Civil War at the age of twenty-one* Charles Dodge , composer of electronic music...
, Pril Smiley
Pril Smiley
Pril Smiley is an American composer and pioneer of electronic music.-Biography:Pril Smiley was born in Mohonk Lake, New York. She worked at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the 1960s and 1970s with Milton Babbitt, Otto Luening, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Mario Davidovsky and Alice...
, Alice Shields
Alice Shields
Alice Shields is an American composer. She is a respected electronic composer particularly known for her work in opera....
, Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
, and Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
. The Center also acted as a consulting
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
agency for other electronic music studios in the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
, giving them advice on optimum studio design and helping them to purchase equipment, etc.
The staff engineers at the Center under Peter Mauzey
Peter Mauzey
Peter Mauzey is an electrical engineer associated with the development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center...
developed a large variety of customized equipment designed to solve the needs of the composers working at the center. These include early prototypes of tape delay
Delay (audio effect)
Delay is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time. The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.-Early delay...
machines, quadraphonic
Quadraphonic
Quadraphonic sound – the most widely used early term for what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are independent of one another...
mixing consoles, and analog triggers designed to facilitate interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
between other (often custom-made) synthesizer equipment. The Center also had a large collection of Buchla
Buchla
Buchla & Associates, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, notably synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The 200e Electric Music Box and Lightning III are currently in production.-Buchla Music Box :...
, Moog
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
, and Serge Modular synthesizers.
By the late 1970s the Electronic Music Center was rapidly nearing obsolescence as the classical analog tape techniques it used were being surpassed by parallel work in the field of computer music
Computer music
Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition...
. By the mid 1980s the Columbia and Princeton facilities had ceased their formal affiliation, with the Princeton music department strengthening its affiliation with Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
and founding a computer music studio under Godfrey Winham
Godfrey Winham
Godfrey Winham was an English-born music theorist and composer of contemporary classical music who moved to the United States....
and Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
(see Princeton Sound Lab
Princeton Sound Lab
The Princeton Sound Lab is a research laboratory in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, in collaboration with the Department of Music...
).
The original Columbia facility was re-organized in 1995 under the leadership of Brad Garton
Brad Garton
Brad Garton is an American composer and computer musician who is professor of music at Columbia University.He has written, or helped to write, a number of computer music applications, including Real-Time Cmix, music synthesis and signal processing language for real time composition. He received...
and was renamed the Columbia University Computer Music Center.
General references
- "Q&A: electronic music comes of age" (interview with director of research Douglas Repetto) by Daniel Cressey NatureNatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
456, 576 (4 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456576a; Published online 3 December 2008