Stochatta - Dr. John R Pierce --- The first ever digital music

[proboardslol]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5a0MWQjzkY4

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5a0MWQjzkY4

This is a recording I made of one of my favorite records: Music from Mathematics. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, AT&T's Bell Laboratories programmed music on an IBM 7090 Computer, and played the sounds using an audio transducer - a device which converts digital electronic signals into sound. The album in general is an experiment in the kinds of sounds which can be produced. In one song, the computer is programmed to sing in a robotic voice "A Bicycle Built for Two", and in another the machine makes cyclic sounds of varying frequencies over and over. This one, composed and programmed by Dr. John R Pierce, is my favorite. Though the other songs are, in general, experimental noises or recreations of other songs, Stochatta is a beautiful original composition. What makes it unique is that this song is likely the first ever digitally composed song. What you're listening to here is the grand daddy of all chiptunes; your favorite 8 bit songs, whether they be from Pokemon or Mario, owe their roots to Stochatta by Dr. Pierce. From the album sleeve is this description:

The course of human development has always been marked by man's striving for new techniques and tools in pursuance of a better life. This is most dramatically manifested in the fields of science and technology. But this dissatisfaction with available materials and methods and the corresponding search for new ones is also evident in the arts, and artists have continually sought to improve the tools of their trade. Today's modern orchestral instruments, for example, hardly resemble their medieval ancestors. On this recording, we illustrate another advancement in the realm of tools available to the music-maker: the computer and the digital-to-sound transducer. This new "instrument" combination is not merely a gadget or a complicated bit of machinery capable of producing new sound. It opens the door to the exploration and discovery of many new and unique sounds.

[Grenadiac]

Interesting tune and neat history. I would encourage you to check out Raymond Scott. He was producing fully electronic music in the 40s.

[proboardslol]

Yeah, I know there was electronic music before, but this is the first digital electronic music

[Grenadiac]

just thought you'd think it was interesting is all