The Origins of Electronic Music (question/favor)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415936446/104-6461741-8675115?v=glance&n=283155

Yeah, I already have that newish OHM boxed set. It's sweet.

http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~wowem/electronmedia/music/eamhistory.html

120 Years of Electronic Music

this book.

Holmes' book certainly doesn't skimp on the technology (best description of the Teleharmonium I've read yet) but also has some great listening lists, and covers people outside slightly outside of the academic net (like Raymond Scott). There's an invaluable chart that lists the major tape/electronic pieces by the studios in which they were produced, and not by the composer, which really helps you get a grip on where the various sounds/aesthetics came from.

there was an old magazine that came from a center in trumansburg (outside of ithaca, ny where moog was for a while)that covered a lot of new electronic music. i cant think of what it was called, but i'd bet the cornell library has copies in its library and perhaps digitally.

these are more primary research ideas, of course

More like what you're looking for ...but in French,
http://sonhors.free.fr

I have "Electronic and Computer Music" by Joel Manning on Oxford U Press, good not but esp. heavy on beginnings specifically.

Also (SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION AHOY!) take a look at this, y'all.

"analog days" is pretty great. as you said, its less about the origin than it is about the race to develop synthesizers for the commercial arena. this falls down to buchla vs. moog in the 60's, and then increasingly moog vs. his competitors in the 70's. neat tidbits about how the ARP reverse-engineered the moog & had to be sued to stop, great descriptions of tonto's work on the stevie wonder records. the book is written with an entrepreneur's mind, it goes into the reasons for moog's commercial success a bit too fawningly for my tastes -- I think it's a bit unfair to buchla simply because he was unable to build a business. buchla was always the visionary who most people still haven't caught up with, so of course he had trouble selling his stuff -- it hurt me to see them paint it like a contest where the person who made the most money won, when buchla's the real genius

the only non-academic example I can think of offhand is the early Chrome records, and they're not exactly commercial

Ciani does qualify in that produced bizarre sound design & effects for commercials, but that's a world away from pop music

just found these:

ciani talking about the buchla
http://www.sevwave.com/ciani/interviews/wright/c_wright.html

http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?storycode=11616
Approximate Number Manufactured: Between 100 and 200.
Original System Retail Prices : $2,000 to $30,000.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/index2.html

bump for mp3s of instruments at http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/

I searched to hear a few of them like Univox, pianorad and Intonarumori for the past couple of minutes but got nothing so far

I would like a Sonorous Cross.

Did any of Buchla's synthesizers ever show up on any commercial recordings of any renown whatsoever, Milton?

The United States of America perhaps? And other stuff Joseph Byrd worked on - like that Phil Ochs album (forget the name). Byrd was a n associate of Buchla I believe.

yes that earlier answer of mine has to be wrong, the Buchla definitely made the rounds, I just can't think of any offhand. I still don't have that USA album though actually, I'm kind of saving it for later

as for recent answers, Don's son Ezra has a new band called Gowns which is very interesting, not the kind of music I'm usually into but for them somehow it really just works:
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2006/06/ezra-buchla-king-of-all-geeks.html
http://music.calarts.edu/~ebuchla/gowns/index.html

If you can get access to a copy, Sutherland's 'New Perspectives in Music' has a few excellent (concise and not too technical) chapters devoted to early electroacoustic music. It was published in Britain; the only place I've seen is the UW-Madison library, but I haven't looked much. I just photo-copied the entire book.

To go back to the earliest of early electronic music, so early that it's still mechanical, some of the Futurist manifestos, including those on music, are available at http://www.unknown.nu/futurism.

Listen to Schaffer and Henry's Variations on A Door and A Sigh from the 1950s...isn't that the first tape piece?

Here's an article from the Guardian about the '70's proggy electronic scene covering artists such as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and JM Jarre. It's not exactly the origins of electronic music, but definitely a good read: http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/story/0,,2060093,00.html

"Some had beards. Many were German. But they all had synthesisers..."

that Reynolds article for the Guardian is great. he's not exactly writing about what I would call the best of the 70's electronic, but it's worth saying that people seem to have forgotten just how _huge_ those TD / Jarre / Schulze records were in the 70's, they weren't obscure at the time, when you go back to those TD bootlegs of live shows you get a 40 minute sludge psyche drone that's maybe a little self-indulgent but pretty out there & avant, and then at the end you hear several thousand people start to cheer and it occurs to you that this 'obscure' boot was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall

Henry's Variations on a Door & a Sigh is frequently checked as the concréte 'masterpiece', it's from the mid-60's. Pierre Schaeffer's Études aux chemins de fer is often called the first tape piece (even though it was cut to acetate), but every time someone tries to nail down one piece as the first, someone turns up some earlier forgotten experiment: Paul Boisselet "Symphonie Rouge • Symphonie Jaune" 1947, Halim El-Dabh "Wire Recorder Piece" 1944, Walter Ruttman "Weekend" for optical film 1930, & there are some interesting Hindemith pieces from the late 20's where an instrumentalist plays along with a varispeed acetate of himself on a turntable.

there was a hilariously overblown Rob Young piece in the Wire about the Halim El-Dabh piece tracing the legendary 'birth of electronica' to the Middle East since it was the First Piece, now we're hearing about Austrailian Jack Ellitt's Journey #1, something earlier always turns up