Early computer music in the USA

[gvopedz]

An essay that dives deep into something about the early days of computer music in the United States - it got its start, quite literally, in the off-hour downtime of the military-industrial complex:

 

https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/automation-divine-early-computer-music-and-the-selling-of-the-cold-war/

[Rooster_Ties]

I remember having owned 4 or 5 different 'classical' CD's of computer-composed music, ones that supposedly mimicked specific composers.  Most were solo-piano outings (or sounds that mimicked piano), but I seem to remember a string quartet too maybe?

My favorite were several examples of Robo-Gershwin, which sounded very much like many of the trappings of Gershwin, but without enough of the "feel".  I think(?) what I had were recordings of computer generated 'performances' -- but I always wondered if 'rendered' with human hands, if they wouldn't have sounded a bit more like the real thing.  Interesting stuff (though I'll confess the discs didn't survive the great purge of 3,000+ CD's when we moved from KC to DC almost 8 years ago).

I'm pretty sure they all came from this series, on Centaur...

https://www.discogs.com/label/470272-CDCM-Computer-Music-Series?page=1&genre=All&limit=500

Bunch of them are here too (though not as many)...

http://www.centaurrecords.com/store/albums/electro-acoustic.html?limit=all

PS:  Seems most of this series (from the discogs link) were from the very late 80's and most of the 90's.  I would have gotten the ones I found (used) back in the late 90's, after I moved to Kansas City in '94.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Rooster_Ties