Text

The Sound of Innovation: Stanford and the Computer Music Revolution

---

How a team of musicians, engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists developed computer music as an academic field and ushered in the era of digital music.

In the 1960s, a team of Stanford musicians, engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists used computing in an entirely novel way: to produce and manipulate sound and create the sonic basis of new musical compositions. This group of interdisciplinary researchers at the nascent Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA, pronounced “karma”) helped to develop computer music as an academic field, invent the technologies that underlie it, and usher in the age of digital music. In The Sound of Innovation, Andrew Nelson chronicles the history of CCRMA, tracing its origins in Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory through its present-day influence on Silicon Valley and digital music groups worldwide.

Nelson emphasizes CCRMA's interdisciplinarity, which stimulates creativity at the intersections of fields; its commitment to open sharing and users; and its pioneering commercial engagement. He shows that Stanford's outsized influence on the emergence of digital music came from the intertwining of these three modes, which brought together diverse supporters with different aims around a field of shared interest. Nelson thus challenges long-standing assumptions about the divisions between art and science, between the humanities and technology, and between academic research and commercial applications, showing how the story of a small group of musicians reveals substantial insights about innovation.

Nelson draws on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with digital music pioneers; the book's website provides access to original historic documents and other material.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

789 NEL s

Publisher

: The MIT Press., 2015

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262328814

Classification

789

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

Ed. 1

Subject(s)

Computer Music Revolution
Digital music

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

Andrew J. Nelson

Other Information

Cataloger

umi

Source

-

Validator

-

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/3091/The-Sound-of-InnovationStanford-and-the-Computer

Journal Volume

-

Journal Issue

-

Subtitle

-

Parallel Title

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment