The Father of Electronic Music's Lost Instrument Has Finally Been Built

[Joyrex]

From Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/90340863/the-father-of-electronic-musics-lost-instrument-has-finally-been-built

 

 

 

In the 1970s and ’80s, the musician Raymond Scott—whose music has been adapted for everything from Looney Tunes to The Simpsons—was hard at work on a secretive music-making device called the Electronium that was supposed to perform and compose music at the same time.

 

The idea was that anyone could play a melody, and then the machine would transform this melody into a full composition, while the player added embellishments. Scott, who served as the head of Motown’s electronic music research and development and was the first person to build an electronic sequencer, poured $1 million and 11 years into the project, before he died of a stroke in 1987, leaving behind a musical legacy as the father of electronic music.

 

Now, after nearly 50 years, the designer, musician, and Pentagram partner Yuri Suzuki has completed Scott’s work. In collaboration with Counterpoint, a creative studio that specializes in artificial intelligence, Suzuki created a piece of software—powered by Google’s Magenta AI, which can generate music—that replicates what Scott aimed to do with a completely analog device.

 

 

[chronical]

Kinda strange to build it digitally with Google, no? 

[Joyrex]

Devo's frontman has the original, unfinished hardware - I suppose the fact it's unfinished is why it was easier to recreate it digitally.

[dr lopez]

devo's frontman lol

 

u can just say mark mothersbaugh we know who he is

[mcbpete]

Not a steam powered oscillating machine though is it ...