If music data processing is essential to us so much today is that it gradually created tools that are radically changing the way of thinking about music. However, its history is short. Merges with the development of digital technologies: computers, initially accompanied by a creation by symbolic languages used for programming, then with a whole bunch of inventions in digital technology. Quite early in its history, the processing of data will be shown sufficiently mature to take into account the concerns of all kinds, energy accounting to scientific research, of course, going by what we are interested in the artistic creation. And there is no doubt that it is necessary to distinguish what comes from data processing itself, and what belongs instead to the larger world of digital technologies. The music draws heavily on these two areas the new resources. However, since the sound field is now converted into digital sound, the distinction is essential. Musical data processing is created by the meeting of music and environmental concerns arising from digital technologies and the specificity of the computer, on the one hand, and clarifying areas of science research topics. If the musical composition, there appears to be the good, virtually all other activities of the music therein. And the music research covers parts of the land cleared by the data processing, acoustics, signal processing, including cognitive psychology, in which a data processing center of the music is different musical fields, scientific and technical. But it is the use of the specific contributions of the data that characterizes his hand. New conceptual tools are constantly provided by artificial intelligence, which result in languages such as Lisp or Prolog. We are now in the service abstraction of the composition or musicologist. Research in real-time systems and interactive interfaces can conceive of new connections between the instruments and the electronic universe. Main stages in the processing of music data with the source of the musical treatment of the data, there are two types of activity, independent of one another. If these prudent business today, is another way that the original vision that led to their birth could be possible to foresee. These two types of activities are: music composition and sound production. In both cases, the production of the desired result is assured by the computer. These two types of activity are substantially the same time. The first serious test of the musical composition for computer back to 1956: is this date that Lejaren Hiller has calculated a partition that uses the encoding rules in the form of computer algorithms Illiac The University of Illinois. This is Illiac Suite for string quartet, whose three movements are carried out this year by the WQXR String Quartet. In a famous structure, published in 1959 and supports the title of "Experimental Music Composition with years-Electronic Computer", Lejaren Hiller explains in detail the procedures applied to computer Illiac to produce the partition of his string quartet . To locate this period, as in 1956 as John McCarthy forged the term artificial intelligence. A year later, Max Mathews, a researcher at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, a programmer first digital synthesis of sound for the IBM 704 computer writes. Today known as The Music, is the first of a large family of compilers hearing, a psychologist, Newman Guttman, first generates a period of 15 seconds of the study, silver ladder. It 's like in 1957, the four movements for String Quartet Illiac Continuation Lejaren Hiller were published; same year the original version of the popular program language FORTRAN (Formula Translator). Note that when creating the work of Hiller from WQXR String Quartet, is Max Mathews, which organized a recording, which led, subsequently, with the release of this disc in a disc done in 1960 by Bell Laboratories, entitled Music and mathematics: even if the paths laid by these two inventors are independent, do not know how that did not cross ... From these two almost simultaneous events, the development will continue, little by little, in the direction mapped out: the composition and sound production. We will see the bottom of their courses. But a third way is not long in shape: it arose from the realization that the same had Hiller: The computer is, above all, at that time, a formidable computing machine. Moreover, the word computer selected above, before the appearance of these machines, the dependents of working calculations. But at the same time, with a little 'fear, they spoke quickly when the electronic brains. An artist could not approach the computer is not without a certain emotion, which doubtless explains the sometimes terrifying attraction that data processing can have on artists of the following decades. But these are two scientists who are responsible for these experiments: chemistry Hiller practiced, while Mathews was already a famous scientist. And 'no doubt that explains the methodologies that reflect significant place, each on their side, and for purposes entirely independent. With Bell Laboratories, Max Mathews, for his part, wrote in 1957 a first digital sound synthesis program for the IBM 704 computer, equipped with 4096 words of memory. Known today as The Music, which is the first of a large family. The musical program III (1960) introduced the concept of modular instrument. The model envisioned by Max Mathews has inspired more than one laboratory equipment or an electronic music studio that from a business acoustic instruments. The program offers a wide range of independent modules (unit generators), which is a function of each elementary oscillator waveform with programmable charge signal, multiplier generator envelopes and random signals, etc. .. The composer constructs an "instrument" for connection to a selection of modules to each other. The signals produced by the oscillators and generators are brought to other modules there to be edited or mixed. Several tools can be combined in a "orchestra", each instrument has its own identity. Contrary to what occurs in the material universe, there is no limit to the number of modules can be used simultaneously, except perhaps the memory of the computer. The result of the placement of the instrument is the progressive calculation of the sound in the form of a sequence of numbers that put an end to end, represent a complex sound wave. These numbers are called "champions". Today, the number of samples representing a second set of his state to 44 100 per channel for the applications of public and 48 000 for the professional field. Because of the relative slowness of the machines and weight design to be carried out, the time spent to generate the sound wave is much longer than the duration of the sounds, the function of these programs is known as "time delayed". With the source, sound waves calculated in numerical form are stored on a digital tape gradually taking the end of an arithmetic unit of the samples. This mode of sound production is called "direct synthesis". So in itself creates a "sound file", when completed, the player asks for a second program, the task of reading the sound file in real time and sending samples to a digital to analog converter, which is connected to an amplifier and speakers. To enable the orchestra, the musician needs to write a "partition", in which all the parameters claimed by the instrument modules are specified. This partition is presented in the form of a list of numbers or codes telegraphy, each "note" or any event be subject to a particular list. These lists are ordered in time. But to specify each parameter is a difficult task, especially since the musicians are not prepared to give the measured values of the sound dimension that they treat. To combat this obstacle, the language assistance in the writing of partitions were designed, best-known program is the score of Leland Smith (1972). Score is not an automated program composition: it allows you to specify the parameters using the terms resulting from the practice of music (heights, gradients, duration), automatically calculate the changes of time and nuances, and also to integrate the sections with notes corresponding to a trajectory on the type setter. The instrument model-partition has been established with the arrival of Music IV (1962). This program was born from many alternatives, some of which still exist in fact. Among these misadventures, include 4BF Music (1966-67), there is now a version for Macintosh (4C Music, 1989), and especially music with Barry Vercoe 360 (1968), this descendant of Music IV has the distinction of being presented in the form a true programming language, which no doubt explains why it has become today with C-compiler Acoustic Music no longer used. It was initially adapted to the PDP-11 minicomputer from Digital in 1973, then, entirely rewritten in C language in 1985, has been named C-Sound, and was quickly adapted to all types of data processing platforms, including micro - computer like Atari, Macintosh and IBM. In 1969, Music is V, a program that is designed to facilitate the planning of musical instruments and partitions, now, V Music is still widely used, usually in the form of adaptation that, in fact Richard Moore, C-Music (1980 ). The computer has also been an undisputed success in intensely speculative analysis musicologists. With the eyes of the public concerned, in the early sixties, data processing, still somewhat mysterious and inaccessible, showed the possibility of strange piece of music, in composition, musicology, and finally, with respect to Bell Laboratories, the production of sound. A great musical ferment of the decade was to come from the world of electronics, with the emergence of modular synthesizers in 1964, known as "analog", as it does not contain digital electronics. Conceived independently by Paul Ketoff (Rome), Robert Moog and Donald Buchla (United States), synthesizers bring the technological answer to the aspirations of many musicians, especially after the success of a popular disc Switched Bach by Walter Carlos, who has really done knowledge of these instruments close to a wide audience. During this time, the program knows Mathews adjustments on other sites, such as the University of New York, Princeton and Stanford. Another application of the computer appears with the testing of analog instruments. The machine generates signals that modify the slow variation of the control devices of study: the frequency of the oscillator, the gain of amplifiers, cut-off frequency of the filters. The first example of this system was set up by one the names of "hybrid synthesis" Elektron Musik Studio in 1970 in Stockholm, independent foundation since 1969, funded by the Royal Academy of Music, and under the direction of Knut Wiggen. A PDP 15/40 computer-controlled frequency generators is 24, a vibration generator white, two-third-octave filters, modulators: out of the ring, and amplitude reflections. The originality of the system lay in Stockholm in a very ergonomic operator console, with which the type-setter could specify the synthesis parameters by sweeping a group of figures by using a metal skewer. Another study should be mentioned: that of Peter Zinovieff in London (1969), placed under the control of a Digital PDP 8 minicomputer, for which Peter Grog wrote the pilot Musys language. Another remarkable achievement is the system of Groove (generated in real time A voltage-controlled Equipment Operations, Ca 1969) developed at Bell Labs by Max Mathews and Richard Moore. Groove is a tool for control of the design parameters of a device synthesis. In this direction, there is the player closest to the position of a leader than a type-setter or an instrumentalist, although we can consider that the type-setter of electronic music will often have to assume the position of head, directly to interpret the music is composed. It 's the mid-seventies that marks the transition towards an inexorable expansion from now on the musical life of data processing, with the emergence of the microprocessor. A violin-making business data processing will gradually be possible with the design of complete computer on a chip: microprocessors. You will also need the user interface improves, and that the punch cards from a more interactive inputs are replaced: Will the keyboard and cathode ray tube, which will take him. The principle of hybrid synthesis continues to be applied throughout the seventies, before finally being replaced by digital synthesizers in the early eighties. The American company Intel markets starting in 1971 the first microprocessor, the circuit 4004, which allow the design of a real miniature computer, the microcomputer: Intellec 8 (designed from microprocessor 8008, 1972), Apple I, Altair (1975 ), met soon under the name of micro-computer. The experiment group's musical art and data processing Vincennes (GAIV) illustrate this transition well. This team, created for the University of Paris 8 Patrick Greussay and a team of artists and architects, known for publishing a newsletter to disseminate research in the most recent art and data processing, headed to the printer- Joseph Englert musical coordination of its activities. E 'Intellec 8, microcomputer with words of eight bits, ordered by a strip of paper and a keyboard that was used with the compositional activities and research on formalizing musical synthesizers EMS-English VCS3 were controlled by the microcomputer via digital analog-to-charged to provide power to order, in exchange for binary data calculated by interactive programs. The effect, according to the arrival of the microcomputer was the design of the "mixed synthesis, digital synthesizers, computers genuinely adapted to the calculation of the sound wave in real time, under the control of a computer. From the mid-seventies look different results of this type, we will maintain the work of James Beauchamp, Jean-François Allouis, William Buxton, among other things, such as those of Peter Samson (synthesizer Systems Concept, designed for the research center - CCRMA - Stanford University), the New England Digital Synclavier Corporation, created by Sydney Alonso and Cameron Jones, under the impulse of the type-setter Jon Appleton, design, driven by Luciano Berio, a bank of oscillators by Giuseppe Di Napoli in June, which continued its work in Ircam (series 4A, 4B, 4C and 4X), under the direction of Pierre Boulez, more recently, 30 Fly refinement of the Center for Music in Rome. We note that with the IRCAM 4X (1980), the term synth disappears, replaced by digital signal processor, which moves no doubt focus on the general information of the machine. The industry of electronic instrument does not take much time to adapt to these new developments. The first step was to introduce microprocessors in analog synthesizers (the Prophet synths Sequential Circuits company) are responsible for monitoring forms ordered surface, but is still of the "hybrid synthesis. The second stage follows quickly: it consists in the design of tools completely original musical numbers. E 'saw the arrival of Synclavier II, then Fairlight. The industrial sector is now formed initially by the market of synthesizers and sound processors, and software that allows you to exploit them. Today, all synths are numeric, you must meet the standard Midi. The field of synthesizers is twofold: on the one hand equipment, often with a keyboard, offering a choice of pre-programmed sounds, which can vary certain parameters of an elementary process of programming, in addition, the machines that are unlikely to recur sounds previously recorded and stored, or stored in mass storage: samplers, or "samplers". It should be noted that all these technologies become available to the private player, in the context of what is commonly called the "home study" (home study). But these machines, and a fortiori the study staff will not work without appropriate software: the sequencer control the execution of a song directly from a computer, sound editors are intended for processing, editing and sound mixing sequences. The programs allow you to write a partition, which by now is usually used for music publishing. Finally, the machines can also be placed under the control of supplementary programs to the composition. The most original character of the contemporary violin-making business data processing is the "job". Conceive of a workstation is the collection of programs of various kinds, intended for analysis or synthesis of sound, sound control or composition. These programs are integrated into a data processing "environment" organized around a computer and its peripherals, for the treatment of sound in the line. It 's the case of the plug-in graphics, coupled with a software, let you read "sound files" stored on a disk, in exchange for an order, for example coming from a source Midi. This system, if the new ones you have not yet found a real name, is generally referred to as "hard" or "direct-to-disk" disk. The musical performance As the computer, unlike the electronic music studio, says a specification of the data, and then writing, the issue of musical representation is a constant concern of the field. We will see two answers. The first illustrates a step in advance compositionnelle: that of Xenakis. The second, more general, the Midi standard. Iannis Xenakis innovative with the design of Úpice (Unit of CEMAMu Polyagogique Informatique). Conceived in the mid-seventies, this system arises naturally from the method of sound synthesis of this type-setter: the team that had joined together, initially christened Emamu (Team of Mathematics and Musical Automatic, 1966), and the financing of the Gulbenkian Foundation, Xenakis had built a digital to analog converter of high quality. The Úpice is a complete environment for composition, as a result, the sound synthesis of the page of composed music. Become CEMAMu in 1971 (Centre for Mathematics and Musical Automatic) due to the creation of a place intended to protect his research, the team has united around Xenakis envisions a system that makes possible the type setter, to tap into a large table of architect of the "time string-height", choosing a trajectory for each time period, a wave form, a nuance. The music is initially represented in graphical form. The programs are written for a first Úpice Solar 16/65 minicomputer which is connected to two bodies of magnetic tape to store programs and examples, a digital to analog converter, a cathode ray tube that lets you send the forms of waves, but also to draw these waves with a pencil graphics. To listen to the page that has just drawn, the type-setter to allow the computer to finish calculating all the samples, the generation of sound is guaranteed by a digital to analog converter of high quality. More recently, the Úpice has been redesigned for microcomputers, and operations without delay. To represent the sound in the form of image changed, and the program's objectives of phonograms, designed at the University of Paris 8 Vincent Lesbros. By way of ultrasound, the program places the spectral analysis as a picture, which can be changed, the new representation can be synthesized, and Midi, or in the form of a sound file, or even transformed into MIDI files. The criticism often heard today is that the generation of young musicians who approach technology through the environment created around the standard Midi is not a satisfactory knowledge of it was not music data processing and its problems. But it is to forget that, in one direction, the birth of the MIDI standard was made without any real affiliation with the previous phases of the field which will be the name of musical data processing. The phenomenon that is the MIDI is not a misfortune of this sector. The MIDI standard was developed in 1983 to allow the testing of different synthesizers from one keyboard, messages are transmitted in digital format, according to a well-defined protocol. With the source, so it is well based on the Midi control mimic instrumental: it is not a method to represent the sound, but the gesture of the musician playing a MIDI instrument. In 1983 the first synthesizer to have a MIDI interface, the Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. What had not been defined, on the other hand, is the success that this rule was soon to gain, which is now used to interconnect all the machines in an electronic music studio, and also the set of lights in a scene. The musical research work undertaken since 1956 by Lejaren Hiller for the composition of Illiac Suite for string quartet marks both the true birth of the musical data processing and anchoring of this field in research, applied in this case the composition Automatic. The computer then appeared as a machine that allows the treatment of the continuations of operations that characterize the composition of musical works ambitious. This would have been strengthened since 1958 by the French type-setter Pierre Barbaud, which dissolves in Paris on algorithmic group in connection with the Bull-General Electric and began his search for the automatic composition as the following year, the first work algorithmic Barbaud was composed: | random innovations (Algorithm 1), in collaboration with Pierre Blanchard |. The program Musicomp de Lejaren Hiller and Robert Baker, the same time, designed for computer Illiac after the composition of the continuation Illiac, University of Illinois making a music data processing centers at that time. And when, in 1962, Iannis Xenakis creates ST/10, 080,262, the work written by the ST stochastic program developed since 1958 on an IBM 7090, the composition using the computer enters its golden age. In the Netherlands, Gottfried Michael Koenig wrote in 1964, the program composition of the Project I (1964), shortly followed by Project II (1970). The computer aided composition is based on mathematics and a stochastic, drawing largely on the resources of Markov processes (Hiller, Barbaud, Xenakis, Chadabe, Manoury). With the arrival of micro-computer of a new trend has developed: the assistance to their composition, their computer-aided design of composition (CAD). The demiurge of the program can generate a model of the entire composition of an environment of data processing tools can do a load with precise musical problems. Among the policies are in: HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language, 1985) with Mills College in California, the forms, created by Xavier Rodet, Galley and Patchwork, Ircam developed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Barrier Experiment in Musical Intelligence David Cope, University of California at Santa Cruz. These programs are open: they dialogue with the printer-interactively, and are connected to the world of MIDI devices. With the exception of M and the jam factory Joel Chadabe Zicarelli and David, are structured with the use of languages nonnumerical, resulting from artificial intelligence, such as the Forth, Lisp and above, which is why they are not based on mathematical As was the case with the first generation of computer aided composition, but on formal languages and generative grammars. Real-time computer world and instrumental The eighties see the use of computers in the developing situation in concert with the arrival of digital synthesizers in real time, or, more generally, digital sound processors, and the languages real-time control, the conditions are ripe to revisit this old surface of the XXe century music: electronic music online (live electronic music). In most cases, it is initially a matter of imagining a means to connect the computer and its computing power to the devices of synthesis or sound processing, with, if possible, the interaction of the musicians. Répons (1981), of Pierre Swell through the integration of procedures for the treatment of writing itself, has shown that the computer has become a tool, integrated perfectly with the orchestra. Following this work seems to work on the follow-up, computer, game tool, works known as "follow-up partition. We cite the contributions of Roger Dannenberg automatic accompaniment and languages do the conditions of computer-communication tool, those of Max Mathews, initially with the Groove system, then more recently with his work on "Radio operator Drum" and simulation of the barrel of the same orchestra leader, Miller Puckette with max. program. This is why one was interested, and providing instruments of the orchestra of this capacity by offering their sensors, allowing the computer to follow the performance (flute, vibraphone, etc. ..). All music industry deals with this trend, although the process to be used has not yet decided: it will be electromechanical (sensors placed at strategic locations of the material of the instrument, conducting membranes, etc. ..), or the analysis will be necessary for theft sounds the same to find it the height, the spectral structure and mode of play? The community organizes the musical maturity of the data processing was accompanied by an assumption of responsibility by the community of musicians and researchers themselves. Gradually, the consciousness of belonging to a field that is day. I seem to international conferences, followed the latest local conferences. Communications that are marked are published in collections available to the entire community. These meetings also give rise to the presentation in concerts, which tends more to weld together the consciousness of a new field, with scientific and artistic components. And 'the beginning of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC). In 1978 he founded an organization designed to facilitate communication and to help the behavior of Congress, "Computer Music Association, which became in 1991 the International Computer Music Association (ICMA). The organizers try to keep the conference a year in North America, and the following year on another continent. They see the ICMA conference taking an increasing role in the contribution brought the local organizers, as in the dissemination of publications resulting from these meetings, ranging from placing orders until the work to be carried out during ICMC (ICMA Commission Awards, 1991). Another vehicle that strong consciousness of belonging to a common field is the Computer Music Journal. Appeared in California in 1977 by MIT Press is taken from Volume 4 (1980). The journal is essential as a reference for scientific publications in the field. ICMA Association publishes a newsletter, Array, which has become a very popular body of information and discussion on current topics of musical data processing. The overhaul of the Dutch, who in 1994 became Journal of New Music Research, regularly publishes articles on music data processing. Canada, Musicworks, led by Gayle Young, ensure that the information on a wide range of concerns of new music. In France, Ircam publications, InHarmonique, then books Ircam open their columns with aesthetic considerations, theoretical and critical writings that accompany the sudden appearance of new technologies in art. In 1991, the journal Leonardo, published by the International Association for the arts, science and technology, founded in 1968 by Frank Malina, spear headed by Roger Malina, Leonardo Music Journal, leading to a comprehensive view of musical practices associated with new technologies, thanks to the publication with each issue, a compact disk.
