The smallest sound
October 14, 2013 12:54 PM   Subscribe

In the 1950ties, before computers, before synthesisers, the Philips NatLab was experimenting with electronic music. Here are Dick Raaijmakers (aka Kid Baltan) and Tom Dissevelt to explain how they did it in a 1959 television feature and Raaijmakers again, in a 1988 documentary (part 2).
posted by MartinWisse (3 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great find!

I don't want to derail this post, but both computers and synthesizers pre-date the 1950s, and electronic music has a pretty long history.

With that said, it's not often that the makers of these (relatively) early electronic music machines are recorded talking about how they did what they did.

NOTE: you may have to manually turn the captions on in these clips.

And Dick Raaijmakers, previously (obit)
posted by filthy light thief at 1:13 PM on October 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, started in 1958, also did a lot of good work in this field.
posted by flabdablet at 1:59 AM on October 15, 2013


The works of that time have a sheer individuality that's still remarkable. The very constraining (and expensive) technology forced E-A sounds to first emerge in very avant forms .

I sometimes wonder what would have emerged if serialism had not been in vogue. Perhaps tape manipulation would have been less commonplace, and analog electronics efforts (like the Barrons', heard in Forbidden Planet) would have been much more common. What might have emerged without the tape recorder, with only shellac records to record to?
posted by Twang at 2:17 PM on October 15, 2013


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