old new music

July 30, 2010 9:50 AM

Acousmata is a unique music blog devoted to "idiosyncratic research in electronic and experimental music, sound and acoustics, mysticism and technology" with special focus on the early history of electronic music.
posted by speicus (16 comments total)

Wow. Excellent find. I will be reading and listening to every single post on that blog.
posted by idiopath at 10:09 AM on July 30, 2010

Hard to pick highlights because every post is eye-opening in some way, but here are just a few of my favorites:

Bernard Szajner, inventor of the laser harp, who sounds like an asthmatic Lou Reed in a room full of computers;
A realization of Kepler's "music of the spheres";
La joueuse de tympanon, a dulcimer-playing automaton from the 18th century;
The theme from Arkanoid.
posted by speicus at 10:10 AM on July 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cool.

"According to tradition, Pythagoreanism developed at some point into two separate schools of thought, the akousmatikoi Ακουσματικοι, ("listeners") and the mathēmatikoi Μαθηματικοι ("learners"). ..."
posted by edguardo at 10:11 AM on July 30, 2010

Love the crazy-looking scores.
posted by swift at 10:18 AM on July 30, 2010

Oh, wow, the dulcimer automaton includes a quote from E.T.A. Hoffman, who wrote The Sandman.. in which an dulcimer-playing automaton features large.

I had no idea his automaton had a real-life basis. Wow.
posted by edguardo at 10:22 AM on July 30, 2010

Sweet!
posted by TwoWordReview at 10:45 AM on July 30, 2010

Great post! Thanks!
posted by BogusPomp at 10:57 AM on July 30, 2010

Productivity *shatner pause* dropping...

*gasp*
posted by milarepa at 11:04 AM on July 30, 2010

What's will all the excellent nerd music posts lately? Not that I'm complaining.

Great fucking find.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:32 PM on July 30, 2010

A very much appreciated post.
This is a keeper, thanks
posted by quazichimp at 1:43 PM on July 30, 2010

Thank you speicus, this is amazing.
posted by seaweed at 1:44 PM on July 30, 2010

Thanks, this pretty much made my day.

I think anyone who's spent enough time reading about 20th c. art music has probably seen that photo of Cage and Stockhausen more times than they can count.
posted by invitapriore at 2:01 PM on July 30, 2010

Because of posts like this, I love Metafilter. Thanks speicus.
posted by belvidere at 5:51 PM on July 30, 2010

Sweet! I came across this blog a while ago and then my computer crashed and I could never remember the name for it or think of the right google search terms... you've completely made my day!
posted by Kattullus at 9:30 PM on July 30, 2010

A great blog. A great post. Thanks for this.
posted by davebush at 8:51 AM on July 31, 2010

Huh, the blogger behind this is a friend of mine! He's a very cool dude. Send him internet love!
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 4:52 PM on July 31, 2010