Jen Hill MUCP 4680 27 September 2013 Raymond Scotts Cindy Electronium Raymond Scotts pivotal instrument, the

Electronium (built in a time period spanning from 1959 to 1972) can most accurately be thought of as not only a pioneering force in the world of voltage controlled synthesis, but also as a precursor to indeterminate generative music. In his 1959 piece, Cindy Electronium, Scott creates a duet between composer and machine by programing a set of parameters within which the synthesizer can act to create a controlled-randomness of sound; an aesthetic which is still popular in this day. Scott held onto the secrets of his technological processes very tightly, and little of what he created was passed on to the evolution of electronic music. The process by which Scott composed Cindy Electronium is still fairly unclear, as are which parameters of timbre, envelope, amplitude, or frequency were controlled by man or machine. The Electronium could also respond to a melody or rhythm programmed by the composer, so any number of systematic outcomes are possible. However, when the concepts of man vs. machine are removed from the listening process, the piece becomes more simply about the resulting notes that are output by the synthesizer itself. Cindy Electronium can thusly be split into two very distinct sections. What starts out as a steady and active sequence deteriorates and loses momentum over time until it is left with only three repeating pitches at the very end of the piece. Since the listener has no way of knowing exactly which sounds came from the composer and which came independently from the machine, it can become very challenging to determine which aspects of the sound are the backbones of the piece. Therefore, we must treat every note as though it could have been created by either man or machine. The pitches all carry equal weight and since there are only a handful that are part of the sequence, the listener gets to take in every detail of the nature of each sound. Then, when the style changes abruptly, the impact is not lost in any kind of disjointed confusion created by a multitude of techniques all taking place at once. The outcome of the generative algorithm of the machine is no more and no less than what it outputs. The line of distinction between the human art of composition and the mechanical process of math is blurred in a way that it wasnt before. The Electronium was able to output a controllable level of randomness in the sounds it outputted that removed the problem of over-thinking a composition to the point of distorting the original idea. Scott believed that in the future, the purest form of music would be produced when the composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely 'think' his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to

the mind of the listener (1949). Similarily, John Cage thought about his chance music as a way of removing the composers ego from a piece of music to make it pure and uninhibited. The philosophies of both of these composers extened deep into the 20th century and further into the 21st century where the concept and culture of ambient music thrives. Likewise, the role Raymond Scott played in the development of the idea of generative synthesis was enormous. Scott was perfecting the Electronium years before the first computer software programs that operated based on the same priciples were created. However, because he was so secretive about the technologies he used in his inventions, his contemporaries developed their own sequencers completely separate from Scott. He was much more interested in advertising the output of his instruments and marketing his music to prosper in the days of romanticizing advertisements and the possibilities of the future.