Electronic Music

Born of war and raised on mainframes, computer music comes of age in the 70s and hits the charts thanks to the sampler.

It all starts in 1950 or so with Sydney’s CSIRAC computer and its loudspeaker… Audio

Synthesizer bands of the 70s: Kraftwerk, The Human League etc and their equipment - via hip-hop to house/techno/intelligent dance music and all the sub-, sub-sub-, and sub-sub-sub-genres of electronic… Audio

Long before the advent of radio, the phonograph and gramophone were being used as creative media. Hear about the 'Descriptive' category of recordings from the 1890s, and one of its biggest stars… Audio

The Theremin and the Ondes Martenot are still in use today - indeed the latter includes Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood amongst its players. The Trautonium, a contemporary of these early electronic… Audio

Bell Labs' Vocoder technology was at the heart of SISGALY, the Allies' wartime speech-encryption system. Audio

Mark Ayres talks about the 'Crystal Palace' - a device built by Dave Young, renowned engineer at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Audio

Before there was the VCS3, there was the VCS1 synthesiser! The first one was built by EMS at the request of Australian composer Don Banks, who took quite a shine to it... Audio

Mark Ayres talks about Malcolm Clarke's 'in-your-face' electronic score for the Dr Who series The Sea Devils from 1972, realised on the Delaware, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's huge Synthi 100… Audio

Mark Ayres talks about Delia Derbyshire's archive of tapes - and the cataloguing problems it caused - and discusses her prescient use of a synthesised rhythm track on her Dance from 'Noah' from about… Audio

James Gardner interviews Barry Vercoe, computer music pioneer.

Some background to the series which traces James Gardner's personal path through the evolving world of electronic music – and the people who made it happen.

In the fourth episode, Methods, we look at how Douglas Lilburn got things done. From piano lessons at an early age, through to the setting up of the Electronic Music Studio at Victoria University… Audio

Practicalities, looks at aspects of the working life of Douglas Lilburn the composer. Writing music for film, theatre and radio, and the creative partnerships with Dame Ngaio Marsh, Richard Campion… Audio