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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 07.0

Dead Medium: Scott's Electronium

From: kadrey_AT_well.com (Richard Kadrey)

Source: MUSICAL LEGENDS OF AMERICA, by Justin Green (with thanks to Irwin Chusid). Tower Pulse! magazine, p. 26, July 1994

Invented by composer Raymond Scott (a sample of whose works are collected on Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights, and immortalized in countless cartons, most recently Ren & Stimpy) spent the last years of his life working with electronic composing systems that he designed. One of his devices, the Electronium, has been described as "one of the first applications of artificial intelligence in music composition." (Justin Green)

Raymond Scott: "A composer (guidance control) asks the Electronium to suggest an idea, theme or motive. He listens to these on a monitor speaker. When happy with one of these ideas, he stops the Electronium and starts recording.

"Faster, slower, a new rhythm design, a hold, a pause, a second theme, variation, extension, elongation, diminution, counterpoint, a change in phrasing, an ornament...ad infinitum...whatever the composer requests, the Electronium accepts and acts out his directions."

The only photo I've seen of the device makes it look like an old analog computer flanked by Bauhausian monitors.

Richard Kadrey kadrey_AT_well.com

Dead Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0 | 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 | 08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |