Experimental Music Studios Records, 1924-2016 | The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

Audio recordings, correspondences, technical reports, lecture notes, music manuscripts, photographic prints, film negatives, promotional publications, and newsclippings documenting the operations of the School of Music Experimental Music Studios (EMS). Included in these documents is information regarding subjects including computer-assisted composition, the ILLIAC digital computers, EMS equipment acquisition and maintenance, renovation of EMS facilities, and grant proposals. The technical reports cover information pertaining to the specifications and usage of audio equipment witin the EMS. Correspondances detail significant authors including: Lejaren Hiller, Herbert Brün, James Beauchamp, and Scott Wyatt.

This collection also consists of audio recordings of materials that were created both within the EMS and by composers not affiliated with the institution. The collection contains both recording masters and copies. The audio collection was originally intended to serve multiple purposes within the EMS including being used for pedagogical and research purposes, to archive the recordings that were created within the EMS, and to be utilized for live performances. The recordings that were not created within the EMS were donated through mail correspondences, through a composer's on-campus, or at various conferences.

Some of the notable recordings from within the audio collection includes the master recordings of Lejaren Hiller's Seven Electronic Studies and A Triptych For Hieronymus, Music by Computers by Various Composers (commercially released in 1969), Salvatore Martirano's Underworld (Performance Loops), and a demonstration tape of James Beauchamp's Harmonic Tone Generator.

Significant composers within the audio collection who the EMS include: Jon Appleton, James Beauchamp, Herbert Brün, Kenneth Gaburo, Lejaren Hiller, Ben Johnston, Paul Koonce, Salvatore Martirano, John Melby, Gordon Mumma, Harry Partch, and Scott Wyatt.

The audio collection also features many recordings originating from non-EMS affiliated composers. The collection is particularly strong in materials from the Polish Experimental Music Studio (featuring composers Bohdan Mazurek and Boguslaw Schaeffer).

Other significant recording studios prominently featured within this collection include: Bell Laboratories, Columbia-Princeton Music Center, Dartmouth College, Experimental Studio of the Polish Radio in Warsaw/Polskie Radio i Telewizja, Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF), the University of Michigan, the University of Utrecht.

Many of the tape cases from these external institutions were custom made or have institutional markings and documentation on them.

Within the audio tape collection, sixty-one of the tapes have additional documents in the tape cases. Such documents include composition and composer information, program notes, and correspondences originating from the composer.

Many of the recordings also utilize significant electronic and custom instruments. Significant electronic instruments utilized within these recordings include: the Bell Labs GROOVE Systems, the Buchla 200 synthesizer, The Harmonic Tone Generator, the Illiac, the Moog Modular Synthesizer, the RCA Mark II, the Sal-Mar Construction, the Synclavier, and the Theremin.

Although the EMS was founded in 1958, there are recordings in the collection that date back to 1924. These recordings are copies and were used within the EMS for research and pedagogical purposes.