Return to WOW/EM homepageThe world of music has changed dramatically in the past thirty years. We can make music using computers and synthesizers, and we can make and hear sounds that didn't use to exist!
There are two basic ways that computers are used to make music. First, we can use computers to tell synthesizers what and when to play. They tell the synthesizers what to do by sending messages through MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface). What you will see is a small box (called a MIDI interface) with a cable that goes from the computer into the box, and one going out to the synthesizer. There are lots of different programs you can use to tell the computer how to play the synthesizer. These include notation programs, like Finale, Score or Nightingale, and sequencer programs, like Performer and Vision. Nowadays, computers can even come with many sounds built in or with the option of having sound cards put into the computer, and you can experiment with them without having a separate synthesizer. Band in the Box is one of the many programs that allows you to experiment with this.
What's fun is that you can try out all kinds of different sounds, make changes easily, and have the computer record as many different versions as you like. And when the computer records the different versions, it is not actually recording the sound, but instead it records the messages that the synthesizer needs to produce the sound. If you actually want to record the sound, you can hook up the synthesizer to a tape recorder. You can get all kinds of terrific results using these techniques. You can make music for the synthesizer alone, or the synthesizer can accompany a traditional instrument like a guitar, piano, etc. You can also take the sound of a traditional instrument, play it through a microphone into a unit called an effects processor, and have the sound changed by adding reverberation, delay, echo, or other effects.
Computers can also be used to generate sound from scratch or to process sounds that the computer has made or that you record into the computer. In my own music, I have recorded all kinds of sound and then altered them. These include the sound of eating a potato chip, whispering, chinking a fork on the side of a cup, and using a hand-held egg-beater. I love to experiment and see what the possibilities are and then shape the results into music. It is also fascinating to learn how the computer can build sounds from the ground up using programs that put together the basic components of sound that are specified using computer programs.
Computer music doesn't replace making music with instruments. Both are magical. But making electronic music will add to your sense of what music can be, and bring a different kind of creativity into play.
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Copyright September 1996,
updated February 2004.
Kristine H. Burns,
Florida International University
Questions? Contact me.