Music, Makers & Machines

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200 tonnes , 60 feat long , 144 alternators ,672 keys , 336 sliders [ Colossal Telharmonium , the mark 2 from 1902 ] .
well I’m almost there , just a few more modules …

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What they don’t mention there is that in Cahill’s 1897 patent application he uses the words “synthesize” or “synthesizing” 25 times, which I think is the first time (or first 25 times) that word was used in reference to producing music.

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not all inclusive on info but still very interesting reading , kind of eye opening as to how far back
" electronic music " really goes .

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It’s a perfectly normal English word. I’d tend to say that the notion of synthesis in reference to frequency domain phenomena such as sound production is implicit in harmonic analysis and particularly the Discrete Fourier Transform. So that’s going back to the 1820s at least as far as formal mathematical analysis goes.

means unspoken/unwritten, so if it’s implicit I don’t think it counts as use of a word. Yes, Fourier analysis goes back, but I don’t know of any prior use of either the process of additive synthesis or the word “synthesis” in an artistic musical context.

This just appeared on google.com for me

and when I clicked my way over here to post it discourse of course pointed out that you had posted exactly the same post two weeks ago :grinning:

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