The Music of CSIRAC

Newspaper reports

CSIRAC made news headlines sometimes in its time. Below are extracts from two articles that mention the music.

From The Melbourne Age, Wednesday 27^th July 1960:

CSIRAC - the University's giant electronic brain - has LEARNED TO SING!
. . . it hums, in bathroom style, the lively ditty, Lucy Long. CSIRAC's song is the result of several days' mathematical and musical gymnastics by Professor T. M. Cherry. In his spare time Professor Cherry conceived a complicated punched-paper programme for the computer, enabling it to hum sweet melodies through its speaker. . . . A bigger computer, Professor Cherry says, could be programmed in sound-pulse patterns to speak with a human voice. . . .

From The Melbourne Herald, Friday 15^th June 1956:

'. . . When CSIRAC began sporting its musical gifts, we jumped on his first intellectual flaw. When he played "Gaudeamus Igitur," the university anthem, it sounded like a refrigerator defrosting in tune. But then, as Professor Cherry said yesterday, "This machine plays better music than a Wurlitzer can calculate a mathematical problem. . . ."

Acknowledgments

Many people have helped with the recreation of this work and have provided encouragement to me throughout this project. It has been a pleasure to be involved with some of the original pioneers of computing in Australia. I hope that I have made clear the roles played by the people who worked with CSIRAC. I would like to thank all of them and the interviewees for their generous time and assistance. The interviewees are; Reginald Ryan, Terry Holden, Kay Thorne, Peter Thorne, Ron Bowles, Eileen Hill, Douglas McCann and Dick McGee. I am particularly grateful to; Ron Bowles, Jurij Semkiw, and especially John Spencer, for their gracious patience with my naive questions, their generosity and their skills, without which this project could never have progressed beyond the imagination stage — many thanks.

The University of Melbourne Computer Science Department has been extremely helpful and supportive, providing access to people and facilities. Thanks are due especially to Peter Thorne and Leon Sterling for this.

Thanks to Museum Victoria, especially Catherine Lovelock and Fiona Kinsey who allowed me unfettered access to CSIRAC, now a prized museum object, to achieve the most faithful recreation possible of the music.

I am very grateful to the many other people who have helped 'behind the scenes', providing their time, encouragement, expertise and sometimes equipment. These People are; Lawrence Harvey, John Crawford, Doug McCann, Judith Hughes, the Technical Services staff, Warren Burt and Steven Pass.

Chris Burton very kindly provided unique information about early British computers through private correspondence and connection with the Computer Conservation Society.

Special thanks to Paul Berg for many years of inspirational mentorship and for reviewing this project.

This project was very generously assisted and funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Sources

Much of the anecdotal and oral material was gathered over long periods of casual and personal contact with the people involved. For example, there were several pieces of the puzzle that came out during the CSIRAC 50^th birthday celebrations in November 1999 and there were regular meetings on a Tuesday with John Spencer, Jurij Semkiw, Ron Bowles, Peter Thorne, Doug McCann and others.

Interview with Trevor Pearcey, recorded on 1^st October 1996, interview conducted by Steven Pass, Doug McCann and Peter Thorne.
Interview with Reginald Ryan, conducted by the author, 25^th January 2000.
Interview with Terry Holden, recorded 7^th June 1997 by Steven Pass.
Interview with Kay Thorne, conducted by the author, 21^st February 2000.
Interview with Peter Thorne, conducted by the author, 16^th February 2000.
Interview with Ron Bowles, conducted by the author, 25^th February 2000.
Interview with Eileen Hill, conducted by the author, 2^nd March 2000.
Interview with Douglas McCann, conducted by the author, 15^th May 2000.
Interview with Dick McGee, conducted by the author, 20^th May 2000.

Private correspondence with Chris P. Burton, Computer Conservation Society.

Bird, J. 1999. "Percy Grainger" Sydney, Australia: Currency Press.

Cage, J. 1967. "Silence" Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: The MIT Press

Chadabe, J. 1997. "Electric Sound the Past and Promise of Electronic Music" New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

CSIRAC Archive, The University of Melbourne Computer Science Department.

Dean, J. 1997. "CSIRAC Australia's First Computer" Killara, New South Wales, Australia: Australian Computer Museum Society.

Hiller, L. A. and Isaacson, L. M. 1959. "Experimental Music" New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

Manning, P. 1993. "Electronic and Computer Music" Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

McCann, D. and Thorne, P. 2000. "The Last of the First: CSIRAC: Australia's First Computer" Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Computer Science.

Pierce, J. 1995. "Recollections by John Pierce" Part of "The Historical CD of Digital Sound Synthesis. Computer Music Currents 13" Mainz, Germany: Schott Wergo Music Media GmbH.

Roads, C. 1980. "Interview with Max Matthews" Computer Music Journal 4(4). Reprinted in C. Roads, ed. 1989. "The Music Machine" Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: The MIT Press

Roads, C. 1996. "The Computer Music Tutorial" Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: The MIT Press

Williams, M. R. 1997. "A History of Computing Technology" California, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.

Links

There are many internet resources for computer music, electronic music, CSIRAC and historical computing, here are a few:

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Created:	Mon June 26 18:47:45 EST 2000
Last update:	Wed June 28 01:26:01 EST 2000
Maintainer:	Paul Doornbusch pauld@koncon.nl
Authorised by:	David Hornsby djh@cs.mu.oz.au
Copyright © 2000 Paul Doornbusch. All Rights Reserved.