"Max" Vernon Mathews (Max/MSP) died on 21.4.2011

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"Max" Vernon Mathews (Max/MSP) died on 21.4.2011

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Max Vernon Mathews (November
13, 1926 – April 21, 2011) was a
pioneer in the world of computer
music.

Contents
1 Work
2 Death


Work
Matthews studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of
Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a
Sc.D. in 1954. Working at Bell Labs, Mathews wrote MUSIC, the first
widely-used program for sound generation, in 1957. For the rest of the
century, he continued as a leader in digital audio research, synthesis,
and human-computer interaction as it pertains to music performance.
Although he was not the first to generate sound with a computer (an
Australian CSIRAC computer played tunes as early as 1951),[1]
Mathews fathered generations of digital music tools. He described his
work in parental terms in this excerpt from "Horizons in Computer
Music," March 8–9, 1997, Indiana University:

"Computer performance of music was born in 1957 when an IBM 704
in NYC played a 17 second composition on the Music I program which
I wrote. The timbres and notes were not inspiring, but the technical
breakthrough is still reverberating. Music I led me to Music II through
V. A host of others wrote Music 10, Music 360, Music 15, Csound and
Cmix. Many exciting pieces are now performed digitally. The IBM 704
and its siblings were strictly studio machines – they were far too slow to
synthesize music in real-time. Chowning's FM algorithms and the
advent of fast, inexpensive, digital chips made real-time possible, and
equally important, made it affordable."

"Starting with the Groove program in 1970, my interests have focused
on live performance and what a computer can do to aid a performer. I
made a controller, the radio-baton, plus a program, the conductor
program, to provide new ways for interpreting and performing
traditional scores. In addition to contemporary composers, these proved
attractive to soloists as a way of playing orchestral accompaniments.
Singers often prefer to play their own accompaniments. Recently I have
added improvisational options which make it easy to write
compositional algorithms. These can involve precomposed sequences,
random functions, and live performance gestures. The algorithms are
written in the C language. We have taught a course in this area to
Stanford undergraduates for two years. To our happy surprise, the
students liked learning and using C. Primarily I believe it gives them a
feeling of complete power to command the computer to do anything it
is capable of doing."

In 1961, Mathews arranged the accompaniment of the song "Daisy
Bell" for an uncanny performance by computer-synthesized human
voice, using technology developed by John Kelly of Bell Laboratories
and others. Author Arthur C. Clarke was coincidentally visiting friend
and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility at the
time of this remarkable speech synthesis demonstration and was so
impressed that he later told Stanley Kubrick to use it in 2001: A Space
Odyssey, in the climactic scene where the HAL 9000 computer sings
while his cognitive functions are disabled.[2]
Mathews directed the Acoustical and
Behavioral Research Center at Bell
Laboratories from 1962 to 1985,
which carried out research in speech
Max Mathews on his 80th
birthday
communication, visual
communication, human memory and
learning, programmed instruction,
analysis of subjective opinions,
physical acoustics, and industrial
robotics. From 1974 to 1980 he was
the Scientific Advisor to the Institute
de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Paris, France, and since 1987 has been
Professor of Music (Research) at Stanford University. He served as the
Master of Ceremonies for the concert program of NIME-01, the
inaugural conference on New interfaces for musical expression.
Mathews was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the
National Academy of Engineering and a fellow in the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Acoustical Society of America, the
IEEE, and the Audio Engineering Society. He held a Silver Medal in
Musical Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America, and the
Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et Lettres, Republique Francaise.
The Max portion of the software package Max/MSP is named after him
(the MSP portion is named for Miller Puckette, currently teaching at
UC San Diego).
Death
Mathews died on the morning of 21 April 2011 in San Francisco,
California of complications from pneumonia. He was 84.
(wiki)