Daphne Oram headed up BBC’s electronic music department in the 1960s before starting heir own studio.
In February 1962, she was awarded a grant to work on her “Oramics” drawn sound technique. This method of music composition and performance allowed the composer to draw an “alphabet of symbols” on paper and feed it through a machine that would, in turn, produce the relevant sounds on magnetic tape. The first drawn sound composition using the machine, entitled “Contrasts Essonic”, was recorded in 1968.
London’s Science Museum is honoring Oram with an exhibition, Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music, which is running now through December 1st. Apparently it’s including some of Oram’s Oramics equipment, which can be seen in the video above. [Via We Make Money Not Art]
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