Electronic music is a type of music that uses electronic instruments, electronic technology, and software to create sound. It includes music made with both electronic and electromechanical methods. Pure electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, theremins, and electronic oscillators, produce sound entirely through electronic circuits. These instruments do not require any physical vibrations to create sound. In contrast, electromechanical instruments, like the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano, and electric guitar, use mechanical parts such as strings or hammers to create sound. These instruments also use electrical components, such as pickups and amplifiers, to convert sound into electrical signals, process them, and turn them back into sound.

The first electronic musical devices were created at the end of the 19th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, new electronic instruments were introduced, and the first compositions using them were written. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape allowed musicians to record sounds and change them by adjusting the tape’s speed or direction. This led to the creation of electroacoustic tape music in Egypt and France. In 1948, a style called musique concrète was developed in Paris. It involved editing and combining recorded sounds from nature and industry. In 1953, Germany produced the first music made only from electronic generators, created by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Electronic music also developed in Japan and the United States in the 1950s, and computers were first used to compose music in the same decade.

In the 1960s, digital computer music was developed, and new ways to use live electronics were explored. Japanese electronic instruments began to influence the music industry. In the early 1970s, Moog synthesizers and drum machines helped make synthesized music more popular. During the 1970s, electronic music began to shape popular music through the use of polyphonic synthesizers, electronic drums, drum machines, and turntables. This led to the rise of genres like disco, krautrock, new wave, synth-pop, hip-hop, and electronic dance music (EDM). In the early 1980s, mass-produced digital synthesizers, such as the Yamaha DX7, became widely used. This period also saw the development of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), a system that allows electronic instruments to communicate with each other. In the 1980s, electronic music became more prominent in popular music due to the use of synthesizers and programmable drum machines.

In the 1990s, more affordable music technology made electronic music production common in popular culture. In Berlin, starting in 1989, the Love Parade became the largest street party, attracting over 1 million people and inspiring similar events worldwide. Today, electronic music includes many styles, from experimental art music to popular forms like electronic dance music. In recent years, electronic music has become more popular in the Middle East, with artists from Iran and Turkey combining traditional instruments with ambient and techno styles. Pop electronic music is most recognizable in its 4/4 rhythm and is more connected to mainstream audiences than earlier forms, which were popular in smaller, specialized groups.

Origins: late 19th century to early 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, experiments with new electronic technology led to the creation of the first electronic musical instruments. These early devices were not sold to the public but were used in demonstrations and performances. Audiences heard copies of existing music rather than new pieces written specifically for the instruments. Some instruments produced simple sounds and were seen as novelties, but the Telharmonium combined the sounds of several orchestral instruments with good accuracy. It became popular with the public and helped advance the idea of sending music through telephone networks.

People who questioned traditional music styles saw potential in these new inventions. Ferruccio Busoni supported the creation of microtonal music, which electronic instruments could produce. He predicted that machines would play a role in future music and wrote the important book Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music in 1907. Futurist composers like Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began writing music that used sounds of machines to represent noise. They believed electronic technology would expand the range of musical sounds, as described in their famous work The Art of Noises in 1913.

Improvements in vacuum tube technology led to smaller, louder, and more practical electronic instruments. By the early 1930s, the theremin, ondes Martenot, and trautonium were available for sale.

From the late 1920s, the usefulness of electronic instruments influenced composers like Joseph Schillinger and Maria Schuppel to use them in their work. These instruments were often played alongside traditional orchestras, and many composers wrote parts for the theremin that could be played by string instruments instead.

Some avant-garde composers criticized the use of electronic instruments for traditional purposes. These instruments allowed for new ways to use pitch, which composers like Charles Ives, Dimitrios Levidis, Olivier Messiaen, and Edgard Varèse used to create microtonal music. Percy Grainger used the theremin to avoid fixed musical notes entirely, while Russian composers like Gavriil Popov used it to create noise in music that otherwise used traditional sounds.

Early recording technology developed alongside electronic instruments. The first way to record and play back sound was invented in the late 19th century with the mechanical phonograph. By the 1920s, record players were common in homes, and composers began using them to play short recordings during performances.

In 1925, electrical recording technology was introduced, leading to more experimentation with record players. Composers like Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch created pieces in 1930 by combining recordings of instruments and voices at different speeds. Inspired by these methods, John Cage made Imaginary Landscape No. 1 in 1939 by changing the speed of recorded tones.

Composers began using new sound-on-film technology. Recordings could be cut and rearranged to make sound collages, as done by Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Walter Ruttmann, and Dziga Vertov. This technology also allowed sounds to be drawn and changed visually. These techniques were used to create film soundtracks in Germany, Russia, and the United States, including the popular film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Norman McLaren continued these experiments with graphical sound from the late 1930s.

Development: 1940s to 1950s

The first practical audio tape recorder was introduced in 1935. Improvements in the technology used a method called AC biasing, which greatly increased the quality of recordings. As early as 1942, test recordings were made in stereo. These developments started in Germany, but after World War II ended, recorders and tapes were taken to the United States. These tools led to the creation of the first tape recorder made for sale in 1948.

In 1944, before magnetic tape was used for music, Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh, who was still a student in Cairo, used a heavy wire recorder to capture sounds from an ancient zaar ceremony. Using equipment at the Middle East Radio studios, El-Dabh edited the recording with techniques like adding echoes, adjusting volume, and re-recording. This work, called The Expression of Zaar, is believed to be the earliest music made using tape. It was shown in 1944 at an art gallery in Cairo. At the time, El-Dabh’s work was not well known outside Egypt, but he later contributed to electronic music at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the late 1950s.

After working at Studio d'Essai at Radiodiffusion Française (RDF) in the early 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer developed the theory and practice of musique concrète. In the late 1940s, Schaeffer experimented with sound-based music using shellac record players. In 1950, he expanded these techniques by using magnetic tape machines to manipulate sounds, such as changing the speed of recordings (to shift pitch) and splicing tape together.

On October 5, 1948, RDF broadcast Schaeffer’s Etude aux chemins de fer, the first movement of Cinq études de bruits. This marked the start of studio-based musique concrète (also called acousmatic art). Schaeffer used tools like a disc cutting lathe, turntables, mixers, filters, an echo chamber, and a mobile recording unit. Soon after, Pierre Henry began working with Schaeffer, and their partnership greatly influenced electronic music. Another collaborator, Edgard Varèse, created Déserts, a piece for chamber orchestra and tape. The tape parts were made in Schaeffer’s studio and later revised at Columbia University.

In 1950, Schaeffer held the first public (non-broadcast) concert of musique concrète at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He used a PA system, turntables, and mixers. The performance was difficult because live sound editing with turntables had never been tried before. That same year, Schaeffer and Henry created Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950), the first major work of musique concrète. In 1951, RTF in Paris established the first studio for electronic music production. That year, Schaeffer and Henry also produced an opera called Orpheus, using concrete sounds and voices.

By 1951, the work of Schaeffer, composer-percussionist Pierre Henry, and sound engineer Jacques Poullin had gained official recognition. The Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète, part of RTF in Paris, was formed. This group became the ancestor of the ORTF.

In 1952, Karlheinz Stockhausen worked briefly in Schaeffer’s studio and later joined the WDR Cologne’s Studio for Electronic Music.

In 1954, the first authentic compositions combining electric and acoustic elements were created. These included Varèse’s Déserts for chamber ensemble and tape, and two works by Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky: Rhapsodic Variations and A Poem in Cycles and Bells, both for orchestra and tape. The tape part of Déserts used many concrete sounds because Stockhausen had worked in Schaeffer’s studio. At the German premiere of Déserts in Hamburg, Stockhausen controlled the tape. Varèse said the title Déserts referred to both physical and mental emptiness, including the loneliness of the human mind.

In 1953, the famous electronic music studio in Cologne was officially opened at the NWDR radio studios. It had been planned as early as 1950, and early compositions were made and broadcast in 1951. Created by Werner Meyer-Eppler, Robert Beyer, and Herbert Eimert (its first director), the studio later included Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig. Meyer-Eppler’s 1949 thesis proposed making music entirely from electronic signals, which made electronic music different from French musique concrète, which used recorded sounds.

In 1953, Stockhausen composed Studie I, followed by Elektronische Studie II in 1954, the first electronic piece published as a score. In 1955, more electronic music studios were created, including the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano in Italy, a studio in Tokyo founded by Toshiro Mayuzumi, and the Philips studio in the Netherlands, which later became the Institute of Sonology at Utrecht University.

Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel made Cologne a center for avant-garde music. Stockhausen combined electronic sounds with orchestras in Mixtur (1964) and Hymnen, dritte Region mit Orchester (1967). He said his electronic music made listeners feel like they were in "outer space" or a "fantastic dream world."

In the United States, electronic music began in 1939 when John Cage created Imaginary Landscape, No. 1, using turntables, frequency recordings, piano, and cymbal, but no electronic tools. Cage composed five more Imaginary Landscapes between 1942 and 1952, mostly for percussion ensembles. No. 4 used twelve radios, and No. 5 (1952) used 42 recordings on magnetic tape. Otto Luening said Cage performed Williams Mix at Donaueschingen in 1954 using eight loudspeakers, three years after his collaboration with others. Williams Mix was well received at the Donaueschingen Festival.

The Music for Magnetic Tape Project was formed by members of the New York School, including John Cage, Earle Brown,

Expansion: 1960s

This was a time of growth for electronic music, both in schools and among independent artists because synthesizer technology became easier to use. By this time, a strong group of composers and musicians working with new sounds and instruments was forming and growing. In 1960, Otto Luening composed Gargoyles for violin and tape, and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte for electronic sounds, piano, and percussion had its first performance. This piece had two versions—one for 4-channel tape and another for tape with human performers. In Kontakte, Stockhausen stopped using traditional musical form based on a clear beginning, middle, and end. Instead, he used a new method called “moment form,” which was similar to early film techniques that connected different scenes quickly.

The theremin had been used since the 1920s but became more well-known in the 1950s because it was used in science-fiction movie soundtracks, such as Bernard Herrmann’s score for The Day the Earth Stood Still.

In the UK during this time, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, created in 1958, became famous for its work on the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. One of the most influential British electronic artists was Delia Derbyshire, a member of the Workshop. She is best known for her 1963 electronic version of the Doctor Who theme, which was composed by Ron Grainer. Other composers working with electronic music in the UK included Ernest Berk, Tristram Cary, Hugh Davies, Brian Dennis, George Newson, Daphne Oram, and Peter Zinovieff.

In 1958, during a UNESCO fellowship for studies in electronic music, Israeli composer Josef Tal traveled to the United States and Canada. He shared his findings in two articles for UNESCO. In 1961, he started the Centre for Electronic Music in Israel at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1962, Canadian composer Hugh Le Caine traveled to Jerusalem to install his Creative Tape Recorder at the center. In the 1990s, Tal worked with Dr. Shlomo Markel, along with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the Volkswagen Foundation, on a research project called “Talmark” to create a new way to write music for electronic instruments.

In 1961, American composer Milton Babbitt created his first electronic piece, Composition for Synthesizer, using the RCA synthesizer at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Collaborations happened across the world. In 1961, American composer Vladimir Ussachevsky invited French composer Edgar Varèse to the Columbia-Princeton Studio. When Varèse arrived, he worked on revising his piece Déserts with help from Mario Davidovsky and Bülent Arel.

The busy work at Columbia-Princeton and other places inspired the creation of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1963 by Morton Subotnick. Other members included Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, Anthony Martin, and Terry Riley. Later, the Center moved to Mills College, led by Pauline Oliveros, and was renamed the Center for Contemporary Music.

Pietro Grossi was an Italian pioneer of computer composition and tape music. He began experimenting with electronic techniques in the early 1960s. Grossi was a cellist and composer born in Venice in 1917. In 1963, he founded the S 2F M (Studio de Fonologia Musicale di Firenze) to explore electronic sound and composition.

At the same time in San Francisco, composer Stan Shaff and equipment designer Doug McEachern held the first “Audium” concert at San Francisco State College in 1962. Later, they worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in 1963, creating performances that used sound movement in space. Twelve speakers surrounded the audience, and four speakers were on a rotating structure above. In 1964, a music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Alfred Frankenstein, said that the possibilities of moving sound in space were explored more than ever before. In 1967, the first Audium, a space-sound performance center, opened and held weekly shows until 1970. In 1975, a new Audium opened with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to create music that filled an entire room with sound. Some composers used multiple speakers in a room and moved sound between them, depending on where the speakers were placed and the room’s acoustics. Examples include Varese’s Poeme Electronique (performed at the Philips Pavilion in Brussels in 1958) and Stan Shaff’s Audium installation in San Francisco. Over 4,500 performances were held at Audium in 40 years, and Shaff used 176 speakers to shape sound in space.

Jean-Jacques Perrey used techniques developed by Pierre Schaeffer on tape loops and was among the first to use the Moog synthesizer made by Robert Moog. He created music with Gershon Kingsley and also made solo works. A famous example of the Moog synthesizer was the 1968 album Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos, which made synthesizer music popular. In 1969, David Tudor brought a Moog synthesizer and Ampex tape machines to the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, with help from the Sarabhai family. This started India’s first electronic music studio. Composers Jinraj Joshipura, Gita Sarabhai, SC Sharma, IS Mathur, and Atul Desai created experimental music there from 1969 to 1973.

In 1950, the computer CSIRAC in Australia first played musical melodies. Some newspaper reports from America and England claimed computers might have played music earlier, but research has shown these claims are false. There is no proof that computers played music before CSIRAC. CSIRAC was built by Trevor Pearcey and Maston Beard in the 1950s. A mathematician named Geoff Hill programmed CSIRAC to play popular songs from the early 1950s. In 1951, CSIRAC publicly played the “Colonel Bogey March,” but no recordings of this performance exist. CSIRAC played standard songs and was not used to create new ways of thinking about music, which is how computers are used in music today.

The first music played in England was the British National Anthem, programmed by Christopher Strachey on the Ferranti Mark I computer in late 1951. Later that year, short parts of three songs were recorded by the BBC: the National Anthem, “Ba, Ba Black Sheep,” and “In the Mood.” This is considered the earliest recording of a computer

Late 1960s to early 1980s

In the late 1960s, pop and rock musicians, such as the Beach Boys and the Beatles, began using electronic instruments like the theremin and Mellotron to enhance their music. The first bands to use the Moog synthesizer were the Doors on their 1967 song "Strange Days" and the Monkees on their 1967 album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. In his book Electronic and Experimental Music, Thom Holmes notes that the Beatles' 1966 song "Tomorrow Never Knows" helped start a new era in using electronic music in rock and pop because the band used tape loops and reversed or changed tape sounds.

Also in the late 1960s, music groups like Silver Apples, Beaver and Krause, and psychedelic rock bands such as The United States of America, Fifty Foot Hose, White Noise, and Gong were considered pioneers in electronic rock and electronica. They combined psychedelic rock with oscillators and synthesizers. The 1969 instrumental song "Popcorn," written by Gershon Kingsley for Music To Moog By, became famous because of a 1972 version by Hot Butter.

The Moog synthesizer became widely known in 1968 with Switched-On Bach, an album of Bach compositions arranged for the Moog by Wendy Carlos. The album was very successful and won three Grammy Awards in 1970: Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists, and Best Engineered Classical Recording.

In 1969, David Borden created the world's first synthesizer ensemble called the Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company in Ithaca, New York.

By the end of the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer became a key part of the sound of emerging progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Genesis. In Europe, instrumental prog rock helped bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Can, Neu!, and Faust avoid language barriers. Their synthesizer-heavy "krautrock" and the work of Brian Eno (who played keyboards for Roxy Music) influenced later electronic rock.

Ambient dub music was developed by Jamaican artists like King Tubby. They used techniques such as echo, equalization, and layered sounds, along with deep basslines and harmonic tones. Other artists in this genre include Dreadzone, Higher Intelligence Agency, The Orb, Ott, Loop Guru, Woob, and Transglobal Underground.

Dub music influenced hip-hop when DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican immigrant, introduced sound system culture and dub techniques to America in the early 1970s. One technique that became popular was playing two copies of the same record on turntables to extend a favorite section. The turntable became a key electronic instrument in the 1980s and 1990s.

Electronic rock was also made by Japanese musicians like Isao Tomita, who created Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock (1972), and Osamu Kitajima, who released the progressive rock album Benzaiten (1974). In the mid-1970s, musicians like Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Tomita, and Klaus Schulze influenced the development of new-age music. Their work often listed the electronic equipment used on album covers. Electronic music became common in radio and top-selling charts, with bands like Space (Magic Fly) and Jean-Michel Jarre (Oxygène) gaining popularity. Between 1977 and 1981, Kraftwerk released albums such as Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine, and Computer World, which influenced electronic music subgenres.

During this time, rock musicians like Mike Oldfield and The Alan Parsons Project used electronic effects and music. The Alan Parsons Project was the first rock band to use a digital vocoder in their 1975 song "The Raven." Electronic rock became more common in the mid-1980s. Jeff Wayne’s 1978 musical version of The War of the Worlds was very successful.

Film scores also used electronic sounds. Wendy Carlos composed scores for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron. In 1977, Gene Page recorded a disco version of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind theme, which reached number 30 on the R&B chart. Giorgio Moroder’s score for Midnight Express (1978) won an Academy Award in 1979, and Vangelis’s score for Chariots of Fire (1981) won another Oscar. After punk rock emerged, a simpler form of electronic rock developed, using digital technology instead of traditional instruments. The American band Suicide, who came from the punk scene in New York, used drum machines and synthesizers on their 1977 album.

Synth-pop bands that became popular in the late 1970s and 1980s included Ultravox (Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1977), Yellow Magic Orchestra (Yellow Magic Orchestra, 1978), The Buggles (Video Killed the Radio Star, 1979), Gary Numan (The Pleasure Principle, 1979), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (Electricity, 1979), Depeche Mode (Dreaming of Me, 1980), A Flock of Seagulls (Talking, 1981), New Order (Ceremony, 1981), and The Human League (Don't You Want Me, 1981).

The creation of MIDI and digital audio made it easier to produce electronic music. Engineers, producers, and composers explored new electronic equipment. Synth-pop sometimes used synthesizers instead of other instruments, but many bands still included guitarists, bassists, and drummers. This led to the growth of synth-pop, which became dominant in pop and rock music during the early 1980s. Key acts included Yazoo, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Talk Talk, Japan, and Eurythmics.

Synth-pop became popular worldwide, with international hits by bands like Men Without Hats, Trans-X, and Lime from Canada; Telex from Belgium; Peter Schilling, Sandra, Modern Talking, Propaganda, and Alphaville from Germany; Yello from Switzerland; and Azul y Negro from Spain. The synth sound is also central to Italo-disco.

Some synth-pop bands created futuristic visual styles to match their electronic sound, as seen with American band De

Late 1980s to 1990s

Synth-pop continued into the late 1980s, with a style that became more similar to dance music. Artists such as the British groups Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, and The Communards achieved success during much of the 1990s.

This trend continues today, as modern nightclubs around the world regularly play electronic dance music (EDM). Today, EDM has its own radio stations, websites, and magazines like Mixmag. Even though the music industry has tried to create a specific brand for EDM, the term is still used to describe many different types of music, including dance-pop, house, techno, electro, and trance, along with their subgenres. EDM has become popular in the United States and North America, partly because of the big room house/EDM sound used in U.S. pop music and the growth of large music festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, Tomorrowland, and Ultra Music Festival.

At the same time, a group of electronic music styles created for listening rather than dancing became known as "electronica." This was a music scene in the United Kingdom during the early 1990s. A 1997 Billboard article noted that the connection between club communities and independent record labels helped create an environment where electronica artists could experiment and eventually gain mainstream popularity. American labels such as Astralwerks (home to The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Future Sound of London, and Fluke), Moonshine (DJ Keoki), and City of Angels (The Crystal Method) helped spread this style of music.

The term "indie electronic" (or "indietronica") describes a group of artists who started in independent rock music and added electronic elements like synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and computer programs. These artists were influenced by early electronic music, krautrock, synth-pop, and dance music. Many of their recordings are made using laptops and digital audio workstations.

The first wave of indie electronic artists began in the 1990s, with groups like Stereolab (who used older equipment) and Disco Inferno (who used modern sampling technology). The genre grew more popular in the 2000s as home recording and software synthesizers became widely available. Other artists in this style include Broadcast, Lali Puna, Múm, The Postal Service, Skeletons, and School of Seven Bells. Independent record labels connected to this style include Warp, Morr Music, Sub Pop, and Ghostly International.

2000s and 2010s

As computer technology has improved and music software has become more advanced, people can now create and perform music using methods that are different from traditional ways of making music. Examples include using laptops (called laptronica), live coding, and Algorave. The term "Live PA" describes any live performance of electronic music, whether it uses laptops, synthesizers, or other devices.

Around the year 2000, software tools that act like music studios became available. Programs such as Propellerhead's Reason and Ableton Live became widely used. These tools offer affordable and practical alternatives to expensive hardware studios. Because of improvements in computer technology, high-quality music can now be made using just a single laptop. These changes have made music creation easier for more people, leading to a large increase in home-made electronic music shared online. Software-based instruments and effects (called "plugins") can be used in a computer-based studio through the VST platform. Some of these tools closely copy the sounds of older hardware, such as the Roland D-50, ARP Odyssey, Yamaha DX7, or Korg M1.

Circuit bending is the process of altering battery-powered toys and synthesizers to produce new, unexpected sounds. This practice was started by Reed Ghazala in the 1960s, and he later named it "circuit bending" in 1992.

After the rise of circuit bending, musicians began building their own modular synthesizers, which led to renewed interest in designs from the early 1960s. One popular system that developed from this was Eurorack.