ABSTRACT
Electronic music activity in the United States during the early 1950s was neither organ - ized nor institutional. Experimentation with tape composition took place through the efforts of individual composers working on a makeshift basis without state support. Such fragmented efforts lacked the cohesion, doctrine, and financial support of their European counterparts but in many ways the musical results were more diverse, ranging from works that were radically experimental to special effects for popular motion pictures and works that combined the use of taped sounds with live instrumentalists performing on stage. The first electronic music composers in North America did not adhere to any rigid schools of thought regarding the aesthetics of the medium and viewed with mixed skepti cism and amusement the aesthetic wars taking place between the French and the Germans. This chapter traces the works of early experimenters with tape music in North America leading up to the establishment of the first well-funded institutional studios such as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York.
