What is computer music and how can it be studied? With the advent of the current era in which all the art of sound passes through the digital world, the era of computer music that goes from 1956/57 to 1999-2003 comes to an end.
The volume illustrates the historical, geographical, technological and collaborative characteristics of this repertoire and proposes a methodology of investigation that borrows from the author’s philology (variantism, sketch studies, critique génétique). Finally, it presents the comparison between the production in the CSC (Center for Computational Sonology of the University of Padua) and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique) in Paris, in the period 1975-1985. The analysis of the pieces based on the texts – in particular the computerized ones written in MUSIC 5, 360 and 10 – and their comparison, allow to evaluate the relationship between instrument and aesthetics, computer writing and composition, environment and constraints, economy of use of the software .