The UK National Museum of Computing (TNMOC,www.tnmoc.org) has arranged a special temporary display about the history of computer music. TNMOC released an album Music By Programmers(www.musicbyprogrammers.com) in April, which soon entered Amazon Top 40. The album and the display are part of the initiative that aims to raise funds for a programming club for young people.

The material compiled by the volunteer Ben Trethowan traces the story of exciting experimentation from the sounds generated by mainframes in the 1950s, through music software that became available for desktop computers in the 1980s, to current techniques. Visitors can have hands-on experience with music software on 1980s desktop computers at the exhibition.

?Computer music has come a very long way from the first challenges of making noises to the computer-aided algorithmic compositions, and improvised live coding. TNMOC’s display follows the development of computer music from its origins on the earliest stored-program computers, through consumer software, to professional music systems in use today,? says Trethowan.

During the summer, TNMOC will extend its computer music theme by organising workshops where visitors will have the opportunity to compose their own music, try the first semi-professional music system, the Yamaha CX5M, and follow the development of music systems from the Acorn to the Apple.

Australia?s first digital computer, the CSIRAC was the first computer to play music in the 1950s. There was a public performance of Colonel Bogey March, but unfortunately no recording has survived. The first known original recording was made in the UK in 1951. God Save The King and part of In The Mood was played on a Ferranti Mark I computer using software developed by Christopher Strachey (1916-1975).