Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments and circuitry-based music technology. In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means, that produced using electronics only. Electromechanical instruments include mechanical elements, such as strings, so on, electric elements, such as magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, the electric guitar, which are made loud enough for performers and audiences to hear with an instrument amplifier and speaker cabinet. Pure electronic instruments do not have vibrating strings, hammers, or other sound-producing mechanisms. Devices such as the theremin and computer can produce electronic sounds; the first electronic devices for performing music were developed at the end of the 19th century, shortly afterward Italian futurists explored sounds that had not been considered musical.

During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for electronic instruments were made. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape allowed musicians to tape sounds and modify them by changing the tape speed or direction, leading to the development of electroacoustic tape music in the 1940s, in Egypt and France. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds. Music produced from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. An important new development was the advent of computers to compose music. Algorithmic composition with computers was first demonstrated in the 1950s. In the 1960s, live electronics were pioneered in America and Europe, Japanese electronic musical instruments began influencing the music industry, Jamaican dub music emerged as a form of popular electronic music. In the early 1970s, the monophonic Minimoog synthesizer and Japanese drum machines helped popularize synthesized electronic music.

In the 1970s, electronic music began having a significant influence on popular music, with the adoption of polyphonic synthesizers, electronic drums, drum machines, turntables, through the emergence of genres such as disco, new wave, synth-pop, hip hop and EDM. In the 1980s, electronic music became more dominant in popular music, with a greater reliance on synthesizers, the adoption of programmable drum machines such as the Roland TR-808 and bass synthesizers such as the TB-303. In the early 1980s, digital technologies for synthesizers including digital synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 were popularized, a group of musicians and music merchants developed the Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Electronically produced music became prevalent in the popular domain by the 1990s, because of the advent of affordable music technology. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from experimental art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Today, pop electronic music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form and more connected with the mainstream culture as opposed to its preceding forms which were specialized to niche markets.

At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments. These initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances; the audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments. While some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium synthesized the sound of orchestral instruments, it achieved viable public interest and made commercial progress into streaming music through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments. Ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music allowed for by electronic instruments, he predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music. Futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery.

They predicted expansions in timbre allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises. Developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s. From the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger to adopt them, they were used within orchestras, most composers wrote parts for the theremin that could otherwise be performed with string instruments. Avant-garde composers criticized the predominant use of electronic instruments for conventional purposes; the instruments offered expansions in pitch resources that were exploited by advocates of microtonal music such as Charles Ives, Dimitrios Levidis, Olivier Messiaen and Edgard Varèse. Further, Percy Grainger used the theremin to abandon fixed tonation while Russian composers such as Gavriil Popov treated it as a source of noise in otherwise-acoustic noise music.

Developments in early recording technology paralleled that of electronic instruments. The first means of recording and reproducing audio was invented in the late 19th century with the mechanical phonograph. Record players became a common household item, by the 1920s comp

Following his "Indian Summer" in 1895, W. G. Grace continued to play first-class cricket through his fiftieth birthday in 1898 and severed his connections with both Gloucestershire and England in 1899. An oft-repeated story about Grace is that, in 1896, the Australian pace bowler Ernie Jones bowled a short-pitched delivery so close to his face that it appeared to go through the famous beard which made him so recognisable. Grace reacted by demanding of Australian captain Harry Trott: "Here, what's all this?" Trott said to Jones: "Steady, Jonah". To which Jones laconically replied: "Sorry, she slipped". There are multiple variations of the story and, although some sources have recorded that the incident happened in a Test match, there is little doubt that the game in question was the tour opener at Sheffield Park; this is separately confirmed by C. B. Fry and Stanley Jackson who were both playing in the match, Jackson batting with Grace at the time. Grace made 30 first-class appearances in 1896, scoring 2,135 runs, with a highest score of 301, at an average of 42.70 with 4 centuries and 11 half-centuries.

In the field, he took 18 catches and 52 wickets with a best analysis of 7–59. His bowling average was 24.01. Grace made 25 first-class appearances in 1897, scoring 1,532 runs, with a highest score of 131, at an average of 39.28 with 4 centuries and 7 half-centuries. In the field, he took 15 catches and 56 wickets with a best analysis of 6–36, his bowling average was 22.17. By the time of his fiftieth birthday in July 1898, Grace had developed a somewhat corpulent figure and had lost his former agility, which meant he was no longer a capable fielder, he remained a good batsman and at need a useful slow bowler, but he was entering the twilight of his career and was now referred to as "The Old Man". As a special occasion, the MCC committee arranged the 1898 Gentlemen v Players match to coincide with his fiftieth birthday and he celebrated the event by scoring 43 and 31 not out, though handicapped by lameness and an injured hand. Grace made 26 first-class appearances in 1898, scoring 1,513 runs, with a highest score of 168, at an average of 42.02 with 3 centuries and 8 half-centuries.

In the field, he took 20 catches and 36 wickets with a best analysis of 7–44. His bowling average was 25.41. Grace had received an invitation from the Crystal Palace Company in London to help them form the London County Cricket Club. Grace accepted the offer and became the club's secretary and captain with an annual salary of £600; as a result, he severed his connection with Gloucestershire during the 1899 season. Grace captained England in the First Test of the 1899 series against Australia at Trent Bridge, when he was 51. By this time his bulk had made him a liability in the field and, realising his limitations all too he decided to stand down and surrendered both his place and the captaincy to Archie MacLaren, it is evident that Grace "plotted" his own omission from the England team by asking C. B. Fry, another selector who had arrived late for their meeting, if he thought that MacLaren should play in the Second Test. Fry answered: "Yes, I do." "That settles it", said Grace, he promptly retired from international cricket.

Explaining his decision Grace ruefully admitted of his diminished fielding skills that "the ground was getting a bit too far away". Grace last played at Lord's for the Gentlemen in 1899 though he continued to represent the team at other venues until 1906. Grace made 13 first-class appearances in 1899, scoring 515 runs, with a highest score of 78, at an average of 23.40 with 0 centuries and 3 half-centuries. In the field, he took 7 catches and 20 wickets with a best analysis of 5–86, his bowling average was 24.10. CricketArchive – WG Grace

Omid Reza Mir Sayafi was an Iranian blogger and journalist. Mir Sayafi was the first blogger to have died while in prison for his publication. Two other bloggers were killed afterward, they are the Bahraini blogger Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri, killed in April 2011 and Brazilian blogger Edinaldo Filgueira, killed June 2011. Mir Sayafi's blog is no longer accessible, but with some searching one can find an archive containing the blog posts that led to his imprisonment. Mir-Sayafi's main area of expertise was traditional Persian music, he wrote poetry and penned articles for Persian-language electronic art journals. He was well known in Iranian intelligentsia circles. In December 2008, Mir Sayafi was sentenced to two and half years in prison for insulting religious leaders and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran; when he died, Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam. Some human rights groups that his death follows a pattern of Iranian authorities "denying urgent health care to prisoners of conscience, resulting in their death."

Several citizen media groups, such as the Committee to Protect Bloggers, have announced March 18 as the day of solidarity with persecuted bloggers. The March 18 Movement was created in his memory. Human rights in Iran The March 18th Movement GlobalVoices.org Huffington Post The Blog Herald Jailed Iranian Blogger Dies - Rooz.online.com