Toshiro Mayuzumi was a Japanese composer known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from jazz to Balinese music, and he was considered a pioneer in the realm of musique concrète and electronic music, being the first artist in his country to explore these techniques. Over the span of his career, he has written symphonies, ballets, operas, and film scores. Mayuzumi was the recipient of an Otaka prize by the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Purple Medal of Merit.
Toshiro Mayuzumi
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and electric guitar.
Front page of Scientific American in 1907, demonstrating the size, operation, and popularity of the Telharmonium
Leon Theremin demonstrating the theremin in 1927
Phonogene (1953), a tape machine for modifying the sound structure, developed by Pierre Schaeffer et al. at GRMC
Pierre Schaeffer presenting the Acousmonium (1974) that consisted of 80 loudspeakers for tape playback, at GRM