On February 23rd, 1924, Lejaren Hiller was born in New York City. Hiller would become recognized as one of the pioneers of algorithmic composition. In 1957 he wrote the first major computer assisted composition. The Illiac Suite was composed using University of Illinois’ Illiac computer.

Actual work on this problem was started [...]

On this date in 1934, Laurens Hammond received a patent for an “electrical musical instrument”. This instrument would go on to become one of the most commercially successful electronic musical instruments. Even today, Hammond organs are ubiquitous, and their sound is iconic.

Inventor Laurens Hammond designed and manufactured a variety of instruments: clocks, an
automatic [...]