Editor's Notes

It is no exaggeration to state that the name Max Mathews is synonymous with the inception of computer music, just as Pierre Schaeffer is with the birth of musique concrète. Mr. Mathews is regarded by many as the father of computer music, and there seem to be legitimate reasons and a strong consensus by the computer music community for this paternal appellation. It is no wonder, then, that Miller Puckette, who himself has contributed so much to this community, named one of the most influential and widely used computer music programming environments, Max, as a tribute to Mr. Mathews. Indeed, the impact that Max Mathews has made on the field of computer music cannot be overstated: His contributions include creating the Music I–V languages, developing the concept of unit generators as fundamental building blocks for the construction of sound and music, designing and building alternative controllers such as the Radio Baton, delving deeply into timbre research, and creating new sound-synthesis algorithms such as scanned synthesis.

Many of his collaborators (Richard Boulanger, John Cage, Emmanuel Ghent, Laurie Spiegel, Jim Tenney, et al.)—or the "right people," as Mr. Mathews refers to some of them—are themselves computer music pioneers who, especially early in their careers, gravitated toward Mr. Mathews when he was working at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Many projects that evolved from these musicians crossing paths with Max Mathews have had a great impact on the growth, development, and progress of computer music.

Not surprisingly, however, musicians were not the only ones who worked with Mr. Mathews. Many brilliant engineers, such as Bishnu Atal (inventor of linear predictive coding) and John Tukey (co-inventor of the fast Fourier transform), also worked with him at Bell Laboratories, greatly contributing in basic research pertinent to telecommunication technologies.

In this issue of the Journal we present a number of articles about Max Mathews, written by some of his close associates and colleagues (some of the "right people" mentioned above): Jon Appleton, John Chowning, Hubert Howe, and Jean-Claude Risset. The articles perhaps lie somewhat outside the norm of technical materials that readers of the Journal have come to expect. This collection of essays not only elaborates on Mr. Mathews's achievements, influences, and technical as well as scientific milestones on a professional level, but also gives us insights into his humanity. The article written by John Chowning is especially interesting in this respect, as he reminiscently narrates a journey with Max Mathews on waves different from the audio waves to which we are perhaps more accustomed. In this sense, much of this issue is a contribution to the musicology of computer music.

We have also included an interview with Max Mathews, which I conducted at his home in San Francisco, California, over the course of one week in late May 2008. During that week I was also given access to the entirety of his extremely well-organized personal archives, which included his complete collection of publications, various types of media recordings, personal letters, and photographs, as well as circuit sketches of projects with which he was involved over the years. A typical day's routine consisted of an interview session (usually during the early part of the day), followed by my sifting through his archives and digitizing materials that were most interesting (in the afternoon and evening). Some of the materials gathered during that week are included in the DVD that will accompany the Winter 2009 issue of the Journal. The DVD includes a select number of articles, circuit blueprints, and other materials from Max Mathews's personal archive, as well as the video on which the interview in the present issue is based.

I would like to thank Max and Marjorie Mathews for having me and my wife Kyoung Hyun stay at their home and for helping me bring this project to fruition.