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Edgard Varèse was known as a "father of electronic music". He was mainly focused on inventing new sounds rather than finding ways to make sounds people have already heard. He wrote a dozen compositions in his lifetime.
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On January 13th, 1897 the first "synthesizer" was created and dubbed as the "Telharmonium".
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After the hype over the telharmonium had faded, the "Wurlitzer" was introduced.
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John Cage was a pioneer of "chance music" and electronic music. He is best known for his controversial piece called "4’33”", which has four minutes and 30 seconds of silence.
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In 1919, the Theremin was invented by Lev Termen. It was an electronic instrument that could be played without actual contact.
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The Ondes Martenot was invented by Maurice Martenot. It sounded a lot like the Theremin, but has more control of the timbre.
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Laurens Hammond invented this teleharmonium-sounding device. It is much less bulky.
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In 1941, Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar.
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The idea of musique concrète was developed around 1948, thee is no set date. Musique concrète is an experimental type of music that involves using tape-recorded sounds that were altered.
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Louis and Bebe Barron composed the first electronic music track released in America called "Heavenly Menagerie"
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The RCA Mark II was developed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson. Only two composers used this device, one of them being Milton Babbitt. It weighed about 3 tons and was 20 feet wide.
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The Beatles were one of the most influential bands to date.
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Robert Moog invented the first comercially avaliable synthesizer. It was much more basic than the RCA II but still had it's difficulties. The Moog was the most commonly used synthesizer in the late 60's and 70's.
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In 1969, the Minimoog was introduced. It was a compact and easier to use version of the Moog.
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The Buchla synthesizer didn't use a keyboard, it had touch-sensitive plates. Don Buchla, the creator, was more interested into developing innovative sounds for his synth.
