We were saddened to hear that Max Mathews passed away recently. To many he was the father of computer music.
Recently we attended an event at MIT Media Lab called Music machines. It charted the development of real time computer music making from Max’s early work with the ‘Music’ series of programming languages, through languages like Max/MSP and Pure data, to the current use of various music technologies around the world.
The event featured a brilliant keynote by Max. While he was in his 80s and frail, his experience in the field and all the things he had seen over the years was astounding.
At the end of the event we were demoing RjDj and Inception. Explaining the ways we are trying to utilise realtime music computing at the point of music consumption – on iOS devices.
Max came up and was fascinated by the apps. As we demo’ed Inception, we explained “it reacts to your movement, how loud or quiet your environment is, the time of day, even of it’s sunny or full moon”
Max looked up with a twinkle in his eye, and said “now all you need is a sexual sensor and it’s perfect!”
Rest in peace Max :)