The other important factor in this experience is that most of the algorithmic developments, especially the more original ones, were developed from composers ideas, even if they didn't know how to realize things they were very good at describing what action they wanted to obtain on sound.

What we have tried to do in the last 20 years (inspired in the previous 20 years analog period), is to create continuous lines of research so to be able to perpetuate composers work. The GRM favours a certain kind of musical work in the electroacoustic world that we call acousmatic, so to describe its concern with spectral and perception phenomena and to make a difference to purely instrumental situations. Composers from very different horizons have approached our group and composed musical works. Music of their time with its complexities and technologies; music that will be the lasting element of this research and that is the principle element of the existence of our group.

A long tradition of mechanical, electronical and, more recently, hardware and software development have permitted composers to dispose of a certain number of tools adequate for acousmatic creation (and for any other kind of musical work, but the conceiving of the tools are

dictated by acousmatic necessities).     

For any information concerning the items described, or if you want to receive information concerning the GRM activities, or the GRM CD's collection containing 30 references, please contact:

INA GRM, Maison de Radio France, 116 av du Président Kennedy, 75786 PARIS Cedex 16, FRANCE, Tel : (331) 42 30 29 88,

Fax: (331) 42 30 49 88 Staff: 20 members, François Bayle, direction, Bernard Brauges Renard,

administration, Hugues Vinet, engineer, Daniel Teruggi, musical production

Composers of the GRM: François Bayle, François Donato, Denis Dufor, Jacques Lejeune, Bernard

Parmegiani, Jean Schwarz, Daniel Teruggi, Christian Zanesi.

Lexicon

Acousmatic: 'Pure listening situation, in which the attention cannot be diverted or reinforced by a visible or predictable instrumental casualty.'

Music that can only be conceived under a image-sound form called i-sounds, that are only perceivable through their projection (eventually interpreted or staged cinematically) (François Bayle, Musique Acousmatique, Buchet-Chastel, INA GRM, 1993).

Acousmathèque: Acousmatic library whose function is to preserve, to restore and to permit research and diffusion of the 1300 original musical works produced in the GRM, and several hundred musical works coming from other centers.