Intuitive Music

Born in New York in 1908, Raymond Scott is one of the greatest geniuses and inventors in the history of electronic technology, as well as one of the most active pioneers in electronic music in the 50’s.

Scott studied piano and he assembled his first audio laboratory at the early age of 12. He graduated from both technical and music schools and after working as a pianist for Radio CBS he founded the Universal Recording company, recording a series of works for ensemble and later creating the Raymond Scott Orchestra. During the 40’s, Scott invented a series of musical electronic devices, such as “The Orchestral Machine” and “The Talking Alarm Clock”.

In 1952, Raymond Scott built the first portable electronic synthesizer in the history -called The Clavivox- using a model of Theremin built by Robert Moog, who also helped him on the design of the circuitry. Scott was also the inventor of the first circuitry concept for the automatic sequential performance of musical pitches, which was named ’sequencer’ in 1953. His unique model of sequencer was so huge that was nicknamed the ‘Wall of Sound’. Later in 1959, Scott designed and built a more compact electronic sequencer called the Circle Machine.

Other electronic inventions of his were ‘The Videola’ for film synching, ‘The Electronium’, ‘The Voice Modulator’, and ‘The Serial Doorbell’.

As a musician, Scott released three albums originally intended to be an ‘aural toy’ for babes, which turned out to be the first ambient electronic work ever released in the history of electronic music.

Raymond Scott’s unique contribution to the culture of the 20th Century was later recognized for having created the most popular cartoon sounds and effects, this including his works for Warner Bros. He was also Musical Director of CBS records in 1942 and he recorded uncountable soundtracks for Hollywood movies.
Raymond Scott died in 1994 at the age 85.