Bebe Barron
pioneer of electronic music
Bebe Barron (June 16, 1925 – April 20, 2008) was an American composer of electronic music. Her work (with her husband Louis) defines one of the most idiosyncratic tape music movements in history. For a wedding present, they were given one of the earliest tape recorders using magnetised plastic tape. They founded one of the first private electro acoustic studios in 1949 in Greenwich Village, where they recorded artists like Tennessee Williams to John Cage reading their work. By 1956, this pioneering duo had created the world’s first electronic film score for Forbidden Planet, made entirely from treated “bleeps blurps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums, and screeches” generated by their own home made electronic circuits. The Barron’s practice of layering manipulated sounds from several different tape machines can be seen today in the multi-tracking practices so fundamental to modern recording studios.