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• search (www.emdoku.de/en)
• Studios, (alt.emdoku.de/ssearch/EMDokumentation-E.html)
• Works, (alt.emdoku.de/EMDokumentation-E.html)
• Labels, (alt.emdoku.de/Vorwort-E.html#Label)
• FileMaker Database-EMDoku1 (WebDirect)

Overview

The “International Documentation of Electroacoustic Music” includes (as of August 2019):

• information on more than 47.000 works of electroacoustic music which have been produced or conceived between 1901 and 2019.
• information on more than 550 Studios, where electroacoustic music is produced.
  Note: in the FileMaker data base, only 380 Studios are documented.
• table documenting 5.880 media (DVDs, CDs, Vinyl-LPs, SACD, Tapes, etc.), that have been released by 786 labels.
• information on 9.843 composers, assistants, choreographers, directors, film and video artists.

Sources:

• The publication of the book Internationale Dokumentation elektroakustischer Musik in October 1996 by Pfau-Verlag (ISBN 3-930735-59-8) makes it possible to use a printed reference book.
• The data base (including FileMaker files) was also published by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik (German Association for Electroacoustic Music) — the DEGEM — as an insert to “NZ” (Schrott-Verlag, Mainz 2000).

Internet presence:

• HTML, this data is updated periodically:
  • The "new" HTML version can be referenced through the www.emdoku.de website with a standard web browser.
  • The "old" HTML version (discribed here) can be referenced through the alt.emdoku.de website with a standard web browser.
    All metadata is imported from the FileMaker data base EMDoku1-Werkliste.
    Searches (UNIX-Grep-commands in case of the "old" version) are available in three formats (short, full-length, no result)
    and presented as an HTML table, divided into 50 lines with Unicode UTF-8 character encoding (with Unix-LF).
    
  • Special HTML tables:
    • very large work table (15 MB);
    • large author table (1,6 MB)
      
      
• The FileMaker version
  • data retrieval is made possible through "WebDirect" using a standard web browser (Host-Site) and login with PW
    
  • special “remote” access through the FileMaker network "fmnet:/degem.fmp-hosting.de".
    Requirement: the application FileMaker Pro 13, 14, 15 or 16 (Windows / Mac OSX) must run on the client computer
    note for the Macintosh-Users: Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina) and higher prevent FileMaker Pro Versions 12, 13 or 14!
    
  • the free iOS app "FileMaker Go" provides mobile access to the data base

For further general information on the organization of the data base, see "FileMaker" (sorry, only in German)
For an introduction to EMDoku1, please see presentation paper (author: Folkmar Hein) given at the CIM14 conference in Berlin: EMDoku_CIM14.pdf.

contains information on 550 studios, including the production list, information concerning resources (hardware, software, teaching, personnel, etc.), and a short history. The list also includes studios which are no longer in operation, but are of historical significance. For some studios there is no detailed information, not even concerning works produced which were produced there. The reasons for this can be purely pedagogical function, recent creation of the studio, information which is not — or no longer — available

Here you can find a static, not up-to-date studio list which is classified according to country: (Studios-L.html)

The studio names are given both in official form and as an abbreviation.

The FileMaker studio database is not completely up-to-date (currently 376 studios). There you can find:

• information specific to the studio: name, information (also the history), country, date of creation (and closing, if relevant), address; URL; statistics, etc.
• studio work lists (from the EMDoku list of works and the Audiothek at the Technische Universität Berlin)
• additional information in Media-fields / Container.

The EMDoku List of Works contains 51.944 works composed between 1901 and 2020 from 11.693 composers.   
These works are categorized as “electroacoustic music” within the domain of “serious music” (The German GEMA calls this “E-Musik”). The “serious” attribute is not always clear and cannot always be verified for individual cases.

Definition

“Electroacoustic music” (EM) is generally defined as “music for at least one loudspeaker or transducer” or “music for more than one loudspeaker”.
(Computer music which creates scores and does not generate sound is not necessarily destined for performance with loudspeakers; such is the case for the “art” category as “score” as exemplified by a few works by Xenakis).

At least one person is responsible for the performance of electroacoustic music (tonmeister, mixing engineer, etc.).

Categories

The term “electroacoustic music” (EM) refers to “Category”/“Type”/“Function”, also with some "aesthetically" or historic items:

• Computer music
• live electronics
• tape music, fixed media
• radiophonic music, radio art
• sound art, sound installation
  
  
• “elektronische Musik” (WDR studios as example)
• musique acousmatique (INA-GRM studios as example) & musique concrète

The EMDoku use special shortcuts for categories (selection):

Category/Type/Function can be expanded with the abbreviations + and * (shown here with the example C ≈ Concert):

Since 1983 there have been an increasing number of works that can be classified as sound art [“SA”], whereby there is generally no one required for the performance.
The category “Performance” [“P”] is relatively new and usually requires one sound designer / sound director and one performer. Often appear the "Composer-Performer".

Example

The HTML List of Works with 19 fields imported from EMDoku1:

The FileMaker data base EMDoku1 includes other metadata fields and mass-data fields, as well as innumerable administrative and calculation fields (in each layout, only certain fields are visible):

• the metadata field “instrumentation” has been modified (see instrument Abbreviations) so that performers (people) and devices/computers/equipment are separated;
  a complex term recognition makes it possible to show “standard” instrument groups (standard abbreviations, standard order).
  There are still unclear designations for general or imprecise terms such as “elec”, “com”, “synt”, etc.
  It is often not clear if additional performers are required to play, operate, or otherwise perform the named devices.
  
  
• further metadata fields (generally openly accessible):
  • Notes (≈ program notes)
  • archive number, for example from the List of Works of INA-GRM (current to 1986), "opus"-Nr. …
  • director (film, theater, opera), choreographer, etc.
  • assistant / helper for realization of the piece
  • modification and creation dates of the data fields
  • data record source (starting in 1996)
  • fields with information obtained relationally. For example, from the “Authors” database:
    biography, life chronology, GND-Number { Gemeinsame Normdatei, also known as: Universal Authority File}, membership in the DEGEM
    
    
• Data / media (because of possible legal issues, only accessible with password)
  • Media fields / "container" (PDF.files, images, audio, and various files such as ZIP, etc.)

Further (some still planned) information on archiving and documentation:

• notes concerning the work and performance particularities, loudspeaker placement, etc.,
• list of required software and parameter/data setups to operate it
• scores, notes, and performance indications
• graphic representation of the sound, sonagrams, waveforms of each channel, etc.
• archive images (photos, films/videos, tape boxes, archive cards, etc.)
• archive data and condition report (currently included in the fields “instrumentation”, “comments”, and “notes”):
  • for analog audio media: number of tracks, tape width, tape type, speed, distortion, compander system, condition, information concerning digitalization, etc.
  • for digital media: CD, DVD, tape, hard drive, bit depth, sampling rate, number of tracks, sound file format, encoding, loudspeaker placement / surround standard
  • hardware and software: machines, synthesizers, computers with applications, etc., including exact information concerning type, software version, interfaces, cabling, protocols, etc.
• information concerning the archive itself: location, (with archive ID), location of original (or original copy) of the work.
• protected access to the work itself, not only mp3 stereo files (for example), but also multichannel files (discussion concerning standardizing formats has not taken place internationally).

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations can be found in "Abbreviations" / Instruments-Abbreviations
These abbreviations stem from standard English-language abbreviations and are partly derived from the “Electronic Music Catalog” by Hug Davies (see below):

Abbreviations for

• Authors / Groups
• Functions (Genres)
• Editions, Publishers
• Studios
• Countries (ISO 3166)
• Labels , with links (only extracts! See current details in the Label Table).
  
  
• Instruments list of abbreviations for musical instruments and devices (synthesizers, computers, processing devices such as ring modulators, etc.)

For other & updated statistics visit    https://www.emdoku.de/de/statistik 

Instrumentation Statistics: standardized instrument families in 9.116 works, at least 20 works

see also "Instrument-Statistik.html":

• Tables
• charts concerning instrumentation statistics, including works for solo, duet, and multiple instrumentalists.

Yearly statistics ≈ 43.000 of a total of 46.000 works
2.700 works do not have information on dates (years);
because of relatively low levels of activity between 1901 and 1949, the statistics are limited to the years 1950-2019:

• The drop in numbers between 1966 and 1967 is likely to be due to the end of the publication of RIME

All the list of works in available media (vinyl, CD, DVD, etc, up to the end of 2015) is organized in tables within three frames.:

• A list of alphabetically sorted label abbreviations are in the left frame, which can be searched by clicking on the corresponding letter of the alphabet in the head-frame;
• by clicking on the label abbreviation, media contents are shown, which indicate the author and title in the main frame.
• Works which are published on more than one place (CD and vinyl, for example) appear for each publication.
  Labels with multiple keywords appear multiple times in the left frame (for example ZKM-IDEAMA under "Z" ≈ "ZKM" and "I" ≈ "IDEAMA"; DAAD under "D"≈DAAD and "B" ≈ BKP, Berliner Künstlerprogramm).

The relatively large table in the main frame contains a very large number of works in a single file, so that searches for labels, names, or titles can be comfortably carried out using the user's web browser tools.

This collection of data on electroacoustic music "EMDoku" has developed over a number of years:g:

• The first phase began as a research project of the Elektronisches Studio (electronic music studio) of the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin in 1988 and financed as part of the project "Werkstatt Berlin 1988 (Berlin "Cultural Capital of Europe" in that year); the documentation was limited to European electroacoustic music.
  

  At the beginning, the work group undertook the completion of the "RIME" by Hugh Davies:

  Electronic Music Review Nos. 2/3, April/July 1967, compiled by Hugh Davies – a cooperative publication of Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'ORTF and The Independent Electronic Music Center Inc (Trumansburg, New York 14886, USA

On 1 January 2005, Hugh Davies died in London. Read the obituary from David Toop (The Guardian, 28.2.2005).

• The second phase was supported in 1990 by the Festival INVENTIONEN along with the DAAD; the work was presented at the ICMC in Glasgow.
  
  
• The third phase included the first book publication (the "red book") with generous support of INVENTIONEN '92 / DAAD:
  Golo Föllmer, Roland Frank, Folkmar Hein: "Dokumentation Elektroakustischer Musik in Europa";
  a project of the TU Berlin, Elektronisches Studio and the German division of the International Society for Electroacoustic Music ("DecimE", later DEGEM); Published by Inventionen'92,
  Organizing institutions: Berliner Künstlerprogramm of the DAAD, Akademie der Künste Berlin (Academy of Arts Berlin), Technische Universität (TU) Berlin;
  with support from the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin and the Berlin Senator Cultural Affairs.
  Thanks to: Konrad Boehmer, Hugh Davies, Klaus Ebbeke, Robin Minard, Thomas Seelig, Experimental Studio of the Warsaw Broadcasting, the sonic arts network, INA-GRM, Josef Anton Riedl, Oskar Sala, and others.
  
  
• The fourth phase included the publication of the second, corrected edition of the book, made possible by the GEMA-Stiftung and the Siemens Art Program.
  The book was published in 1996 by Pfau-Verlag under ISBN 3-930735-59-8.:
  Folkmar Hein, Thomas Seelig "Internationale Dokumentation Elektroakustischer Musik", edited by the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin and the German Society for Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM).
  Thanks to: Markus Spitzer, Golo Föllmer, Roland Frank, and many more.
  
  
• Starting in 1996, the fifth phase involved the publication of the data from the FileMaker database EMDoku1, and from 2004 the online publication relational database system EMDoku, first on a server of the TU Berlin and since 2012 on filemakerhosting.net in Bregenz, Austria.
  
  

Chronology & Credits:

(please find more infos in the german version):

• After the first phases, it became necessary to incorporate this collection into a database as a result of the ever-increasing amount of information on studios, authors, and works. The first database version was created with HyperCard; in 1995 the collection was transferred to FileMaker Pro 2 (current functioning versions: FileMaker Pro 12 / 13 / 14)
  
  
• Major additions took place after comparison with the "Electro-CD, Répertoire 1998" by Annette Vande Gorne (Musiques & Recherches Ohain / Belgium => see also Electrodoc) as well as national publications from Italy (collected by Nicola Sani), Spain (collected by Gabriel Brncic), Chile (Federico Schumacher), other Latin American countries, and various studio lists.
  
  
• At the beginning of 2001, additions came from two countries having less well-documented information: Norway (Notam) and Portugal. Also, original lists of works published on the internet from various studios were used to correct and augment the collection (for example, web information from GMEB Bourges/ IMEB and a list of works by Kilian Schwoon for Tempo Reale).
  
  
• A significant amount of information concerning works was obtained through newly-acquired media in the TU archives, including compilations from The Netherlands (Philips Studio), INA-GRM Paris, and the complete festival archives of Inventionen (1982 to 2010).
  
  
• Theme-specific sources were also used, such as "The Piano + LIVE Electronics Repertoire List), compiled by Xenia Pestova;
  also included was the program from the series "next generation" of the ZKM and the list of works compiled by and on DEGEM members.
  
  
• Information from publishers and labels: "empreintes DIGITALes", "Lovely Music", "Mode-Records", "WERGO", ... … (see also HTML-Labelliste).
  The list of publications at Discogs — including LPs, DVDs, CDs etc. — is highly recommended as a particularly rich source of information.
  
  
• Databases of various research institutes, including the important "Brahms"- database at IRCAM, "CDMC" (Centre de documentation de la musique contemporaine)
  
  
• National centers for music information also provided helpful information, for example Norway, Sweden, MIZ (Germany), Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Unicamp (José Augusto Mannis) Brazil; also the ZKM-Mediathek and Mediaartbase (also at the ZKM), the Netwerk-Archief" by the Institut of Sonology at Den Haag etc., including, of course, the numerous websites of studios and composers.

The historical part of the EMDoku (from the 1940s through the 1980s) is nearly completely cataloged. This includes individual composers whom have already been objects of research, as well as composers who have added to the lists themselves.

The EMDoku is relatively complete up to the year 2009. After this date, the data is — logically — not as complete. Through the positive response from users and with the help of further publications, it will hopefully be continually improved, expanded, and completed.
Thank you for your support!

For any questions, suggestions, or comments, please write an email to: info at emdoku dot de