Max Mathews (1926 - 2011).

The man who was unanimously regarded as the father of digital music passed away last week. Born in 1926, Max Mathews was a relentless innovator in the world of computer-generated music.

Employed at Bell Laboratories, he both created devices and wrote software applications of which the most popular was probably “Music” (1957). That software basically allowed an IBM 704 mainframe computer to play short jams.

Mathews passed away at his home in San Francisco on the morning of April the 21st. I have embedded a short video below in which he talks about the future of musical instruments. This video was actually shot last year at SF MusicTech Summit – it is one of his final major public appearances.