1907年，也就是三極真空管發明後的一年，意大利鋼琴家及作曲家費盧西奧·布索尼出版了《音樂新美感的描述》（Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music），裡頭討論到電子及其他新聲源在未來音樂的應用。他寫到未來在音樂的調微音調尺度，可能被卡希爾的電傳裝置加以實現：「只有長期而仔細的系列實驗，以及持續的對耳朵加以訓練，才能在將來的世代以其藝術裡，令這種不熟悉的素材變成可達成且可塑造。」[10]
這十年帶來了大量的早期電子樂器，以及第一次使用電子樂器作曲。第一部電子樂器稱為以太發聲器（Etherophone），是李昂·特雷門（出生時叫列夫·特雷門）於1919至1920年間在列寧格勒創造出來，後來重命名為特雷門。它帶領出第一次針對電子樂器的作曲，與噪音製造器及其再衍生設備形成對比。1929年，約瑟夫·席林格（英语：Joseph Schillinger）創作了《特雷門與管弦樂團第一組曲》（First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra），於克里夫蘭管弦樂團進行首演，並由李昂·特雷門擔任獨奏。
錄音設備的發明使得電子音樂有了跳躍式的演進。1927年，美國發明家J·A·歐尼爾（J. A. O'Neill）利用在橡膠表面塗布一層磁性物質，開發了一種錄音裝置，然而在商業上卻失敗了。兩年後，勞倫斯·漢門（英语：Laurens Hammond）為製造電子樂器而建立了他自己的公司。他繼續製造漢門式電風琴（英语：Hammond organ），這是基於特雷門的原理，並伴隨包括早期迴響裝置等其他發明[16]。漢門與約翰·漢那特（John Hanert）、C·N·威廉斯（C. N. Williams）繼續合作開發其它電子樂器，例如諾瓦合音琴（英语：Novachord）是由漢門的公司於1939至1942年間製造。[17]
1948年10月5日，法國廣播公司（RDF）播送了作曲家皮耶·薛菲的作品《火車習作》（Etude aux chemins de fer）。這是《噪音的五項研究》（Cinq études de bruits）的第一個樂章，標誌了錄音室實際化與具體音樂（或聽覺藝術）的開始。[30]薛菲採用一部切割圓盤用的車床、四部錄音轉播機、一部四頻道混音機、濾波器、一間回音室以及一套可攜式錄音設備。在此後不久，亨利開始與薛菲合作，這個合作關係可能對電子音樂的方向有深刻而持久的影響。另一位薛菲的夥伴埃德加·瓦雷兹開始創作《沙漠（英语：Déserts）》，一首為室內樂團與錄音帶創作的作品。錄音帶的部分在皮耶·薛菲的錄音室製作，並且之後在哥倫比亞大學作修訂。
1950年，薛菲在巴黎高等音樂師範學院（英语：Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris）舉行了具體音樂的第一次公開音樂會（非廣播）。「薛菲使用一套公共播放系統（英语：Public address system）、好幾部錄音轉播機以及混音器。這個表演並不夠好，因為使用錄音轉播機創造現場綜合表演的手法從來沒有被做過。」[31]同年稍後，皮耶·亨利與薛菲共同創作了具體音樂的第一個主要作品《孤獨人交響樂》（Symphonie pour un homme seul）。1951年，由於世界潮流所趨，RTF（原RDF合併電視業務而成）在巴黎建立了第一個製作電子音樂的錄音室。同樣在1951年，薛菲與亨利為具體音樂與人聲創作了一部歌劇《奧菲斯》（Orpheus，希臘神話中彈豎琴的名手）。
1953年，NWDR（英语：NWDR）在科隆正式設立廣播錄音室，後來成為全世界最有名的電子音樂錄音室。其實早在1950年該錄音室就已著手籌備，並在1951年就有產出作品並進行廣播。[32]該實驗室是威納·梅爾-艾普勒（英语：Werner Meyer-Eppler）、羅伯特·貝爾（Robert Beyer）與赫伯持·艾默特（英语：Herbert Eimert）（他成為第一個編輯者）等人的智慧結晶，不久又加入了卡爾海因茲·史托克豪森與哥特弗里德·邁可·寇尼格（英语：Gottfried Michael Koenig）。梅爾-艾普勒曾於1949年在他的論文《電子發聲器：電子音樂與合成語音》（Elektronische Klangerzeugung: Elektronische Musik und Synthetische Sprache）中推想出完全以電子製作信號合成音樂的概念；在這方面，德國的電子音樂明確地與法國的具體音樂區分開來，因為具體音樂是使用實際聲音作為來源。[33]
日本經由黛敏郎引進了具體音樂，他在1952年參與了薛菲在巴黎的音樂會。[42]回到日本以後，他為1952年的喜劇片《純情的卡門（日语：カルメン純情す）》實驗性製作了一個簡短的磁帶音樂作品，[44]並且製作了《X、Y、Z為具體音樂》，於1953年由日本文化放送（JOQR）電台播放。[42]黛敏郎也為三島由紀夫的1954年廣播劇《拳擊》製作了另一首具體音樂作品。[44]然而，薛菲的法國概念「聲音物件（英语：Sound object）」並沒有影響到日本作曲家，取而代之的是他們的主要興趣——音樂科技，如同黛敏郎所言，克服「人類表現材料與範圍」的限制。[45]這導致了一些日本電聲音樂家使用序列主義和十二音技法於作品上，[45]例子有入野義朗（日语：入野義朗）的1951年十二音體系作品《照相機的音樂會》（意大利語：Concerto da Camera）、[44]黛敏郎的《X、Y、Z為具體音樂》及其後柴田南雄的1956年電子音樂作品。[46]
同樣在1957年，吉德·巴爾坦（迪克·雷馬克斯（英语：Dick Raaymakers））與湯姆·迪塞維爾特（英语：Tom Dissevelt）發表他們的首次登台專輯《第二月亮之歌》（Song Of The Second Moon），是在飛利浦錄音室錄製完成。[66]大眾對世界各地創造出來的新聲音仍然維持著高度興趣，並持續到1958年瓦雷茲作品《電子音詩》在比利時布魯塞爾世界博覽會飛利浦展示館的演出，該場表演共使用了四百具揚聲器。同年，阿根廷作曲家毛里西歐·卡蓋爾創作了《轉變2》（Transición II）。該作品在科隆的WDR錄音室製作。有兩位音樂家使用一部鋼琴表演，一位以傳統方式，另一個則在鋼弦、框架與盒子上表演。另外還有兩位表演者使用磁帶錄音機來整合現場聲音以及預先準備的過去表演錄音。
在同時期的舊金山，作曲家史丹·夏夫（Stan Shaff）以及設備設計師道格·麥易群（Doug McEachern）在舊金山州立學院發表了第一場「Audium」音樂會（1962年），隨後又在舊金山現代藝術博物館（SFMOMA）創作了另一件作品（1963年），可以設想它是即時地在空間中控制聲音的流動。共有12具喇叭環繞著聽眾，另有4具喇叭被裝置在上方一個旋轉的、看似可移動的結構內。[75]在次年（1964年）於SFMOMA的一次表演中，《舊金山紀事報》音樂評論家阿爾弗列德·弗蘭肯史坦因（Alfred Frankenstein）如此評論：「立體聲音連續體的可能性難得被廣泛地探索出來」。[75]1967年，第一座Audium劇場（英语：Audium (theater)），也就是「立體聲音連續體」開幕，每周舉辦表演直到1970年為止。1975年，由國家藝術基金（英语：National Endowment for the Arts）出資成立一個新的Audium劇場，由地板至天花板都是為立體聲音創作與表演而設計。[76]「相形之下，有一些作曲家藉由設置在表演空間內的多具喇叭，切換或篩選各音源來操作立體聲音。在這個方法中，空間操作的組成取決於各喇叭的位置，通常利用了場域的聲學特性。範例有瓦雷茲的作品《電子音詩》（於1958年在布魯塞爾世界博覽會飛利浦展示館表演的錄音帶音樂）以及史丹利·夏夫（原文如此）目前仍活耀於舊金山的Audium設施。」[77]經由每周一次的固定節目（在40年內已超過4,500場），夏夫「雕塑」聲音，透過176具喇叭表演如今已數位化的立體作品。[78]
皮特羅·葛羅西（英语：Pietro Grossi）是義大利的電腦作曲與帶式音樂先鋒，他首先於60年代早期實驗電子技術。葛羅西曾經是個大提琴演奏家以及作曲家，於1917年在威尼斯出生。他於1963年成立了佛羅倫斯音韻音樂工作室（義大利語：Studio de Fonologia Musicale di Firenze，縮寫S 2F M），以實驗電子聲音及作曲。
其他的發展包括托德·麥克弗（英语：Tod Machover）（來自MIT與IRCAM）為超級大提琴（hypercello）而作的合成器樂曲《開始一遍又一遍》（Begin Again Again），那是一台具有多個感測器以便量測大提琴家實體動作的互動系統。麥克斯·馬修斯為了即時節拍、動態及音色控制，發展一套可預先輸入電子樂譜的「指揮」程式。莫頓．薩布尼克（英语：Morton Subotnick）發表一張多媒體的CD-ROM《我所有的蜂鳥都有藉口》（All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis）。
^"The stuff of electronic music is electrically produced or modified sounds. ... two basic definitions will help put some of the historical discussion in its place: purely electronic music versus electroacoustic music" (Holmes 2002，第6頁).
^"Electroacoustic music uses electronics to modify sounds from the natural world. The entire spectrum of worldly sounds provides the source material for this music. This is the domain of microphones, tape recorders and digital samplers…can be associated with live or recorded music. During live performances, natural sounds are modified in real time using electronics. The source of the sound can be anything from ambient noise to live musicians playing conventional instruments" (Holmes 2002，第8頁).
^"Electronically produced music is part of the mainstream of popular culture. Musical concepts that were once considered radical—the use of environmental sounds, ambient music, turntable music, digital sampling, computer music, the electronic modification of acoustic sounds, and music made from fragments of speech-have now been subsumed by many kinds of popular music. Record store genres including new age, rap, hip-hop, electronica, techno, jazz, and popular song all rely heavily on production values and techniques that originated with classic electronic music" (Holmes 2002，第1頁). "By the 1990s, electronic music had penetrated every corner of musical life. It extended from ethereal sound-waves played by esoteric experimenters to the thumping syncopation that accompanies every pop record" (Lebrecht 1996，第106頁).
^Anonymous 2001. Note: Historically, world's first electronic musical instruments using active component may be the Audion Piano developed in 1915 by Lee De Forest who also invented Audion tube, the first active component for amplification and oscillation. However at that era, also passive components were researched for oscillation（ex. intermittent glow discharge of neon tubes[1] （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆））, and possibly more earlier electronic musical instruments might be found.
^(Lebrecht 1996，第75頁). "... at Northwest German Radio in Cologne (1953), where the term 'electronic music' was coined to distinguish their pure experiments from musique concrete..."（Lebrecht 1996, 107）.
^"In 1967, just following the world premiere of Hymnen, Stockhausen said about the electronic music experience: '... Many listeners have projected that strange new music which they experienced—especially in the realm of electronic music—into extraterrestrial space. Even though they are not familiar with it through human experience, they identify it with the fantastic dream world. Several have commented that my electronic music sounds "like on a different star," or "like in outer space." Many have said that when hearing this music, they have sensations as if flying at an infinitely high speed, and then again, as if immobile in an immense space. Thus, extreme words are employed to describe such experience, which are not "objectively" communicable in the sense of an object description, but rather which exist in the subjective fantasy and which are projected into the extraterrestrial space'" (Holmes 2002，第145頁).
^"Carolyn Brown [Earle Brown's wife] was to dance in Cunningham's company, while Brown himself was to participate in Cage's 'Project for Music for Magnetic Tape.'... funded by Paul Williams（dedicatee of the 1953 Williams Mix）, who—like Robert Rauschenberg—was a former student of Black Mountain College, which Cage and Cunnigham had first visited in the summer of 1948" (Johnson 2002，第20頁).
^"From at least Louis and Bebbe Barron's soundtrack for 'The Forbidden Planet" onwards, electronic music - in particular synthetic timbre - has impersonated alien worlds in film" (Norman 2004，第32頁).
^"A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Pauline Oliveros [b. 1932] is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center（along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Anthony Martin）, which was the resource on the U.S. west coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music." from CD liner notes, "Accordion & Voice," Pauline Oliveros, Record Label: Important, Catalog number IMPREC140: 793447514024.
^"This element of embracing errors is at the centre of Circuit Bending, it is about creating sounds that are not supposed to happen and not supposed to be heard (Gard 2004). In terms of musicality, as with electronic art music, it is primarily concerned with timbre and takes little regard of pitch and rhythm in a classical sense. ... . In a similar vein to Cage’s aleatoric music, the art of Bending is dependent on chance, when a person prepares to bend they have no idea of the final outcome" (Yabsley 2007).
^
"In 1969, a portable version of the studio Moog, called the Minimoog Model D, became the most widely used synthesizer in both popular music and electronic art music" Montanaro 2004[页码请求].
^Sofer & Lynner 1977，第23頁 harvnb模板錯誤: 無指向目標: CITEREFSoferLynner1977 (幫助) "Yes, I used [ Moog modular equipment ] until I went with Herbie (Hancock) in 1970. Then I used a [ ARP ] 2600 because I couldn't use the Moog on stage. It was too big and cranky; every time we transported it, we would have to pull a module out, and I knew I couldn't do that on the road, so I started using ARP's."
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