Mus10 is a software for computer music belonging to the family of Music N. Was developed at Stanford in the late Seventies by Leland Smith.
Background history – In 1972 Leland Smith worked in collaboration with John Chowning and James Moorer for the realization of Score, a program designed to generate scores in the format that is compatible with different Music N family of software, such as Music 10, Music IV and Music V by Max Mathews. A few years later, Smith began working on a new software called Mus10, also belonging to the family of Music N.[1]
Reference Models – Made in collaboration with John Tovar, the Mus10, which in the name held a close relationship with the Music 10 of John Chowning, was designed to be inspired by Music IV and Music V. The latter retained, in full, several Units Generator and can be considered almost as an update of its predecessor. The relationship with the Music IV, however, was intermediated by other software. First, the Muscmp, also developed at Stanford, and then from the Music IVBF from which researchers obtain other UG. The Mus10 was completed in 1977 and made operational on DEC KL-10 computers of Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
News – A first novelty, compared to other Music N, was the adoption of the Algol language, through which operation dedicated to sounds synthesis are defined. Among other innovations, however, there is the attempt to bring together, in one work environment, more features as possible; useful, in different ways, to the composition and performance of computer music. So, Smith and Tovar, alongside the Mus10 with programs such as EDSND (dedicated to editing, filtering and analysis of acoustic material) and Score (which is useful for generating scores). It can be said, therefore, that Mus10 is realized through a work environment similar to, that in a more complex form, was made some years later with Cmusic within The CARL System.
For this topic I’ve read:
[1] Alex Di Nunzio, Genesi, sviluppo e diffusione del software Music N nella storia della composizione informatica, Thesis, Università di Bologna: D.A.M.S. Musica, 2010.