sfSound presents





The San Francisco Tape Music Festival

Click here for submission information




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What is Tape Music??

It is a bit paradoxical to use the word traditionally with a practice of the avant garde -- but, traditionally the words tape music have referred to the target media of a new kind of music. This new kind of music is not composed for arbitration by a pianist and the piano, so it must not be piano music. . . not for the string quartet, not for the orchestra, not even for the rock band.


Music Composed for Tape.

The idea of a music composed for a fixed medium, while perhaps starting down a path, does not really lead us to a fundamentally new art. If the only criteria for differentiating tape music from all other musics is the fixed delivery medium -- magnetic tape, vinyl, CD, miniDisc -- then our thought has just led us to all industrialized forms of music, so called "popular" and "classical". When this is our only standard, we discover tape music is actually the foremost music of our time. The kids love it, the moms subdue their road-rage with it, the dads sing tunelessly with it, and so on.


But This Music May Not be Music.

The pieces we present transcend simplistic notions of music and its materials and its "instruments." The recording/playback media itself is treated not as a stand-in for an absent performer, a poor man's orchestra, but as a vital and unique territory for exploration/exploitation. They coexist in many worlds, blurring the line between composition, field recordings, sound design, "cinema for the ear," virtual [audio] reality, "radio" drama, and sound synthesis. This art form does not depend upon the posturing of performers. It does not worship the technology with which it was produced, nor does it fetishize the physical medium in which it is contained. There is nothing to see here! In the same way cinema is NOT theatre, tape music is NOT music.



sfSoundRadio is now playing many tape works from
our past concerts. TUNE IN NOW!



Past SFTMC concerts

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2024
January 5-7, 2024

a microfestival of tape music
April 30, 2023

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2023
January 13-15, 2023

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2020
January 10-12, 2020
READ: a preview by Sam Lefebvre, KQED

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2019
January 4-6, 2019
READ: a preview by Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle
READ: a review by Giacomo Fiore in the San Francisco Classical Voice

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2018
January 5-7, 2018

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2017
January 6-8, 2017
READ: a review by Giacomo Fiore in the San Francisco Classical Voice

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2016
January 8-10, 2016

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2015
January 9-12, 2015
READ: a review by Sam Lefebvre in the East Bay Express

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2014
January 3-5, 2014
READ: a review by J. Poet in the SFWeekly

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2013
January 25-27, 2013

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2012
January 20-22, 2012

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2011
January 7-9, 2011

Unravelling Tape An installation by the San Francisco Tape Music Collective
June 15-July 15, 2010

The San Francisco Tape Music Collective @ Mills College
November 9, 2009

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2009
January 30-February 1, 2009
READ: a review by Jonathan Russell in San Francisco Classical Voice

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2007
January 26-28, 2007

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2006
January 25-27, 2006

Cinema for the Ear: The San Francisco Tape Music Festival
January 20-22, 2005

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival
February 20-22, 2004

HEAR: Colin Berry's feature about the festival on NPR's California Report

San Francisco Electronic Music Festival
Sunday July, 27, 2003

READ: a review by David Bithell in Computer Music Journal

Strictly Ballroom Series
Thursday October, 23, 2003

Stanford University

The Tranparent Tape Music Festival II
8/16/2002 - 8/18/2002
READ:
a review by Tom Djll

The Tranparent Tape Music Festival
1/11/2002 & 1/12/2002
READ:
East Bay Express' Preview Article
READ: a review by Jonathan Segel in Computer Music Journal

microFestival
7/29/2000
READ:
a review by Mark Alburger in the SF Classical Voice & 21st Century Music

Big Sur Experimental Music Festival II
5/20/2000

The East Bay Tape Music Festival 1 @ Art Rattan Warehouse
4/30/99



The San Francisco Tape Music Collective is dedicated to presenting performances of audioArt diffused through a surround-sound speaker environment.
The SFTMC and the SF Tape Music Festival are projects of sfSound


The San Francisco Tape Music Collective is
Joseph Anderson | Thom Blum | Cliff Caruthers | Matt Ingalls
Kent Jolly | Douglas McCausland | Kristin Miltner | Maggi Payne



We are always looking for new works.
Click here for submission information.


:: contact us ::


Background image: a "diffusion score" for Edgard Varèse's Poème Électronique