Composer, performer, instrument builder, teacher, and writer Gordon Mumma has left an indelible mark on the American contemporary music scene. A prolific composer and innovative French horn player, Mumma is recognized for integrating advanced electronic processes into musical structures, an approach he has termed ""Cybersonics.""

Musicologist Michelle Fillion curates a collection of Mumma's writings, presenting revised versions of his classic pieces as well as many unpublished works from every stage of his storied career. Here, through words and astonishing photos, is Mumma's chronicle of seminal events in the musical world of the twentieth century: his cofounding the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music; his role in organizing the historic ONCE Festivals of Contemporary Music; performances with the Sonic Arts Union; and working alongside John Cage and David Tudor as a composer-musician with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In addition, Mumma describes his collaborations with composers, performers, dancers, and visual artists ranging from Robert Ashley and Pauline Oliveros to Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg.

Candid and insightful, Cybersonic Arts is the eye-opening account of a broad artistic community by an active participant and observer.

| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Figures Musical Examples Tables Foreword Introduction Preamble. Gordon Mumma: A Short Biography Part I. Unmarked Interchange: Ann Arbor and the ONCE Years (1960–66) 1. Music's Avant-Garde: What's New? 2. Manifestations: Light and Sound: Milton Cohen's Space Theatre 3. An Electronic Music Studio for the Independent Composer 4. The ONCE Festival and How It Happened 5. The ONCE Group's Unmarked Interchange and Night Train Part II. Cybersonics and the Sonic Arts (1966–75) 6. Creative Aspects of Live-Performance Electronic Music Technology 7. Alvin Lucier's Music for Solo Performer 1965 8. Two Cybersonic Works: Horn and Hornpipe 9. Music in America 1970: Points of View 10. A Brief Introduction to the Sound-Modifier Console and Sun(flower) Burst 11. What We Did Last Summer: A Commentary on ICES 1972 12. Two Decades of Live-Electronic Music, 1950–70 13, Witchcraft, Cybersonics, and Folkloric Virtuosity Part III. In the Cunningham Circle 14. A Day on the Road with the Cunningham Dance Company 15. From Where the Circus Went 16. Robert Rauschenberg in the Creative Fields of the Cunningham Dance Company 17. With Tudor the Organist 18. David Tudor the Composer along the Path to Rainforest Part IV. Not Wanting to Say Anything about John (Cage) 19. Cage as Performer 20. John Cage, Electronic Technology, and Live-Electronic Music 21. Twenty-Five Minutes with John Cage Part V. Latin America 22. Innovation in Latin American Electro-Acoustical Music 23. Briefly about Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano 24. Uruguayan Diary: The Cuarto Curso Latinoamericano de Música Contemporánea, Cerro del Toro Part VI. An American Gallery 25. Nelson Mix for Gordon Mumma 26. Gordon Mumma's Stovepipe for Richard Nelson 27. Good Times Up on the Farm 28. Merce and Ludwig 29. On the Ives Railroad 30. A Visit to Mount Olympus with David Tudor 31. On George Cacioppo 32. Earle's Worlds Three Sonic Arts Union Sketches 33. Speaking Robert Ashley 34. Crossings with David Behrman 35. Becoming Alvin Lucier 36. Working with Pauline Oliveros Part VII. Mumma on Mumma 37. Notes on My Creative Procedures Appendix: Selective List of Gordon Mumma's Musical Compositions Notes Works Cited Index | "What counts here is the spirit of it, the inventiveness springing from an independence of imagination as well as the willingness and financial necessity to work outside the given conditions of the time....