1963 – The cassette tape was first introduced by the Norwegian Company, Koninklijke Phillips N.V. led by Belgian, Lou Ottens, at the Berlin Radio Show and was first introduced primarily in Europe and the United States (under the Norelco brand division of the company) in 1964. Even though the product was later sold to under pressure by Sony, this product became highly popularized in a music format throughout the late twentieth century and slowly dwindling in popularity going into the twenty-first century when the Compact Disc (CD) became popularized.
1964 – Inventor William P. Lear, founder of the Lear Jet Corporation, a company the produced and sold private jets to celebrities all over the United States, developed the first 8-track system known as the Lear Jet Stereo 8. In 1965, Ford Motor Company then introduced the 8-track system into their cars making these more accessible to those who own their vehicles. Each 8-track cartridge held up to 4 different programs on the devices giving listeners a larger variety of options to listen through the medium.
1964 – Since the start of the Civil Rights Movement began at the beginning of 1960s, the Civil Rights Act was signed and implemented in 1964 to prohibit states (primarily is the Southern regions of the United States) from discriminating and segregating people in public places such as restaurants, schools and courts of law. This also gave the Justice Department the ability to sue certain states for not following the guidelines of the Civil Rights Act as well as the later implemented Voting Rights Act in 1965.
1966 – Changes: Open Style by Larry Austin from Trombone and Electroacoustics – Though the composer’s original intent wasn’t to have this as a programmatic work, this work is focused solely on the improvisatory styles of jazz music and incorporating them into electronic fixed media. Divided into five separate movements, this composition plays around with different timbres of sounds by not just through extended techniques and mute changes, but color changes in order for the performer to relay to the electroacoustic accompaniment.
1966 – James Russell filed the patent for his invention of the “digital-to-optical recording and playback system” later know as the CD (Compact Disc) and CD-ROM, even though the patent wasn’t granted until 1970. Though this invention continued in refinement of the next several centuries, even leading into the twenty-first century, the CD became a very popularized product with it’s initial purpose to record and play back music along the lines of a record player, but without the usage of a needle to damage the disc but instead the production of lights reflecting onto the disc through the CD-ROM.
1968 – Composition I by John Rimmer for Horn and Fixed Media – this microtonal work by this New Zealand composer is comprised of various techniques by the hornists primarily that manipulation of microtones produces by a horn player through the manipulation of their hand. This work is broken into chronometric cues that are written into the horn score to give the performer the liberties of rubato while also having a maintained structure throughout the work.
1969 – Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed on the moon for the first time in global history. This landing was broadcasted throughout the world as the Apollo 17 ship landed in space and the astronauts took their first steps in the pioneering into the new frontier of space.