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+\section{Introduction}\label{introduction}
+
+Programming languages and environments for music have developed hand in
+hand with the history of creating music using computers. Software like
+Max, Pure Data, CSound, and SuperCollider has been referred to as
+``Computer Music
+Language''\citep{McCartney2002, Nishino2016, McPherson2020}, ``Language
+for Computer Music''\citep{Dannenberg2018}, and ``Computer Music
+Programming Systems''\citep{Lazzarini2013}, though there is no clear
+consensus on the use of these terms. However, as the term ``Computer
+Music'' suggests, these programming languages are deeply intertwined
+with the history of technology-driven music, which developed under the
+premise that ``almost any sound can be
+produced''\citep{mathews_acoustic_1961} through the use of computers.
+
+In the early days, when computers were confined to university research
+laboratories and neither displays nor mice existed, creating sound or
+music with computers was inevitably linked to programming. Today,
+however, using programming as a means to produce sound on a
+computer---rather than employing DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
+software---is somewhat specialized. In other words, programming
+languages for music developed after the proliferation of personal
+computers are software that deliberately choose programming (whether
+textual or graphical) as their frontend for sound generation.
+
+Since the 1990s, theoretical advancements in programming languages and
+the various constraints required for real-time audio processing have
+significantly increased the specialized knowledge needed to develop
+programming languages for music. Furthermore, some music-related
+languages developed after the 2000s are not necessarily aimed at
+pursuing new forms of musical expression. There appears to be no unified
+perspective on how to evaluate such languages.
+
+The ultimate goal of this paper is to introduce the framework of ``weak
+computer music,'' referring to music mediated by computers in a
+non-style-specific manner. This framework aims to decouple the
+evaluation of programming language design and development for music from
+specific styles and the ideologies associated with computer music.
+
+\subsection{Use of the Term ``Computer
+Music''}\label{use-of-the-term-computer-music}
+
+Despite its potential broad application, the term ``computer music'' has
+been repeatedly noted since the 1990s as being used within a narrowly
+defined framework, tied to specific styles or
+communities\citep{ostertag1998}.
+
+The necessity of using the term ``computer music'' for such academic
+contexts (particularly those centered around the International Computer
+Music Conference, or ICMC) has diminished over time. Lyon argues that
+defining computer music as simply ``music made using computers'' is too
+permissive, while defining it as ``music that could not exist without
+computers'' is overly strict, complicating the evaluation of analog
+modeling synthesizers implemented on computers. Lyon questions the
+utility of the term itself, comparing its consideration to that of
+``piano music,'' which ignores the styles within it\citep{lyon2006}.
+
+As Ostertag and Lyon observed, it has become increasingly difficult to
+envision a situation where computers are absent from the production and
+experience of music today, particularly in commercial
+contexts\footnote{Of course, the realm of music extends beyond the
+  numbers processed by computers or the oscillations of speaker
+  diaphragms. This paper does not seek to intervene in aesthetic
+  judgments regarding music made without computers or non-commercial
+  musical activities. However, the existence of such music does not
+  counter the awareness that there is little analysis of the inevitable
+  involvement of computing as a medium in the field of popular music,
+  which attracts significant academic and societal interest.}.
+Nevertheless, the majority of music in the world could be described as
+``simply using computers.''
+
+Holbrook and Rudi propose analyzing what has been called computer music
+within the framework of post-acousmatic music\citep{adkins2016},
+including traditions of pre-computer electronic music as one of many
+forms of technology-based/driven music\citep{holbrook2022}.
+
+A critical issue with these discussions is that post-acousmatic music
+lacks a precise definition. One proposed characteristic is the shift in
+the locus of production from institutions to individuals, which has
+altered how technology is used\citep[p113]{adkins2016}. However, this
+narrative incorporates a tautological issue: while it acknowledges the
+historical fact that the decreasing cost of computers allowed diverse
+musical expressions outside laboratories, it excludes much music as
+``simply using computers'' and fails to provide insights into such
+divisions.
+
+The spread of personal computers has incompletely achieved the vision of
+metamedium as a device users could modify themselves, instead becoming a
+black box for content consumption\citep{emerson2014}. Histories
+highlighting the agency of those who created programming environments,
+software, protocols, and formats for music obscure indirect power
+relationships generated by the infrastructure\citep{sterne_there_2014}.
+
+Today, while music production fundamentally depends on computers, most
+of it falls under Lyon's overlapping permissive and strict definitions
+of computer music. In this paper, I propose calling this situation the
+following:
+
+\begin{quote}
+``Weak computer music'' --- music for which computers are essential to
+its realization, but where the uniqueness of the work as intended by the
+creator is not particularly tied to the use of computers.
+\end{quote}
+
+Most people use computers simply because no quicker alternative exists,
+not because they are deliberately leveraging the unique medium of
+computers for music production. However, the possibility that such music
+culture, shaped by the incidental use of computers, has aesthetic and
+social characteristics worth analyzing cannot be dismissed.
+
+This paper will historically organize the specifications and
+construction of programming languages for early computer music systems
+with a focus on their style-agnostic nature.
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\tightlist
+\item
+  Examining the discourse framing MUSIC as the progenitor of computer
+  music.
+\item
+  Investigating what aspects were excluded from user access in MUSIC-N
+  derivatives such as MUSIGOL.
+\item
+  Analyzing the standardization of UGens (unit generators) and the
+  division of labor in Max and Pure Data.
+\item
+  Reviewing music programming languages of the 2000s.
+\end{itemize}
+
+The conclusion will propose a framework necessary for future discussions
+on music programming languages.
+
+\section{Born of ``Computer Music'' - MUSIC-N and PCM
+Universality}\label{born-of-computer-music---music-n-and-pcm-universality}
+
+Among the earliest examples of computer music research, the MUSIC I
+system (1957) from Bell Labs and its derivatives, known as MUSIC-N, are
+frequently highlighted. However, attempts to create music with computers
+in the UK and Australia prior to MUSIC I have also been
+documented\citep{doornbusch2017}.
+
+Organizing what was achieved by MUSIC-N and earlier efforts can help
+clarify definitions of computer music.
+
+The earliest experiments with sound generation on computers in the 1950s
+involved controlling the intervals between one-bit pulses (on or off) to
+control pitch. This was partly because the operational clock frequencies
+of early computers fell within the audible range, making the
+sonification of electrical signals a practical and cost-effective
+debugging method compared to visualizing them on displays or
+oscilloscopes. Computers like Australia's CSIR Mark I even featured
+primitive instructions like a ``hoot'' command to emit a single pulse to
+a speaker.
+
+In the UK, Louis Wilson discovered that an AM radio near the BINAC
+computer picked up electromagnetic waves generated by vacuum tube
+switching, producing regular tones. This serendipitous discovery led to
+the intentional programming of pulse intervals to generate
+melodies\citep{woltman1990}.
+
+However, not all sound generation prior to PCM (Pulse Code Modulation)
+was merely the reproduction of existing music. Doornbusch highlights
+experiments on the British Pilot ACE (Prototype for Automatic Computing
+Engine: ACE), which utilized acoustic delay line memory to produce
+unique sounds\citep[p303-304]{doornbusch2017}. Acoustic delay line
+memory, used as main memory in early computers like BINAC and CSIR Mark
+I, employed the feedback of pulses traveling through mercury via a
+speaker and microphone setup to retain data. Donald Davis, an engineer
+on the ACE project, described the sounds it produced as
+follows\citep[p19-20]{davis_very_1994}:
+
+\begin{quote}
+The Ace Pilot Model and its successor, the Ace proper, were both capable
+of composing their own music and playing it on a little speaker built
+into the control desk. I say composing because no human had any
+intentional part in choosing the notes. The music was very interesting,
+though atonal, and began by playing rising arpeggios: these gradually
+became more complex and faster, like a developing fugue. They dissolved
+into colored noise as the complexity went beyond human understanding.
+
+Loops were always multiples of 32 microseconds long, so notes had
+frequencies which were submultiples of 31.25 KHz. The music was based on
+a very strange scale, which was nothing like equal tempered or harmonic,
+but was quite pleasant. This music arose unintentionally during program
+optimization and was made possible by ``misusing'' switches installed
+for debugging acoustic delay line memory (p20).
+\end{quote}
+
+Media scholar Miyazaki described the practice of listening to sounds
+generated by algorithms and their bit patterns, integrated into
+programming and debugging, as ``Algo\emph{rhythmic}
+Listening''\citep{miyazaki2012}.
+
+Doornbusch warns against ignoring early computer music practices in
+Australia and the UK simply because they did not directly influence
+subsequent research\citep[p305]{doornbusch2017}. Indeed, the tendency to
+treat pre-MUSIC attempts as hobbyist efforts by engineers and post-MUSIC
+endeavors as serious research remains common even
+today\citep{tanaka_all_2017}.
+
+The sounds generated by Pilot ACE challenge the post-acousmatic
+narrative that computer music transitioned from laboratory-based
+professional practices to personal use by amateurs. This is because: 1.
+The sounds were produced not by music specialists but by engineers, and
+2. The sounds were tied to hardware-specific characteristics of acoustic
+delay line memory, making them difficult to replicate even with modern
+audio programming environments. Similarly, at MIT in the 1960s, Peter
+Samson utilized a debug speaker attached to the aging TX-0 computer to
+experiment with generating melodies using square
+waves\citep{levy_hackers_2010}.
+
+This effort evolved into a program that allowed users to describe
+melodies with text strings. For instance, writing \texttt{4fs\ t8} would
+produce an F4 note as an eighth note. Samson later adapted this work to
+the PDP-1 computer, creating the ``Harmony Compiler,'' widely used by
+MIT students. He also developed the Samson Box in the early 1970s, a
+computer music system used at Stanford University's CCRMA for over a
+decade\citep{loy_life_2013}. These examples suggest that the initial
+purpose of debugging does not warrant segregating early computational
+sound generation from the broader history of computer music.
+
+\subsection{Universality of PCM}\label{universality-of-pcm}
+
+Let us examine \textbf{Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)}---a foundational
+aspect of MUSIC's legacy and one of the key reasons it is considered a
+milestone in the history of computer music. PCM enables the theoretical
+representation of ``almost any sound'' on a computer by dividing audio
+waveforms into discrete intervals (sampling) and expressing the
+amplitude of each interval as quantized numerical values. It remains the
+fundamental representation of sound on modern computers. The underlying
+sampling theorem was introduced by Nyquist in 1928\citep{Nyquist1928},
+and PCM itself was developed by Reeves in 1938.
+
+A critical issue with the ``post-acousmatic'' framework in computer
+music history lies within the term ``acousmatic'' itself. Initially
+proposed by Piegnot and later theorized by Schaeffer, the term describes
+a mode of listening to tape music, such as musique concrète, in which
+the listener does not imagine a specific sound source. It has been
+widely applied in theories of recorded sound, including Chion's analyses
+of sound design in visual media.
+
+However, as sound studies scholar Jonathan Sterne has pointed out,
+discourses surrounding acousmatic listening often work to delineate
+pre-recording auditory experiences as ``natural'' by
+contrast\footnote{Sterne later critiques the phenomenological basis of
+  acousmatic listening, which presupposes an idealized, intact body as
+  the listening subject. He proposes a methodology of political
+  phenomenology centered on impairment, challenging these normative
+  assumptions\citep{sterne_diminished_2022}. Discussions of universality
+  in computer music should also address ableism, as seen in the
+  relationship between recording technologies and auditory disabilities.}.
+This implies that prior to the advent of recording technologies,
+listening was unmediated and holistic---a narrative that obscures the
+constructed nature of these assumptions.
+
+\begin{quote}
+For instance, the claim that sound reproduction has ``alienated'' the
+voice from the human body implies that the voice and the body existed in
+some prior holistic, unalienated, and self present relation.
+
+They assume that, at some time prior to the invention of sound
+reproduction technologies, the body was whole, undamaged, and
+phenomenologically coherent.\citep[p20-21]{sterne_audible_2003}
+\end{quote}
+
+The claim that PCM-based sound synthesis can produce ``almost any
+sound'' is underpinned by an ideology associated with recording
+technologies. This ideology assumes that recorded sound contains an
+``original'' source and that listeners can distinguish distortions or
+noise from it. Sampling theory builds on this premise by statistically
+modeling human auditory characteristics: it assumes that humans cannot
+discern volume differences below certain thresholds or perceive
+vibrations outside specific frequency ranges. By limiting representation
+to this range, sampling theory ensures that all audible sounds can be
+effectively encoded.
+
+By the way, the actual implementation of PCM in MUSIC I only allowed for
+monophonic triangle waves with controllable volume, pitch, and timing
+(MUSIC II later expanded this to four oscillators)\citep{Mathews1980}.
+Would anyone today describe such a system as capable of producing
+``infinite variations'' in sound synthesis?
+
+Even when considering more contemporary applications, processes like
+ring modulation (RM), amplitude modulation (AM), or distortion often
+generate aliasing artifacts unless proper oversampling is applied. These
+artifacts occur because PCM, while universally suitable for reproducing
+recorded sound, is not inherently versatile as a medium for generating
+new sounds. As Puckette has argued, alternative representations, such as
+collections of linear segments or physical modeling synthesis, present
+other possibilities\citep{puckette2015}. Therefore, PCM is not a
+completely universal tool for creating sound.