Collection consists largely of correspondence between Chowning, the Yamaha Corporation, and the Technology Licensing Office at Stanford, 1974-97; other items include patents and related documents, 1978-87, technical writings (not all by Chowning), 1974-87, publications and leaflets on Yamaha products, and miscellaneous notes. The technical writings include "Excerpts from Computer Music Proposal Submitted to National Science Foundation," July 1974; "Sine Summation Formula Synthesis," ca. 1976; and "Progress Report on the Development of the FM-type Musical Instrument for the period of March 1979 to February 1980."

John M. Chowning, professor emeritus of music at Stanford, developed the technique for creating digital sounds in the late 1960s which was patented and then licensed to Yamaha in 1973. He earned his bachelor of music at Wittenberg University in 1959, studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and earned his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1966. He was the founding director in 1975 of Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics.

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This collection is open for research.