Tom Cameron

Tom Cameron

Tom Cameron is an electronic music composer and performer from Chicago, born in 1948. His work is associated with experimental, electronica, new wave, electronic and avant-garde music.

Biofeedback and synthesizer performance

Cameron is known for a performance using a biofeedback system to control synthesizers with brain waves. He wears a white headband fitted with three electrodes that monitor brain activity through a biofeedback machine. When he maintains a steady alpha state, the monitor registers a small voltage pulse.

That signal passes through an optical interface and is used to control synthesizers without creating a ground loop. The control voltage is then applied to the pitch and filters of an EML 101 and to step the sequencer on an EML 4004/401. In this setup, he performs by thinking about the sounds rather than using conventional manual control.

Context and related work

Cameron notes that the demonstration was unusual for its time and was not widely understood. He later learns that Alvin Lucier had carried out a similar biofeedback-based demonstration about ten years earlier, although without synthesizers, and that Tod Machover works in a related area of mind-music connections using more advanced equipment.

He also paints the cover art.