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Although Edgard Varèse began advocating for new electronic instruments as early as the teens, his proposals were repeatedly turned down, forcing him to make do with more conventional forces for most of his life. Nevertheless, he managed to create what he called "organized sound" with his instrumental works anyhow: sirens were employed in Amériques (1921) to provide continuous sweeps, and his famous Ionisation (1931) was one of the first works for percussion only. By the time he finished Poème Électronique, his second composition for tape, the composer was already 75 years old.

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