Entertainment technology: Electronically synthesized music: Whether deemed an imitation or an art form of its own, electronic music is competing with conventional instruments

During the Academy Awards presentations in 1982, millions of TV viewers heard the theme music from the motion picture Chariots of Fire, as had millions of others in movie theaters around the country. Few, however, realized they were not listening to music produced by the conventional orchestra of woodwinds, strings, and brass. Rather the sound track for this film, which won the Academy Award that year, was produced mainly by electronic synthesizers, which created sounds closely resembling those produced by conventional instruments.