Pauline Oliveros in the context of "Cybernetics"

Noise music (or simply noise) is a subgenre of experimental music that is characterised by its use of unwanted noise as a primary musical element. The genre has roots in early 20th century avant-garde music, but later drew influence from industrial music. It is characterized by a rejection of conventional music theory and traditional song structures, often featuring little or no melody, rhythm, or harmony. This type of music tends to challenge the conventional distinction between musical and non-musical sound.

"Noise as music" originated as an avant-garde music style in the 1910s through the work of Luigi Russolo an Italian Futurist, who published the manifesto The Art of Noises in 1913. Elements of noise music were later explored by artists in the Dada and Fluxus movements, as well as through electroacoustic music, modern classical and musique concrète. Composers such as John Cage, Edgard Varèse and James Tenney would explicitly use the term "noise" to describe some of their experimental practices. During the 1960s and 1970s, compositions such as Robert Ashley's "The Wolfman" (1964) and Pauline Oliveros "A Little Noise In The System" (1967) were among the earliest examples of contemporary noise music. While works by non-academic artists such as Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music were influential for later noise artists.

Minimal music (also called minimalism) is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music.

The approach originated on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly around the Bay Area, where La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich were studying and living at the time. After the three composers moved to the East Coast, their music became associated with the New York Downtown music scene of the mid-1960s, where it was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School. In the Western art music tradition, the American composers Moondog, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach. The movement originally involved dozens of composers, although only five (Young, Riley, Reich, Glass, and later John Adams) emerged to become publicly associated with American minimal music; other lesser known pioneers included Dennis Johnson, Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, Pauline Oliveros, Phill Niblock, and James Tenney. In Europe, the music of Louis Andriessen, Karel Goeyvaerts, Michael Nyman, Howard Skempton, Éliane Radigue, Gavin Bryars, Steve Martland, Peter Michael Hamel, Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt and John Tavener exhibits minimalist traits.

Free improvisation (also known as free form music or free music) is a form of improvised music centered on a commitment to non-idiomatic musical expression. It is inspired by free jazz, serialism and indeterminacy, and is characterized by a general rejection of formal music theory and tonality, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of experimental music in its own right.

Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed primarily in the U.K. as well as the U.S. and Europe in the mid to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of free jazz and contemporary classical music. Exponents of free improvised music include saxophonists Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann, and John Zorn, composer Pauline Oliveros, trombonist George E. Lewis, guitarists Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith, bassists Damon Smith and Jair-Rohm Parker Wells and the improvising groups Spontaneous Music Ensemble and AMM.

The San Francisco Tape Music Center, or SFTMC, was founded in the summer of 1962 by composers Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick as a collaborative, "non profit corporation developed and maintained" by local composers working with tape recorders and other novel compositional technologies, which functioned both as an electronic music studio and concert venue. Composer Pauline Oliveros, artist Tony Martin and technician William Maginnis eventually joined the SFTMC.

The SFTMC was an active and important hub for experimental music and interdisciplinary art in the Bay Area from 1962 to 1966.