diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index eff94ba..28b0013 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -28,6 +28,22 @@ The default block size (3000) is really high to prevent CPU glitches -
 be used, but take a long time to process, after which they can be
 saved as "brain" files and instantly reloaded.
 
+_Historical note_: Samplebrain is a method of sound synthesis called 
+"concatenative sound synthesis" (CSS), which was developed in speech synthesis 
+research in the 1990s: the computer is made to speak by concatenating 
+phonetic "units" together extracted from a database of recorded speech. 
+This was adapted for musical purposes in the early 2000s, with many
+researchers calling it by different names:
+- A. Zils and F. Pachet, “Musical mosaicing,” in Proc. COST G-6 Conf. Digital Audio Effects, (Limerick, Ireland), 2001.
+- A. Lazier and P. Cook, “Mosievius: Feature driven interactive audio mosaicing,” in Proc. COST G-6 Conf. Digital Audio Effects, (Queen Mary, University of London), 2003.
+- D. Schwarz, "Data-Driven Concatenative Sound Synthesis." PhD thesis, l’Université Paris 6 – Pierre et Marie Curie, 2004.
+- [sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!](https://www.wired.com/2006/04/the-man-behind-scrambled-hackz/) by Sven König in 2006.
+
+For an overview of early computer music research in this area, see D. Schwarz, "Concatenative sound synthesis: The early years", J. New Music Research, vol. 35, no. 1, 2006. [https://doi.org/10.1080/09298210600696857](https://doi.org/10.1080/09298210600696857)
+See also the work of Canadian composer John Oswald in the 1980s, who _manually_ explored such approaches 
+in his [plunderphonics](http://www.plunderphonics.com) work 
+
+
 # [Demo brain session](https://static.thentrythis.org/samplebrain/demo.samplebrain)
 
 Load this file using "load session" not "load brain" (sessions contain