Fonds consists of material that documents Tenney's career as an composer, musician and academic and contains personal and professional correspondence with friends and colleagues including copies of letters received from such people as Carolee Schneeman, Steve Reich, Stan Brakhage and Lionel Nowak, among others, as well as correspondence with Bell Telephone Laboratories that documents his efforts in developing programs for computer sound-generation. It also contains records in the form of musical scores, computer outputs, programmes, clippings and sound recordings that document his musical output and material that documents Tenney's ongoing academic and professional interest in the fields of composition, music theory and electronic music, among others. There is also correspondence, photographs and other material that documents his relationship with his family and, in particular, his father.