On Music, Synthesis and Sound Design

On Organ Stops and Additive Synthesis

2012-01-26T13:12:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about pipe organs these days and they have given me some food for thought for a few observations.

One only need a brief perusal of the world of organ stops to realize that trying to mimic sounds by mimicking their partials has been with us since the 1st additive synthesizer, the pipe organ.
Pipe organ stops attempt to mimic anything from violins to the human voice by simply trying to physically recreate partials. Truth be sold that attempts to get a pipe organ to sound like a human voice or a violin have been rather feeble.

This brings me to a diamond in the rough, the Kawai K5000. This is a great synth because those who designed it realized what pipe organs would have told them centuries ago. No natural waveform is fixed.

If you want to get something to sound like a certain musical instrument sample it. And yes, I am aware that sampling is passé and old school. Who cares? Certainly not me. The exception to this is physical modeling but that is for another blog.

Its also important to realize that the attack and decay of a sound should be looked at differently that the sustain and release. This is what the K5000 did and it's easy to do with any DAW today by layering (or dare I say modern day orchestration w/o the orchestra).

I also don't really understand spectral morphing. My personal opinion is that trying to morph one instrument into another with additive synthesis is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. What additive synthesis can do is a lot of spectral Alchemy in the sustained part of the note. It's why I like Alchemy more for pads and soundcapes than instrument sounds. But the partials in the attack transient are non linear, noisy and chaotic not to mention very brief. Trying to morph them just creates artifacts that IMHO are far from musical.

What synths like Alchemy do well is create morphs in the sustained part of the note. This is worth doing. It creates a dynamic spectrum rather the fixed spectrum of a natural instrument during it's sustain which is what synthesis does well.

I think the focus in additive synthesis is in the wrong place. Rather than trying to create modern day organ stops it's far more productive to look to the richly creative world of pads, drones and soundcapes and leave the transient to samplers and physical modelers.

On the Development of Instruments

2012-01-19T16:20:00.001-08:00

In my early posts you can find many posts criticizing the whole notion of additive synthesis for the very simple reason that it is not really possible. I will not get into the reasons here to avoid mathematics which most don't have a background in.

As a clarification, I do own Alchemy because I find it's application of additive synthesis useful. However, I find the whole notion of describing sound in terms of partials to be of only limited use. I also find waveforms while essential for analogue synthesis to again have limited value for describing natural sounds.

For the most part, when we hear a sound, it is the attack transient that our brains use to determine what instrument is being played. Lets do a thought experiment. Take a number of orchestral instruments and have a group of musicians begin to play them together but separated by a few measures and then stop playing in the same manner. Experiments have show that it is relatively easy to distinguish when each instrument started but difficult to distinguish when each finishes.

The truth is simply this. It is the attack transient that we use to distinguish an instrument and not the much more stable waveform during the sustain or decay part of a note.

So if waveforms don't help and partials don't help much in understanding sound what does? My theory is that by studying the dynamics of transients and their underlying physical properties one can develop a means of classifying sounds that is far more natural and corresponds to how we hear sounds rather than how they can be expressed with mathematics. So in studying instruments historically I can find a basis to begin to describe how sound changes and how that can be used musically.

This is where I find myself drawn to musically and many times my music also is truly experimental in that I am learning as well as creating.

This is not my only interest musically. I am also very interested in how music creates an emotional response. I also have an interest in orchestration but these will have to be for future blogs.

Comments are always most welcome.

On Music Therapy

2011-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

For a while now I have been fascinated by the work of Music Therapists. They are good people trying to help others using an art form that I hold dear to my own heart, music. I also am attracted to their simplicity in how they use music for therapy. At times I like to get past the knobs and sliders of my art form and enjoy a video that delights in the simple sound of a drum.

For a while now, I have also been interested in the psychological aspects of music. Music therapists use basic musical ideas in their work to bring healing and joy to others. In many ways it helps me at times to focus on my own music. Every time I compose music I am drawing on emotions and memories. Music for me is often self exploration, sound exploration and personal exploration and sharing.

However, what I don't share with music therapists is a desire to define my art. When I create music it's no holes barred. I use all sort of ways of getting the sounds I want. That said, many of the videos I have watched and blogs I have read on music therapy I use as starting off points to create something new. I take a basic form such as the beating of a particular drum and discover a broader musical context in the Electronic Music art form.

There is also nothing more rewarding that to meet people personally. In getting to know other artists I have found a common kinship with other sonic explorers. When navigating the unexplored country, there is no particular discipline. We have no conferences, committees, guidelines or standards. We just create. We so come together but to share, not limit, define or dissect.

In my discussions with music therapists and electronic artists I advocate for Music Therapy with fellow artists I but also share my art and others with music therapists. As much as I have found that music therapy enriches my art, it is my hope that what myself and fellow artists do can enrich music therapy.

I have found that what can be a strength can also be a weakness. As an electronic artist, I realize that much of what in do is unmapped and lacking a solid discipline, a weakness. But the strength is that as artists, we, in the words of a Santana song, are soul birds that fly in infinity sky. I see no boundaries for my music or the music of other electronic artists.

Music therapists are very discipled. However, in their strong desire to be respected, they often create walls around their good work. This is a limitation. As I share my world I am in doing so inviting Music Therapists to see with my eyes and hear with my ears and to join me in opening up the field of Music Therapy to the unexplored country. I want to assure Music Therapists of my continued support and respect but also invite you to fly with me in the infinity sky of electronic music and perhaps, we can cultivate some gardens outside the walls. You would be most welcome to visit the Electro Music Festival this year and give a presentation and allow us to share our music with you. If you are interested, let me know. We had a drum circle last year to :). I would love to bring our worlds together.

Animmog - Hype or Game Changer

2011-10-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

As with most things in life, I suspect that the truth about Animoog somewhere between the hype and the reality. Is Animoog a great I synth? Absolutely! I would expect nothing less from the Moog. Am I going to toss out my hard synths and soft synth and wait for the I revolution to usher in a new world of synthesizers? Don't hold your breath.

The Animoog is the best sounding I synth I have heard. I give it a 10+ for that. For creativity, also a ten plus. It makes great use of the touch pad and great video to make for a stunning performance environment. The ability to see visually what is happening with the sound and to see the waveform is a fantastic idea. Again 10+

Ok, that is as far as I go on the hype side. In terms of filters it's limited and it only has a single filter. If it were a sot synth, this would not be overlooked but I synths seem to get a pass. It has very limited filter types. When I saw the filters in Abynth, I thought I had gone to filter heaven.

The envelops are simple ADSR types and they can't be assigned. There is also only a single LFO. Being able to select continuously between shapes is nice but the shapes themselves are standard fair. As far as I can see you can't make your own and you can't see them outside the oscilloscope.

Am I expecting to much for an I synth? That's my point. I Moog wants to use I synths to compete with soft synth, IMHO they failed. If they wanted to make a fantastic I synth that raises the bar for I synths and does some really impressive things, then they have done a fantastic job. In the end, I guess it's a matter of hype or function.

I'd Give It a Ten But You Can't Dance to It

2011-09-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

I am writing this latest blog post to provide some impression, thoughts, conclusions and other such meanderings on what I experienced in Heugenot this year at the Electro-Music festival. I have been to the festival now for two years although I trucated my first visit. What impressed me the most about the festival is that I found a group of people who did what I do that is make "electronic music'.

"Electronic Music" has been around now for a long time but clearly defining what exactly it is is perhaps left to better philosophers than me. However, what was clear to me was that what I was listening to at this festival was not "dance music". If anyone came to the festival expectiing dance music and for example listened to Richard Lainhart would be sadly out of there musical element.

I am a would be student of Electronic Music history. I believe it has its roots more in classical music than any pop movement although the difficulty with defining it today is that is has been entrangled with pop and yes, with dance music. But the odd thing is that for the most part, those who write it don't write dance music. I know I am not making sense here but I guess what I am trying to say ever so badly is that while some people who make other kinds of music would call themselves electronic artists there is an "electronic music" that is a true genre however broad and ill definted. That genre is what I heard at the Electro Music festival and why I felt at home there. With people who where trying to do a version of what I do whatever that is.

A little side note here with a purpose. Its funny. I support and truely appreciate what music therapists do. They seem so together in clearly defining what they do to the point of having a certification process. I also appreciate the difference between therapist and artist and at times, I also find that desire to clarity everthing in music therapy a weakness as well. It seems closed in on itself and unable to benefit from other directions that might help expand it and allow it to grow.

No I come to the point of this blog. The "whatever that is" part. One thing that can be said of classical music is that through each era, each incarnation, each century there has been a way to define it. A set of methods, practices, ect. As music came to the 20th century, those practices began to dissolve. Despite the attempts of serialism, classical music took many different directions including it's spinoff, "Electronic Music", at least that is how I see it.

But now we have what? Drone music, space music, new age, krautrock, experimental, ok, i'm not going to give an extensive list but you get the idea. Defining what it is that we do is very difficult. But more than that, talking about it is even more difficult. If you want to talk about Bach you pull out sheet music. There it is. OK, sure, there is some degree of interpretation but for the most part what a classical composer composes is sheet music (to illustrate a point).

What an electronic artist does is programming, finding new instruments, finding new controllers, layering sounds, again, the list could go on and on. So where to we from here? I don't know but perhaps this blog is an invitation to some to start talking about what is is that we do as electronic artists so that we can pull out the electronic music equivalent of sheet music (at least metaophoricaly) and for the reall great music proclaim: "I'd give it a 10 but you can't dance to it" and so it goes...

What's Old is New Again

2011-09-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

I think sometimes in a world of quickly moving technology we often believe that if we just keep moving forward that things will improve. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't but as I a writing this blog, I am listening to an instrument made my Hammond called the Novachord. This instrument is truely haunting and beautiful. It reminds me of another beautiful instrument called the Ondes Martenot. It seems a strange turn of events that just recently these instrument have been revived both physically and in sample form. Hollow Sun and Sonic Couture both offer sampled versions of the Nova Chord and Sonic Couture has a sample Ondes. There is also the French Connection which is an actually hardware CV controller that works like the original Ondes. No doubt the design for the Haken Continuum is at least inspired by this instrument.

A Twitter friend reminded me recently in a great blog just how useful "old school" techniques can be. In her case, she found a variation on a "old school" roladex a very effective way to keep track of business cards. Both the Novachord and the Ondes Martenot are both very old school and yet, by modern standards perhaps they don't have the range of many modern synthesizers but they also don't have the annoying property that they also sound like every other synthesizers. In a musical world that claims to be cutting edge, I often find that the real game if you want to make the big bucks is sound almost like everything else but put a little twist in it, not to much, so your music gets a notice.

For me, I have been enjoying some instruments from the past, "old school" instruments that don't sound the same. I guess I like them because I feel inspired by them. Hopefully I can use them in my music in the future and break away from the pack by going back to the future, sampled "old school" here I come.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2011-08-15T06:18:00.000-07:00

Anyone who follows my tweets may have noticed that I have been posting a lot about some pretty esoteric instruments. Glass harmonicas, Cristal Baschetts, glass bowls, Boomwhackers and PVC instruments, bowed gamelons and other exotic and unusual instruments. So why am I so interested in these instruments? For a few reasons. An important one is that they are not expected. Modern pop musical culture creates entire genres from certain sounds, the hi gain distortion guitar sound of metal, the short percussive sounds and rhythms of hip hop or the deep bass of dub step. It's natural for us to like things that we are familiar to us and to copy one another.

One also does not need to look only to pop music. In some sense, classical music is based on copying styles and following the rules, coloring within the lines. Even serialism is an attempt to recreate a new set of rules. However, the great composers worked within a certain traditional framework but they did color outside the lines, sometimes way outside. 20th century classical is an example of this. It was not uncommon for these composers to use unusual instruments or even make their own. Messiaen looked to birdsong, eastern rhythms and instruments. Harry Partch made his own instruments.

Looking to the east for inspiration can also be found in jazz musicians who looked to the eastern musical tradition for new scales or the Beatles who introduced the sitar to listeners used to a stricly pop diet.

What I often find difficult in coloring outside the lines is that some listeners can't get past the difference. Handel for example was more popular in his time than Bach because he wrote music that was familiar and pleasing to the ear.

As for me, while it may not get me as many listeners, I refuse to imitate and monkey other musicians. I look to them for ideas but I don't let my music be limited by any genre. So, I hope that explains my unusual choice of instruments.

Glass Works

2011-08-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

I have rarely reviewed any synthesizers or sample libraries but I wanted to at least say a few words about Sonic Couture's "Glass Works". "Glass Works" is a library of Kontakt instruments based on three rather unique and fascinating instruments. Instruments that so fascinate me that I am still in the midst of doing research on them and there is a lot out there to look at.

One instrument, the oldest of the three, owes its origins to a little musical trick that children learn when they are young. That if you take a crystal wine glass, wet your finger and rub it around the edges, you get a most pleasant sound. By varying the amount of water in the glass, the frequency of the tone changes.

Many musician's and composers toyed with this idea but perhaps the most renowned is Benjamin Franklin who actually designed a very effective design and made this instrument more accessible. Composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Handel and Richard Strauss all wrote compositions for it. The rather mysterious figure of Mesmer better known for his hypnotic explorations also played one and attributed to it certain unusual mysterious effects.

Then we move to 20th century American classical music and the wild and sometime delightfully wacky world of Harry Partch. Partch not only composed music but made his own instruments including an instrument called "The Boo" and the instrument that made it into the "Glass Works" library, "The Cloud Chamber Bowls".

You can give them a try here. Have fun!

musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/highband/cloud.html

Finally moving onto "Le Cristal Baschet". An instrument which is as much instrument, art and acoustics experiment all wrapped into one, a statement in itself. It is designed by Frances Baschett based on chromatically tuned glass rods:

They have been used by various composers including, just to name a few, Thomas Bloch (who has written for many interesting instruments including the Ondes Martenot), Toru Takemitsu, Francois Bayle (who interestingly enough studied with Karlheintz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer and Olivier Messiaen). Messiaen wrote music for the Ondes Martenot (which can also be found in one of Sonic Courture's libraries), Luc Ferrari (influenced very much by Edgar Varese). Clearly one can see the strong connection in that twilight between 20th century avant guarde and modern electronic music (pre electronica)

So that's a sort of brief tour of these instruments. What I find interesting is that fact that Le Cristal Bachett is really more of a concept if you will. Each Cristal Baschet sounds different related to the shape. Art and music seem to be strangely joined here as well as science. Here is there web site:

www.structuresonore.eu/

What surprises me here it the influence of Pierre Schaeffer who believed and wrote about a philosophy about how to categorize sound based on a broader philosophical school of phenomenology (of which I am an advocate). So many ideas seem to intersect here, so many intellectual and musical streams joined in a complex weave.

What makes glass instruments unique is that they are "non linear". I could give you a lot of definitions for this that would only make partial sense. What this really means is that a simple action such as moving ones finger over glass, can create a complex sound. I pulled a file of a glass harmonica off of Freesound last night and then magnified it. I was blown away. It is highly complex. Elements of AM and FM and waveshaping. Some of the papers I have read on the glass harmonica range from wavegides, to resonators to complex non linear physical models. The proof is really in the listening and all of these instruments have a haunting sounds.

Of course, Sonic Couture has now made it possible to change them in real time and create complex performances. I am impressed by this library of sounds not just because it sounds good but that it reflects a depth of thought that I rarely see from other synthesizers and sample libraries.

So, that is my humble review or reflection. Call it what you want to if you get a chance, read about these instruments. I think you will be amazed or dare I saw enchanted, mezmorized and haunted.

Crossing the Streams

2011-07-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

I realize that I have used the term "crossing the streams" a number of times now on my blog and in my tweets. An explaination seems long overdue so here goes. First, two other expressions I use are related: "moving outside the box" and various allusions I make to the movie "The Matrix" (one of my favorites). I am not that crazy about the other two but the first was great.

What I like about the movie is the idea that one's own mind can become a kind of prison. While I am just using this idea as an analogy I do think that we get stuck in ruts in whatever profession or art form that we we are involved in. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone tell me that the reason that something should be done a certain way is because that is the way it's always been done and that is a kind of matrix. It limits creativity and in music, that is 90% of the ballgame.

To give you an example, I love the scene in Amadeus when Salieri, after killing his rival Mozart, is asking his therapist if he recognized a few songs. The one he recognized was Mozart's who he despises as a kind of musical creature. The song he did not recognize was Salieri's. Why? Because Salieri's was in the box. It was not bad music but it tried to stay in the lines. In music lines become cliches and music becomes stale if it does not break "out of the box". To break out of the box (or the matrix), the music an/composer must free his/her mind of old cliches. I truely believe that most pop music today is some of the most cliched music every. One person likes a certain sound and then follow it and then it becomes a genre. For example, I just recently learned what dubstep is which is really just a certain sound.

Now realize that I am a gear head and techno geek. I have three hardware synths and who knows how many soft synths and effects not to meantion Moogerfoogers and a few other guitar pedals. Moogerfoogers are not really guitar pedals, they are more like modulare synth modules but I won't get into that here. I also have a few mics and field recording equipment. What I try to do in my music is get out of the box. Now don't get me wrong, if you don't know where the box is, then you risk music sounding totally unintelligible. Believe me, more than once I have crossed that line. In some sense, to know how to go somewhere, you have to know where you have been. It's why I try to study music both its history and its methods. I always am open to learning from the works of the great masters be they classical composers, jazz music ans, rock musicians or the many other talented people making all sorts of wonderful music.

So to get away from the lines, you have to make a bridge. You have to plot a course. That is where all the techno stuff comes in. A ship for example can't just drift aimlessly. It has to plot a course so I watch demos and read manuals and ask questions. "What if I did this" is a common one.

Some of you might know about Alvin Lucier and Karlheintz Stockhausen. One of my mentors if only on paper and in sound. Both Lucier and Stockhausen asked the musical question: "what if I do this" but with musical compass in hand. They had some idea where they were going.

Another movie I really like is "The Perfect Storm" except for the ending. I actually hate the way the movie ends. Not every fisherman in a terrible storms died. I love the spirit of the captain who wants to chart deeper waters which in this movie is the Flemish Cap. You can look it up but its way of the coast of Canada and known for its good fishing but also bad weather. So finding better ways of doing things means risk.

So when I make music, I go out to the Flemish Cap of music as I believe Lucier and Stockhausen did. Well, not every time. Sometimes I stick closer to port. Not every time I go into deeper waters do I find what I want. I get a great idea but sometimes the reality and the idea don't match and I just turn around and come back to port. Music to me, at least the experimental music I write, is musical fishing. It's moving way outside the lines and trying to find a good catch, something that people will listen to and say wow, that's taking me somewhere I have never been, into uncharted musical territory.

So to get there, I try many tools. Psychology, psycho acoustics, technology, music theory, harmony, music history, even math. I don't draw what I see as arbitrary lines between these disciplines. I am not interested in creating a matrix to capture my mind but rather, searching for deeper musical waters and trying to create a new musical ocean in which others can also explore either by listening or creating themselves.

So "crossing the streams" is really about erasing lines not creating them. It's why I keep inviting music therapists and others into my world of music. I am trying to share what I have experienced good and bad. And hopefully, by breaking down those lines and sharing experiences, the music, music therapy and many other disciplines can benefit and we can fish in deeper seas.

Review of Alchemy II - the mysteries of the attack transient

2011-06-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

While I may get some keyboard players upset, I have always found being both a guitar player and a keyboard player very complementary although I always have to smile when the latest distorted electric guitar preset comes out and everyone thinks their Jimmy Hendrix on a keyboard. Truth is that what I have always loved about a guitar is how subtle and beautiful a guitar sounds when played by a talented artist. I would not classify myself as one but I can tell you that years of playing have given me a sonic pallet that can't be duplicated by cleverly placed samples. I can place my thumb behind a pick a certain way and get harmonics but I can't really tell you how. You have to feel it and hear it. I did not read a guitar for dummies book. I had to teach my brain by doing it over and over again until it became natural.

So what does all this have to do with Alchemy? Simple. Often, that quintessential aspect of how a musician plays, their style, is much more dictated by that short universe of the attack transient. Much (not all) of the magic seem to lie in that fraction of a second. Now enter the additive world. Additive synthesis is what we call linear. Put simply, it's made of parts that can be added together. Now for the interesting part. A guitar transient is what is called non linear which means that all those partials do a complicated little dance. In fact, I believe that grains are far more applicable than partial in the world of the transient. If the transient is a bunch of partials dancing, the dance does not easily reveal it's secrets. Partials dance in and out like the particles of sub atomic physics. In short, the additive model does not work to well.

The solution of the Akai K5000, a little known but powerful additive synth, was to use both samples and additive models. The transient was created with samples. Alchemy works much the same way and can mix or cross fade a sampled transient. This adds realism.

But here is another problem. One of the benefits of additive synthesis is that one can morph between one sound and another and explore that wonderful sonic universe in between. So far so good right. Well, sort of but to do this one has to connect the partials and if we are talking about transients it's a bit like trying to do a tango on a dollar coaster. Trust me, I gave done a lot of modeling and believe me, you can get some bizarre artifacts when trying to morph sounds and they don't always sound that good. I have re-synthesized many sounds and have reacted as if eating spoiled food, yuck, phooey. I have often felt as if my sonic pallet was assaulted. The secret is to start off with some good material. I always felt that was lacking in Cube. In fact, I always felt it was a collection of samples from experiments rather than an effective library. Alchemy has what seems to me a solid library and of course, one can always use ones own samples but be forewarned, some models just don't mix.

Try morphing a bell into a guitar and you will see what I am talking about. Bottom line this will confuse the re-synthesis engine. Also using AM will do the same thing. Re-synthesize a sin wave modulated by a sub audio LFO and then move it into the audible range. The re-sythesis engine will first interpret it as amplitude modulation and then see it as partials. First they are not there and then they are there like Schrodenger's famed cat or the Cheshire cat of Lewis Carol and said Alice. Here, we have the sonic looking glass. A thought experiment like this will show you that the world of additive synthesis gets stranger and stranger when you take it places it may not want to go.

I will have to have a part III soon. I will be working again with Alchemy soon and I will continue to investigate.

First Impressions of Alchemy (part one)

2011-06-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I have Alchemy now. For a long time I have not purchased any soft synths really for two reasons. The 1st is that I really don't need anymore and I am actually trying to reduce what I use. The second is that I wanted to at least have a rudimentary set of synths working on my MacBook Pro. I accomplished the later and I thought I might try my hand again at additive synthesis. My first experience was with Cube and let's just say that that experience did not end well.

I have to admit that there is still an inner Geek within me. OK, yes, I have a Bachelors in Math and a masters in statistics and another less geeky one that shall remain stealthy. I like an element of mystery. Here is the geek part.

1. Fourier
2. Helmholtz
3. Gabor

The first Of these tells use that any periodic (really important word) waveform is made up of simple sinwaves in frequencies that are multiples of the 1st (called the fundamental). The multiples are called partials.

The second tells use that these partials pare how we pwecieve sound. The 1st expressed a mathematical theorum that can be proved. The 2nd is simply wrong. That's will take me to the 3rd but that will have to be in part 2.

So the theory is that you can build any sound from sin waves (partials) so that has a kind of geeky appeal like when synths came out that let you draw waveforms. The problem is that no sound has a waveform that never changes unless a computer or electronics made it. As they say, therein lies the rub and a huge one it is. Well, to fix the problem those who wanted to create a form of synthesis had to divide up time into windows. Now let's now think of the windows as what we call the time domain and the partials the frequency domain. Once one enters into time periods less than the wavelength of the waveform. We enter the sonic twilight zone. Think about it and you might see why.

So it appears to me that Alchemy hides this little dilemma from the user and what Harry Gohs of Virsyn once told me was the dark art of additive synthesis, how to connect the dots, or rather, windows.

Confused, don't be if you stick with Alchemy. No one needs to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car. Alchemy hides it and that's good. It's nasty business.

So, Ok, this is all Geeky stuff and why would one want to bother making sounds from sin waves? After all you can sample (record) sounds right? Yes, but there are two advantages to additive synthesis:

1. You can do magic with time.
2. You can morph sounds

Morph just means one sound changes into another. Now some of you might remember the Korg Wavestation which did wave sequencing and cross fading (and very well I might add). Isn't cross fading the same thing? Do you want to follow the rabbit down the hole Alice? Turns out that fir most sounds pitch changes and, and here I become like a Nationwide agent and blow you mind, the pitch change in partials is not uniform. Trust me, morphing and cross fading are different. Alchemy does both of these as well as some really interesting variations. It also makes sense to mix samples and additive synthesis. Kawai did this with there additive synthesizer. It makes sense musically so kudos Camel Audio.

I will leave more of this to part Ii of this but there is a strong tendency to get wrapped up in math with additive synthesis and get list and loose the music in the process. Alchemy avoids this and IMHO is a much better synth than Cube.

Man and Machine Are Doing Fine

2011-04-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

I always find it funny how some pride themselves on not using technology as if it were almost a matter of virtue. Truth is, I find technology innert in many ways. It's a tool. Carpenters can actually build houses without nails by making joints and using glue but most are made will nails and hammer and probably most with nail guns. Does that make the carpenters bad carpenters. Not at all, they just learned to use the tools. A good carpenter will make a great house without a hammer but he will make a better one and a quicker one with a hammer and an even better one with a nail gun.

So I bought an I-Pad. Yes, I know I said I would not buy one but I wanted to see what all the fuse was about. You know what. It's a hammer (of sorts). It makes life easier. I use it to surf the web (it's better than either my phone or laptop for that), I read books on it (now my bookshelf will not collapse) and I play my music on it (many times in the car). I also have a bunch of fun musical apps for it. Am I going to write the modern version of Beethoven's 9th with it? No, it mostly just fun and the other stuff. It makes life easier. Is that bad, am I somehow less of a person for giving in. No. I like hammers and I Pads and perhaps sometime when I am pulling up a book that would have been lost of the bottom of a pile, I will smile at those who feel that wasting time is virtuous. Just one way to look at it.

Less is More

2011-04-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

I have found that lately I have made somewhat a turn to the more introspective musically. One of my problems is that I have to much equipment and plug ins. There, I said it. Consider the simplicity of bag of gold clubs. Less than 20 clubs can navigate a gold course. I used to play golf a little but perhaps what fustrated me the most was perfecting the swing. But perhaps, therein lies the rub. Perhaps real artistry comes from perfecting ones swing using a limited number of tools. I guess this is somewhat of a question I am putting out there because I am not sure I have the answer and I suspect its a bit more complicated that a yes or no, black and white approach to music.

I have three synths: A Korg M3, a Moog Voyager and a Waldorf Blofeld. Then I have a lot of other soft synths but I want to talk hardware for now. My Korg M3 is a masterpiece of complexity. You want to change cutoff, ok, three menus down and to the left but make sure that you know what layer of sound you are talking about when you tweak it. OK, to be fair, if you can figure it out you can assign thinks to sliders, the joystick, the XY pad, ect., which is a nice idea since you can record those movements but you get the idea, not an easy synth to program. Modulation matrix? Forget it! There are so many ways to modulate and combine modulation sources that you get dizzy thinking about it. The matrix would be enormous.

When I was younger musically, I thought that was great. Make a synth with 10 layers of menus I would say give me 20. But I often find digging into that many menus tedious and unnatural. Am I going to sell my M3? Not a chance. The upside is that it makes beautiful sounds so I can excuse how awkward at times the menus are. And it has some great presets. Yes presets. Boos from the purist gallery.

Now the Voyager is another animal. It's simple. Very simple although the latest addition of MIDI has adds a few layers of menus. The Voyager is in face more like one big all in one module with lots of CV ins and outs especially if you get the expansion module and the CP 251 or get the XP which is basically the same but in one box. But the Moogs knobs are meant to be tweaked and add an MP 201 pedal, you have another sophisticated tweaking mechanism or to put it simply, an instrument. So tweaking is part of the performance, of the instrument. OK, you can do this with a Korg M3 but it's only 8 sliders and some other controllers try to remember which one does what.

The Voyager is meant to be tweaked as you play it. It reveals its secret in the tweeks. The subtle settings that provide a certain sound. It seems to me this is more what true artistry is. Not the bold or what I would call "let's see if we can make spot howl" approach, although I have given into that myself at times, but the subtle realms of musical expression that can be found in tweaking just the right know at the right time, lets call it improving the golf swing with the knobs being the clubs.

Then there is the Blofeld. An amazing little piece of machinery for the money. I read a add for some IPad wizardry to make the Blofeld one of the multilayered synths more like the M3. OK, but truth but told, most of the parameters you would need to tweak on the Blofeld that are going to work musically are right there. Only a few knobs you say? Yes, but buttons that change what those knobs do in a way that is so natural that I learned most of their functions in a day. I am still trying to learn Korg's KARMA system and forget about getting the software and talking it down more menu levels so deep that you come out in China.

OK, I know, I can be a blatherskite at times. But my numerous words are only to suggest that sometimes its nice to have a really familiar set of clubs so that one that sunny day when the sun is in the right position and the wind is just right, the ball can soar into the sky and the music can find heavenly heights.

Then again, you can buy a Jupiter 80 and have a whole orchestra playing at the same time. I'm just not sure it's in tune and who can track 80 golf balls hit into the sunny sky? Hope the analogy works.

Short Review and Reflection on the Jupiter 80

2011-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

It seems that what is old is new again. Certainly Roland's new Jupiter 80 is no exception. Roland seems to be trying to take advantage of some of the programming they have already done for the V-Synth and their new "super natural" pianos (whatever that means). I sense that they are using something likened to the V-Synth "AP Synthesis" and combined it with the new "Super Natural" modelling. It's hard to tell. This synth seems is strong in two areas: Layering (massive layering) Instrument Sounds OK, nice, but in a way the two are contradictions. If you want to do arranging then sure, having a lot of layers is a plus but then get one of the "Vianna" packages or another set of instrument samples and let loose. Yes, but you might respond: "It's a performance instrument!". OK, sure, but then don't layer. I see the two as a contradiction. This is like having a symphony orchestra with every instrument trying to be the soloist. Perhaps I am wrong here but just saying. I do like the touch screen. Some have a problem with it but having a Korg M3, I can tell you that I prefer the way Roland creates screens that look more like a massive collection on knobs and sliders. By the way, that is what it would take and why this instrument does not have them. The preset keys are nice for performance and after all, that is what this instrument is about except if you really used all the layers it would drown every other member of the band with its wall of sound approach. Nice collection of ins and outs including digital. A slight improvement over an M3. Effects - yawn, clearly imported from other keyboards, nothing new here. Might I also point out that Korg M3 effects let you modulate many of the parameters which can be very powerful. I don't see that here but this is a cursury review. Corrections welcome. D-Beam - old Roland tech - yawn Stereo recorder - why bother when lots of nice little portable units are available - Icing on the cake - lots of sugar. OK, I don't mean to be so harsh here and if someone dropped one of these in studio for free I would have lots of fun with it but I have come to the following conclusion. That synthesis is about modulation and expression. I am thinking particulary about the Eigenharp. Not really an instrument per say but much more than a MIDI controller. Find a more integrated way to combine a controller like that and an expressive model like AP synthesis or whatver is in the Jupiter 80 and it would peak my interest. That also said, the new Korg Kronos is far more of a heavy weight (an OASYS for the poor). So what does the JP 80 add to the mix of lack luster offerings in the synth word. Nothing much other than what is old is new again. Perhaps one day, something that is new will in fact truly be new but until then. P.S. Roland - still waiting for you to come out with new expansion cards for the V-Synth. Or did you ever intend to do that? Sure, packaging old tech is a lot cheaper when you can sell it for the cost of a workstation.

The Hidden Agenda

2011-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

As many of the music therapists who follow me know, I am always trying to encourage you to use synthesizers in your therapy. There are a few reasons why. First, I respect what music therapists do and I feel that music can have as much healing power as medicine does just in a different way. The second reason is that friends always share what they love. Before I was in high school I stumbled across a Morton Subotnick album "Sidewinder". At that time I did not have the slightest idea what the difference between a Moog and a Buchla was but years latter I can talk about models and modules with barely a thought. I know the difference between music box and mini Moog and many other sonic tid bits. I have knowledge that I want to share not only with other electronic artists who understand all the technical details of what I am talking about but to those who may be new to electronic music and synthesizers. I love to teach and share what I know. The third reason, and perhaps the most important is that I really do believe that synthesis has a lot to bring to music therapy for reasons that I will discuss. It is also my hope that my attempts are not annoying. I am not trying to be pushy (well, maybe a little) but it's only in the interest of trying to show some friends something new and perhaps helpful. Up until know you have been silent on my electronic music tweets but things can change right?

So why use synthesizers when there are drums, pianos and guitars (which from what I have observed are the tools of the music therapy trade)? Well, first, they are more flexible. I know that some of music therapists use what I would call arranger keyboards which are small versions of the old home organs. These can be nice but there are a whole universe of more powerful synthesizers that can open up a sonic universe to the listener and musician.

I realize that the first limitation might be price. I can understand that but a piano is not cheap nor a guitar (at least a good one) There are also software synthesizers that are sometimes only 1/10 of the price of a hardware synthesizer. I have some hardware synths but for a specific reason. For a starter synth for those who already own a laptop a soft synth might be a better chooice. I use soft synths as well. Other than a Kurzweil K2000 which I sold, my first softsynth was Native Instrument Absynth (an amazing synth by the way but perhaps not a good starter synth). I notice that MTs seem to be into laptops. A low cost audio interface and what is called a DAW is the price of admission into the soft synth world. Some MTs also use garage band (a low costs DAW - digital audio workstation - which comes with Macs for free). That will get you started and before long you will be using Ableton Live :) Sort of an inside joke but many electronic artists including myself use it for reasons that are way to complicated to explain in a short post. If you are really interested some of my Twitter friends have great web sites with demos you might want to watch. Just ask and I will introduce you.

I would also suggest to you that there are a lot of free synths and effects out there. Absynth is not one of them but a freeware synths can be a good introduction into synthesis. Start with subtractive if you are interested. Most synths in fact do some form of subtrative synthesis.

I also would add as a caveat that mobility is an issue. I almost got a hernia moving an 88 key Korg M3 up a flight of stairs. It's a great keyboard and has piano like action but not mobile. For those who don't have roadies, size can be an issue with hard synths although there are some nice small ones that are a lot easier to deal with. There are also a wide variety of cheap controller keyboards out there. And when you ready, Ableton controllers :) MTs should just let me know and I can recommend some of them.

Soft synths weigh nothing and install onto your laptop. Interfaces are small and a low watt amp is loud enough to use in most applications is enough to go mobile. You can put it all in a backpack.

So you might still ask why? Simple, synthesizers are much more flexible than real instruments. They can make an incredibly wide variety of sounds which may open up new avenues when working with a client. For example, I have boomwhacker samples so if I want to play boomwhackers I can do that on my keyboard using a form of synthesis called sampling. Thee are also a wide variety of drum samples from diffferent countries that will literally turn you keyboard into a drum kit.

There has also been an explosion of new controllers which could be used to open up a musical universe to those with limited mobility which I see as a major advantage. Body movement and even brain waves to mention just a few can be used to control a synth. Products like Percussa Audio Cubes provide multi-sensory feedback (see, I am learning your vocabulary). The Cubes glow and are easy to move and create music with.

I also think that various minimalistic music forms might help autistic patients. The repeating yet changing patterns of a sequencer might give them something to focus on.

So that is my agenda. I don't want it to be hidden but if I am annoying at times trying to get you to cross the streams. My version of advocacy :)

I wish all my music therapist friends the best of success in your carriers and God bless you efforts to help people with the gift of music. If you are interested in following the rabbit into a vast landscape of new sounds, let me know and I can get you started. Where it goes from there is up to you.

P.S. - There is an Electro Music festival in Heugenot NY. A good time is had by all. It's lots of fun and lots of great people and perhaps a way to follow that rabbit. Warning however, once you get hooked on synths well, there is no helping you after that so take heed :) Us EM types are already addicted so it does not matter to us :)

Why I am not anti MIDI

2011-01-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

I am publishing this as a retraction of sorts. I want to clarify that I am not anti MIDI or event to some extent quantization. However, with a lot of the new technology that is available I fear the technology will dehumanize. The use of technology for electronic music has always been around but many of the early works of electronic music, such as those of Karlehintz Stockhausen, were wondeerful experiments in using technology to explore sound. They were not at all de-humanizing but rather a exploration of how the human person encounters sounds and their organisation in music.

I am very much a technologist I just fear that it becomes follow the leader even if the leader is not all that talented. Kesha is a great example in my mind of the abuse of technology at the service of a creating music that is little more than a form of glitter to sell an empty musical box to a subculture.

What do I like? Well, obviously from my last post the Wavedrum. But I also like some products that might surprise people like the Tenori-on. Why? Because it humanizes sequencing again by putting variations in sequences at the thumbs of the musician. It's both creative and playful.

I also like the Eigenharp although the expense takes it a bit outside my range. I see it as a very expressive electronic instrument. I like the Haken Continuum because it breaks away from the pitch bend/mod wheel domination. There are more products I could mention but I use these as solid examples.

What I try to do in my own music is go back to a more experimental time in electronic music before the domination of the drum machine and the dance beat and the glitter and find ways to use technology to create art that allows technology to be a tool of the human person not the focus of the art. I even want a Octatrack to use it in a way that is not intended for and perhaps break the de humanizing trend.

A world without MIDI - The Korg Wavedrum

2010-12-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

I recently purchased a Korg Wavedrum which I love. Realize, that I am not a drummer but lately have looked a way to add more rhythm to my songs. I also bought the Wavedrum because I consider it to be on the cutting edge of music right now precisely because it does not have MIDI (hushed sigh, people falling down from shock)

OK, you might think that I am either joking or crazy. MIDI is a great standard right? Well, yes and no. I hope by the end of this article I can both explain how the Wavedrum works (although part of that is hidden in its proprietary chips) but also why MIDI is not the be all and end all in electronic instruments and why it makes at least some sense for the Wavedrum to be missing MIDI.

Anyone who plays a natural instrument such as a guitar or violin, as good examples, knows that there is a magical interaction between musician and instrument. It's a kind of feedback loop. Musical expression, at least for natural instruments, is a complex interaction between the musician and the instrument. The first part of the loop involves both the sense of touch and sight. Although sight only functions initially to identify where notes are. A musician does not need sight to play an instrument but having a sense of touch is essential.

One can even speak of an instrument being embedded in our memories. Our brains even remember the sense of touch in what is often called muscles memory. Our muscles know where to go. A guitarist, such as myself, can bar a fret without looking to see where it is. Even the fine muscle movements for vibrato and harmonics can be learned so that they become fluid and part of the organic whole that forms the basis of musical expression.

One of the faults I see in MIDI is that music becomes quantized and loses expression. At firswt this quantization was time based but with the advent of autiotune, evenp itch is quantized. DAWs even intentionally quantize timing and notes that may not fall on the grid of time and pitch. Any musician will tell you however that musical expression lies in that space in between. The bend of a note or the ever to slight variation in timing can make for magical moments.

Physical instruments also vary from most electronic instruments in that notes are not simply turned on or off (as in MIDI). In fact, MIDI in some ways handcuffed synthesizers by making the keyboard, pitch bend and mod wheel almost obligatory. There are alternative controllers and Buchla has steered away from using a keyboard for it's modulars but for the most part this is true. For a physical system, the playing of a single note is a complex event. The note begins when energy is imparted to the system (or in terms of physics, the system is exited). For example, the guitar string is first stretched with a pick and then once released begins a kind of complex dance (we call this the transient) until it comes to an equilibrium. It is that transient where much of musical expression lies.

There has been a dominant belief in electronic music that the power of electronic instruments is in the waveform. I strongly disagree with this. In fact, studies show that a note cut of from it's transient leaves the listener unclear as to what instrument it comes from. It is also here that musical expression lies in all the subtle ways that that first excitation of a system occurs and resolves itself into a more stable waveform.

So why is all this important? Simple. MIDI ins and outs allow a musician to recreate a performance either through a built in sequencer, a DAW on a laptop or even a hardware sequencer. This is done by recording a MIDI data stream. Because of the nature of a physical instrument, one cannot re-create the performance on a physical instrument using MIDI. Sound can be sampled to create a snapshot in time but not the myriad of ways the musician is able to express themselves. For example, there are guitars that have MIDI outs or can use a MIDI interface but this can't be used to recreate a guitar performance only drive a MIDI synth. Roland V guitar system amd Line 6 guitars take a different route by using piezo pickups to first pick up vibrations and then use additional signal processing to create the final sound. This is what the Korg Wavedrum does as well.

Now its possible to put a MIDI out on a Wavedrum. Note on messages would be easy to create and even velocity. Drum head pressure could be used to map to pitch or aftertouch but these can only be used to drive samples not re-create the performance of someone using a wavedrum.

What is the Wavedrum? It functions somewhat like a Moog Guitar might with built in electronics but the Wavedrum's electronics are far more sophisticated DSP algorithms which process the signals from the piezo pickups (one for the head and two for the rim). These signals also trigger PCM samples which are mixed with the processed signal. In the case of "double sized" algorithms which are more complex, the rim and head and processed together. The head also senses pressure which changes the sound much like a drum head or also creates more ambient sounds.

The Wavedrum sounds and responds like a real instrument. It creates that two way feedback loop I talked about earlier which is lacking substantially in MIDI based electronic instruments. In many ways I would like to see at least some electronic instruments move in this direction. Sure, you can't duplicate the performance of a Wavedrum using MIDI but you can't do it with a guitar either and I don't see anyone stop playing and recording guitars because they don't have MIDI outs.

What the Wavedrum has over a physical drum is that its very very flexible. There are 100 presets and 100 user programs. The drum is programmed by a complex parameters which varies for each algorithm and are based on a generalized model of certain classes of drums. The PCM samples are used to provide a more specific type of sound which corresponds to various drums and percussive instruments.

The Wavedrum is a hybrid of samples and real sound and processing and I would love to see more instruments follow in this direction. Sure, moving outside the realm of triggered MIDI samples is scary to some who have grown up with them but I think its worth the bother.

All is not Gold

2010-12-14T17:44:00.001-08:00

One of the aspects of music that I think I continue to learn each and every day is that not everything that can be done should be done. I just watched a video tonight of someone using his arm as a drum by tapping his fingers on it. I don't post it here because I am trying to be kind but my response to this video is why? Ultimately the test for any music is in the hearing right? OK, I admit that sometimes I am expressing certain concepts in my music and it might help to know what those are but even in these songs I ultimately want them to stand on their own. I guess my point is that I should not need a video to understand what I hear and what I heard with the finger tapping sounded like a cheap $10 DIY drum machine.

Again, if I point the finger at myself I admit that what I do is experimental. But I hope that I seek something of value musically. This is all subjective but my point is that all music and especially experimental music and instruments require a great deal of discernment and refinement. In other words, just because someone can do something, in many cases they would be better of not wasting there time if it's not liiely to yield some musically useful results.

I will leave it at that until the next blog when I talk about an experimental music that does work - The Korg Wavedrum.

Through the Auto Tune Looking Glass

2010-12-10T06:11:00.001-08:00

Lately, I have been hearing a lot about auto tune. Rachelle Norman (a board certified music therapist) recently sent me an article in "Slate" by Jonah Weiner on Ke$ha's use of autotune:

http://www.slate.com/id/2276924/?from=rss

And I also listened to a discussion of autotune's and Melodyne's pros and cons in this recent interview on Sonic State of Tara Busch, Maf Lewis and others. Sideline: some great new music from Tara as well (analogue/Moog goodness):

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2010/12/09/podcast-sonic-talk-200-tara-busch-live/

I believe that Ke$ha's use of autotune is, like so many other dreadfull applications of it, a gimmick. No doubt her hard edge and dance beat are also just formulas for effective marketing but not necessarily good music. I find it often difficult to distinguish between what is commercial and what is jingle. Weiner talks about "ear worms" in his article. I suppose in many ways that writing jingles or songs that attempt to use the same technique as jingles or commercials is a kind of art form but it is not what I would call creative.

So let me get to the looking glass. Many forms of music make effective use of pitch bending as an often very effective form of musical expression. Consider for example Celtic music that often bends up to create a distinctive style along with the scales that are used. I have used this technique in my music by simply bending the pitch wheel down before playing the note and bending up.

On the side of American musical art forms, blues not only uses pitch bending but also has a note specifically called the "blues note" that is especially appropriate to bend. Delta blues also makes use of the cordican bottle or slide and many old school country music band use the steel slide guitar. This same slid guitar is also effectively used in Rock (with a bit of distortion added) by David Gilmour in some Pink Floyd songs and by Led Zepplin and of course, the Alman Borther band to name just a few. There are many many others. Also consider the use of vibrato for violin in classical music and also for guitar in many genres of music.

Pitch bend also is used almost subliminally by vocal artists from R&B to rock but also more subtly by artists like Bob Dylan who developed an enormously popular style partially because of his use of pitch bend in his voice.

The changing pitch of birdsong had been used to wonder effect by composers like Olivier Messiaen spent an incredible amount of time carefully and artistically transposing birdsong.

Pitch is also instrumental in human language which is neurologically related to music in th brain. Many eastern languages such as Mandarin use pitch as part of changing the meaning of a word but in just about any language used changes in pitch to convey meaning.

My point is that the desire to quantize pitch seems to contrary to what so many spend their lives perfecting in music be it voice or an instrument. We put pitch bend wheels on synthesizers and violins and some basses have no frets so avoid quantization. With the invention of drum machines it also seems that everyone wants to quantize time. Sure there is groove quantize but isn't that just another form of quantization?

I understand the purpose of Melodyne to make minor corrections to pitch to put the finishing touches on a mix but the idea that a quantized voice is desirable when it seems to be so much of the art of music thrives on playing outside the grid lines. Why so many want to autotune leaves me without a clue unless it really is just a gimmick.

So, as I have said on Twitter, I hope autotune dies a quick death. For those who like it, don't worry, someone will fnd a new gimmick to sell. In the meantime others will play there notes off the grid lines and through the looking glass.

On Gestures, Kinekt and Beyoind

2010-11-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

There has been a great deal of excitement lately about the Kinect video game console. This console uses the motions of the human body rather than a Wii controller or something like it to control a virtual video game world. Many have naturally thought about its adaptation as a musical controller. I will hold off my applause for a while but I wanted to express a few concerns.

One application would be a kind of 3D theremin. The idea would basically be to map parameters representing 3D space to synthesizer parameters. That's fine and a marginal advancement over the theremin but I would not really call it groundbreaking. An example of what I do find at least a little ground breaking is the Eigenharp. It's still simply parameter mapping but there is a very fine degree of control over the controllers on each pad not to mention the 2D array. Many I have discussed this new technology with have likened it to being an instrument rather than a controller. I agree. Any thing I have seen for Kinect places it more as a controller. That's ok, but its not groundbreaking IMHO.

So what would be? I believe that controllers will truly break ground when they move from controller to gestural controller. What do I mean by that? Simple. We all use gestures. We first use them when we learn to speak. Our own body had a very complex synthesizer built right in. A voice box that acts as an oscillator and our throat, mouth, tongue and lips that all act as filters and our muscles which control these as modulators. But rather than thinking about position in space (the current paradigm be it kinect, Roland D-beam, theremn, ect), all of these are defined by morphology. Confused, ok. Morphology is just a way of describing how something changes over time. This is why I am interested, fascinated even memorized by developments studying the brain. The brain does not think in terms of coordinates in space. When someone for example extends their hand to use we don't start to think, ok, what is the coordinates of their hand. No! We see gesture. The position of the hand, the open hand, the extension of the hand to the other person, a smile, the direction of our eyes, all of these gestures get processed by our brains and our brains interpret them as a handshake.

Now here is the trick, moving beyond coordinates to gesture. Apple has done this a bit with there computers and I even have a Sony Vaio that interprets two quick finger pats on the mouse pad as a mouse click. Now consider a conductor and how, without using any physical device other than a conductors wand, is able to communicate to the orchestra musical information.

This is my criticism of Kinect as a musical controller. I don't see it moving beyond an XYZ controller (yawn) because to interpret gesture takes a very quick computer and some very sophisticated programmers. Do I think we will get there? Sure and Buchla already has done this with with the Buchla Lighening which is a rudimentary gestural controller albiet at a high price. My problem with Buchla is that they want someone to invest a lot of money in a product without even having a manual or sufficient demos to look at first. The demos that are out there really don't explain the gestural interpretation engine and frankly some of them look more like the motions of an escaped mental patient than a musician.

Anyway, I have bright hopes for the future but is Kinect the answer? I don't think so but as I said, I will at least partially suspend my judgement.

Presets and Performances

2010-10-13T13:09:00.001-07:00

A comment today from a Twitter friend got me thinking. He said that he did not like presets because they limited his creativity. I guess I can see where that might be true but in many ways, I am moving in a very different creative direction.

First, let me explain how I write music. First, I get an idea and then, I think of the synthesizers I could use to create it. Then I start programming by working with an existing preset and tweaking it or in some cases, developing and idea from scratch. Then I record one layer and repeat the process.

My compositions are often not complex horizontally. What I mean by this is that they are not long and have a lot of part to them. This is fact is my greatest self criticism and is what is going to get me to the presets and beyond.

Once of the reasons that I don't have a lot of parts to a composition is that it's hard to see the whole. I think the reason is that I have to break everything up. I am not playing it at the same time. So is this even possible. Yes, I think so. One way is to use presets and to change them with my feet. This way I can go from one movement to the next. I even want to use a Switchblade matrix router so that I can even change things like effects routing paths on the fly. I also want bass pedals so I can play bass with my feet much like an organists.

So my two paradigms that I am using to create a different type of studio are based on the pipe organ and the other based on the Orchestra. In many ways, these are the same things. But think of a symphony for a moment. A composer can change directions from one measure to the next simply by using different instruments in a different way. Now of course, the composer is not doing this in real time but imagine he/she could. With the type of electronic instruments we have today it's possible to perform works in real time.

It got a whole lot from listening to another Twitter friend, Mark Mosher, at the Electro Music festival for 2010 who was able to perform his works in real time by using various controllers and Ableton Live. The whole experience got me out of the paradigm I used before of piecing music together.

Now a pipe organ fits the paradigm as well. An organ can change while its being placed with stops.

So I now see composition as setting up a performance space and then using this space to create a composition in real time without stopping. Different settings of synths can be programmed to controllers and different presets also programmed and changed using foot switches or buttons.

So that is the direction I am going in. I just wanted to throw it out there and hopefully get a few comments back. I would very much appreciate responses.

Which comes first, the genre or the music?

2010-10-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

Those who know my musical tastes will know that I am not one to limit myself to one particular musical genres. While I write ambient and experimental music, I have a great affinity to listing to and studying the greats of jazz and classical. These two genres stand at rather opposite ends of apporaches to music or at least until the 20th century regarding classical.

Classical music has always taken a certain pride in its rigor. To be a great classical musician and/or composer, one must spend countless hours studying and playing the music of the greats and understanding the music theory behind their works. At first, classical music was very constrained and fell within fairly narrow parameters. If one was to be a master, one has to work within the narrow guidelines but also do so with creativity. Of course, this was more than possible and the greats such as Bach created created musical works that followed the well worn path of the music that had some before with its limitations but also its possiblities for great expression and beauty.

As classical music progressed, the rules became less important and creativity seemed to flourish as composers and musicians found new musical territory to explore. This culminated in the early 20th century with composers like John Cage who broke completely with tradition. Rather than following the past, he challenged it.

The 20th century avant guarde is also very much tied to the advent of electronic instruments. As technology offered hope for the future, composers like Karlheintz Stockhausen saw entire realms of unexplored electronic methods to create sounds that had never been heard. Early electronic music became the age not of organized notes that conformed to musical standards as in Bach's time but a brave new word of the Pierre Boulez coined "organized sound".

As jazz was using melodies and chords to provide broad harmonic constructs of expression, so to, electronics provided a means of expression. The line between composer and scientists seemed to blur. Artists like Stockhausen where asking questions of "what if" perhaps hoping to pave the way to some new synthesis of sounds that would be the pallet for an new age of music expanded far beyond the limitations of traditional instruments.

With the advent of the Moog Modular Synthesizer and Buchla's electronic music system and electronic music box, the ability to create complex electronic voices was now possible with a bit of a learning curve to climb and money to invest. At first, synthesizers were large the purview of universities and therefore, the use of these instruments stayed well within the confines of a carefully studied academic approach.

But Bob Moog did not want the synthesizer to remain locked in the ivory towers so he made a cheaper and more accessible instrument. This much smaller synthesizer was called a Minimoog. The Minimoog could easily be used on stage and it was for hundreds of bands. The Minimoog and a plethora of synthesizers that followed after.

But as music became accessible it left the ivory tower and moved to the recording studio. Electronic music had entered mainstream pop. Now pop music was not dictated by well footnoted treatises on the experimental wanderings of a Buchla Music Box but rather dollar signs. The more one could crank out hit album after hit album, the more dollars one could make but not just the musicians but the producer. So the pressure was put on putting the genre before the music. Music moved from the experimental seeking a genre to a genre that defined musicians and in many ways, limited their creative choices.

For a while, progressive rock found some bolder territory where they could both make hit records but also do something experimental and artistic but soon, following the leader seemed to dominate especially when the age of low cost computer memory made samples all the rage even to this day. Samples defined a game of musical follower the leader and soon, each time a new sound was used, it became all the rage for a new set of copy cat songs. And electronic music, that held the hope of exploring entire new musical universes, was dominated by sample driven music.

Now that is not the whole story and it was my pleasure in going to the 2010 Electro Music Fest to see that he age of experimentation is alive and well. Many web sites now provide music on the internet which reach into a much broader scope. The music appears to be leading the gerne again and this story is far from being over. In fact, now that someone can make quality recordings at home and then sell them on the internet makes the influence of the sample peddler/bankers far from the only game in town.

So where do we go from here? Will music now lead the way rather than the genre. How often are genres defined by someone simply doing something and the rest following. What is a genre other than a self imposed copying of someone's style with the hopes to be creative enough to break out of the box at least a bit. But then we have the new avant guarde. The musicians who value creativity more than copying the crowd.

But now I come to a dilemma. I was going to post a video of a musician flailing around with Buchla Lightening rods. It was not the carefully crafted sounds of someone like a Morton Subotnick who has learned to master the Buchla Music box and take listeners to another world. No, it was someone who at least seemed to me to have little musical experience and spent a large sum of money on Buchla Lightening. Now granted, some other videos were more musical than this poor example but the one I am thinking of, was nothing more than a child playing on a toy drum. I did not post it because I am not trying to disparage anyone in particular but to merely point out a problem.

I find it myself when I have a wealth of ways to make music and find myself lost in possibilities. I myself do have some musical training and I have found that those musicians who have some training themselves often make better music than those musicans who resemble more the flailing musician with lighting rods in the video I am talking about.

Experimental music is always as risk, when it puts the music before the genre and in doing to gets lost in a sea of possibilities. The music should come before the genre but in a thoughtful and skilled way. I am not suggesting that we either follow the way of mass produced pop music or the rigor of the Baroque period with its well crafted fugues but I am suggesting that we talk about music that is being created and try to learn some skills that will help the better experiments to begin to forms into genres or perhaps better said, musical paths that show promise. I myself would rather try to focus on a few genres that I create and learn how to explore them with some skill and forethought than to drown in a sea of the latest gadgets and believe me, I am very guilty of that. Perhaps, at least for a time, I want to go deeper instead o broader and try to find something lasting and worthwhile creating, even if it does mean I have to spend some time practicing and really learning how to use the wonderful instruments that I have that make those wonderful sounds. Perhaps, learning to use what I have will become the contraints that define a deeper creativity born of skill rather than drowning in the possiblities.

Tear Down the Wall

2010-09-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

I never got to know my great grandmother in person because by the time I was born, she had already passed away. But my father has told me stories about her. Like many of the Irish who lived in Boston at the time, she did not really have even two dimes to rub together but one of her great sources of entertainment and enlightenment was to go to the local library and bring back a stack of books that she would then devour over the week and return the next week for another stack. I have little doubt that if she went to a University and mingled with the whose who walked the hallowed halls of the ivory tower, she would have found a group of her peers even though her small Boston apartment was never adorned with a diploma from one of the great higher learning institutions.

Now I understand that people with degrees often find a ready group of people that can relate to them and that different intellectual disciplines often develop their own vocabulary and knowledge of advancements in the field. I do the same with music. Now mind you I have no degree in music (I have degrees however), but I have learned from experience, a lot of hand on practical experience and a have done a lot of reading and talking to people in the field about many things about synthesizers. With people I often talk to on Twitter for example, I can talk about the VCS3, VCOs and VCAs and most will know exactly what these things are. They know who EMS is and Robert Moog and Donald Buchla. All this is natural and good.

However, I am always open to learning something new. I like my grandmother, am not so interested in getting a nice new piece of paper on my wall but rather, getting a new stack of books (in my case often put in my own bookcases) and read and learn. Or to sit in front of a soft synth or a hard synth and play music. Music that speaks to my heart and I want to share with others.

IMHO (degrees or no), we can all learn from one another and frankly, if someone has a degree or not, I don't really care. It's why I rarely share what diplomas I have. My great grandmother did not have any degrees from higher learning institutions as I do but I would rather go back in time and be able to spend an hour with her than with the great minds of the universities. She had a practical knowledge that I think the world is losing. The Irish are some of the greatest writers because they learned the art of poetry, music and story telling by sharing it with their friends at the local pub. They learned to paint with words and notes not because they had a degree but from telling stories and playing music.

I posed a tweet the other night about the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which is, as I said, not really about either zen or motorcycles but has a lot to say about metaphysics. I know, not a word that you hear discussed much these days although I bet my great grandmother knew what it is. Metaphysics is the study of being, of what something is, the underlying essence of things.

The academic mind tends to break things down into small pieces so that each knows their own piece but often not the whole and so they only see the trees and not he forest. They see a drop of water and not the ocean or even the world of life that can exists in a single drop of water from that ocean. A person can only know something by knowing it from all sides and then, putting it all together and then, and only then, understand it's essence. I will tell you my take on music and the brain. That is why so many parts of the brain light up when music is being played.

Music can also be seen from many directions. It is theory, notes and scales and tempos and the like. But it is also emotion and mystery. It speaks both in conterpoint but also of sadness and longing or the joy of summers day. It speaks a language all its own. I can approach music from the perspective of neurology, psycho acoustics, psychology, music theory, electronics even physics. Each can tell me something but none on their own capture the essence.

When I allude to the Carolian rabbit hole, I am trying to invite people down a hole that will show them a world below the surface of academic disciplines that they seem to cling to with such fervor. One of the reasons I love the first Matrix movie (the 1st, the writers kind of blew it after that) is that we each live in our own matrix. We have a vocabulary that we may share with a particular group of people, or knowledge, or experience. And like the movie, it's ok sometimes to enjoy taste of the steak, but there is more to the human experience than that and to experience it, we have to leave our matrix.

We hold up our degrees and believe that only those in our small circle have something to say or contribute to our jobs and our life but the truth is, in the words of Simon and Garfunkel, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway ways and tenement halls". Perhaps, we have only to listen and the silence will speak to us.

Do Sounds Have Meaning?

2010-09-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

I just listened to this great interview with John Cage again:

In this interview, Cage claims that sound has no meaning.

I think the question as to if sound has meaning or not relates to the very old philosophical question that if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound. If the meaning of sound is that the molecules in the air vibrate when it falls then yes, it makes a sound. If one where to leave a recording device in the forest when the tree fell it would also produce a recording of those vibrations. But if one means by sound what we associate sound with in language, our experience of the sensation of sound, then no, the tree does not make any sound.

It is impossible for us to hear a sound the way a recording device records it. Each time we hear a sound our brains not only filter it, but try to make sense of it. There is a psychological theory refered to as pareidolia

It Just Runs Programs

2010-08-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

In trawling the web for comments good and bad about some hard synths out there, I have often come upon the argument that soft synths sound at least as good if not better, and are more powerful, than hard synths and far chapter, so why buy a hard synth?

There are a few reasons. The most significant reason is that the knobs on a hard synth create a musical space that lends itself to real time experimentation. The common response that is, that's true but there are controllers out there now that will give the musician knobs and sliders to control soft synths. Some, even have pre-made mappings to many of the popular synths or some soft synths have MIDI learn to make it easy to map knobs on the controller to the virtual knobs on the soft synth. DAWs also have tools.

All of this is true but its not the whole picture. First, the controller has no visual markings to label the knobs and sliders. Of course, one could create a series of templates but that is a lot of bother. There are also some attempts to improve on the basic paradigm of a controller such as Native Instruments Kore 2 but the fact remains that if you look at the hardware controller, there is no visual cue to what you are controlling so the direct interaction with the synth is lost.

One solution would be do have a very high res set of LEDs that provided soft templates. I am not sure why Native Instruments or someone else has not come up with this. Another problem is that the position of the knobs are still fixed. I have three hard synths. A Moog Voyager, a Korg M3 and a Waldorf Blofeld. Each of these synths have a very unique and very different set of knobs and sliders. The reason is simple. Each of these synths has a very unique character or personality if you will. That is reflected in the design of the keyboard or controller and reflected in the sound. The two are integrated together.

Now soft synths could have their own dedicated controllers and in a few instances they have but they have not gone over well because in the mind of the consumer, they are adding unnecessary cost. I don't really agree with this but the second problem is that if you have a lot of soft synths you would need a massive USB hub which would strain most computers.

So that's the first reason that soft synths fall short of hard synths.

Also realize that is possible to stack at least three keyboards. This is not the same as snazzy MDI controllers with keyboard splits. One has a full range on each synth whatever that range might be.

Now onto the financial argument that they are so much cheaper. OK, but what about those upgrades. Isn't that part of the game. I've played it. The company comes out with an upgrade and well, even if it's not all that significant, well, one just has to have it.

Now in some cases hard synths companies want money for upgrades but they don't come out as much and in some cases, like the Korg M3 for example, they are free which includes new samples. Add say three upgrades to a soft synth and that cheap synth has nearly doubled in price!

The final advantage I wanted to point out is often overlooked but important. Go look at the back of any hard synth and there are usually a whole wide range of in and outs. Often, sound can be routed differently to different sets of outs. Ins can also be used in different ways. On the Korg M3, the entire synth is an effects processor and through the audio ins it can process external audio and also resample it. Most soft synths have a meager set of effects. The Korg M3s effects are vast and powerful and directly tied to the hardware, yes, all those knobs and sliders. It even is more powerful than that but I will not get into that.

So if you find an extensive set of soft effects and add on a few upgrades for the synth and effects and your getting up price prize a lot closer to hardware.

The bottom line is that the ability to route audio to other hardware is something that soft synths and DAWS do not do all that well. Yes, I know about Reason and some other products as well but these attempts are not nearly as good as the ability to use a patch bay or even a more sophisticated matrix audio router like the "switchblade". One aspect of any hardware based system is that it is in a sense a modular itself. Combine it with a modular or with effects pedals and the possibilities expand far beyond the meager possibilities on soft synths.

The most significant part of it is there is something kind of magical about hardware. It lends itself to experimentation and for the reasons mentioned it can be rivaled by generic controllers. What is it worth? That's something each musician or composer has to decide. For me, its worth it. I see value in soft synths and frankly, some of my soft synths do things my hardware can't but I see it as supplementing not replacing my hardware.

On Happy Accidents

2010-08-15T06:51:00.001-07:00

Rather than posting a whole slew of tweets on Twitter, I thought it best to blog. I have been thinking lately about happy accidents in the history of music synthesis. What I mean by this is that often, what works musically is often more the result of imperfections than perfections. Perhaps, this might even apply to governing nations, but I digress.

To explain what I mean by this, consider the Moog Ladder Filter. In order to get the cutoff desired, a lattice of filters was necessary to design the Moog Ladder Filter. This results in distortion. Moog did not mind this but realized that the distortion, while from a purist point was undesirable, but from a musical perspective, it was desirable. So much so that this filter became a kind of musical legend.

Another example is that of oscillators for analog synths. The reason for all three waveforms that are usually used (square, sawtooth, triangular) is because these waveform are easy to approximate using the discharge of a capacitor. The corollary to this happy accident is that these waveforms have particular harmonic properties that make them useful.. For example, the square and triangular waveforms have no odd harmonics which make them effective for mimicking woodwind instruments, especially the square, because of the harmonic and physical characteristics of those instruments. Sawtooths provide a very broad spectrum waveform that can then be filtered to create very musical effects combined with envelopes.

Another example spurred on a whole musical industry from blues to rock, to hard rock to heavy metal. Back in the early days, amplifiers used tubes (and some still do) because there were no transistors. When tubes got hot, they distorted (well, even before that but the heat enhanced the effect). But they did so in such a way to enhance harmonics in a musical way. Amps today use several stages of amplification which creates another type of sound. The why however is not so important as the fact that it is musical. There is also what is called sag in amps which has to do with the power supply but it creates a drop in power that is part of the signature sound of some amps.

Pickups on guitars are another example. The more windings one has on a guitar makes the signal not only a lot stronger but also more distorted combined with an amp. Again, for some types of music this is desirable.

Natural instrument are perhaps the best example. Instruments are expressive (much more so than electronics without a lot of help) because when a note is first played, the physical system which creates the oscillations is not in equilibrium. This creates noise which, in a brief time, changes to a stable waveform. What we actually find expressive and interesting about an instrument is not the static waveform (which is actually kind of boring) but the first part of the note we call the transient. This is what we identify often with musical virtuosity.

From a purists perspective, the stable physical system which creates a stable sustained waveform is what is attractive perhaps on an intellectual basis but its the imperfection of the transient that creates the magic.

So there you have it. That is my walk though the happy accidents of music.

The flip side of course is that those things that might seem theoretically relevant, may not be musical. My example of that is additive synthesis. I will not go into it here but I am in rebellion against what I would call the Fourier illusion. My basis for this is actually because I have a mathematical background and believe that he whole concept of harmonics is defunct to some extent. It can be a useful tool but in some sense, its only a model of reality, not the true reality. Granular synthesis is coming closer to the true reality but much like the physics of a particle being a wave and a particle, the same applies to these models of sound.

Not to inject a lot of politics into my musical blog, I try to keep this separate, but consider a society. People come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of problems. If we embrace that which is imperfect, then things work. Yes, we know there is greed but if its directed towards making a good product that can help people than that is a good thing. Yes we know that some people are not healthy but perhaps helping those people actually makes us better people. I know there are those in our government, some at the very highest level, who believe that government can create an earthly utopia without injustice, hunger and suffering so they try to force people into a mold of what they believe Perhaps, in some odd way, its those things that we struggle with, those imperfections, that may just be the happy accidents that help to bind us together.

Just a musical musing for a somewhat tranquil Sunday morning for me.

Hope all enjoyed.

Music and Government

2010-08-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

I rarely like to combine my political views with musical views but in these case, I have to say a few words. I just read this great article on the wonderful work in early synthesizers by Ken Freeman who very much furthered the development of early string synthesizers and is no doubt part of the inspiration for the modern string ensembles that appear on more modern synths today. String synthesizers also have been a huge part of pop music history.

So what does all this have to do with politics. Simple really. I find myself wondering how a modern day Ken Freeman would fair in the bureaucrat business killing environment of today. Many new and often struggling companies today find themselves hit by government regulations that at time border of the absurd and taxes that will soon be going up in the US. Many people also don't realize that for many small companies, their corporate profits are part of their personal income and it's this money that they often put back into their business. With the Bush tax cuts being eliminated in all likelihood, the ability of many young companies to find capital to make great products like synthesizers, will soon find themselves dying under the tax burden. A course in macroeconomics will tell you that that means a contraction of the economy and depression.

I am a practical man as well as a musician and composer outside my day job. I worked in the financial/insurance world for 12 years before my current day job and I know finance. I value innovation and I love stories like the one I read in Sound on Sound. It disturbs me that those who should be encouraged and helped by the government are being crushed and vilified. Making wonderfull tools for musicians might come from capitalism and I know that many hate capitalism but why? For those who do I ask this. Why don't you turn all your lights off, shut off your refrigerator and get an ice box, turn the AC off and freeze during the winter because pot belly stoves produce pollution and that would result in global warming. Then ride a bicycle to work.

Sorry to be so sarcastic here but I am being serious. If people really believe that capitalism is bad then live by that. bicycle or walk to Montana and start a ranch and live by candlelight at night. I don't know what you can do for heat because you should not burn wood to be politically incorrect. And no "View" for you MSNBC because you can't use electricity unless of course you can't to produce it from a bike driven generator which would also have to power the I-pads.

Just a thought, but I guess integrity does not apply if you are a political visionary.

Let's hope that the fledgling young instrument makers can survive this administration and that the evil products of capitalism can still find their way to the shelves of music shops.

The Tyranny of the Computer

2010-08-05T03:37:00.000-07:00

For a long while now, I have been revolting against the computer plug in revolution. At the same time, I have been looking for all sorts of alternative controllers. I saw no connection between these two until now. It dawned on me today that the reason that I feel this way is that a soft synth is something disembodied. What I mean by this is that the instrument part of the synth (the controller) is removed sound generating part of the synth. This has led up until recently in a stagnation of controllers that since the time of early synths has remained stuck in the mire of pitch bend and mod wheel and spongy MIDI controllers that are little more than toys.

Now don't get me wrong. I like to program synths (soft synths to) and I can take delight in the strange new sounds that sometimes come from my monitor speakers but often, those patches, are not very useful musically. Sure, they sound really interesting but using them in a composition is a different story.

Some have claimed that hard synths are on their way out. I beg to differ. Here is why. On a hard synth, at least a good one, there is an integration of the controller/s and the synth. A classic example in the Korg M3 which is vastly underated. The M3 has expansive controller capabilities not just because of the built in joystick, ribbon and XY controlers, sliders and buttons but it's ability to mix controller signals and to assign a controller to a vast (and I mean vast) array of parameters including effects. It also has a real keyboard especially the 88 key version which is the one I reccomend. It feels closer to a piano than any MIDI controller you can find.

The key here is integration. The M3 is not a disembodied synth but a synth in which the instrument part is integrated with the sound.

Now I also have a Minimoog Voyager. I recently listened to an interview with Bog Moog that I really love in which he speaks of the synthesizer as instrument. The Voyager's knobs are part of that instrument. On soft synths, these are either relegated to a mouse or one of the lustiest generic controllers like those for Live. I like thse but they are not instrument specific, they are not integerated. Native Instruments has also tried to create a parameter sets that makes up a pseudo instrument in products like their Kore and also products like Massive that integrate this into the synth.

This is not the same as a Voyager. Once you play the Voyager for a while, you get to know it. It integrates with you and as I said, every knob becomes part of the instrument.

Now lately, I have bought into the tyranny of the computer and bought a Macbook pro as the one computer to rule them all (the synths). Problem is I have driver problems. Frankly I am a musician and composer and I don't want to have to be a computer tech to get sound to come out of my computer. Menu screens on my hard synths I can deal with but some invisible driver and a generic message that something is not working, that aggravates me and takes me away from the music which is what it's all about right?

That brings me to recording. I remember back when I first started to play guitar I bought a 4 track cassette multitrack. I still have it of course no one would really want to use it today but I loved this thing. Why? Because when I recorded I knew what was going on. Everything was tactile and in front of me. Even the sound of the tape drive motor going on made it like an instrument, something directly related to the music I wanted to record.

Now I know that programs like Live are very sophisticated recording studios and don't get me wrong, I live Live. I have Live 7 on an old dying computer that I am trying to replace with a Macbook Pro and liberate my softsynths (not as easy as it sounds). I also know that multitrackers are meant to be portable and not really for the studio. Really? Are not studios just larger versions of these? How many studios just use Live? I suspect because there is something tactile and direct about a mixing board and don't tell me that the Live controllers are mixing boards because they are not.

So I have thought about a Korg 3200. This is definitely a mixer. Sliders, knobs and buttons that make recording very tactile. OK, a major drawback, a terrible small screen but everything else looks great on it. It also has a lot of automation options which is important to me and has MMC control and scene changes More on why this is important to me latter but believe me, I have plans on how I can integrate all my equipment. The nice thing is that it can easily be moved and I need to do that a lot. What it does is integrate recording in one place including burning a CD. Let's say I have recorded tracks and I just want to tweak the mix a bit but I am going to be away. I can just put the thing in the car and I don't have to connect an interface to set it up. Just headphones and a place to plug it in will do.

I am seriously considering buying one. When I do get my drivers working on my Macbook, I am going to use it but only as an instrument using Live, but not to record. That advantage is that I am not dependent on a single computer to do everything and generic musical instruments. I want my hardware and software tightly integrated and not subject to failure.

So that is where I am going right now musically and with recording. Hope to post more on this soon. In about a month I should be able to have the money for a K3200 and while I have not bought one yet, I suspect that I will. If in the meantime my Macbook is working, the plan is still the same.

I Have the Need, the Need for Hardware

2010-08-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have taken a great deal of satisfaction in sitting down in front of a piano. There is something very musical about it. There are no electronics, just me and this wonderful invention. OK, don't get me wrong. Believe me, I am not going acoustic but I do like hardware.

My Korg M3 for example. I turn it on right away the M3 logo comes up and in a few minutes, the main menu screen. The press of a few buttons and I can be playing a piano or have a whole symphony at my fingertips. Not once did my M3 ever say things like Firewire extensions not available.

My Moog Voyager takes even less time to boot up and with a few twists of some knobs I can have mellow analog sounds or harsher FM and synced sounds coming from my speakers enough to wake the neighbors and the dead. But no messages about drivers and rather than raising my blood pressure, I find delight in playing music.

Funny thing is that I used to program computers. It was part of my job and when I first started to get involved in synths I like the idea of synths that I could program. But as I got older, I found that complex programs were often noisy, confused, not all that musical. Simpler, more suble variations like those I could get with my Voyager seemed to appeal more to me. Or having the ability to layer sounds on my Voyager.

So when I was anxious to get my Macbook working and I get this annoying driver message that I suspect has to do with Firewire 400 and 800, I really am irritated. I frankly don't care about why something works or whether its Firewire or USB or 400 or 800. I just want to make music and record it so I can share it! All of this computer stuff is taking me away from music because I have to find new drivers and re-install software and talk to tech reps that I get a busy signal for.

A while back, I thought about getting a digital multitrack and someone said to me, why do that? Software DAWs are much more powerful. Don't get me wrong, I have Live and you know what, eventually I will get me software and hardware to make nice to one another and I will upgrade my Live and my Komplete and all will be well but the idea of having a piece of hardware that can burn a CD for me and create read made MP3 files right from a single piece of hardware, no interface needed. Well, that has appeal as well. So who knows, a multitrack might still be in my future while I try to get my software to behave. In the meantime, I can create music.

Muisc My Parents Listened to

2010-07-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

I read a post on a bulletin board which got me thinking.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/windcontroller/message/36269

I admitted that the music of his parents generation was better than his and his better than the current generation. Sure, I know that every generation is claiming that there music is better than the past and the past generation is claiming that there music is better and so it goes. That is not what I am saying. I am admitting as the poster in this blog was, that my parents generations music was better mine and in fact, that music has de-evolved. I know that Devo means something else by this but music has lost something.

I often try to soften words and I am not saying that I am a great composer but what I hear today is often, dare I say it, infantile. If it has any chords or notes (rap does not), then there may be only three in a simple progression. I am listening now to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and I just listened to "Stardust". Both are great songs because there is a movement in the melody and there are a lot more than 3 chords. It's why jazz musicians don't look to Lady Gaga's songbook for inspiration. Standards come often from my parents generation because to put it very simple, the music is better. Example - Frank Sinatra - whom many younger people like.

There, I said it. Now for that matter, the poster said that Mozart was a genius but his music is "corny". Really, I have never heard those words but together in that way before. He calls Bach boring and says there is nothing really interesting to listen to in the world of jazz. He favors more brooding romantic music. His choice but truth be told, I think that there is something to offer in each of the periods of classical music and that jazz is far from having reached its peak.

I feel that for anyone who wants to aspire to music its worth listening to both classical and jazz. One can learn a lot from the masters. Why have people abandoned them? Simply because they don't want to put the effort into it and frankly, I place myself in that category. This generation and mind (although to a less extent) is musically lazy and believe me, guitar hero is not helping.

Sure, I don't have a lot of time but I can learn some theory and improve my playing skill as I will try to .

As for Lady Gaga being forced to take her clothes off for the big bucks. Well, I recommend a few people to listen to. First, Celtic Woman. These ladies bring dignity and style back to music not to mention incredible talent. A little Vivaldi anyone -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEf5JqUrSvk

Yea! I would love to see Beyonce sing Vivaldi - I dare her to!

This one is amazing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2QTIPChkfs

So yes, I am perhaps an old curmudgeon who I used to laugh at for talking about how music from their generation was better but you know what, it was. I guess wisdom does come with age. Thank goodness that we still have artists like Celtic Woman and others like Nikki Yanofsky on the jazz side of things that really bring a new dignity and life back to music.

So yes, in addition to listening to Tangerine Dream I listen to jazz and classical with a little prog rock thrown in once and a well. Nothing like a little Jethro Tull or Yes once and a while. There is something to learn from music music save music that panders to motives other than making good music and I will not name names but perhaps all that needs to be said is that all that glitters is not gold although perhaps its green.

Korg Wavedrum - The Electronic Option

2010-06-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

I must admit that I have a propensity to love electronic instruments. I suppose that is not secret to those who read this blog or read my tweets or for that matter have listened to my music. When I was in high school I got hooked on listening to Morton Subotnick's sidewinder on headphones and was hooked ever since. Back then I could not afford much in terms of electronics other than a cheap guitar (a Les Paul knockoff with sawdust still in the drillhole for the cable connection) and a few stomp boxes but I enjoy some of my own software/hardware, digtal and analog synths and effects.

I wanted to discuss the Korg Wavedrum. It's latest re-incarnation is once again going in a direction that I think is a positive one for the electronic music industry.

I would like to quote Justin Owen @abstractjuz (Twitter) who said of the Wavedrum "It's an amazing electronic instrument on it's own merits - not a replacement for acoustic instruments".

While I suppose I was convincing some musical therapist in my tweets today who are inclined to acoustic drums that the Wavedrum can be a replacement for many drums, it can certainly be seen on its own merits, as an electronic instrument. Thank goodness the synth makers have finally come to the realization that a keyboard, pitch bend and mod wheel are not the only way to control sounds.

Now onto the Wavedrum itself. According to "Sound on Sound" in their excellent review of the Wavedrum, it uses analog, additive, non linear, PCM and physical modelling synthesis. In a sense the drum head is passive but not completely. Yes, it triggers sounds based on velocity and pressure but these are used as parameters. For example, the pressure of the drum head can be used to change the tone of the drum head and simulate the location of changing position on a real drum head. There is also a set of sensors on the rim to create other effects.

What is clear is that there a kind of tactile feedback loop between how the Wavedrum feels and how it sounds. Many claim that this is what is lacking in electronic instruments but I bet to differ on that position. I understand where it comes from but the truth is that most who hold this position have never worked with electronic instruments at least the more modern variety that have come on the market lately.

I also wanted to address a few comments made by @brandon_dnl (Twitter) that PCM is not only used to create transients but also the impulse from the head. This would contradict Justin Owen a bit if its true. How is the head being used? I am not sure and the articles that I have read don't explain it. I can understand this because they are probably protecting trade secrets but if the impulse is going to a DSP (which I presume is what is meant by non-linear) or physical model that used the actual impulse of the drum head as as the excitation source for the membrane of the drum head, then indeed, the drum head is more than a trigger.

I noticed that it will respond to different types of mallets, sticks, fingers, ect. without changing the model. This means there is some type of contact type mic and this is being used for the algorithms. The PCM sound make the sound more realistic when that is the intent.

So, I guess my question from all this is what is under the drum head? A pressure/velocity sensor or these plus a contact mic? I am not sure.

Bottom line is that I like the Wavedrum. I don't have one but perhaps one will be in my future. I heave gotten more into rhythms and sequences lately and having an instrument to trigger some exotic sounds as well as more traditional ethnic and western drum sounds would be something I would love to add to my sonic arsenal.

An Instrument by Any Other Name

2010-06-26T15:06:00.001-07:00

I have been discussing a lot lately with friends on Twitter what constitutes and instrument. When dealing with electronic instruments, this question if far from easy to answer and perhaps, as I would like to suggest, needs no answer at all.

Perhaps, what has always captivated audiences is the degree of expression that there is in an instrument. The symphony orchestra has a soloist, a great pianist or perhaps a violin player or another instrument. The rock band has the guitar hero who learns to play blazing solos. Or the blues man who has that certain tone that defines him or herself as a great musician. There are many much examples but what seems to be clear is that there is a kind of magic in playing a musical instrument.

What I would like to suggest is that that magic has to do with a feedback loop between the musicians senses (what he/she feels and sees) and what he/she hears. Musicians learn to play by muscle memory. The muscles in the body become accustomed to ever more refined movements and with a bit of inspiration, a kind of magic happens that we call musical expression.

But now we live in the age of electronics and something rather unique has happened. The instrument is now no longer fixed. A guitar for example, can only sound a certain way and respond a certain way. Sure, there are many techniques to get certain sounds but there is still a limited pallet, a guitar, by any other name, is still a guitar.

A synthesizer is by virtue of what it is, designed to be many things. It's universe of sounds is much greater. In the beginning, how to control a synthesizer was far from obvious. It was really Robert Moog that seemed to bring the keyboard into the forefront but others like Donald Buchla did not see the keyboard as the obvious choice of controllers. In time, the keyboard became the standard and for a long time, the keyboard, pitch bend wheel and mod wheel, with a few exceptions, dominated the world of synth controllers.

Lately however, new instruments and controllers have flooded the market. The Eigenharp, the Haken Continuum and now even Apples pride and joy, the I Pad and the new sensation Morphwiz with it's colorful screens and finger based pad control.

There are also tools like Tenori or even just layouts of knobs like those of the Minimoog and it's reincarnation the Moog Voyager that act as instrments themselves. While not all that tactile, the realtionshsips between sound and sight are joined in a unique say. On builds and feeds back on the other.

So this brings me to the question, what makes an instrument? "Feedback", is my response. That very same connection between what ones sees and feels and what one hears. Now, what one hears is greatly expanded. What one hears does not even have to be connected with the seeing and feeling. One can have a controller in one place and a computer program with a synthesizer in another. Or for that matter, as can be said of the Continuum, a set of analog circuits. So what's an instrument and what is not?

My answer is that they are all instruments. What works for a musician is a matter of taste. I for example like weighted keys because I like the way they feel. And it's not just a matter of how they feel but the connection between hearing the sound and feeling the key which is different for non weighted keys.

Bottom line, I see no real difference between controller and instrument. The controller can be separated or not but ultimately, if it makes a sound its an instrument. Sure, there are controllers that don't make sound but when combined with some type of sound generating source, they become and instrument. Now some ways of controlling and instrument are more expressive than others. What is more expressive is a matter of taste. Screens such as the I pad allow a direct visual feedback but only a weak tactile feedback. The Continuum offers more of a tactile feedback as do the wonderful keys on the Eigenharp which also offer the visual component of lighting up.

So I guess I never really answered the question because perhaps, an instrument by any other name is still an instrument and instruments these days are more like chameleons than lepers which can't change their spots.

What's Genre Got to Do With It

2010-06-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

I wanted to blog about this article by Ryan Howes Phd. As it goes, I am pretty easy going. In fact, I did one of these on-line evaluations of my twitter posts and it evaluated me as very positive and for the most part I am. However, two things irritate me the most. One is the current administration (I kind of like capitalism - I'm funny that way) and the other is when people try to create artificial groupings of people that don't really exist, in this particular case, musicians.

When I listen to an artist I tend not to think of them as part of any particular genre. In fact, much of what I listen to is hard to find in record stores because it defies genre and lately, I listen to a lot of stuff of the Internet from independent artists who define themselves my breaking traditional genres.

So when I read this:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-therapy/200908/music-genre-vs-theoretical-orientation

Well, let's just say that I was not happy. I would use another word but I like to keep my blog and twitter posts free of inappropriate language.

Heres a sunmary of the musical world according to Howes.

Top 40 - Popular (that is redundant by the way), effective, formulaic (yes, I agree with that), does not go to deep (again, agreed but is that a positive?)

Rock - apparently all rock involves loud guitars with amps cranked to 11. Really? All rock is also about sex, aggression and death. If that is not stereotypical then I don't know what is. Rock is a pretty broad category and much of it is very positive. Some of it is social commentary. Listen to Pink Floyd Animals. It's really a commentary on society. Dark, yes and while in some ways about death, that's not really its focus. There are many many more examples that dont' fit easy categories.

I think it would also be wise of parents to listen to some of the rock their children are listening to and talk about the lyrics. Sometimes, these lyrics are attractive because they identify with them. Telling them to not buy the music is one way to deal with it but being open and honest with children about the music they do listen to is an even better way.

Muzak - highly praised for being humanistic, positive and empathetic. To be honest, I hate Muzak. It's pretty much devoid of any musical integrity. Can it calm someone in a dentist or doctors office? Perhaps but there are other forms of music that can do this such as calm classical music that would have the same effect and be less, well, irritating and vapid. and the musical equaivalent to me of a root canal.

Classical - I draw a blank on this comment. Something about family therapy, the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts and apparently the ability of classical music to cause a dissociative mental state. I can't even make sense of the comments so I have nothing more to say on this category.

Techno - which the blogger calls neurofeedback. Apparently he thinks techo is good because while the musicians don't really know what they are doing it works by leveraging technology to create eclectic sounds. Hmm, to be honest I don't find techo all that eclectic. Like many genres it's pretty monkey see, monkey do but I also listen and love "Tangerine Dream". Are they techo? Who knows. I just find there music to be creative and honest which is what I am looking for in any of the music I listen to.

Punk - Accordng to the blog, it gets to the core issues, the raw animal fight or flight instinct. I could not figure out if he thought that was good or bad.

Emo - Anxiety, existentialism leading to some optimism or something like that.

Gangast rap - This one is really good. Apparently all about envy, breasts (yes breasts), death and hostility - ok, a bit off the mark but yes, that is the gansta life style so you could call this stereotyping but this is the one case I would have to agree for the most part.

Blues - You have to love this one. Blues are Jungian archetypes about loves gained and lost. OK, sure, to some extent if you want to stretch analogies to the breeaking point. Jung would be so please to know that a whole genre of music has been created based on his psychology.

Contemporary Christian Music - Spiritual ac coding to the blogger. Yes, but not nearly as sophisticated as something like Strauss "Death and Transfiguration" or much of Wagner's music of longing. I'm Catholic to the core but frankly, in my music I am looking for beauty and honesty. If I want to read the bible or theology then that's what I do. I do listen to sacred music. There are several good requim Masses that I like but they are transcendent and sublime works of classical music. They may even create that dissociative thing but I like to keep my sacred music of a high level. Equating God with top 40 well, it just doen't work for me.

My Response

OK, here is my response for what it's worth. From the time I have been a young child I have loved music. There was always music in my family. My mother played the piano, my grandmother sang Italian folk songs and I have expanded my musical experiences in various ways in my own music and what I have listened to live and otherwise. I have listened to great jazz in a bar in Newark NJ and Piink Floyd in Yankee Stadium. I guess I never really thought about genre that much. I know what I like and I also know the music I can create. If it's honest and positive it's all good but mind you, some of my music is dark. Like Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" my "Disturbance in the Clouds" in necessarily dark. My music expresses what is often inside me, fears, joy, transcendence, many, many things. I use electronics and computers to express it because they give me a wider pallet of sounds. If some can do this with a guitar or piano then the more power to them. I do with with a Moog (and a Korg) and a lot of software with dark and strange sounding names like Absynth and of course, the inevitable Moogerfoogers (I love my foogers)

I call my music experimental/ambient because I want to push boundaries. Sometimes that gives it a limited audience. I'm ok with that. I want to take the listener inside another world of sound and intentionally stir the emotions. In my "Disturbance in the Clouds" for example I use a siren and some reverb to intentionally stir up feelings of fear in the listener., Is my music about death? No, much of it is uplifting and light. I like bells and choral sounds and many things suggestive of something transcendent, even heaven (I am Catholic).

So where does my music fit in with Mr Howes psychoanalysis? I don't really know if it does and I doubt it fits any of the artists I follow because I choose them for the honesty and integrity of their music. They make music for the sake of music not to follow some formula so as to stay ont he surface, in the shallow water, where things don't go to deep.

Truth is, that much of music is a formula and it does not go to0 deep as Howes suggests of the top 40. If music is a meaningless noise in the background of life then I suppose that is ok. If it keeps patients calm in the office then I guess that is ok to. But if music can really take us somewhere, lead us into is mystery then I think I would prefer the other genres that are less of a formula and more of an art but then again, that's just me, a usually happy, sometimes angry, sometimes artistic musician/composer and Catholic trying to make music something more than a warm and pleasant buzzing on the surface of the mind.

Leaving the comfort of the box

2010-06-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

I think one of the reasons that I have gotten so interested in composing and playing experimental electronic music is that it gets outside the box. Music tends to be something we learn from others so it's only natural that we copy one another. Musical genres themselves are defined by copying. This is true also of classical music albiet in a much more complex way. It's simply a matter of how big the field is. Popular music is a small field and classical much larger. The genres and styles within each music field has to do with what gets copied and then repeated in thousands of songs. The more a particular style is copied, the more it becomes a genre.

When I grew up, the local bands I knew in high school all did cover songs some almost exclusively. They really did not try to get "outside the box". If it was good enough for the top 40 it was good enough for them. And you know what? That's ok. Music for most is something we put on in the car and a catchy tune, even it it copies the 1,000 other tunes that came before it, can still get our feet tapping. There is also a real art to working within the fence. Sometimes limitations can also force creativity in other ways.

However, for me I see music as this huge universe to explore. So when everyone else is grazing in the fences that are defined by genre, I try to get outside the fence, to explore undiscovered musical country.

One of the fences we build in music is to use certain chord progressions. There are many such as the 1, 4, 5 some others that I will not elaborate on but one way to get outside of them is to explore songs that don't use these progression and to understand how they do it. Copying one another is not a bad thing and many people have enjoyed many songs that never leave the safe musical confines of the home genre but some, like to go to outside and find their own genres.

Connnections

2010-06-04T05:05:00.001-07:00

I have to admit that after years of using synthesizers now, what I consider a good synth has changed considerably. I used to favor synths that had lots and lots of controls. For me, the more complex, the more menus, the better because I thought that more options would make for better sounds and better music. Naive I know but we all mature musically and otherwise over time.

Then I realized what was must enjoyable about playing music was that it was direct. You play a note and you get feedback right away. On the piano, all the keys are there in front of you. On a guitar, the harmonic relationships are not so obvious but you touch the string itself and in some sense have direct contact with the sound.

Lately, my quest for the perfect controller/'instrument has led me to some fascinating new developments in the musical world. The Tenori-on, Audio Cubes, the Haken Continuum and the Eigenharp all offer a more direct connection with the music. Even DAWs can do the same such as Ableton Live and the hardware controllers that are available for it.

In some sense, while I am sure the average person who knows nothing about a modular synth, would find it complicated to the extreme but I find it more direct than layers of menus. The circuit that is making the sound is right there in front of you behind the panel and the connections are made physically with patch cords. The parameters are not buried in menus but are also right there in front of you to be tweaked. This is what I think made the Minimoog sell so well and why I love my Moog Voyager (ok, it does have menus but you can also just use the knobs to get many of the sounds)

Sound can get amazingly complex with little effort. FM is an example as is PWM. Both of these are not complex technically but the results are astounding at times. Even something as simple as taking two oscillators and then detuning on can create a wonderful effect.

In the end, I think this is why, as some have pointed out to me, that I am moving towards getting a modular synth. Musically, I want to experiment, I want to be the mad musical scientist discovering new sounds by simply connecting cords and turning knobs. What I don't want to be is a computer scientist buried in computer menus.

Don't get me wrong, these have their place and at some point in time I also want to get MAX/MSP and Max for Live because it can do some interesting things. I also will not be abandoning my soft synth collection with its myriad of menus. However, it is the the world on sonic exploration that is a modular intrigues me at this time as do musical controllers.

Right now I'm cash strapped. But in time, I will find my way around to building a modular and finding new sonic landscapes just beneath the surface, not the menus.

On the Avant Guarde and Electronic Music

2010-05-16T07:07:00.001-07:00

I have about 1 hour before I begin my final push to begin vacation and I wanted to get this blog out because from time to time in my Twitter conversations I come across a topic that is worth posting here to the blog.

When I first got interested in synthesizers (and believe me, I love synthesizers!), I wantred to know where electronic music started, where its musical roots were. So I got this book which basically gave short essays on a number of avante guarde composers. I knew enough to believe that this was a good place to look for the musical roots of electronic music. I was right. I also had another great book (I don't have it here with me and can't recall the name or author) but it gave a beief but thorough history of synthesizers and their historical influence. What I found was that the early period of electronic music which really started with what was called "music concrete" (tape splicing, ect) was very closely tied with the musical avant guarde which was a certain branch, if yo will, of 20th century classical music. You can really follow electronic from Wagner alll the way to Karlheintz Stockhausen to provide a concrete example.

Composers such as John Cage, Karlheintz Stockhausen, Max Matthews, Oscar Sala, Pierre Shaeffer and many others came from this tradition.

One of the things that happened with synthesizers is that when Bob Moog made the Minimoog, electronic music became very accessible to popular music. Certainly the Melotron as well became to herald in a new age of electronic music and synthesizers when from the universities (probably because they were the only ones at first who could afford them) to the mainstream. Artists lke Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd (may God rest his soul) (just to name a few) made synthesizers more accessible to the public. I also should mention Walter Carlos (Switched on Bach) which has a huge influence on the popularization of electronic music.

Now don't get me wrong, this popular influence is not a bad thing. I love Pink Floyd for the music myself although I don't like the drug connection (I deeply hate drugs), it took electronic music in another direction which moved away from being more on the cutting edge to being subordinated in many ways to the needs of the record companies and there artists who saw synthesizers as a way to sell a lot of records. The early Moog modulars and the VCS3 (which did not even have a keyboard) began to trasnition into what today dominated the market with sample based workstations which would offer the musician anything from symphonic instruments to the cliched collection of hip hop rhythms and sounds that seem to be standard on every keyboard.

So, to make a very long story short, the early experimental stage of electronic music for which great names like Karlheintz Stockhausen played such a wonderful role in, became popularized and the history became forgotten. I personally would like to see a return to the avant guarde where music becomes something we experiment with pushing envelopes. I do believe that indie music and all the new tools that are out there now like the Eigenharp and the Tenori-on and so many others that I could mention might move electronic music back to it's experimental and creative roots and perhaps, musical workstations will not longer carry a cliched set of hip hop sounds (sorry, I know that is to much to hope for).

It's all Greek to Me

2010-05-13T05:44:00.001-07:00

The development of western scales (or for that matter the study of all scales western or eastern) is a fascinating topic. The study of tuning or temperament also is a very interesting subject. Probably the earliest scales that are known (although I don't know the exact historical facts in this regard) are the scales of the Greeks. The Greek culture had a great love for ratios be they in relation to the motion of planets or the sound of the Greek lyre. From the Greek scales or modes as they are called, the western scales developed and settled on only two modes (major and minor). Jazz music and other forms of music do make use of other modes and scales.

While there are also other scale temperaments which have a lot to do with ratios (a more complex topic than one might think), the western scale is now usually what is called equal tempered.

Here is a brief introduction to this complex topic:

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

The concept of equal temperament is that is not key dependent so each half tone step is equally distanced mathematically.

The concept of dividing scales equally I believe to be more of a product of a kind of scientific bias of the western mind than anything else probably derived from the quantization of all things introduced to western thought by Descartes. (sorry, my philosophical background is showing :))

Bottom line however and a question: Why do all instruments have to have equally spaced intervals? Truth is they don't and music is more about ratios than it is about the placement of notes. So when we speak about an instrument like the Eigenharp which has a flexible way of assigning notes to keys, different arrangements simply reflect different relationships. I guess in many ways I am not that tied to a western equal tempered bias or feel that all divisions have to be equal distance in terms of frequency.

Certainly, the Eigenharp has got people thinking in new ways as the Tenori-on has done for thinking about sequencing. What is clear is that the idea of a fixed way to play music is changing and as I have stated before, I think that's a good thing. Are there going to be pitfalls along the way? Sure, but those are the very stuff of good music because you never know where they will lead.

Performing, Composing and and Musical Tools

2010-05-12T03:04:00.000-07:00

I was not sure what to title this blog but I thought I would get off a quick blog this morning to comment on a quote of Mark Mosher:

"I'm simultaneously composing and arranging for live performance with various controllers."

While I know that Mark was simply commenting on his days activities, it struck me that music technology has brought us to a new word where the old paradigms simply don't work anymore. I think back to the movie Amadeus when Salieri asks Mozart's wife for his original transpripts of his music. Upon looking at them and realizing that they were without flaw with no corrections and changes, Salieri responds that he wants the originals upon which his wife explains that those are the originals on which in shock, Salieri drops them on the floor.

For Mozart, music was something that was all inside his head. Mozart could write a work for an entire orchestra by hearing it all in his head and when he wrote it down, there was no difference between the visual representation and the music that musicians would latter perform.

I can't do what Mozart did and I suspect most who write music can't. Composing is a process full or starts and stops, edits and mistakes that in time, make for what one would hope is a composition worth listening to.

But now we live in different times and the tools that musicians/composers have at their disposal today are far different than the harpsichords, musical instrument and quill and paper that were the tools of Mozart's musical trade.

Last night, I was perusing two books I recently purchased. One was on polyrhythms and the other on rhythmic illusions. I was thinking about how I was going to use these to create music on the Tenori-on. Now I am not a drummer nor have I had any great talent in creating complex rhythms but with the Tenori, the ability to see and hear at the same time, a complex rhythmic pattern had now become accessible. Even real time modification of this in a performance environment became possible.

I also think of how much Ableton Live has become talked about more than any other DAW. Part of the reason is in the very name "Live". Live provides and environment where much like Mark Mosher's work, composing and arranging blend into live performance.

Adriene Lake has also commented in one of her tweats how she had all these snipits of music flouting around in her head but not sure who composed them. Ableton's clips allow us to categorize these clips and modify them and arrange then in new ways.

For me, see musicians/composers living in a wonderful new world of music where the lines between composing, arranging and performing are being blurred but I see that as something positive not negative. Who knows what great music that musicians/composers/arrangers can make when they cross the streams and make way for a new music.

My New and Unorthodox Step Sequencer - The Tenori-on

2010-05-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

I just ordered a Tenori-on. For a long while, I have been wanting to round out the one thing that I really don't have, a step sequencer. Actually, I do in a sense. There is a simple one in the Korg M3 I have and KARMA can do a lot of sequencing but the problem is, I want to think a new way about my music.

The most enjoyable times I have had playing music have also been the times that I have played the best music. For example, for me to play a really good jazz solo over chord changes I have to spend a lot of time playing scales and cementing in my mind the chord changes for a song. But those times that I have played really good solos it was all natural. Once the foundation was laid the creative part became play which is what any pure creative act is.

When I first saw Tenori I thought of it as a toy and in many ways I still do but after years of using more complicated toys in music, I am not sure that the simplistic, visual and playful approach of Tenori is not exactly what the doctor ordered for my music.

One of the reasons I have never really learned Korg's KARMA is that reading the manual for it is like reading some sort of computer science journey. Sure, if you get to the 10th level of a series of menus you can probably make KARMA get up in the morning and make you morning coffee but its not elegant and its not playful. Tenori on the other hand is both.

Simple ideas often work best. Consider Beethoven's 5th. It's a theme on three notes, three notes! Think about that. Sure, I know, there is a lot more to it than that but the basic structure is three notes.

I love music but I find when music get's tedious for me it loses its flavor. I have longed since wanted to get into poly rhythms and add some sequences to my compositions. I don't want my music to get stale and I want to move it in new directions. Tenori is a way to do that.

Now I think Tenori is in many ways stage one. I hope Yamaha does not see it as a finished product but rather, the 1st installment on a way to think about music more visually.

So when I get my Tenori I am going to plug it right into my M3 and my Voyager. I also want to send Tenori MIDI messages into my MP201 and then control Moogerfoogers from this. The potential to get to some pretty sophisticated sequences that can change over time is tremendous.

So, I await to create new sonic gateways all by playing with a toy.

The Korg M3

2010-05-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to find a good title for this blog but I felt it best to make it simple, the Korg M3. For a few years now I have owned a Korg M3 and I suppose like buying most keyboards or even soft synths, one eventually moves bey0nd the initial excitement of having a new set of sounds to work with and begins to realize the strengths and weaknesses of an instrument. Perhaps, this is really the best time to write a review and not during the period of initial exploration.

First, I wanted to explain why I bought a Korg M3. Very simply, I got tired of soft synths crashing on me and all the little glitches in my recording when the CPU was not up to the task. At first, I was attracted to the Roland V-Synth which I still find to this day and interesting synth. I have even considered buying one but the truth is, the V-Synth is not really a workstation.

Then I found out about the Korg OASYS and I was very intersted but of course buying one would have bankrupted me. In the end I have probably spent about that much on other equipment and synths anyway but I don't regret not getting one. Korg promoted this synth as a sort of be all and end all of synths because it was in their words "expandable". The idea was that even if this synths did not do everything that you wanted (and it does a lot), it could be expanded with new synths that were going to be coming out all the time.

For a short while after its release it looked like this might be the case but then it was clear that what you saw was what you got. I knew that the M3 was not a lesser OASYS but I also knew that it was a notable synth in it's own right and KARMA (Korg Algorithmic Real time Musical Architecture) got me interested.

Now for those who may not know, KARMA is in the words of Stephen Kay, an appegiator on steroids. It's actually much more than this but many aspects of KARMA untested me. KARMA was not a fixed arranger but something that was supposed to work in a dynamic way with the musician.

Korg also offered an internal Radius which could be placed inside the Korg and accessed through the main menus which also untested me. The Radius being an Analogue emulation.

Now the Motiff had more to offer in a way. It has a digital interface for recording. The M3 has an expansion card but it has problems, big ones. It also had a better sequencer and probably a better set of sounds. Korg tended to favor more dance oriented music and had a bit of a flare for cheesy sounds.

On the positive side the M3 offered a touch screen controller, a strip controller and what I would have to say is a very sophisticated modulation mixer.

So balancing all things together I decided on the M3 over a Motiff.

Now that I have been using it for a while now what are my impressions. First, I have to confess that outside of using presets, I have not worked much with KARMA. KARMA is very complex. Unfortunately, the KARMA presets don't really work so well for me. I would not call them cheesy per say but they are not to my liking. I overlooked this because I saw myself programming my own but as I have said, this has not really happened at least yet. Some KARMA presets do tome really useful things like emulating a strummed guitar by using the strip. This actually works pretty well and with some practice, has some real potential. My point is that KARMA can be used effectively and many of the presets can be tweaked to be useful for a variety of applications. I am not done with KARMA yet, I just have to admit that at least at first its a bit daunting.

That being said, are the sound cheesy as one review I recently read said. No. I really can't say they are. There is a nice collection of samples of instrument sounds and drum kits that would give most musicians more than enough to work with.

On the side of effects the M3 comes with a very substantial set of quality effects and a pretty sophisticated on board routing system. There is also an audio in which works well for a side chain input for the vocoder effect and also can be used to make the M3 into a very sophisticated effects processor (which you can controller using the full set of the M3s controllers). It also has not one but two axillary stereo outs (4 outs to be technical) which can be used to create complex setups with other equipment.

What I like about the M3 is how you can layer sounds and that I learned to do reasonably quickly. Some of the sounds are also very beautiful. I like many of the string and voice sounds myself so characterizing the M3 as a collection of cheesy sounds is unfair. The M3s filters are, well, not what they could be cut I find its real strength is in laying and modulation as well as realtime control.

The M3 is a master at modulation and this is where it really excels and in my option far beyond the Motiff. First, you have not a mod wheel but a joystick. The joystick can also be frozen using two utility buttons so that it remains in one position. There is a ribbon controller right below that, the XY touch pad, beyond being an easy way to program is also an XY controller. There are also a set of 8 sliders and buttons to control many things in real time. When you play something on the M3 it will record everything that you do and play it back. While the sequencer is not that powerful, you can always to this with an external DAW. The M3 is more oriented toward recording you performance.

The M3 also a sophisticated modulation mixer beyond probably anything in the market. The M3 is a powerhouse at modulation. You can modulate just about any setting and you can mix modulation sources in several ways. Sliders are great ways of setting up various performance parameters and then using them in real time in performance which the M3 will record.

That's a simple assessment of the M3 after using it for a few years and yes, while I have been fair to point out what is weak about it, I also have pointed out why its still in my mind a really powerful workstation. In my mind, any musician that can't make some great music with it is just not taking advantage of what it can do.

What Is That?

2010-05-06T03:32:00.000-07:00

I was just looking at Ableton's new Operator which allows you to draw your own waveforms. This seems like an interesting idea but I can tell you that in my own experience with additive synths, this idea while satisfying perhaps to the geeky side of music is not necessarily an avenue to making good music.

I must admit that when I first started making music with synthesizers, the more controls I had the better and when I bought my first additive synthesizer, well, the idea of being able to actually draw partials made the geek in me get excited. Absynth also let me draw waveforms. I was in Geek heaven at least for a time.

So now, many years latter now, I have a Moog Voyager and I get much more exited about patching a control voltage than I do drawing waveforms. Why? I will get to it.

But let me also point out that the idea of drawing waveforms is nothing new. The "Synclavier" and "Fairlight" come to mind. In fact, I remember a friend of mind working with a "Synclavier" at RPI. He took me over there one day and pulled up a file called metal. You could see the waveform but the thing sounded like crap at least to me.

My point is that being able to see what you hear is not always the best way to make music. Neither waveforms or partials hold any great sway for me anymore because I can't make a real connection between what I see and what I hear. Funny thing is, I can on my plain old subtractive analogue the Voyager which is why I suspect the original Minimoog did not well and I suspect Bob Moog understood this. I have listened to his interviews which are pretty enlightening. He speaks of their needing to be a connection between musician and instruments. I guess I can't just connect to waveforms anymore, perhaps the geek is me is asleep.

Anyway, before everyone goes crazy with Operators new concept of making the old new again, perhaps they should study the past and find a way to avoid pitfalls in the future.

Crossing the Steams

2010-05-05T05:18:00.001-07:00

I wanted to briefly explain what I mean when I speak in my blog of crossing the steams. I myself am the product of many different intellectual streams. I am in many ways, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, theologian, musician and composer. My music reflects a deep belief that in music is expressed a certain perfection, although only in shadow, of the perfection of God. Music is a highly spiritual thing to me. That might sound surprising considering that I am an electronic artist but my use of electronics and software is merely to get to places that traditional instruments can't get me.

I believe that each of us shares in the creative power of God when we create ourselves be it music or art, literature or any other creative endeavor. Creating is something sacred and good. It can be corrupted by certain things and all created works are only at various levels of perfection but they do reflect in us the desire to achieve something new which moves beyond the fray of ordinary human activities.

Music is also recreation. Music is play. As we get older, we lose some of the imagination that we once had a a child. But music can open us up again to imagination. It is to this imagination that I try to speak to in my music. I believe that our experience of music is very much influenced by our memories of things and even memories that are part of our cultural heritage or even ones that are archetypal, universal in nature. I have often said, music play us more than we play it. How music effects us can't be reduced to a scientific formula. This is one of my objections to surrealism and totally algorithmic based composition. Once the heart can speak to the heart not a computer program.

Music is also healing. Sometimes music becomes therapy, it expressed deep fears and anxieties and the release of those. It lets us express our faith, our hopes, our dreams in a way that mere words cannot. It is transformative. In creating we recreate ourselves., transform ourselves, explore ourselves. This is why I am interested in music therapy. Using music to heal people is a very good idea. Music has powerful restorative powers and can do thngs that medicine and even ordinary therapy cannot.

So that's a short expression of how I see music. Music crosses many streams because it speaks to the universal human condition. It speaks to the perfection of the music of the spheres, the ratios of pure harmony but it also speaks of our longing for God, our desire to experience beauty and yes, the many human emotions that flood or days from fear to hope and even beyond.

I guess that's all for now. I know this is different than most of my posts but from time to time I like to take a new direction and see where it leads.

Why has analogue synthesis returned

2010-05-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

One has to wonder in an age where so much can be done with computers, why some, including myself, would be fascinated by analog circuits which not offer nearly the degree of flexibility of their digital counterparts or do they.

On of the problems, I believe, with a soft synth or a hard synth (digital) is that they fit the sonic world into a pre-concieved notion. If you want to use them for music you have to either use a limited number of presets or perhaps tweak them a bit or enter into their world. Every digital synth and soft synth is a pre-conceived world. I am not saying its a bad one but its limited because in a sense, its a sonic world that is already built and you are just adding onto it.

We call this programming but from having done programing myself, I find this a misleading word. In real programming you are building a world from the ground up. In a the world of digital and soft synths, you are just setting parameters, not really programming.

Now with modulars and DIY and other analog components, the world is more open. You are free to create from the ground up and make something totally new. It's also true that much of synthesis today is sample based subtractive synthesis. But what are we subtracting from? A sculpture takes a raw block of marble and chisels it to create art but a sound designer using digital/software based synthesis, is taking something already in raw form and simply finishing it. Samples don't lend themselves to bold sonic explorations, they are already there.

Rather than taking a finished product, a sample, I am much more untested in taking simpler components of simple waveforms and then filtering them and combining them in news ways to create something dynamic and something that no one has heard before. It seems to me that synthesis was supposed to open up new worlds but digital synthesis has closed those worlds buried under layers of programming. Perhaps analog synthesis can free the minds of musicians to explore new territory again. I hope so.

Buchla's Vision Alive Again

2010-04-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

When synthesizers first started to be used in a more commercial way outside the hallowed halls of universities that had thousands to invest in expensive synthesizers like Buchla's, the controller of choice for a synthesizer was not obvious at all. Robert Moog, in trying to make his technology more accessible, adopted the keyboard, pitch bend, mod wheel model that has dominated the market for many years now. This model was very effectively immortalized in the Minimoog.

Buchla, however, did not. If you go to the Buchla web site you will not even find a keyboard for the 200e but rather the "Multidimensional Kinesthetic Input Port" which if you read the description on Buchla's web site if pretty fascinating:

http://www.buchla.com/series200e.html

Lately, there has been an explosion of alternative controllers such as the Haken Continuum, the Eigenharp, the French Connection (a remake of one of the earliest controllers, the Ondes Martenot) and odd little circuit boards like the Bug Brand Weavel.

There is also the Korg Kaos Pad, the touch panel of Korg's M3 workstation and Roland's D-Beam and time trip pad for the V-Synth and yes, the pad on the Minimoog Voyager.

I could go on but my purpose here is not to catalogue all these devices but rather to suggest that perhaps, after a long period of keyboard, pitch bend and mod wheel combo is dying out. IMHO that's a very good thing. I am a big fan of Robert Moog but I also think that Buchla as well, had much to contribute to synthesisis. I think that electronic musical instruments can effectively combine east and west coast and bring us new ways to make music which is what it is all about.

The Pico and Buyers Remorse

2010-04-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

For years, yes, years now, I have been searching for a controller worthy of really being called an instrument. In many ways I am a guitar player at heart but I started using keyboards more because they were a way to play the sounds in all of my soft synths. Nothing as of yet seems to even come close to the expressiveness of a simple string.

However, a few controllers have peaked my interest lately, those are the Eigenharp and the Haken Continuum. Both where expensive to say the least and really put them outside of the range that even in my most insane days would even consider buying.

Then they both came out with cheaper versions. The Continuum with a half width version (still very very expensive but within reach) and the Eigenharp coming out with the Pico and now Tau version of very expensive alpha. Why the alpha does not have 6 rows of strings do duplicate the guitar fingering is a mystery to me.

Now the Continuum really caught my ear and first and in many ways still does. But I thought that for the low cost of the Pico, I would at least try it out. At worst, I have a quirky little controller that I can use on some tracks, at best, I have an introduction to a promising new type of controller that I can use perhaps on many tracks.

My first investigation was to look at videos. OK, I know this is not a perfect way to test drive anything but the Pico is a British instrument and there are no resellers nearby me. I could probably find a live demo somewhere but I thought that if I sampled videos that I would find good and bad but the best of them would give me an idea of what this thing could do.

Now realize that I try not to be overly critical on this blog and frankly, my music will probably never win any awards or sell a lot of tracks but I hope that in time I improve but let me just say that these videos are some of the worst I have ever seen and I have to wonder why anyone would want to put themselves out there putting this kind of pure unadulterated..., well, I will refrain from saying any more. Some of them are really really bad. Eigenharp needs to get a handle on this or the vids of the customers are going to reduce sales not increase them.

A few exceptions that are worth noting:

These guys really impress me. Clearly they are making the most out of their alphas. OK, not Picos but very impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Laq2788EE&NR=1

This one is also very good especially for bond fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcVqJh0qEMc&feature=related

So yes, bottom line there are so decent vids out there although nothing seems to come close the expressiveness of the Continuum seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKky73-9yOU

Although granted, its not apples to apples, the other vidoes are not using a Buchla 200e but I would love to see a serious classical work played on the Eigenharp.

I still have my serious doubts about how expressive it is because most of the videos, even the ones I posted, while they show that the Eigenharp can be used to play some good music I don't see anything all that expressive. If someone wants to refute that and send me a link I would be happy to listen to it and reverse my statement. And yet, I do want to see what I can do with it.

The lack of documentation surprises me and while someone claimed to me that if Eigenharp put a manual out there I would not really understand it because of the nature of the instrument and that I would just have to play one to understand. Well, I understood the manual to my Moog Voyager just fine before I bought one and in many ways, I saw more depth to the instrument by reading the manual so I have to believe that the manual would perhaps make me not want to buy one. I even had some feeback from the buy that wrote the manual on the Moog board. So I'm just saying, this explanation for why there is no manual does not work for me. I am open to hearing better ones.

I was also told that Eigenharp is working on a CV interface. Great to hear but I have heard these kinds of promises before and seen nothing. Remmber how expandable the V-Synth was going to be. Years latter and nothing. I know that the Continuum has a CV interface (a really sophisticated one) and there are some great examples out there on the Continuum website. I can use this inerface directly with my Voyager which I find very useful and frankly, its a big selling point of the Continuum for me and vaporware, be it eigenware or not, does not impress me. Show me the CVs and I will be more impressed.

I also want to comment on the whole issue of the built it scales and the sequencing. OK, "cool" as the young ones say but not that "cool" because frankly, software can do all these things and much better right? And what is being done is not rocket science. Some softsynths have the ability to have multiple scales. Absynth for one comes to my mind. For sequencing, numerology seems pretty powerful. Or am I just not "cool" and missing something?

So this stuff, while "cool" seems to be more window dressing to me. Then again, I did not vote for Obama (sorry, just had to get that one in).

So why did I buy an instrument that I am not that impressed with it. Well, the sensitivity of the controller has got me interested for real and I dont' think its window dressing. It works apparently in two directions and based on pressure all independent for each key although how this is translated into synth parameters is not clear to me or into MIDI for that matter. I have been told that the real power of this instrument is in the built in synths. OK, but a manual would at least show me that to some extent.

I would also like to know if the X and Y motions control separate parameters and if there is velocity and after touch (based on key pressure). It appears so but I am much more interested in how to translate these into parameters.

So I guess the bottom line is that I am intrigued enough to make a sizable investment in a Pico and we will see where things go from there but I will post my evaluation here. Apparently my Pico went out in the mail today (I presume from England and hopefully free of Volcanic interference) and we shall see what happens from there. I will keep you posted.

Mirror Instruments in Our Brains

2010-04-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, I became aware of some skills on the piano I did not know that I had. I was able to play very rapid arpeggios. At first, I did not know where these new found skills came from and then I realized that my left hand had developed those skills in playing a guitar. So, in a sense, there was a model of my finger motions in my brain that I was accessing and adapting to another instrument, the keyboard.

One might really say that many skills in music are developed by repetition for the purpose of developing models of real world instruments and musical patterns such as scales in our brains or what recent researchers have called, mirror neurons. I have certainly found that in being a musician, that playing music well is not a matter of thinking about scales but to let those scales become almost subconscious so that one is not thinking about the scale as much as using the scale as an entire model that can be then integrated into a larger whole (i..e the music that is being played). This is especially true in improvised music like jazz.

Music is also culturally conditioned at least to some extent and much like language, the common threads that run though different types of music define its genre and become a kind of musical meta language but one that is far more flexibly than is language.

I am also amazed at how we tend to follow one another in music. The desire we have for a catchy jingle seems to extend beyond the commercials and into our music. I was amazed at how Beyonce's "Single Lady" became so much of a hit when it is really little more than a jingle but it must be because the catchy and extremely simple little series of tunes seems to get stuck in our brains as mirror neurons. Apparently, referring these neurons is pleasant to us (or some - I am not a big Beyonce fan).

As I have said many times, even our keyboards become repositories of sampled sounds. We don't realize how influenced we are by certain types of beets. The person who goes to clubs every night becomes almost drawn to the dance beat with an almost Pavlovian type of response because somewhere in their brains this has been imprinted.

Now many, and some that have argued with great gusto with me about this, advocate the jingle. To them, the jingle is the summit of good music. I beg to differ. Good music does not take us where we have been firing up those musical pathways that have now developed well worn ruts, but music that takes us somewhere unexpected, into the musical frontier.

One great example is Penderecki's Polish Requiem. When I first listened to it I was rattled. It seemed harsh, chaotic, disturbing but as I listened more closely I heard something really really beautiful. I was transported into Penderecki's musical universe and there were so many beautiful sonic vistas there to explore. No well worn jingles there but something dynamic, something that stirred my emotions and evoked many images in my head. This, it seems to me, is an example of good music.

So I guess in many ways, I am not so much interested in mirror neurons but how to keep them changing to that the mirror becomes a tapestry of sound.

Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

2010-04-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

There is little doubt that the musical industry tends to enjoy a life style that is often connected with the use of drugs. A friend once asked me if I could quote examples of where people believed that drugs increased there musical performance. While there is not blatant statement in the lyrics of many bands to take drugs, certainly there is an encouragement to do to in lyrics. This was much more true in the 60s but still persists today to some extent.

Examples from the 60s are:

Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit"

Jim Morrison "The End"

Jimi Hendrix - "Are You Experienced?"

While there are no blatant statements which encourage drugs use in these songs they are certainly inviting the listener into the world of acid induced trips expressed in their music. In this sense, they are implying that there trips opened their music up in new expressive ways.

One of the things I have always loved about music is how it can take us to another world which is why I listen to and compose music that is more ambient and experimental. I try in my own music to create a world for the listener built from music and I even read a lot of material to try to find ways to use the minds own triggers to evoke emotions and images in music. So in a sense, through music I am trying to invite the listener to explore other worlds.

However, I in no way advocate the use of drugs or alcohol. Do I take a drink from time to time? Sure but overall, I just see drugs and alcohol as a way to screw up lives. I have a lot of experience with this not personally but in my work with other people. Drugs take people into a personal hell. I am sorry if this strong language offends people but its from my own experiences with seeing the aftermath of drugs. The destruction of families, jobs and yes, life itself. Drugs can leave people disabled mentally and physically all for the rest of their lives with no way to escape. I once heard someone commening on a Steely Dan song about chasing the dragon reflecting that it was a good name for it, because it was chasing the dragon into hell.

So if there is a way to take people on a trip musically into other worlds and not hurt them in any way, why use drugs? Why risk the destruction that they can bring to our lives? Life is a good and beautiful gift so be shared. There are so many ways that we can make this world a better place and to create things with our minds. Why induce mental illness in them with drugs? Sorry if I don't get it but I don't. I just don't get why anyone wants to risk screwing up there lives for a few hours of pleasure that mean absolutely nothing. Get high on music and life, not drugs.

This ends my pontification on drugs but beleive me, it's very heartfelt.

I Phone I Pads and Mutated Lemurs

2010-04-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

I would seem in the world of music today there are many many ways to control things and all are completing for the market. Lately, everyone seems obsessed with controlled things with their phone, specifically, their I-Phone. I hate to disappoint my readers who are fans of the legendary I-Phone and now its descendant, the I Pad but frankly, I don't need to do music on my phone.

Let me explain a bit. I have a limited home studio (although its not going to be that limited when I have upgraded it a bit) but it works for me. Two keyboards and effects (to simplify - a lot). But the truth is, I have no desire to control any of it with my phone. I have a Blackberry which works for what I use it for, as a combo phone and day planner as well as an Internet source when I can't get to a computer. Bottom line, it is the right tool to use for well, a phone and isn't that what it is?

Now the I Pad whom thousands neigh millions have wanted to spend every last drop of their dwindling cash supply on is sleek to be sure but its a bigger I-Pad combined with Kindle like book reading technology right? OK, a neat toy but would one use it for music. Perhaps.

But consider the Jazz Mutant Lemur. Well, it has tools itself from which other tools can be built and its designed for sound and many people are trying to bring Live, MAX/MSP and the Lemur together. If you don't believe me Google or You Tube these words together. Interesting and innovative stuff. A bit beyond I-Phone mania and electrtronic toy lust. Although granted I do have gear lust but not so much for phones turned controllers.

For music, my bet is on the Lemur. The I-Phone and yes, even the coveted I-Pad are toys. Sophisticated toys but toys. What one has to ask is what provides the most flexibility and expandability for the future. That is the Lemur in my book but it's just me, I suppose if you are looking to find and app to get you to your kitchen sink, theirs an app for that somewhere.

Now as a controller, the Lemur has its limitations. Its not tactile except for a touch screen and depending on the application, I would favor the continuum but for those who are buying Ableton controllers or other such gadgets, the Lemur does the trick IMHO.

The Digitization of Music

2010-04-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

There has been much discussion in the musical world lately of analog vs. digital. A recall a recent issue of "Sound on Sound" magazine highlighted the virtual explosion of modular synthesizers out there. Moog Music has also had great success in making analog guitar pedals called Moogerfoogers, a remake of the Minimoog (The Voyager), a theremin, a remake of the Taurus bass pedals and the "Little Phatty" not to mention the Moog guitar.

Now there are those who would argue that analog just sounds better. I would agree with that to some extent although I am not a purist. To me music is about, well, music. I use the tools that I have to create the music I want to create. If that means that I use a combination of analog and digital gear and yes, even a the dreaded computer, then that is what I am going to do.

Take computers, ok, they have a tendency to crash and in a live environment that can create a nightmare. I do my music creation in a home studio but if I played live gigs I think I would have a reluctance to use a computer. My latest setup (in progress) is to distribute a lot of sounds and some processing across keyboards and gear. In this way the CPU load can be kept low but yes, a Macbook Pro will have a place in my studio.

On the positive side of computers, lets face it, they have a lot more power than analog gear. I have recently been looking for a sequencer for example. Numerology beats anything analog out there by leaps and bounds. There are a variety of analog step sequencers out there but why use them? With MIDI (or MIDI to CV) its possible to do everything an analogue sequencer would do. Now some might say that they like the knobs and I get that, I really do but products like the Lemur allow a more tactile feel to controlling synths.

Now if you consider sound, that is another ballpark entirely. Granted, you can sample anything from frogs to Melotrons. Without getting into the argument about sampling rates/ect., sure, lets face it, samples sound pretty close the the real thing. The problem is that there are an almost infinite variety of settings for an analog synth. Samples can only represent a small (abliet select) portion of those sounds. I also think analog emulations, while solving the problems of a limited number of sounds, are not the real thing. Yes, there is a difference in the sound. I really like the way my Moog Voyager and my Moogerfoogers sound. I would not have spent a whole lot of money on them if I did not think there was something almost magical about the sound, something almost living. So sure, any computer/digitally based representation of analog is going to fall short.

The digital world also lacks CVs. Here is where I think analog has it all over digital. Sure, there are products like Native Instruments Reaktor that can provide modular connectivity but CVs are much more flexible and they operate at the speed of light. My foogers also can't crash. I am sure that as computers become faster, something like CVs could be introduced into the digital world but at the moment, analog beats digital hands down.

So there you have it. OK, so I am not a purist. Here is my take on the whole argument. If you are talking about sequencing/triggers/gates/ect., why not use computers. There is no difference other than the computer can crash in a live environment. Certainly in the studio, computers can be very effective for this. For sounds, it really depends on what you are looking for. If I want complex, layered instrumental sounds, I would go with my Korg M3 but for raw analog fat goodness, I want my Voyager and foogers. For experimentation with CVs, well, thats something as I said, digital just can't touch analog on.

I think its frankly silly to let music suffer to be a purist. Computers and digital gear have their place. I don't see one being better than the other just different and we live in a wonderful time when we can have both and join them together to make great music.

Music Notation and the Death of Classical Music

2010-04-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

I once contacted some music conservatories to try to find some solid reading material from which to learn music theory outside of actually going back to school. Apart from some good books on harmony, the response from one professor struck me. He explained that in most of his classes they studied the musical score. So, for example, if you want to know how Bach composed, study his scores. Simple enough if one wants to study classical music before the 20th century (and some after) but as one moves into the realm of the early avant guarde and early electronic music, notation fails rather miserably.

The reason that I mention the avant guarde is that I have found do some considerable personal study and interest, that the root of early electronic music are traceable to the avant guarde which can even be traced back to early 20th century music such as Stravinsky or Debussy or back early to Wagner and some others. In other words, there is a more or less unbroken progression as there is for most classical music. Composers draw from other composers. How? Back to that conversation I had with the music professor, by studying their scores.

Now the problem with electronic music is that pop bands soon discovered synthesizers that went from the universities (who where the only people who could afford some of them - especially the early digital ones) to bands. Band like "Pink Floyd", "The Who" and many others soon discovered these marvelous little instruments that could make new sounds in many different ways. So when the first audiences heard a saw wave or better yet, a few playing together slightly detained, well, you had some instant sucess. Although few would take a full Moog Modular on stage save Keith Emerson, the compact gems such as the Minimoog soon made music accessible to the masses which was really the dream of Robert Moog (well done).

During this time of pop experimentation into electronica as it became coined, classical music lost its way. I personally blame it on serialism which for my tastes, sounds like crap, but many the endless experiments, serial or not, left classical music in a fog. Some wanted to be old school or neo classical and others ventured into otherwise unexplored musical territory but the one thing that was lacking, notation or perhaps vision or both.

Now the young pop crowd did not really care all that much. Have guitar and a modest Marshal head and speakers and even the most plain teen could find a garage band and hope to emulate their guitar heroes. Eventually, it even became a game. Must stuff degenerated in my mind. The bluesly delta blues rooted hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin became heavy metal. Have overwound pickups and a high gain amp and you did not have to play all that well (turn up the gain and all those mistakes disappear in a haze of distoration) as long the the ears of your listeners were bleeding after they heard you. Some of those who were interested in synthesizers gravitated to DJ tricks, scratch and then Hip Hop. Some, sadly following those like Klaus Schulze took something interesting and turned it into techno.

Make a long story short, the lemmings followed one another by pied piper record producers and mass produced a few genres of music that more or less sounded the same within the genre. Creativity in my mind did not die but went on life support. Urban creativity in sampling music became hip hop which linked itself with the dark underbelly of gangs and city life even to the destruction and death of some of their the most popular. Techno became the mindless drone of the lost youth of Europe and well, the story just gets worse. The youth loved the dance music as their bodies driven by brains made mad by designer drugs found a new path to dull their brains and soothe their angst.

So why have I lead you to this dessert of music? One reason and one reason only. Notation my friends, notation! In order for music to progress, you have to have something to look at. Go and transpose a Beyonce tune. It's like a serial tone row without any variation, stuck in an endless musical loop from hell but who cares right, you can dance to it. What notation allows us to do is draw from others but only those techniques that we want to use. Notation allows us to talk about what is good and what is bad. Simply saying that we can dance to it and it sounds good, while appealing to the anti-intellectual zombies of our time, does little to truely advance music.

It is my hope that one day, electronic music can go back to its roots. If you read Paul Stump's "Digital Gothic" about the roots of "Tangerine Dream" you might find that "Tangerine Dreams" true roots have much more to do with classical music than the psychedelia per say although there were those influences as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Gothic-Critical-Discography-Tangerine/dp/0946719187

Read this book for example and you might find the name Ligeti to name one of many. Now there is not way to transcribe much of the artistry of this band or others like them but I do feel that they were more on the right track then others because while they may have been tempted to follow the stream of pop oriented lemming taking their earning from their vanilla dance albums right to the bank, this band had some integrity.

Perhaps, if we can find a way to get some of the techniques used in good electronic music on paper, it will re-merge with the classical tradition it came from and electronic music can move forward. Perhaps new ways of making notations will lead to new hardware and who knows where things go from there. Perhaps.

For the record. I am anti drug. Very very anti drug. Perhaps you may find this suprising from someone who likes, plays and composes electronic music but the truth is that I find some intergrity in some of the better forms of electronic music. For now, I can only hope the electronica rejoins classic music where I believe it has its rightfull place and where it belongs. It remains only a dream for me in the dessert of copy cat mediocrity and danceable serial tone rows stuck in neutral. But I can dream can't I?

Teaching Children Subtractive Synthesis

2010-03-31T16:42:00.001-07:00

As anyone who reads my blog knows, I am an avid fan of synthesizers.. I suppose that when I was new to the field, I was more impressed by the further reaches of the realms of synthesis such as additive synthesis which held a certain fascination for me because I understood the mathematics and it made music fit into a neat mathematical realm where music in some sense became a giant equation.

Now, some years latter, my belief about synthesis has changed and I believe that music plays us more than we play music. I have had a recent fascination with music therapy and those doctors and others who write about how the brain processes music. I am also ware of my own abilities as a musician and composer and how I got there as well as how music plays me, how I am influenced by all types of music from rock, Celtic, jazz and classical.

What I have realized over the years is how near music is to us. This latest blog is actually an attempt encourage therapists to buy their families at least a rudimentary analog synthesizer. Now that I think about it, a Doepfer Dark Energy might be nice or a micro Korg:

http://www.doepfer.de/Dark_Energy_e.htm - Dark Engery

http://www.korg.com/Product.aspx?pd=128 - MicroKorg

The Dark Energy is better for teaching subtractive synthesis in depth but the MicroKorg teaching music. With the Dark Energy you would also need a MIDI controller of some sort.

Kids are wonderfully open to ideas. When we get older we develop significant filters over time but childhood is a great time of discovery. Kids love to play X-Box and games like Guitar Hero but I thought about it and why not, why not teach children analog synthesis or even learn it together as a family. I also think that analog synthesis (and digital) have a lot to offer the music therapy world but I am still working on convincing others to look outside their box (the filters I am speaking of).

But I do believe that music is very near to us and in fact, infants learn subtractive synthesis from an early age and indeed, music. From 30 weeks a fetus can hear. And what does a fetus hear, the beating of the mothers heart around 70 beats a minute. When the mother is at rest, the fetus hears an adagio tempo. Isn't it interesting that 40 bpm is "grave" which in Latin can mean sick which certainly corresponds to the rate of the human heart which would be nearly dead at 40 bpm. I digress but the child before even leaving the womb experiences an LFO, a low frequency pulse.

After the baby is born at about 9 weeks it becomes aware (and delighted I might add) with the world of sound around it. Is it any wonder that those like Pauline Oliveros, a composer, would also be interested in what she coined "deep listening" which is in a sense an attempt to return to our very early childhood and remember the wonder of the sounds we first heard.

First, the child coos and becomes aware of it's vocal chords (let's call it the oscillator). The the begins to use filters. baby phrases like "da da" and "ma ma" are simple exercises in using filters. Then he consonants are used (the white noise generator). The child also begins to form full words by shaping the sounds (envelope).

OK, I could go on here but I think I have made my point. A child at a very early age learns subtractive synthesis. We don't remember how we learned language, in those early formative stages, but we do learn to use the synthesizer that is the human voice. In fact, the child uses the same techniques of feedback that are used in many ways by a musician called muscle memory. Learning to connect movements of the muscles with musical phrases. Children learn music much easier at a younger age (and language as well) because their filter cutoff in their brain is high. The are open to the many connections and discoveries that are part of the process of making music.

So, my hypothesis? That the human person at any stage, understand subtractive synthesis which interestingly enough remains the most common form of synthesis in synthesizers today.

So, to my music therapist friends with kids (or not). Buy a synthesizer. You can get some cheap ones (well, for little more than video game maching and a few games) and you can introduce your children and yourselves to a wonderful musical world of notes and sounds.

Why I am just not that into modulars

2010-03-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Its funny for as long as I have contemplated getting a modular that I have not bought one. I have all the foogers (with the exception of the MURFs - I have the MIDI MURF - my latest purchase of a fooger - don't see the need to buy the others). OK, sure, if I got myself a bunch of modules and a cabinet I could spend hours happily connecting modules and sure, it would be fun but the truth is that I am a musician and composer at heart. Some of my most happy musician moments are sitting down at an upright piano (not mine) and playing or playing my guitars.

I have always agreed with Robert Moog that music is about the musician connecting with the instrument. I guess I am less into technically complicated instruments now and more into connecting to the instrument I am playing. For this reason, I see my studio not as a studio, a bunch of collected parts, but a whole. With the money I just spent on a "Switchblade" matrix router and a MOTU 828, I could have bought a nice modular but the reason I did this (and the reason I bought am MP 201 pedal from Moog) is that I want to integrate my equipment. I want it to be easy to get to the sound rather than rejoicing over technical specs. I have changed in this light.

So what does the Switchblade do? It lets my program all the complicated cable connections between synths and then just hit a foot pedal (I can do this the the MP-201) to change patches or the mix/crossfade/ect. I want a setup that is like that of a large pipe organ with everything either in front of me or at my feet. It also like Live because its organic. It works with the musician rather than trying to fit the musician into a mixer paradigm of creating a musician work.

I also don't see any clear dividing line between composition, performance and recording. I get an idea and then I try to make it happen and ultimately create a recording. How I get there is part of the creative process.

Dropping the ball

2010-03-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

OK, I got on a Twitter rant this morning and I have to finish it but to save my Twitter followers a twitter storm, I will use a blog. Why is it that companies come up with great ideas and then drop the ball.

Example.

Korg OASYS

The whole idea of this flagship (Korg's word) synth is to create a platform that will remain state of the art by supplying a line of new synths for the future. Where are they Korg? I love this idea and frankly, an expandable hard synth is a great idea but Korg clearly lost interest in this one.

Roland V-Synth

I think everyone has forgetten this but when the V-synth came out there was a promise of more V Cards beyond the D50 and vocal processor right? Again, the idea being expandability. Then, they just integrated these into the two synths in one idea and dropped the ball.

Yamaha

Another company that has offered expansion cards but for only part of their line. FM is still a useful form of synthesis but Yamaha has not built on it.

VirSyn

Making a additive soft synth was a great idea. Now don't' get me wrong, I have gone from being a fan of additive synthesis to a skeptic but I don't think this need be a dead issue. But VirSyn dropped the ball at Cube 2 being on the cutting edge and now makes ho hum effect plug ins. sad but I guess that is what sells.

Native Instruments

I have become a bigger fan on this company over the years because for the most part, with the exception of the B4 and "Spectral Delay" (big mistake), Native Instrument continues to develop there soft synths.

I am sure there are others but my point is, why come up with a great idea and then not develop it but this pattern seems to happen again and again. I have provided examples here but there are more.

Anyway, just had to let that rant finish for anyone who wants to listen.

Thanks for reading.

Pychomantiums, Music and Music Therapy

2010-03-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading "Musicophilia", a fascinating book on music and the brain. It is interesting that this book discusses how the innate appeal of music to most people seems to defy both the notion that all human traits can be traced back to an evolutionary purpose. Music of couse can't help us to survive so it would seem to fall outside the Darwinian framework which so often in the realm of scientism, seems to claim to be a univesal explaination for all that is alive and indeed, all that is human.

Recent studies on where music comes from in the brain also seems to refute this in that music does not come from one single part of the brain and in fact, is both a right and left brained activity.

What we do know about music if we speak outside of the scientific realm, is that it seems to speak to our soul, to what is most human in us. Not a biological collection of evolved functions but what is human. It speaks to hour hope, our fears, our dreams, our anger and perhaps at times, our nightmares as well. Music in effect acts as a mirror on our soul. As I have said many times, we don't play music it plays us.

So what interests me, and why I sometimes frequent music therapy web sites, is that they seem to be attune to the healing aspects of music but also its strong psychological effects, negative and positive. What I am interested in is if there are universal Jungian type archetypes of sound? R Murray Schafer speaks about this in his "The Tuning of the World". Consider for example the power of the sound of the bell in many cultures. Is there anything universal about these sounds?

And if so, then where does this put the synthesizer. Before it, we were limited to fixed instrument sounds but now, the possibilities are greatly expanded. We can produced sounds that nobody has heard before.

So the synthesizer can in a sense act as a psychomantium to illicit emotional responses in us before not possible or so it might seem. What I am interested in doing is trying to learn the hidden language of the mind so as to use a synthesizer as a tool to speak that very language.

The Changing Face of Musical Controllers

2010-02-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

I once suggested in a post of a board that current controllers for musical expression on synthesizers and other electronic instruments have been woefully lacking. I also suggested that musical controllers had been held back by the pitch bend and mod wheels. To my suprise, on shortsighted response was that these have been good enough for a long time and product developers should just stay he course. I recently posted the important and sometimes negative effects of paradigms. There are many in music and I have posted on some of these before. But the pitch bend and mod wheels seemed to have dominate all keyboards.

A recent innovation that I really like is the Hakem Continuum. It was a good product before but expensive which is why I passed over it despite my interest in it. But two recent changes in the product line and the software itself have got me interested again. The change in the product line is the offering of a half keyboard size controller. Probably about the size of a Voyager keyboard. The price is now around $2,000 US which brings it more in range for me. The other innovation, which makes me want to have one even more, is the upgrade to the firmware which includes several physical models and apparently uses part of the KYMA engine technology.

Another aspect of the product that I really like is the ability to interface the product with control voltages polyphonically. Combine this with a modular synthesizer or moogerfoogers and you have a very powerful combination. Some of the samples of this product using the Moog Voyager are fantastic. Hearing the Voyager sounding like a violin with realistic vibrato is a delight.

What impresses me with the Continuum is that it seems to have the feel of a real instrument. All instrumental expression involves a kind of feedback loop with the brain. Let me give you a practical example. I play keyboard in part, because I want to have access to the universe of hardware and software synths. However, I played guitar long before keyboards except for a brief two year period as a child. Two of the tricks I learned on guitar are tapping notes with the right hand to create arpeggios and using my thumb to slightly mute a note and create a harmonic. I learned how to do both from practicing over and over again and soon, I began to effectively use them without having to think about technique.

One day I was playing the piano and I stared to play an arpeggio which I did really rapidly. I never could do that before and then I realized that my fingers learned to do that on a guitar and did not know the difference between a guitar and a keyboard.

In both cases, I learned techniques by feeling and listening and the feedback loop, repeated enough times, created a type of image in the brain, what I believe neurologists call mirror neurons. Which is why I have an interest in neurology and music therapy as well as psychology. All come into play in music.

I also learned to use vibrato on the guitar and use it with most of my sustained notes. At some point I must have consciously thought about it but now, its just part of a an expressive feel that is now programmed into my brain.

Now on a keyboard, vibrato has been chained to use of the mod wheel (again, old paradigms). Now ok, this can sound decent and I have to admit that the Articulative Phrase Synthsesis or the Roland V-Synth is a step forward, but still, that neurological feedback loop is not there because pushing a mod wheel just does not feel all that musical (or at least for a guitar player).

Now, with a Continuum, you can create vibrato very naturally and with the use of physical models as well, the effect is fantastic and makes the Continuum something more like a real physical instrument but the with the huge difference of having a universe of sounds available.

So it would certainly seem that the dry paradigm of the pitch bend and mod wheel is slowly being transformed by innovative products. I only hope that the trend continues.

Prosody and Music

2010-02-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

Some may wonder who follow me on Twitter why I re-tweet posts from music therapists like Kimberly Moore and others who study the brain. The simple truth is that I am convinced that to speak about music is to talk about how our brain interprets the music it hears. In a sense, if a tree falls in the forest it really doesn't make a sound. It will vibrate air molecules but in order for sound to be heard, it must be perceived by our minds and this is especially true of music. Music also has a great deal to do with the language processing of our brains. Not exclusively (studies have shown this) but in part.

Prosody is a study of the rhythm, stress and intonation of speech. If you have ever read Trevor Wishearts work:

http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/

You will see that much of what he does is using concepts of linguistics (i.e. of language). In language, meaning is conveyed not only by the basic building blocks called "phonemes" but also the intonation, inflection of speach which when you think about it in terms of synthesis, is really just the pitch bend wheel when applying these principles to music.

Certainly genres like the blues have made extensive but specific use of note bending to create a certain feel to blues. One example that convinced me of the important of inflection was when I wanted to create music with a Celtic sound. I actually used a Middle Eastern instrument but bend the notes upward which is a technique often used in Celtic music. Surprisingly, one comment on that song was that it sounded Celtic. Yes, it was intended to but what is surprising is that it had nothing to do with the notes but the way I bent the pitch.

Getting back to the brain, this has a lot to do with how mirror neurons. The brain mirrors what it thinks of as Celtic by hearing pitch. Perhaps, this is because the brain is also hard wired for this in terms of language.

This characteristic of how notes are perceived in terms of there intonation can be heard especially well in the AP-Synthesis of the Roland V-Synth which can take sounds that are not all that close in timbre sound like another instrument by basically borrowing that instruments pitch phrasing, a simply but powerful idea. If I am leaving something about about AP Synthesis, I leave those who know more to comment here.

So that all on this for now but I just wanted to blog about this while the idea of fresh in my mind.

NAMM 2010 - Whatever happened to physical modelling?

2010-01-30T04:32:00.000-08:00

Of all the more modern techniques of synthesis that I have seen, it's physical modelling that I feel holds the most promise for futher development. Not physical modelling of analogue synthesizers which I am not that crazy about, but physical modelling of instruments. Of all the synth makers out there, its Yamaha that has been the greatest advocate of physical modelling with Korg following with the Korg OASYS (although no new physical models have come out of the OASYS. On the software side we have Applied Acoustic Systems with Tasman and String Studio and an analogue modeller. Native Instruments Reaktor also has some physical modelling synthesizers.

I guess the reason that you don't see a lot of physical modelling synthesizers is that they take a lot of work and complex mathematics. The benefit is that you have a natural sounding and responding instrument that can be changed as easy as turning a knob which in some ways, is like having a whole warehouse full of instruments from more traditional sounds to other exotic sounds.

Of course, the actual feel of the instrument itself is lost. Controllers are getting better but I think we are a long way from a controller that is as expressive as the real thing. Controllers like the Eigenharp, while a good start, don't impress me as they are little more than MIDI triggering devices. Eigenharp does not even support OSC. ON the percussive side, the Korg Wavedrum seems to do a little better and for violins, the K-Bow is also an improvement.

So at NAMM 2010 we find the CP series of keyboards. I like these and if I had a lot of money and space I would get one. Clearly, there is some degree of physical modelliing going on here but how much is sampled and how much is modelled is not clear. Nice, but not really groundbreaking.

Korg also has the wavedrum which for percussion is clearly a step in the right direction considering this this drum responds differently depending on if you use brushes, sticks, mallets, ect.

But a quick look at the physical modelling offerings at winter NAMM 2010 clearly shows a reluctance on the part of developers to develop physical modelling synths soft or hard beyond what is already out there last year or beyond that.

NAMM 2010 - Where's the Beef - Part I

2010-01-29T05:23:00.000-08:00

I hate to be negative about things musical, but I have to say that I was expecting a bit more innovation out of NAMM 2010.

First, let's take a look back at past NAMMs and promises made and not kept:

The Roland V-Synth

This synth has caught my eye many times and I must admit, that at times I have thought about expanding my already cluttered collection of synths to included at least the rack mount version. But let's look at NAMM. Roland releases the Roland VP-7. The VP-7 looks like a nice little box and it was somewhat attractive to me but let's face it, Roland is repackaging their vocodor technology along with the vocal side of the V-Synth. And let's no forget that that side of the V-Synth was a card and that more of those cards were going to come and expand the V-Synth. Hmm, those seemed to be strangely missing from NAMM.

One of the reasons that I liked the V-Synth was that it was expandable. That and the phrasing technology and the time trip pad where alll nice innovations. That and some old COSM technology made this a nice package with a lot to offer but the expandability was key and that, seems to have gone by the wayside.

Dave Smith

More repackaging. Following along the footsteps of other mini synths, the Morpho now has a keyboard. OK, nice to have if one is looking for a synth on a budget but can you really call this new technology?

Korg

How the mighty flagships have fallen. OK, Korg introduced some new stuff most notably a better Kaossilator (lest anyone forget, still old technology) and the Wavedrum (old technology returned). What was missing where new upgrades to the expandable (?) flagship synth, the OASYS. To thing that I though of investing huge $s in this synth hoping that it would be a do it all synth that would continue to expand. I thought better and got myself a real analogue synth (the Moog Voyager) and foogers and have a system that is almost modular and real (no emulators for me). For FM I have the FM8 (digital technology anyway so why get a hardware synth for this) and I am hoping the Applied Acoustic Systems might come out with some new physical modellers. Granted, at the movement the OASYS is better for this but of course I have never played one.

More latter. I have to go make the donuts but part II will follow.

Prosidy, Music, Pitch and Language

2010-01-28T05:25:00.000-08:00

I know that I blog a lot about Tangerine Dream but one of the reasons that I listen to them so much is to pick on on their techniques. There are many I could mention but the one that fascinates me is there use of pitch to create often complex phrasing of individual notes. One of the writers who I also have learned a great deal from is Treavor Wishheart sho speaks of the relationship of music and speech. Change in pitch or intonation is used much in speech. In English and many western languages it is used to express additional information not necessary contained in the words themselves. In eastern languages, it is part of the meaning of individual words which is often what makes it difficult for a westerner to learn languages such as Mandarin.

But musical phrasing using variation in pitch is also significant in music. As a guitarist I often will bend notes and use vibrato. However, more recently, in the music of bands like Tangerine Dream, I have found that the fluid movement of pitch within a phrase can add much to an electronic composition. One of the unfortunate consequences of musical notation is that it has relegated phrasing of pitch within the confines of musical style. While this is not entirely true because certainly there are certain elements within the notational system to alert the musician to phrase passages or individual notes a certain way, it is a limited system.

Many 20th century composers have expanded on notational systems and invented their own. Karlheintz Stockhasen certainly comes to mind for me but there are many others. I also can think of Olivier Messiaen who took the phrasing of birds and try to express them in rapid phrasing expressed in individual notes and in fact, transcribed if you will the songs of many birds.

However, I often wonder what benefit might be derived from actually recording the actual variation in pitch and using these to phrase other sounds. In some ways, this is what the Roland V-Synth does which I always thought was a nice idea and could be used more. Morton Subotnick also did with with ghost tracks as he called them.

It also seems to be that the use of analogue synthesizers to explore the realm of phrasing of pitch is largely unexplored territory. Using control voltages rather than MIDI CCs creates a far more robust environment not subject to the limitations of finicky CPUs.

Anyway, just a few thoughts on this to perhaps spur further conversation.

Psychomantiums

2010-01-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

I recently listened to Tangerine Dream's Zeit for about the 10th time. I like Tangerine Dream but this album is unique and, I also believe it to be by far their best. For some reason, when I listened to this album, it brought back a strong stream on consciousness. The slow evolving drones and other worldly sounds that seems to come from out of some otherworldly sonic landscape made me think of the word pscyhomanteum. This word is a very powerful archetype of sorts celebrated in many cultures, in literature, in movies. It is the other side of the mirror, the flip side and also perhaps, a reflection of our subconscious brought out of the effective use of mirrors or as I will suggest in perhaps a series of blogs, sound and music.

A brief introduction can be found on wiki but no doubt a quick google search will yield a plethora of interesting sites on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychomanteum

One site I found has a drone. I believe there is a strong connection here. For example, Tibetan bowls are a form of sonic psychomanteum inducing meditative states. Many cultures use rhythms and drones to create a mirror image world of the world we live in and perhaps, a landscape to explore the inner world.

The psychomanteum is found in places you might not expect it such as Tolkien's middle earth as Gadreil reveals to froto who might occur should he fail his mission. Even the bible speaks of it:

"In front of the throne was something that resembled a sea of glass like crystal. " - Rev 4:6

There is much spoken of it in Greek mythology and literature.

Modern psychology will often use a mirror in a dark room.

Anyway, I thought the idea was worth exploring musically to see connection between the psychomateum and music. More to come so stay tuned...

False Expectations - The Problem with Surround Sound

2010-01-13T16:28:00.000-08:00

This blog is NOT plagiarized but I must admit that another blog inspired me to write it. I can't even remember which one it is but much thanks to inspiring this tirade against to many speakers.

Lately, there have been an explosion of surround systems and production programs that produce surround sound recordings. Beyond that, there have been musical exhibits that utilize several speakers and in fact, this practice goes back to those like Alvin Lucier in the early days of electronic music. While interesting, ultimately the artist has to get his sound to the listener. So the relevant question, perhaps the most relevant of all if, where is the listener.

Now perhaps some see their listeners in front of great surround systems distracted by nothing and sitting down to a night of critical listening. I am a musician/composer and I listen to most of my music on the stereo system that came with my car. To be honest, a great Bach Fugue or even great Tangerine Dream music sounds pretty good on at least a decent system. Now I don't use an MP3 player, yes I know I am backward, but how many people listen to music while jogging or on the job somewhere? So sure, you can compose a work to be played on the most high tech system in the world with speakers hanging from the rafters but that is not what the listener has.

So sure, surround is interesting but for me, I will stick with stereo, its worked for decades now and while spoil a good thing.

A Brief History of Sound - Analogue Vs. Digital

2010-01-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

A while back I ordered several vactrols from an electronics company. Many may not know what these are but those familiar with the synthesizers of Buchla will probably recognize the name. Another name for them is optocoupler. Simply, vactrols are and LED combined with a photocell encased in a shell so that no light gets in from the outside. The practical reason for these is to isolate a higher voltage circuit from a lower one. The musical reason is that vactrols sing. That is, they tend to chirp when used to control filters and have a rather distinctive sound.

I used to be fascinated by waveforms because I fell into what I call the fourier trap and believed that all sound is represented by fourier series. If you don't know what this is don't worry. It's a staple of additive synthesis but it defines static waveforms. Truth is, sound is dynamic. When we hear and instrument, much of what we really identify with is the attack transient, the first part of a note. Some might thing of a vactrol as only a switch, LED on/LED off but it's that period of less than a second that makes all the difference.

Stephen Hawking made physics popular with his "A Brief History of Time". In many ways, Road's "Microsound" does this for sound. We realize, the importance of the attack transient. Analogue synthesizers lend themselves to using this transient by controlling sound with voltages. Voltage is well, electrons which are very very quick to say the least. Simply put, this means that analogue circuits respond quickly and can create all sorts of interesting transients. This is often done with pitch. Think of how musicians as well use variations of pitch in the early transient of a note to add expression.

Digital electronics have trouble with transients at times because they require CPU cycles where analogue circuits don't. Until we have much faster programs, I think this is where analogue circuits have distinctive advantage and when we are speaking of a brief history of sound, analogue is king.

Boxes for Synths

2010-01-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

For a long time now I have been looking at a box for my plug ins (either NeKo or Receptor). I think there might be a few others out there but those are the only ones that have caught my eye. The reason is that I have experienced many problems with my plug ins crashing. Granted, I am using an old machine that I probably should have retired a while ago but moving lots of software and reinstalling is not something I am anxious to do.

Receptor for a while looked good to me but the fact that you need to have special programs to install plug ins and not all plug ins are available made this a somewhat less than attractive option. I like the Receptor concept but the practical limitations make me a bit reluctant.

Then there is NeKo. Looks state of the art but again, practical matters make me reluctant. First, NeKo has a deficient audio interface. This really surprised me. Sure, you can integrate it with a Pro Tools interface but for the price, I would want at least an 8x8 like MOTU offers on some of its interfaces.

Second, its not portable. If I want to move it from place to place (and I do), it's not that great an option.

That brings me to a 3rd option. a Power Mac with a MOTU interface and Logic. OK, not state of the art in many ways but it would work for me. I need something to integrate my soft and hardware synths and this would do it.

So sometimes, old technology works better.

Music Fields Latest Obessesion with Toys

2010-01-10T06:36:00.000-08:00

I have to tell you that lately, I have a new pet peeve that is really driving me nuts. Every day it seems like a new I-Phone app comes out that does something with music. There are also a lot of gadgets that while they have some musical value, are certainly not going to be part of the routine tools of a musician/composer. Sure, some albums have used all sorts of odd instruments, and at times, these can be effective, but lately, the adds for the I-Phone apps present these as serious instruments.

One that even caught my eye lately is the Tenori. An expensive little toy that is just that, a toy. I was interested enough that I printed and read the manual but when I did this, I found that while the idea of a visually based sequencer is certainly interesting and may in fact be the basis for some serious musical tools, this one still seemed lacking in the musical end. It seemed more based on the desires of "Guitar Hero" fans than serious musicians even though the platform itself was broad enough to provide musical tools that would make it a much better product.

So there is my pet peeve of the day. Less toys, more music and an app that allows me to block news about the latest musical app.

Trance and Tangerine Dream

2009-12-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

To anyone who reads my posts, its not secret that I like Tangerine Dream and for that matter, Klaus Shulze. I also have to admit however, that it took me a while to decide to buy a Tangerine Dream album because when on my first listen, I heard a sequencer, I was turned off. It reminded me to much of the mindless dance music that I hear. OK, I know that is harsh and I have no problem with people writting music so people can dance. I think its a great thing but I am not sure that even dance music fans hold it up as high art. Not that Tangerine Dream is either but clearly, much more thought it put into their music.

So trying to be open minded, something that I admit is musically a problem for me at times, I listened to some trance. What I found was that most songs began pretty well and reflected some talent with a synthesizer but then soon introduced the same thump thump beat that dominated most dance music. It reminds me of a horrible idea "hooked on classics" years ago that took classical music and put a dance beat behind it, hideous!

I found myself wondering if these artists just got away from the dance beat what they might do because to be honest, what they are doing is not that different than the sequencer tracks on Tangerine Dream of Klaus Shulze albums. I myself am even thinking about venturing into more rhythmic music but I will surely not use the cliched dance beat.

Just picked of a Moog MIDI MuRF. A fascinating beast. With a few sequencers from the Radius inside my Korg M3, I night be able to create some interesting sequencers. At an MP 201 pedal and lots of room for Tangerine style evolution. Perhaps if I write something I like I can just add a cliched dance thump thump drum track out there and try to market it. Then again, perhaps not.

Sound and Sight

2009-12-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

I would seem to me, that in the world of synthesis, there is a strong connection between sound and sight. First, many of the synthesizers that have done very well are visually pleasing. The Minimoog and it's latter incarnation in the Voyager for example, allows the music an to clearly connect the abstract idea of a synthesizer patch to the visual cues of knobs. While not effecting function, I have to admit that even for myself, I like the wood of of a Voyager or Moogerfooger and the back lighting (mine is blue).

Synths that have not done as well are the Yamaha CS-80. Sure, Vangelis liked it not nearly as many were sold because in my mind, it was a cluttered layout and identifying what each control did, was not natural or easy. I have the softsynth version but have never liked it all that much. Interestingly enough, Alesis has somewhat repeated this in the Andromeda. Complexity does not always make for great music.

If the eye sees to much, it gets confused and it effects the unity of the music and the musician. The two work together.

So when I saw this little toy they callthe Tenori with it's myriad of flashing lights that remind one more of a video game than a musical instrument or sequencer, I was intrigued. I saw the bouncing ball mode (as I will call it, see the web site and you will know what I am talking about) and I thought right away, polyrhythms. What a great way to represent polyrhythms, balls bouncing up and down at different lengths.

I think what the Tenori does really well is allow the musician to see music moving in time, but it lacks the stuff of a serious instrument. It's sound set makes it seem like an arcade game and a toy. It has a weak set of effects as well and while able to use different scales, I did not see anything that made scales more visually pleasing. There are some hexagonal controllers that I think are fantastic for that. To bad no one could find a way to combine the temporal aspects of the tenori with the tonal/scalar aspects of hexagonal controllers.

Bottom line, $1000 for a toy is beyond my extravagance level. I have been on the market for a step sequencer but this is not it. The Orb also does not work for me because while the circular design is a nice gimmick, I see it as only that. A rather weak step sequencer with a gimmick. Genoqs makes some nice stuff and has some really power but its visually hidden and costly to boot, even more than the Tenori (by multiples). Plus, you need a computer for it and for me, this is a downside. I like self contained units.

In the end, I like the idea of Tenori but I find it's execution a bit weak and as I have alluded to, toy like. However, I think the direction that Tenori is going in, the idea of combining sound and sight is a good one and as I have said, has a long history of sauces.

I hope to see more from this company when they decide to make musical instruments and not toys. Not to be harsh, but that is calling it as I see it.

Tis the Season

2009-12-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well, all the leaves seem to have fallen from the trees and narrowly avoided a major snow storm here which ended up as rain. Winter is such a dreary time of year and this time of the year with Christmas soon approaching is also a bit stressful. It is also the season for bashing Christians who apparently have now become responsible for all the woes of the world. Well, it's either us or George Bush, take you pick. I frankly blame the polar bears for everything including global warming for breathing to much, or is that humans, I forgot. I'll send Al and E-Mail. After all, he invented the Internet.

Politics aside, I do hope to spread a bit of Christmas joy this year and say Merry Christmas to as many people as I can.

So let it be said:

Merry Christmas!

There, it's done and now the PC police can come to get me.

On the musical front I am taking some time and considerable financial investment to take my hardware and turn it into a single powerful instrument. I need lots of cable, a few new gadgets (Switchbland and Moog MP 201) and time. The MP 201 is arriving tomorrow and I am back to my pseudo studio on Monday and Tuesday so I am hoping to start programming it with some presets I can use.

With the exception of using a patchbay, I am hoping to automate almost ever thing so at the hit of a footpedal, all my audio will re routed and MIDI routed. I will call this a meta preset of sorts.

I am also looking down the road at either a Macbook Pro or a Neko. There is a small Neko that I like and it might fit well with the studio. I might leave open some outs on the switchblade to be routed to an interface for the Mac and hopefully, be able to integrate MMC for use with the Korg M3 sequencer and Ableton Live. If I can add my plugins, I will have a very powerful studio and be able to hopefully start making a lot more music using both hardware and software.

Anyway, that's the plan. Whatever your personal faith, I do wish everyone a Merry Christmas and yes, I know that it's not PC but It's something good that I want to share and is that a bad thing? Well, I won't be checking with the ACLU on that one, they and all the PC nazis out there get coal in their stalking this year.

So once again, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Timbre Productions

2009-12-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to introduce my small band of readers to a friend,

While we have not met, Allen and I have know each others for years now across the vast reaches of cyberspace and our love for sound, music, Absynth and a strange little additive synthesizer called Cube both of which Allen and I don't use much anymore although we both continue to love Absynth. I myself have the proud title of "Ex-Member" on the Cube web site which is a story for another day and to fully appreciate it a very long one although some of my posts here may have alluded to it.

Here is his web site:

http://timbreproductions.com/

I warn you that both Allen's music and for that matter mine is experimental so it's not going to sound like Beyonce if that is the type of thing that you like. Although I suspect that those who follow this blog probably don't but you never know:

You might also read or join the Absynth Group. It's a group I have posted to for years and is a rarely lively group including product developers and sound designers and some colorful characters. It fades in and out from time to time but if you listen closely enough you can pick up some interesting ideas even if you don't own Absynth:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/absynth-users/

Why not join, its free.

If you read the latest posts you will find what I think is some interesting dialogue between me and Allen in "Questions, Questions".

On Klause Schultz Timewind and Electronic Music

2009-12-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

I just recently listened to "Timewind" by Klaus Schultz.

http://www.amazon.com/Timewind-Klaus-Schulze/dp/B000JMJUJ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1259797953&sr=1-1

My first comments are simply this, in a word, outstanding.

This is a fine work of what I would call real "electronic music". I make that distinction because almost all music these days use some sort of keyboard. Those of you who may have read my other posts might now that my first experience of listening to electronic music was with Morton Subotnick's "Sidewinder" which I still consider to this day an excellent electronic musical work and reminiscent of the early electronic works of those like Karheintz Stockhausen and so many others that defined a unique period of experimentation. Many did not understand early electronic music and I synthesizer makers like Moog moved in from the experimental side and made it more accessible with instruments the the Mini Moog and the plethora of other synth makers that blossomed at this time. Electronic instruments like the Melotron and the the Minimoog and the later Prophet 5 defined an era of synthesizers moving from the experimental labs of universities that blended music, science and technology to the popular song playing on the radio.

So I lament the fact that if I go to a record store these days or even peruse the categories of Amazon for music, I find it difficult to find what category to look for the music that I know I like but has fallen beyond the boundaries that are definable in the world of pop music for perhaps the
most simple reason that its not pop music.

In my listening of his music, I don't see Schultz and the few others like him fit the pop designation, or in his latter work, the techno or trance designation. I find it amusing that some call him the father of techno. I have read interviews where its very clear that Shultze is his own man and he is not trying to fit his music into a genre or for that matter create one of his own. I find much of his music and that of Tangerine Dream gems in what is often a trash heap of music designed for mass consumption.

Music has always been defined in the past by instruments which by virtue of how they were played had limited scope. What amazes me is that with the advent of instrument with so much incredible potential, they end up being little more than a high tech hurdy gurdy or player piano. I listen to Shultze and I hear sounds that fascinate me. I find myself wondering, wow, how did he get that sound. That is what electronic music should be. In the same way, I have watched videos of emerging artists like Tara Busch using Moogerfoogers like instrument and again, I find myself interested in the way she is using them. This is what electronic music should be not music that sounds like it comes from a cookie cutter approach and cookie cutter sounds and techniques.

It's why when I hear anything with a thump, thump, thump in the background I almost immediately discount it. For people who like this, why buy records. Just get a drum machine and you can make you own .

Technology and Music

2009-11-21T06:52:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is lately but every time I see a video of some new technology that is touted as the next revolution in music, I find myself shaking my head. It would seem that these videos are dominated by those more interested in cool technology than music. Ultimately, music technology has to be about music and not technology. Each artist must decide what tools they need to produce their art. Even banging two rocks together can be done in a musical way and while I would not suggest that people create a new genre of music doing this (although it might be better than h... ...), my bad, I would suggest that music technology can also make some terrible music.

I recently watched a video demo of Buchla's lightening with some idiot looking more like he was being attacked by a killer fly than a musican and the music, if that is what one wants to call it, reflects that. You would think that Buchla would want to make a great video that demos their product in a positive way but the one video I saw, although not from Buchla, was absolutely horrible and probably some tech Geek more impressed by the technology and not very interested in the music.

I also point the finger at myself here. I wonder how much time I dedicate to technology and how much to improving my music of knowledge and my ability to play an instrument. Sadly, the technology that can be so desirable can also be a trap and a hindrance to developing musically.

I hope I can avoid this trap more in the future than I have at times in the past.

Adriane Lakes's "Morning Glow" - A Breath of Fresh Air

2009-11-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to write a review of Adriane Lake's "Morning Glow" for a while now. I have been listening to a lot of Tangerine Dream for the last several weeks with a little Pink Floyd thrown in and this album was a refreshing and welcome change on the lighter side of synthesis. I write experimental music so listening to "Morning Glow" was a bit of a gear change for me but I think trying to expand one's musical horizons is always a good thing and I like to support artists like Adriane who clearly are not just playing follow the leader and making an album that sounds like everything else. This copy cat mentality fostered by record companies is a disease that has plagued much of commercial music.

I found "Morning Glow" to have a light, fresh and at times whimsical style that I found refreshing and yet, at the same time, I found musical and technical elements that are well worth commenting on. Adriane's voice is also light, clear and pure but also full of expression.

"Morning Glow" is an interesting mix of synthesizers and vocals. I was impressed by the bass lines although as I will comment on some of the songs I would have used something more like a fretless bass. The last song "The Fullness of Life" showcases a bit of Adriane's synthesizer talents but I would like to see her explore her experimental/ambient side a bit more. OK, that's my bias, I admit that but my recommendation to her is to sit down one night with some headphones and Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" and see how to produce music without drum tracks. At times I found the drum tracks a bit to prominent and at times redundant from song to song. Perhaps more variation and different types of percussive instruments might work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PypklfMnhw

Here is a review of the individual songs:

So Beautiful

I liked this song. It's simple but very pleasant. It made me smile and that is always a good thing in life so thanks to Adriane for that. I also noticed a great deal of variation in the rhythm track along with background vocals and synths which was a nice tapestry of sounds that stand in somewhat stark contrast to the mechanized tracks of a lot of pop music I hear these days.

Jacques Cousteau

I don't think I can say I have heard an accordion being mixed with synthesizers before. It clearly makes this album unique but also illustrates nicely Adriane's lack of fear of being different and of trying new sounds and combinations of instruments.

Perhaps, a shuti box:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PntCqkOiHZI&feature=related

Who Are the People in My Life

I really like this song from the perspective of the melody. Adriane's vocals also shine on this song. It reminded me a bit of "Swing Out Sister" for some reason. I would love to hear Adriane experiment with jazz or perhaps a jazz standard. It might be a way to expand into something different.

Lost Umbrellas

I hear Adriane's clear background in classical music on this track combined with a quirky rhythm track. I would love to hear more of it on other tracks. However, this is also a track in which I found the rhythm track a bit to prominent in the mix. Perhaps moving the slider down a bit and adding some reverb to the piano might soften the mix a bit. It would make the song a bit darker but again, add some variation to the overall style of the album.

Only a Fantasy

The bass here is really interesting. A fretless bass would work great here. Adriane's sense of bass is different and unique and certainly adds a very personal stamp to all of the songs on this album.

Cadillac Cat

This is certainly one of the more whimsical of the songs but I really like the rhythm and bass lines here. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. A fretless bass might work well with this song.

This reminded me a bit of Joni Mitchell and Jaco Pastorius playing "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TetvChCYkrI

Seven Again

This song is nice but it would be helped by some change in instrumentation. I would back of the rhythm track on this one as well. The piano might sound better if it where more bell like or almost toy piano like (i..e. the title).

Just for some ideas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bea3eTKN3nA

Blanket of Love

This song also has a nice bass lines. There is also some nice harmony on this song. The pads here are also very nice.

The Fullness of Life

I was impressed by Adriane's synthesizers here. This song clearly showcases her more ambient side. Come over to the ambient side Adriane.

Concluding Remarks

Adriane is a promising artist with an ingredient that is much needed in today's pop music, integrity. I don't sense that Adriane is trying to sound like anyone else and that's great to hear. I would love to see further development and expansion on her rhythm tracks although certainly "Cadillac Cat" and even "So Beautiful" showcase Adriane's capacity to use some interesting syncopation's. As I also stated here elsewhere, I would love to hear more from the synthesizers on the side of experimentation.

Thanks to Adriane for a very enjoyable listening experience and many wishes for a bright recording future.

Going to Extremes

2009-11-04T05:20:00.000-08:00

I sometimes wonder if making life easy is always a good thing. I have to admit that while I purchased not one but two hardware synthesizers and a whole host of software synths on the desire to program them, I have sadly not done much programming and have looked to presets to give me an easy way to get the right sound. Technology is a wonderful thing but I sometimes wonder that is musical ease has made us lazy.

I find myself wondering if anyone in this century or the past has produced works as great as Bach's or Mozart's or other great composers. I suspect not but I also believe that it was the limitations imposed on these composers that made them great. Bach may not have had the instruments that I do today. Consider the harpsichord which does not even have the dynamics of a piano but for which Bach wrote many works. Such composers put everything they had into the notes themselves and finding cleaver and innovative ways to create something new within those limitations. Even the genre of their time was more limiting than the wide open spaces that define music today yet I would suggest that these limitations did not limit but enhanced creativity.

In the same way I look to the electronic composers of the past such as Karlheintz Stockhausen who did not have modern synthesizers, but perhaps did more to further the development of electronic music than any modern artist with 21st century tools. Stockhausen though more about sound because my having to work hard to discover various aspects of sound he spent more time listening and finding new ways within the confines of his technology which today we would find very limiting.

Music should always be about exploring new territory. All to often technology has trapped us in narrow boxes because it helps the commercial music machine to crank out album after album and consider how much more prolific were Bach and Mozart for example then many artists today.

So am I going to throw out my synthesizers today and get a good piano or guitar? No, and I already have access to a good piano and I have a good electric guitar but I do think that I perhaps need to spend more time thinking about the subtleties of my music rather simply relying on the technology to do my work. I admit that I am often musicaly lazy finding a certain preset "good enough" without trying to explore and refine a sound. So I guess I rededicate myself to respecting the music of the past and perhaps realizing that despite our marvelous tools, there is something to be said for working with less and not more (and this comes from a gear adict hopefull reformed).

Fitting in with the Crowd

2009-10-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has read my blogs probably knows that I am a big Tangerine Dream fan or at least of late. I am also a fan of Pink Floyd but after listening to a substantial sampling of their music and also time spam, I can see a distinctive pattern in both, the desire to fit in with the crowd. It's always an adventure in a record store to find Tangerine Dream that is often thrown in with New Age for lack of something better to call it although Tangerine Dream certainly had a New Age phase. but I would not call "Zeit", for sake of example, New Age.

Most genres define music and often have roots that are far more interesting that the latter forms of music that have become cliched and restrictive for the artist. Led Zeppelin for example started as a blues band with some other stuff thrown in. They were rather unique in their time but this type of music sometimes just called hard rock became metal. Zeppelin was creative often taking old blues riffs and transforming them. Metal bands seem content to just turn up high gain amps to 11 so that any signs of bad guitar playing get drowned out in a sea of distortion and then call it metal. Screaming as well is an obligatory element. That's so not so great vocal talents can sound like their hip.

The same with dance music. I am far from being a Madonna fan but if you listen to some of her early music you can find some interesting bass lines. Now I sometimes wonder if all the dance music is coming from a few drum marching settings.

So now beyond jazz and classical I try to listen to innovation. For Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd this was their early period for they tried to sound like everyone else. I listen to new artists as well because some of them have the courage to sound like, well, themselves, and not some musical cliche.

I know my music will probably never be popular and its only a hobby (sort of) but it's me. Do I take inspiration from others? Sure. I like certain sounds and try to copy the technique but never really exactly the sound because I want the sound to be mine. I don't' try to fit into any genre although I use the term "experimental" just so it fits into some category that is itself hard to define.

So sure, I will never make the big bucks playing cover music but my music is real, it come from my own creativity take it or leave it.

Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you.

2009-10-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

"Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." These were the words of Alexander Graham Bell as he made something remarkable for his time, the first telephone. While I have not visited his laboratories, I was amazed one day to have the benefit of learning from a historian under the clothing of a small museum curator in Edison New Jersey. The museum contained many of Edison's inventions including early recording devices, amplifiers, lighbulbs and what even might be considered the first Bose Wave system (or at least a waveguide).

Amd then I think how far we have come and how much we are still stuck. Our telephones have become more sophisticated, many needing no wires at all, our records (once 78s) are now CDs etched with laser light. Some things, have remained relatively unchanged however. The electric light bulb is still close to the original and many other things have not really changed all that much.

MIDI 1.0 was a revolution in music technology in it's time. In 1983, it's first incarnation was published and much like the telephone, MIDI ins and out and thrus started to show up on keyboards until it seems that just about everything that can make a sound has a MIDI interface. At first, the standard was made simply to let keyboards speak to one another something that was already happening with several brand specific standards already.

When MIDI first came out, it worked well. Even a big stack of keyboards could speak to one another. But with an almost explosion these days of all sort of controllers, computer DAWs that can choke MIDI with CC messages and notes, not to mention the world of digital audio with its own standards and the modular synth revolution, the world of Music has gotten a bit more complicated.

I have a wonderful little book about the Telharmonium. It talks about the hope that of wiring a telharmium performance into the rooms of a hotel or even beyond. Futurist minds influenced music and technology and the hope of distributing music in new ways found a ready vehicle in the Telharmonium. Truth was that the thing was a beast. It literally weighed tons. It was impractical in the extreme and yet, it inspired minds to think bold thoughts and new dreams. I imagine, it was like that when Watson heard Graham Bell's words coming over a wire and Edison made his wonderful recording machines and light bulbs.

So lately, I have heard of new paradigms. Here are a few:

Cobranet:

http://www.cobranet.info/

This one networks digital audio. Expensive and clearly only for large venues but...

Then there is Open Sound Control:

http://opensoundcontrol.org/introduction-osc

Products like Jazz Mutant's Lemur, Native Instrument Reaktor and Max/MSP all use this.

and more towards the DIY world, on a much smaller scale, is the Arduino, small, cheap but capable of connecting things in new ways:

http://www.arduino.cc/

So what made me think of all these things? My synths and foogers. I want to connect them and I would love to have a computer control all of it and sequence everything like some gigantic Telharmonium spinning its wheels and gears and making beautiful music.

A last innovation and while I have found it in limited ways, I would love to have something more sophisticated. Think of plugging everything into a box run by computer software. Digital audio, something that would replace MIDI, audio and control voltages. Then think VCS3 or, ARP 2500 modulation matrices write large with computer GUI and sequencer (with automation of everything). That's my vision of the future. Some may say it can't be done but then again, when Watson heard Graham bell asking him into the next room, I don't think he ever expected to be able to call anywhere in the world with a small computer that fits into his pocket.

First Impressions of Tangerine Dream's Zeit

2009-10-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

In a word, outstanding. This is real electronic music. Something designed to transform you mind into another sonic world. I have listed to Rubycon, Phaedra, Socerer and Zeit and Zeit stands out as the most courageous of the works I have heard of Tangerine Dream. I think even Tangerine dream at times tries to find some happy medium between experimenting and trying to market to a more mainstream group of listeners. This is music worthy of being placed in with the more serious, classical, art music side of electronic music.

A short note here to make it clear, as I have in the past, that I am opposed to drugs in any form which the liner note mentions. I understand that a certain ignorant segment of society that feels that need to take drugs to expand their mind. Zeit will take the mind to new places without any drugs at all! Zeit creates an atmosphere, like curtains or rain, Zeit creates textures which morph and blend and come together in this wonderful collage of sounds.

I want to learn more about Zeit. I wish there was more out there because this album first came out in 72 and these sounds are outstanding. No doubt a Moog modular would have been a big part of it but I would love to produce some of these sounds. Many sounds I hear in electronic music are cliched. I can identify who someone created them. These sounds are organic and delightfully electronic. They definitely take the mind to another place.

More later. I have listened to this album about 3 times now and I am not even close to hearing it enough. It gets 11 from me.

Inital Impression of Rick Wright's "Broken China"

2009-09-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

I have just been listening to Richard Wright's final solo album, Broken China. I wanted to see what other people thought about it so I read some reviews. What I found was not a wide spread of options but a clear split between those who really liked it or those who hated it.

As long as I have made music, its been solo and at least partially computer based (at least for recording). This is where Wright was headed and certainly is reflected in "Broken China" which was not true of "Wet Dream". I don't have "Wet Dream" which for some reason has become a collectors item. I guess because it's not being made any more although I have not researched that. From what I can see, "Wet Dream" is an easier transition to Richard Wright as independent artist and perhaps, free of collaboration, Wright went more in his own more experimental direction in "Broken China"

I like "Broken China". Do I like it as much as some of the more classic Floyd albums like "Dark Side of the Moon"? I would not really compare it. "Dark Side of the Moon" is at the height of what might be called Floyd's more pop era that appealed to the more adventurous rock fans who did not want to dive headlong into the more experimental side of electronics. Those, for example, who may not have heard of "Tarngerine Dream" or artists like Brian Eno. I found one review very revealing in that he preferred Eno to Wright but felt that Floyd could have collectively gone in a more experimental direction.

I like time lines because they help me to see when and what happened and get the big picture. The following is a list of Floyd's recent albums and Wright's two solo albums excluding Floyd's live albums. What is clear is that the band, like many bands, began to feel the stress of trying to keep three very artistic people together. Egos clashed but more between Gilmour and Waters. I suspect Wright may have been more in the middle of all this chaos and trying to figure out where he wanted to go. Wright clearly started his exodus during "The Wall" with his solo album "Wet Dream" coming out before this. Wright, in fact, did not collaborate on any of the songs in the album, sat it out comply for "The Final Cut" and then returned with Kurweil in hand for the remainder, eventually collaborating with Gilmour.

Reading the credits for the individual songs in "The Wall" makes it clear that Waters wanted to take creative control and went a bit off the deep end. After leaving, Wright returns but has now made into Kurweil samples his classic sounds from before. I see Wright at this point siting more on the creative sidelines although collaborating with Gilmour on some songs. The change in synthesizers is a clear indication to me of a new direction for Wright in a more supportive role and as such, Floyd's music moves more towards a showcase for Gimour who granted is a great guitar player but Wright is also a great keyboard player.

Wright, being much more experimental, finds a new vision in "Broken China" and I am sure has he lived, would have made other interesting and creative albums. I would have loved to have heard the opportunity to hear them.

Part of my acceptance perhaps for "Broken China" is that I am more on the experimental side myself. I don't like pop music all that much and I love those, like Wright, who can find those interesting places that synthesizers in the right hands can take a listener who is willing to go along for the ride.

This is an addendum to this blog but when I posted last night I had not listened to the final four or so songs of the album. No doubt, these pieces express Wright's wife depressed state of mind but perhaps his own as well. I suspect that Wright much like the "stone" in Pink Floyd's "Dogs" on animals, felt "dragged down by the stone", the bad blood of blind ambition which turns to stone and in Wright's case cancer. This is not a criticism of Wright. It's more a realization that the world of commercial music can take a heavy toll.

Perhaps it was Waters, perhaps Wright felt that he was at the end of a creative roller coaster ride with Floyd, for a time, or perhaps it was something else but there is a great deal of desperation in the last part of this album. Wright would live for years after this album came out fur I hope that in the end he had a friend, someone he could spend his final days.

Wright also seemed to not have those wonderful synth solos of his that are so well known for his work with Pink Floyd. Some disagree with me that gear does not mean much but to me, the fact that Wright traded in his Minimoog and VCS3 for a sampler is reflective of his retreat from a more creative and aggressive style. Perhaps, this album is more of a reflection of his wife and the difficult twists and turns of life with Gilmour and Waters, especially Waters.

A few other comments. I don't' know where he got the idea to get Sinead O'Connor to sing on the album but not a good mix. Celtic might have actually worked but not her. No one who tears up a picture of the pope can be truly Irish anyway. A bit of processed Celtic vocals might have worked nicely however.

Kudos to Miller and Bolton for the guitar work here. Floyd like but distinct. However, I also wished that the guitar solos might have been a bit more up front. A bit to laid back but great sound.

Here is the timeline for the more temporally inclined and interested:

15 September 2008 - Richard Wright - Rest in Peace (from cancer)

On An Island (Wright contributes keyboard and background vocals to Gilmour's solo album) - March 6, 2006

Broken China - November 26, 1996 (Wright's second and last solo album)

The Division Bell - (Wright collaborates with Gilmour on some songs) - March 30, 1994

A Momentary Lapse of Reason (Wright using only a Kurzweil K2000, Water's exiled, Gilmour writing songs with others but not Wright) - September 7, 1987

The Final Cut - 21 March 1983 (no Wriight, all songs by Waters)

The Wall - November 30, 1979 (Wright only musican, not credited for any songs)

Wet Dream - May 1978 (Wright's 1st solo album)

Some Comments on Paul Stumps "Digital Gothic - A Critical Discography of Tangerine Dream"

2009-09-26T04:19:00.000-07:00

I would have to say that most of the material I have seen about musical artists is mostly personal information about them and some details about their albums and how they came about. That is why, after a read of the first few chapters of Digital Gothic I was very pleasantly surprised.

For some time now, I have been a student of early electronic music. I say early electronic music because most popular music is at least some level electronic today and early electronic music soon evolved from serious music that came from the 20th century avant guarde and before that the musical revolution in classical music that really started with Wagner to more popular forms of electronica such as techno and even at some level genres like hip/hop that originally came from scratch and soon devolved.

When I started to take a serious interest in learning about the roots of electronic music, I became a small project which I would love at some point to put in final written form. I took a serious academic book on the avant guarde and then a book of early electronic music and tried to find the overlap. I thought this overlap would be small but none the less there. What I found was a huge overlap and many of the artists in this book read like a whose who of early electronic music.

For a while, I thought this was a discovery that not many had found or wish to speak about. Not until I read about it in a place I would least expect, the first few chapters of a book on "Tangerine Dream". To name a few, Stump talks about the Telharmonium, the Ondes Martenot (and Olivier Messian's early works using it), music concrete and many of the early EM artists such as Karlheintz Stockhausen, Vladmir Ussachevsky, Pierre Shaeffer and even those like Luigi Russolo whose work has long since been lost but whose writting and influence not only on music but the modernist movement of the early 20th century are significant. Bottom line, Stump has clearly done his homework. In fact, Stump even suggests a connection between Tangerine Dream's music and German romanticism.

While I have not finished to book, I am looking forward to reading it. It reflects a level of scholarship that is sadly missing in most books on popular music and it clearly places the work of this popular but groundbreaking band into the greater context of German culture and the transformation in music that started with the avant guarde in the early 20th century.

The Problem with Music Notation in Electronic Works

2009-09-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

For a while now, I have been collecting musical scores of classical works of the 20th century. I a have some scores from Ligeti, Stravinski, Crumb, Debussy and a few others. I get these scores because I want to study the technique of composers who ultimately lead the way to the avant guarde and eventually early electronic music (back when music played by electronic means was something which was somewhat rare).

What most fascinates me when I look at these scores is not only technique but how composers notated what were often very unconventional methods, for example Crumb. Suffice it to say that George Crumb scores can look very different than most and even Ligeti's.

In my last post, I asked the question, would it be possible to notate Tangerine Dream? OK, perhaps some who are reading this find this whole concept absurd but its not that absurd is it? Think of vibrato, glissando and tremolo. Thee is notation for all of these. But lets get more complex here to challenge the analogy. Consider a simply push of a mod wheel which is modulating pitch (i.e. vibrato). There is nothing to indicate vibrato of growing intensity is there?

Now most classical musician use vibrato even when the notation does not call for it because its really one of those aspects of music that crosses the dividing line that I spoke of in the last post between performance aspects in music and musical composition and notation. OK, I agree that that all sounds well and good when dealing with physical instruments because the vibrato of a violin or cello or any other instrument is limited by the instrument. I falls within a fairly narrow range. But vibrato for a synthesizer can have a much wider range of both magnitude and frequency.

Now what if a notation where used such as vib (to indicate to begin the vibrato) and sens vib to indicate when it ends or reaches its maximum but aslo two small numbers, one to indicate frequency and relative intensity (perhaps a %).

What about pitch bends? I have been listening to "Tangerine Dream"s Socerror which has lots and lots of tricks with pitch bends. Perhaps simple glissando would do this?

I don't have all the answers here but you get the idea. I have always wanted to get some of Karlheintz Stockhausen's scores because his electronic music challenged notationb beyond its limits and yet he made up his own.

You may ask, why bother? The reason is that I can read a score of music and understand the technique quickly. I can't do that by listening to it nearly as easily. Musical notation is a tool so that not only music can be played but techniques also studied. What about serious electronic music? Are there ways of developing some notation so it can be studied. Perhaps not but the topic does fascinate me for some reason.

On Notation, KARMA, Sequencers and Tangerine Dream

2009-09-23T05:39:00.001-07:00

I could not think of a better title for this blog so I thought I would simply list all of the topics I hope I can bring together here in some synthetic whole. Today, I simply will introduce the topic and then edit and add to this entry as time permits.

By introduction, think of this. Most who probably read my blog are familiar with the electronic artist, "Tangerine Dream" whose music literally spans decades. They have appeared hundreds of times in performance, their albums are prolific to say the least and there music appears in many movie soundtracks. But my point here is not to plug their music, but to ask this. Would it be possible to create sheet music (i..e. traditional musical notation) for Tangerine Dream or for that matter much of electronic music? My answer is simply no. Not in any way that would convey the content.

In classical music, there is a very clear dividing line between performance (of the individual musician), conducting, and composition. The work of most composers, at least up to the 20th century, can be expressed in traditional music notation. However, both the musicians and the conductor add to that and interpret, or perhaps add, to the vision of the composer. Instruments, while varied, are also limited in types and in timbre. A trumpet, while capable of a wide variety of sounds, will always sound like a trumpet, a violin like a violin and so on. Synthesizers, on the other hand, are in many ways so much more expansive in what they can sound like but on the performance side, I would also argue more limited.

What fascinates me about Tangerine Dream, is how they use both sequencers and and performance aspects and blend them together into some striking and beautiful music works and yet, the line between performance, composition and conducting, is now blurred and the ability to create musical notation, all but eliminated save what might appear embedded in a sequencer.

In 20th century electronic music, algorithmic composition has also opened up a whole new avenue, music that is allowed in some sense to create itself with composition left up to certain rules and to chance and the aorist becoming not performer but conductor. Again, lines are blurred.

In Tangerine Dream, we have sequences which can be rather boring but by varying them, Tangerine Dream creates a flowing fabric of sound that is captivating. This is where I get to KARMA. For those who may not know, KARMA stands for Korg Algorithmic Real time Music Architecture. KARMA, by the very words of Stephen Kay, it's designer, is a "sequencer on steroids" and yet, I believe that that is a very modest statement. KARMA resembles a sequencer and an algorithmic composition tool but it is neither. What I am currently interesting in doing in my own musical projects at the moment, is looking for ways to join KARMA and analogue synthesis. This blog is in some sense my musings and thoughts on this and I hope, a means of getting some feedback from others. That's all for now and I hope, a means of introduction to what is a complex topic.

On Sequencers, Sonatas and Drum Machines

2009-08-26T03:40:00.000-07:00

I have taken an interest lately in the electronic music group "Tangerine Dream". I have heard much about then but realized that I have never bought or listened to any of their albums so I recently got a copy of Phaedrus and Rubycon which are some of their most well know albums.

"Tangerine Dream", while popular in electronic music circles, does not make popular music and in fact, if you asked the average person on the street who they were, they would probably not know about them even though their work appears in many popular movies. Certainly if you asked someone who "Miley Cyrus" was or "Britney Spears" were, the would have a ready answer and probably be able to tell you what their latest pop hit is.

Now its my personal option, but I am going to back it up, that the music of "Tangerine Dream" is far more sophisticated than that of either Miley or Britney for the same reason that a sonata is in classic music. Why? In large part what I am going to call the drum machine syndrome. I honestly believe that one of the negative effects of the use of drum machines and sequencers is that they have brought a certainly laziness to music. I you can just use a few drum tracks and sequenced bass to create mega hits then you get lazy and I see most pop music as lazy.

I am listening right at this moment to Tangerine Dream's "Rubycon". Now this is full of sequenced tracks but about every 5 to 30 seconds, the sequence changes, sometimes by only minor variations. The sequence also slowly morphs in time. This creates a rather stunning and powerful effect.

It seems to me that this is not so different than the sonata form in classical music. In many ways, you can say that Beethoven's 5th is only based on 3 notes but its the variations that that make it a great musical work. For the same reason, its the variations in Tangerine Dream that make for great electronic music.

I am not saying that highly syncopated rhythm is a bad thing always but when its the easy way out in music and music become more like the mass produced products that role off an assembly line then a crutch that limits music.

Robert Moog - RIP

2009-08-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

On the anniversary of Bob Moog's death, I wanted to post this quick blog. What impresses me the most about Bob Moog is that he took what was still at the time a new industry in itself (i.e. electronics) and realized what so few did, that circuits could make music. Moog also realized that it was not enough to create machines that were technologically savvy but electronic instruments that are musically savvy.

While we no longer have Bob with us, let us hope that his legacy will live on and that others can advance this wonderful field of making music with electricity.

What's in a synth - Does Equipment Really Matter?

2009-08-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

As my knowledge of various pieces of vintage synthesis gear grows (at least by reading about it), I have come to appreciate the classics. As there are classic songs, so there are classic pieces of equipment. I would have to place the Minimoog or perhaps Mellotron at the top of the list and if organs are also added the B3. Followed by others like the Prophet 5 and the ARP 2600 (a personal favorite of mine) and the ARP Odessey. Now one can argue that the gear does not make the musican and that is true but each of these synthesizers served a unique purpose.

First, the Minimoog was a dramatic scaling down from the Moog modular. But save Keith Emersons famous rig, modular monsters were something to fool around with in the studio. The Minimoog made things portable but it also did something else. Knobs moved from being the intellectual musing of sound designer steeped in voltages and waveforms, to become part of an instrument.

I posted this interview of Bob Moog by the Red Bull Academy:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-bull-academy-bob-moog.html

Great inteview and what Bob clearly wanted to point out was the difference between a knob as a parameter in sound design and a knob that is part of an instrument. Every knob of the Minimoog was intended for performance.

Or who can forget Edgar Winters use of the ARP 2600 in his famous Frankenstein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mV_5-bRPo

Synths like the Mellotron became almost the stuff of legends and rock grew up with these instruments. They are not just gear that can be interchanged, but sonic icons. There are so many wonderful examples and as you read a history of gear you also read a musical history book.

To does gear matter? Yes, it does. One last example. I recently listened to and reviewed Tara Busch's "Pilfeshire Lane". The equipment list including an "Optigan". It takes a real serious afficionato of fine synthesis gear to know what this is. The Otigan was a sucessor to the Mellotron, an instrument that in many ways is second to none in gear history and in many ways the first sampler. It used an optical technology to replace the tape reels of the Mellotron. One of the complaints about the Mellotron was that it was, and is, to say the least cumbersome. The "Mellotron Book" is a wonderful walk down a period of musical history long since past of the days of the mighty and quirky Mellotron from those who loved it to those who set it on fire and even through it down a flight of stairs. An instrument more loved and more hated than perhaps any. Loved if it worked and hated if it didn't especially during a gig.

Tara also uses apparently the only Melloman, a Mellotron upgrade using "Walkman's" of all things rather than the cumbersome and often faulty tape racks of the Mellotron. Also a rather unique instrument and apparently, according to Tara, the only one much like Winnie the Poos mythical tiger minus the tail (although there have been string reverbs made out of slinkies). Now the Optigan was perhaps more at home in, well, the home. It was much like the somewhat cheesy home organs of a time quickly disappearing, swallowed up by the likes of more sophisticated digital machines for the musically uninclined the can play a mean rhumba and also make the morning coffee. I personally prefer the Magnus Chord Organ. I almost bid for one of these on E-Bay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJWYgnUZwT8

You can't do any better than the wispy Italian reverie of Oh Solo Mio on the reeds of the Magnus.

Ha, you laugh but add some reverb and add a little flex capacitor work (or perhaps just Ableton Live time twisting) and you might have a few different sound. Perhaps, a new sound for a Logan's Run remake.

I degress.

Here is some info:

http://www.optigan.com/content/info/optigan/

Now how can you beat this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvnS1mqX78

And perhaps, something just asking to be sent through a Moogerfooger or even Voyager filter. Ah, the problem with the youngins is that they can't think creatively. One to many purple MP3 players with Beyonce's declared marital status. Perhaps, just maybe, a few more Mellotrons or Otigan's or even the dreaded Magnus Chord organ for the pre-MP3 young ones, might be just the trick to teaching our young people that there is more to life than hip hop and yes, you may even learn to read music or at least those cheesy little chord charts. And for those who have listened to one to many Beyonce songs, yes, there are more than three notes in the musical scale. And for Britney fans, well, you can right lyrics that do more than repeat a word over and over again (and some that even make sense and have complete sentenced). My bad - oooh, see, even I can use modern lingo (although I don't text, hurts my thumbs and I need those to play music.)

Sorry for that divisive and cruel attack on pop Divas (appropriate bows in the direction of the appropriate record companies - or banks). I could be sued. Well, I guess I can always find a way to listen to Tara Busch in jail and remind myself that someone still has the creativity and artistry to make beautiful music with Moogerfoogers and Optigans. Or then again, what's in an equipment list?

Tara Busch - Pilfeshire Lane - It's all in the footnotes (and liner notes)

2009-08-19T04:53:00.000-07:00

I once had a good teacher give me a love for footnotes. Perhaps it sounds a bit geeky but the truth is that this interest in footnotes in books and liner notes for CDs has served me well. It is the basis for many of the books I read and how I also again and inside understand of music that I listen to, that is, liner notes.

In these evil days of the Internet (ok, I know, thats what I am using now), one tends to believe that unless its hot off the fingers of a blogger, its not worthy of print. Newspapers are now in danger of going out of business and with Kindle, one begins to wonder if the book if not soon to follow.

Despite the fact that this is a blog, I am still nostalgic and yes, I do have a lot of books. Books have permanence and if someone bothers to footnote one, then all the better. It shows that they are serious about what they are doing and willing to share their inner thought process and basis for what they are saying. Something that our politicians should take a book out of rather than hiding behind legalize all the time. Lawyers, harder to get rid of than roaches.

OK, that's enough of the politics. I listened to Pilfeshire Lane last night and it immediately brought to mind two impressions. First, that it was unapologetically electronic (first plus - ok, I am biased but what can you do). Secondly, in so many ways the equipment list was very much like on of my favorite prog bands, Pink Floyd. The Hammond B3 and Fender Rhodes took their prominent place (I recognized the B3 right away). Something new in their as well, a list of Moogerfoogers, The ARP Solina (used by Tangerine Dream and Floyd ("Wish You Were Here", "Animals")) and a few rare oddities that really caught my eye, the "Melloman" an odd "Walkman" based re-incarnation, and the Optigan, a little known optigal disk remake of the Mellotron that never really caught on. Of course, there is also the Vox Jaguar which Tara recently parted with.

I also see on Mike Walters list the Minimoog (suprizingly no Voyager). And of course, the ARP Axxe, a lesser version of the Oddessy.

What all this tells me is that Tara and her band have a love of vintage equipment which I do as well. Tara's music is also unique which is one of the reasons I like it. While reminiscent of the past in some ways, it is not a copy of the past. Artistic integrity is so lacking in many types of music and, in my mind, has rendered hip hop, an artistic graveyard (ok, sorry, had to get that little bash of hip hop in there).

To be honest in would be difficult to classify "Pilfeshire Lane" in any musical category and that is an often rare commodity in music today.

Congratulations to Tara and company for bringing some creativity (and electronics, vintage and otherwise) back to music.

Red Bull Interview of Bob Moog

2009-08-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

I recently watched this video of Red Bull's Interview of Bob Moog which was posted by Matrixsynth on Twitter:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-bull-academy-bob-moog.html

I always find that interviews like this often contain a few gems but you have to listen carefully. Moog mentioned a few things that I think are well worth repeating in a blog.

First, he commented on the low tech nature of the Moog Voyager and called it a 20th century musical instrument as opposed to a 21st century musical instrument. Even before the 20th century, he speaks of the history of brass instruments, woodwinds and the crowning of achievement of the piano in past centuries, which he called the greatest of the mechanical instruments. Certainly, any talented musician does not see his instrument as a limited instrument even though the range of sounds from any acoustic instrument is much more limited than a Moog Voyager or any other synthesizer. While the materials used in prior centuries were those of brass and wood, he speaks of how the field of electronics that changed the music of the 20th century. How true this is.

I love his nostalgic look at going into NYC and finding all sorts of low cost electronic components. I remember making a similar trip to Canal street in the late 70s. I was just a kid then and while I did not get into electronics as much as Moog obviously did, the lure of being able to create something from the raw components of capacitors, resistors, transitors and tubes had a certain magical appeal.

In the interview, Moog speaks lovingly of the Voyager as an instrument not simply a collection of circuit boards. Like all acoustic instruments, the Minimoog and Voyager have that magical sensory feedback that makes them instruments. If we look at a synthesizer simply in terms of what it looks like in an oscilloscope or worse yes, the computer program that produces it (like a Virus), then we loose site of the instrument. Instrument becomes machine and music becomes more product than true art.

As I listened to Bob Moog reminisce about his past achievements which certainly earn him an honored, perhaps most honored, place in the pantheon of synth designers, I thought of my own music. I call myself a composer, for lack of a better word. I realize that this is somewhat of a distortion. My work is largely improvised. Often, I do a lot of preparation before I record. Some of that can be sound design to create just the right patch or perhaps trying different effects. It may be trying to find the right layers of sounds to mix together but almost always, with some exceptions, my final product is the work of a musician and not composer. In other words, its a performance even if its just in my home studio.

I loved the question about asking Moog to look to the future, what he thought was develop in music in the future. You might expect him to talk about the latest computers or perhaps modulars but what he rather talked about controllers. I could not agree more. Like that magical interaction that occurs between musician and instrument, the world of controllers provides a rich universe well beyond the now almost cliched world of pitch bend and mod wheel.

One of my personal irritations with 20th century pop music is the tyranny of the sequencer. Have just the right mix of drum machine and sequencer and vocalist barely needs musicians. The magic of how musicians interact is replaced by careful crafted sequences and add effects to the vocalist and even those who may not be truly talented singers can find themselves making millions with the right marketing.

Moog speaks of how music should be performance oriented and I believe one of the negative effects of sequencers is that they have divorced instruments from performance. OK, I use them but I used them to record what I am playing not to create it. The true magic of music is in "real time" as Moog expresses it in the interview.

Given Moog's comments about controllers, I find it interesting that the Voyager has a touch pad which goes beyond traditional XY control and also uses area, a very novel approach but clearly shows the desire to make the Voyager into more than a collection of circuits. Of course, the Therimin has also earned its place in not only the history of electronic music but still has a prominent place in the Moog product line.

So when I hear at times that the Moog Voyager is a throwback to the past with no polyphony and only semi modular, I think that it misses the point. The Voyager is an instrument. Who would look on a flute or trumpet or any of those instruments that so many spend years mastering and call them limited. The knobs of the Voyager and the universe of other possibilities for sonic design by using those plugs in the back of the Voyager not to mention the programmable options, make the Voyager a real instrument and perhaps a challenge to the lie that bigger and more complex always leads to better music.

Childhood and Music

2009-08-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

When I was in my teens, the middle school that I want to had a wonderful program to go in about 4 times a year to see the Boston Symphony Orchesta. While my tastes in music were much more pop oriented at this time, I remember with fondness being exposed to music that may not have been immediately to my liking but that I did appreciate. I also played trombone in both the traditional school band and then again in the jazz band. My trombone has since been donated to a local NJ Catholic school.

My musical tastes have also changed in while they span a wide variety of musical tastes, I often come back to the classics for inspiration. Bach and Mozart and so many others still give me musical inspiration. One might wonder how an experimental musical composer takes inspiration in music that seems so distant from electronic and electro-acoustical music but the truth is that this type of music progressed first from the late 19th and early 20th century romantic music startinig with Wagner and then to those like Stravinsky and Debussy and right into the avant guarde and then those electronic pioneers of music concrete and latter electronic music. Those like Karlheintz Stockhausen whose picture even appears on the Beatle's Sgt. Pepper Album:

http://www.stockhausen.org/beatles_khs.html

5th from the left - top row - guilty of German existential brooding as always - may he rest in peace.

Even before the likes of Bach, music goes back all the way to early plainchant at a time when music was advanced by the Catholic Church. In fact, classical music would not have advanced without its support of musicians such as Bach and Mozart.

And for those who think that this type of music is old and tired, try this recent newly appreciate writer of plainchant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqvoB4uN1Qs

Music has been and will remain part of man's quest for the internal, for God.

That is why I find it tragic that our young people have been deprived of hearing this beautiful music and are almost forced by blind commercialism to listen to a music that in so many ways, they have been enticed to listen to. This of course does not mean that there is not something to be said of rock (although I favor a more progressive or experimental version of it) but why deprive young people of this music? If they hear it and reject what the hear, ok, but lets give them a chance to hear it. John Lennen when he heard his wife playing the Moonlight Sonata was moved to write the song because that appeared on the Beatles Abbey Road. If Yoko was deprived of classical music she would not have inspired her husband.

Groups like "Save the Music" are trying to save music in our public schools so the same education in music that I had in school can be given to our young people today so that they can here more than the latest commercialized trash on their MP3 players:

http://www.vh1savethemusic.com/

Despite the reference to "hiphop" on the front screen of this website, there is more to music than "hiphop"

Delia Derbyshire

2009-08-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

Every once and a while, I come across a piece of musical history that peaks my interest as speaking to a particular aspect of music that is often neglected. At the moment, I have a collection of books on music that deal specifically with emotion in music. From the time I was young I have always been impressed by the ability of music to speak to our heart in a way that words can't seem to do at times. Even the musical intervals expressed in mere mathematical ratios can elicit responses. The mournful flatted 3rd, the more ethereal 6th and the queasy and unresolved 7th.

So what does this have to do with Delia Derbyshire. From what I have read, which is from what I can see rather limited which is a shame, Delia wanted to express emotion in music and wanted to know how to use electronics to do that. Certainly we have examples from classical music. The power and fear expressed by the Dies Irae, a Mass part. The Mass being an almost obligatory right of passage for composers such as Bach's "Mass in B Minor", Verdi's "Requiem", Mozart's "Requiem" and then in modern times composers such as Ligeti with his "Requiem" and Barber's "Agnus Dei" or more commonly known as the "Adagio for Strings".

For those who know Barber's adagio, they will think of the sadness it expresses which is why it was so effective in the movie Platoon or Ligeti's requiem that seemed to fit so well with the sense of awe of the monolith of Kubrick's 2001.

Even instruments seem to fit into emotional categories. Strings for example can bring about a feeling of sadness but also fear. Think of the famous shrill stabs of the violin used in the movie Psycho. The human voice of course able to express a wide variety of emotions. Or the sound of brass which seems to call us to attention as its higher order partials cut though the rest of the orchestra. Or the bell that calls the faithful to worship. What is it then that creates this emotion? Is it mere cultural conditioning or perhaps something else.

Now that we live in a world of synthesizers, our musical pallet no longer resides with the wonderful expressive but none the less limited capabilities of musical instruments. Derbyshire asked the question, can these synthetic sounds bring us that same emotion that musical instrument have done so effectively in the past?

Derbyshire had a degree in both mathematics and music from Girton College, Cambridge. Despite here use and understanding of the relationship of music and mathematics, she always placed the importance of human perception over a purely mathematical understanding of music. One of my personal beliefs about music is that the very concept of a sonic spectrum, while it has enhanced our understanding of sound, has also limited it because it leaves our human perception. One can ask the question: "If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound". The real answer is no in my opinion. A phenomena occurs by which the air particles vibrate but a sound as we commonly associate it in our mind, is a perception. Pitch for example must have a listener but frequency does not.

I believe that synthesis has been handcuffed when it follows the model of believing that the sound of something can be express by its harmonics. Derbyshire knew that a true understanding of music has to lie in its perception, in more modern terms, in psycho acoustics. I believe it also lies in psychology and perhaps even our belief systems. We don't play music as much as it plays us. But how?

John Cage looked for this answer in formulas. He believed that music, once watered down to its essential parameters, was simply a matter of pushing the play button. Others, like Luigi Russolo and Karlheintz Stockhausen, understood that to understand sound we must group it not into categories defined by harmonics but in perceptual categories. This is of the school that I am part of.

So for me, when I write music, I no longer look to some formula from which I expect music to come but to my own perception of it and emotions which I know that I share with all human persons. And perhaps, somewhere in the beautiful sounds of music, we find something not only subjective but objective, a sense of objective beauty so often denies but somehow lurking in those magical responses that we get when we hear good music than not only appeals to our mind but to our emotions and to our soul.

The most sophisticated synthesizer of all

2009-08-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

I titled this blog the most sophisticated synthesizer of all. I realized my error immediately when I realized that the most sophisticated synthesizer is the human voice. That being said, what I really had in mind is the violin (or really any in a broader category of bowed instruments). The bow truely offers a very subtle and effective way to control the timbre of a string. A violin for example, can allow the skilled musician to create such sweet and often subtle variations in the timbre of the instrument.

Now certainly, there are now knobs, plugs, sliders, switches or any of the normal parts of a module that would be part of a modular synthesizer. Or for that matter, the controls that you would find on any synthesizer soft or hard, modular or semi modular.

And yet, some musicians have spent their lives learning to play only that one single instrument, refining more and more their techniques. Often these techniques are learning just the right movement of the fingers and hands to create a kind of magic. And to add to the mystery, one can't really teach this other than by an exchange of listening and playing the instrument. An instructor can show technique and critique style by listening but ultimately, it is the work of the musician to learn by feel just the right way to play an instrument to get a certain sound. There is no patch sheet or preset to pull up or program change to make.

With synthesizers, we can get lost. There are so many options, so many sounds. We can see them and repeat them and often, just by hitting a button, turning a knob or moving a slider but the magic can disappear into a sea of possibilities.

Now I don't mind all those options. I can delight it going from parameter page to parameter page on my M3 to tweak a sound or design one from scratch but there is something about having a limited number of possibilities so that the ones that I do have stand out. I can learn to not just turn knobs but learn to turn them while I am playing so get just that right sound at the right time in a song. To me, the Moog Voyager offers this opportunity. A universe of sound is right in front of the musician and its all there. Not buried in menus but all accessible. It can all be part of the performance.

Sure, in the end there are limitations but if the violinist can delight in one sound, perhaps, I can delight in the beautiful sonic universe of a Moog Voyager and perhaps, find a sort of magic there that happens when a musician plays an instrument that with hard work, will give up its secrets in time to create beautiful music.

Rick Wright, Pink Floyd, Synthesis and Just Saying No

2009-07-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

It may perhaps seem odd that a devout Catholic would be so involved in experimental music/synthesizers and all things electronic. Truth is that I see electronics as neutral, able to be used for good and bad. It is in much the same way that I see music. I grew up with Pink Floyd. I always loved the sound of a synthesizer, processed guitars and arffully used electronics. So Pinik Floyd was a natural attraction. On the other hand, I am also strongly opposed to the use of drugs and abuse of alchhol not simply because of religious beliefs but because of what I have seen them do to people. I have seen the sad parade of people who have been destroyed by drugs and alchohol. I also lament the artists of the past who could have made a lot more music were it to for lives being cut short by drugs and alchohol. Syd Barrett is a very sad case of this. A man with a unique talent and sound who was foundational to Pink Floyd and yet took a voluntary walk into the darkness of drugs and ultimately, ending up not only out of the band but also living in osscurity and lamented by his friends in Pink Floyd who fondly but sadly lament the "black holes in the sky" in "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" which they saw when they looked into Barretts eyes.

I realize the drug culture that surrounds bands like Pink Floyd and it is this culture that I firmly condemn. However, I also realize good music and Floyd blending of instruments and often thoughtful commentary on life (such as the loss of their friend in the album "Wish you Were Here" and thoughful social commentary in Albums like "Animals" makes them musical artists worthy of note. It is the art I celebrate in this post which I wanted to make clear before saying anything more.

With that in mind I found Thanasis Tsilderikis article on Richard Wrights equipement most fascinating. Another brief caveat to this is that I do realize that there are certain errors contained in his article such as refering to the Prophet 5 as a Prophet V and calling it an additive synthesizer that are problematic but it is is equipment list that fascinates me and that is what I am writing about. Here is the article for reference:

http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine28/WrightGear-rev156.pdf

If I had to look at the broad scope of Pink Floyds music I would break it up into period. The first is the period from "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" to "Atom Heart Mother". Then from "Meddle" to "Obscured by Clouds", then from "Dark Side of the Moon" to "The Wall" and "The Wall" to current.

Let me explain why at least in terms of Wrights use of synthesizers and keyboards that I have made this division (but also for other reasons).

End of Part I - to be continued - interupted again, I keep getting interupted.

Modular, Digital and Soft Synth - Different Worlds

2009-07-18T04:33:00.001-07:00

It would seem that I have now placed my feed firmly in at least two of the four worlds of synthesis, non modular analogue, modular analogue, digital and soft synth. My first synth was actually a Kurweil K2000. I remember spending many hours with it. I finally sold it which in many ways I regret. For a while I was busy with many other things and music took a back seat. Then I discovered soft synths. When I bought the Kurzweil, software synthesis was not really around.

My first soft synth was Native Instrument Absynth. I was in this strange new world of the software synth that I really learned a substantial amount about synthesis. I dabbled with the Kurzweil but many times I relied on presets. But Absynth really brought me completely into the world of synthesis.

Then I was hooked. I have many soft synths and sample libraries. I also have a lot of vintage emulators. They provided a hands on introduction to the historic roots of synthesis. I don't see them as much as tools that I would use to make my music but they are invaluable in understanding some of the classics of the past like the ARP 2600. Understand the past, both in terms of music theory and electronics is important to me and I believe enhances my music.

For a while, I got lost down a dead end path, additive synthesis. I will post something on this because its a long and complex story. I am even banned (apparently permanently) from the VirSyn board) for simply pointing out a few facts. You can find my posts there in the Cube section and some others as well. The only poster to the boards with the title "ex member" which I bear proudly because unlike some, I can handle the truth . Enough said about that. Better to not open up old wounds.

After this, I bought a Korg M3. I am pleased to say that my relationship with Korg and my use fo the M3 has been a happy experience. Great sounds and pretty powerful engine but working with an M3, and I suspect many other hardware based digital synths, is somewhat different. Much of this is due to the lack of a full screen as with a computer. However, I find with the M3 the ability to combine modulation sources and the routing of effects to be far more powerful than a soft synth. KARMA, despite the fact that its creator Stephen Kay states is an arppegiator on steroids, is much more. Stephen is being modest. KARMA is an advancement beyond the concept of an arppegiator and not really an arranger like the Yamaha Tyros but something new and powerful and most importantly, interactive.

After this, I went a bit wild and bought several moogerfoogers. I guess it started with a few guitar pedals and frankly, a longing to get back to the time that I delighted in just deciding on how to route a few guitar pedals together. There was just something valuable about the experience of physically connecting things and turning real knobs. Analogue electronics also have their own personalities. Not everything is musical and finding that sweet spot in the turning of knobs to get a certain effect becomes part of the analogue experience.

I also admit to a great deal of admiration for those like Karlheintz Stockhausen or Alvin Lucier who worked with electronics far less sophisticated that my rack of foogers and made great works of musical art. There was a sort of magic in what they did and while playing a chord on my M3 and hearing a symphony is useful and in its own way magical, there was something more essential, perhaps closer to the heart, in working with electronics.

I love knowing that actual electricity flows through the moogerfoogers and the patch cords that connect them. Not mindless zeros and ones and computer programs that just run the same way all the time but something unpredictable and at least in part, mysterious. The fun of being able to ask "what if" and being surprised sometimes by the answer, sometimes delighted, other times not.

So when I saw the Zerooscillator, quadrature waveforms and morphing of waveforms not determined by wavetables in zeros and ones but by electricity which can be shaped and modified it made me realize why I want a modular. I don't' want a modular because of the same reason that some people hold onto vinyl. Frankly, I always found that argument a bit silly. Its not about warmth, although I do like tube pre-amps for legit reasons that can be proven, but for the reason that those streams of electronics can be shaped by a hand on process that is very different than tweaking patches on soft synths or my M3.

Am I getting rid of my soft synths and M3? Not a chance. But I want to use a modular to make my own sample library. In the end, I probably will play the analogue stuff as samples from my M3 or directly or using a soft sampler because its easier that way, but I want to be able to get at the raw sound that can only come from the circuits of a modular.

Before I do that, I want to know more. I want to be convinced that modulars can move beyond the beeps and bloops that I often hear and produce really amazing stuff. I know they can because I hear it in the sample libraries I have. So, for the time being I save and study and when I am ready, I will take a leap back and forward in time into modular synthesis.

On Catholic Music

2009-07-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Doing some exploring around my follower list and found this blog and what is Catholic music and I thought I would reblog (RB), hmm, can't get all this silly textlike terminology straight.

Anyway, I am a devout Catholic who writes experimental electronic music. Does that make my music Catholic? It's certainly not sacred music and frankly, my music should never be used in a liturgical setting because I did not write it for that reason. Is it about spritual ideas? Yes. I wrote Gyorgie's Lament in admiration of Gyorgy Ligeti who while he may not have been a strong Catholic, was Catholic in the Eastern rite. His Lux Aeterna which I had in mind when I wrote this piece is from a requim Mass.

I have great respect for Olivier Messiaen who unknown to many, was part of the early electronic music scene and wrote peices for one of the earliest electronic instruments, the Ondes Martenot which lives on the the "French Connection" analogue keyboard. Messiaen was also a devout Catholic. My work "A Disturbance in the Clouds" is not based directly on his "Quartet to the End of Time" but certainly calls it to mind as well as Pendericki's "Threonody to the Victims of Hiroshima". I wrote this to reflect my Catholic beleifs about nuclear weapons and my deep hatred of them. Messiaen loved the birds and in fact, based a significant number of works on birdsond. I wanted to reflect this in my work but also the songs of the birds disturbed by a distant nuclear explosion and the disturbance in the electromagnetic field. For those who have wondered and listened to my work, that is what this is all about. it's not just a bunch of sound effects. It expresses my horror and aversion to nuclear weapons.

"RandomVoices" is based loosely on the Book of Revelation which I see not as a fearful book but one of hope. Of the power of the voice of the Gospel and of God who speaks in varied ways to his people. I firmly believe that the Catholic message is one of hope and transcendence of a world that can so often descend into darkness.

My work "Strange Bells" was an experiment with bells which remind be of bells used in the Mass and the power of the bell to call the faithful to worship.

So is my work Catholic. If you listened to it, you will not see Catholicism but if you understand why I wrote it, what was behind it, you can see my Catholic beliefs influencing it.

Why do I write this music? First, I am not a great musician. I write music that I can play and much of it is improvised. I study music, mosly classical but my early formal training is in jazz. I hope to follow along the lines of classical music (that of the 20th century) but take it into the world of electronics. Why? I don't know really. I just feel compeled to write it and hopefully somewhere, God has a plan for it. Some of it will become part of a CD ROM eventually. I will reveal nothing of this secret project right now.

So, if my Catholicism has offended, it is not intended to. I love music, including electronic music. I am Catholic. And somewhere, I hope these two lead to some good music even if its far of the beaten path. I know that Messian's was in his time so I guess I am in good company as far as that goes. Is it Catholic music? I don't know. You tell me.

On Bugbrand Board Weavels, Feedback and Non Linear Sounds

2009-07-09T04:50:00.000-07:00

I have been listening with some degree of fasination, the sounds that this little gem makes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XsvxFIrrJ0&feature=related

OK, granted, its being run through a Lexicon reverb but none the less, the sounds are complex and in many ways, far beyond the bleeps and bloops I hear from You Tube's of modulars that cost thousands of dollars. I can't get my M3 to sound like it either and it costs a few thousand.

I have a theory about why this sounds good (at least to me and many others since the retailer I want to purchase it from is out of them right now). Feeback!

It's a simple principle but the idea is that you mix a signal with the output of that same signal after it has gone though some type of system.

A researcher at IBM by the name of Bernoit Mandelbrot did this with numbers and got these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1n0wigM4dY

Believe it or not, these patterns are produced by a simple mathematical form of feedback. For reasons that are not clear, this produces complex patterns not only visually but in sound as well as is evidenced by the boardweavel which also uses feedback.

The same principle applies to guitar feeback which has certainly been put to good use by many guitar players and its also the principle of an echo chamber:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber#Electro-acoustic_echo_chambers

Now some might believe that like Mandelbrot, all this can be done with computers. Yes and no. Mandelbrot sets can be produced by a computer but think about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

The concept is called the butterfly effects. The idea is that a simple butterfly beating its wings can have large scale effects on the weather. There is a lot of math behind this but thats the idea.

So what does all this have to do with music and electronics. Simple. Computers run programs. Thats what they do and they do it well and believe me, and I have probably said many times on this board, I am not throwing out my digital gear and its computer processors. However, there is something to be said for a less clean analogue signal. If small particles can seed a cloud or a butterfly can cause changes in weather, then the imperfections of electronics when fed through feeback loops can produce, well, the kind of sounds that you hear coming from the board weavel. This is exactly the reason I am interesting in modulars. No exploit not so much feeback but the imperfections.

It has been said that when a sculpture sculps a piece of marble, that the form is already there is the marble and its a matter of chipping away at the marble so the the form hidden in the marble is made clear. I think of analogue circuts that way. Careful tweaking of them makes them sing, to reveal the hidden beauty of what some would see as imperfections. Think of the human voice. Perhaps not in opera but isn't it true that it is those aspects of a singers voice with its idiosyncracies that make it appealing? Does a a pure sine wave sound interesting? No! Its only when the raw dirty saw wave or other complex waveforms are shaped by filters that change in time that something interesting and musical happens. The human voice is a very complex synthesizer that all of us learn to use to make lanugage. In fact, the work of those like Trevor Wishheart have illustrated the importance of considering human speach in sound design:

http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/

The voice is complex not so much because of the vocal cords but the complex system of filters that make up the throat, mouth, tongue ect... that create the unique character of each human voice.

So what of music?

"Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions."

Robert M. Pirsig

Often our problem is that we take something and abstract it to the point that it loses its essence. To use a worn out but useful cliche, we lose the trees for the forest. There is something to be said the the beauty of a Bach fugue or a Mozart requim in all its glory and multiplication of notes, but there is something also to be said for letting a note speak within itself. The single word. The human sigh the expresses deep longing or the cry of a baby that immediately awakens its mother.

Music has been limited because instruments have been limited. While its very possible to be expressive with them, their sonic pallet is within very well defined boudaries and the marble, if you will, has already been cut.

Analogue electronics are a vast open space for which the sojourner of sound design and music can discover new sonic vistas and in some sense, rediscover the self. As we listen we being to hear ourselves.

"The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. "

Robert M. Pirsig.

"Be still. Listen to the stones of the wall.Be silent, they try to speak your name. Listen to the living walls. Who are you? Who are you? Whose silence are you?" Thomas Merton

Music has a power beyond words at times because it opens up silence and allows that quality that is already these to speak.

OK, I know that I am way of the path here but perhaps not. Perhaps the reason I like modulars is not so much because they are more like marble ready to reveal its form.

On Non Linearity

2009-07-08T05:56:00.001-07:00

We live in the digital age and yet, most things around us are analogue including sound. Most sound that we hear when we walk around is based on acoustic properties not computer programs. Computer programs can in many ways try to mimic the natural world. In the synthesis world we have the example of physical modelling but I find myself wondering if a computer program is encapulating all that there is to discover about a physical system?

In many acoustic instruments and other acoustical systems, we have the aspect of non linearity. I suppose some of that can be modelled by a program but I am wondering if in our quest for the ease of computer programs, music is being deprived of what can be done with analogue electronics? Is a computer program always coming close to an analogue circut or an acoustic device or is there something essential and non linear that is not being captured at all?

In having now worked with Moogerfoogers, I find myself wondering because they don't react like any of my pristine computer programs that I have in rack effects or in my M3 synth and that intriques me. Perhaps, in the end, computer programs, however useful for music, can't do it all. Perhaps, rather than dividiing up into camps, its possible to realize the benefits of both and perhaps, even the joining of the two to create new and diverse musical worlds. Who knows, the possiblities are endless.

On Serialism and Messiaen

2009-07-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post this blog as a response to some discussions (if that is what you might call them) on Twitter regarding Messiaen, music theory and serialism.

Messian lived in an interesting time for classical music. While not at the cusp between romantic and modern classical music, Messian was deeply emersed in a musical dialogue which challenged many of the long standing traditions of classical music especially, the use of major/minor tonality. Which was in fact why I posted a You Tube of Oraison. I don't have a lot of info on this work but I just realized that do have the score because I have the entire score of Messiaen "Quartet to the End of Time". One claim on Twitter is that this is simple major minor tonality which I beg to differ on. I don't have the score here but I will get my copy and take a look at it.

I am well aware of serialism and Messiaen's use of it but Messiaen, while he may have written serial pieces, was not a major adherant or advocate of serialism and neither am I. Many praise it and I realize that it brought a certain order out of the somewhat chaotic times of the early part of the century but it also lack a solid philosophical foundation.

The establishment of the major/minor scales in deeply rooted in a long history and the establishment of a scale based on intervals (at least at first with the Greeks) and then latter mofications/temopermants after that.

Messiaen did not want to be tied to serialism. Frankly, I find no use for it myself although as I said, I am certainly aware of Schoenberg and that latter adherants such as Weber but certainly not Messiaen.

I do find the use of dissonance useful and very effiective at times in electronic works. I used it in my compostion Ligetti's lament which can be found on my SoundCloud as well as microtonalism.

http://soundcloud.com/lux_seeker/gyorgys-lament

Leinhart's redition of Messiaen's Oraison is also an incredible use of a Buchla to bring out the etherial character of Messiaen and his Oraison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKky73-9yOU

I continue in my work to look to early 20th century classical music and the avant guarde for inspiration much more than I look to pop music. I am not looking to create beeps and bloops but a music that Messiaen would call "glissening". Music hsould lift us out of the mudane to the devine. That is what Messiaen new so well.

Analogue adds variety to a sea of clones

2009-07-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

It would seem to be that the digital world has become a sea of copies. It's pretty much monkey see, monkey do out there. I recently heard a criticism of someones work (not mine), claiming that the process used to create a track was not hard to do. I will not go into the details, but the truth is, that even the least innovative of ideas that at least gets outside the box today for me is leaps and bounds above most music.

Even the tools of today, the digital workstations replete with clones copies of past musical ideas, are nothing more than a rehashinf of the past. Technologically a bit more innvative, some more so than others, but tame and safe archetechtures desgined to get the musican up and playing the same old stuff again and again.

Hard to do this with analogue. A slight tinge of MIDIfied presets in places but otherwise, a sea of possiblities but not clear path to take. Modulars especially are unpredicable but can provide a wealth of sounds that no one has played and as of yet sampled.

I have Spectrasonics Atmosphere (and now Omnisphere) as well as many sample libararies and dont' get me wrong, I like them at times when I need just the right layering of sounds but in many ways I am just cloning someone else's sounds. It's why I have moogerfoogers and hopefully with have a modular soon. Time to find a brave new world of sound that is not just a copy of the past.

On Additive Synthesis

2009-07-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

In working a great deal with additive synthesis, I have discovered why I believe that additive synthesis is ineffective based on a flawed premise.

First, let me explain that I have the mathematical background to understand the mathematical basis for additive synthesis so this is coming as much from a technical standpoint as a musical one.

The basis of additive synthesis and what is often called the "frequency domain" of sound is based on a mathematical idea called the fourier transform:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform

The basic idea of this transform is that an periodic waveform can be broken down into two infinite series of sin waves (or as they are called in acoustics) overtones each a multiple higher than the fundamental (the pitch that is heard). Each of the two series are seperated by 90 degrees. Some times this same idea can be expressed as a single series with each sin wave having a different phase. Synthesizers like Absynth use this principle.

There is a variation on this idea in the form of an algorhthm which is easily made into a computer program called the FFT or fast fourier transoform.

Now this idea works fine for a static waveform. However, without going into the boring mathematical detail, it does not work if the timbre changes which makes up just about every sound you find in the natural world. In fact, with a bit of thought, its not difficult to realize that determining the frequency of a waveform and its breakdown into frequencies are tradeoffs. As time periods get shorter either the frequency or the positioning of a sonic event in time become blurry (to use a visual analogy). This is why sonograms are blurry.

So to fix the problem the programer of an additive synthesizer uses what are called windows. These determining a fixed set of harmonics at a given point in time and then, much like connect the dots, the harmonics are joined by a curve that interpolates (guesses) the value between them. No problems right? Well, not really. There is a fine art to this because harmonics come in and drop out. It works well for the sustained part of a sound but not for the transient which is why some synthesizers (one in particular that I can't think of at the moment from Akai I believe) used a form of additive synthesis for the sustained part of a note but samples for the transient.

Tlo avoid making this post any longer than it is, this is the basis of the problem.

On the Sonovox

2009-06-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

The human voice in many ways mimics a synthesizer. The voice box is the oscillator, the throat, tonque and month create the filter from which language and song is created. Modulation is also used to create vibrato effects n the voice. You might just say that from the time we are an infant we learn to play a synthesizer.

The Sonovox is a curious little device. I revised my original post here because I can't really figure out how this device works. It acts much like a vocoder. There are analogue vocoders but they require a series of filter banks which is clearly not what is going on with the Sonovox. The descriptions, which are very terse on the internet. This is my best guess as to how this device works:

A small speaker is placed up against the voice box and the singer articulates the words (accordinig to one web site as a whisper - i..e. with no vibrations coming from the voice box). My suspician is that another mic with a large diaphram picks up the articulated vibrations.

I found this on the talkinig guitar which sounds similar to the Sonovox and the Heil Talk Box:

http://www.calsharp.com/music/Pete.html

The principle is the same. The sound of the instrument is amplified and in the case of the talk box and talking guitar sent through a tube which acts as a wave guide. The sound is then shaped by the mouth and picked up my a mic. What I can't figure out on the Sonovox is where the placement of the mic is.

On Musical Gesture

2009-06-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

I read the most fascinating article you can find here:

http://www.cesiumsound.com/GestureSynthesis.html

I have often commented on bulletin boards about how music has indeed been chained by the pitch bend and mod wheel. What do I mean by that? When synthesizers first came out, it was not clear that a keyboard would be the principle controller. For practical reasons musicians did not put modulars on stage save Keith Emerson and perhaps a few others. The Minimoog, the ARP 2600 and the latter Prophet and others would bring practical performance instruments to the stage. The keyboard, pitch bend and mod wheels became the standard controllers while other controllers like the ribbon controller were around.

Buchla has always favored alternative controllers since their inception. There new 200e music box (modular) offers the Buchla Thunder (or as they now call it, the kinistetic imput device). Buchla also has their lightening wands and Marimba controller, Roland has their D-Beam controller on some of their synths and Korg has their Chaos pad and the touch screen of some synths that function as controllers as well. Moog has a touch pad on the Voyager. In fact, more and more these alternatives to the keyboard, which seemed almost banished to by the dominance of the pitch bend and mod wheels have now come back in various forms.

But even before Buchla and Moog existed there was one of my personal favorites the Ondes Martenot, a very underestimated early electronic instrument for which Olivier Messiaen championed. Messiaen being a composer I have the utmost respect for and who found a way to bridge the gap between the post modern classical music, sacred music and Catholicism, a devout Catholic himself as am I (perhaps a surprise to some, I know, us musical types tend more toward the agnostic but what am I to do, deny who gave me musical gifts). In fact, my own music in many ways is at least influenced my my Catholicism if not a direct expression of it and a retelling of biblical themes in electronic form albeit in a subtle way that I hope can speak to the musical intelligentsia and to the younger crowd seeking an alternative to popular music end endless drum machines.

But as not to move beyond the topic at hand, gesture is how we experience not only music but he world. The brain expedience the world not in terms of formula, for example the cold lifeless formula of the Fourier transformed misused in the frequency domain of the FFT made concrete in additive synthesis (synthetic slight of hand and like all magic, an illusion). Life is gesture. We experience things as a whole. A tree is not defined by white noise and filters but by whoosh, the totality of the sound it makes as it falls. In the same way, a musician does not learn by complex formula of how to play a not but by the experience of how to express emotion in music and to move beyond the trapping of the notes on paper, the Cartesian universe of duration and pitch. Pitch itself being one of those trappings of scientific extensions into the world of art where it really finds no place. Real pitch is dynamic, flowing and emotive.

Both Karlheintz Stockhausen and Luigi Russo saw sound in terms not of scientific models of vibrating molecules but gesture, a gestalt whole that can't be broken up in time or especially in the illusury and murky frequency domain.

The theremin, which is what I have been getting to, is also a modern expression of this idea. Theremins are played by gesture. Notes are not fixed but gestural and dynamic which is so very musical and beautiful.

It is my hope that the musical world can free itself from cliched ways of thinking and making music and find new avenues to express the dynamic and gesture nature of music. If a tree falls in a forest, it may vibrate molecules if no one is there to hear it, it does not sing.

On light, motion, sound and dreams

2009-06-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was all those tweets I have been reading on dreams lately that sent me into one of my own today. It was not so much the dream which was interrupted by angry city car horns but the beautiful collage of brilliant colors that I saw as I came up if out of the depths peaceful waters. I suppose it was the body recovering from a stint of sleep deprivation but it was a most pleasant experience. How wonderful these simple things of life. Who needs drugs when our own minds can conjure up the most beautiful dreams but also, the most disturbing nightmares.

At times, I have heard music in my dreams as well. Some say the music of our dreams is only music we have heard in the past but never heard this music. It was as if my mind simply created it. But how to unlock that creativity so that it can take flight outside the dream word and take the forms of notes and timbre and form. To weave as our wayward dreams do but to be expressed in concrete form so it can be something captured and frozen in time free to find its way to other ears and minds and dreams.

That is what the greats did. They told us their dreams with notes. And in their nightmares ours were awakened as well. Hope balanced against despair but the creative mind always reaches out to God and to one another to free us of more earthy limitations.

So as I watched those colors brilliantly play across my field of vision and across the recesses of my waking mind, I began to think, not as a dreamer thinks, but as a composer. The Thermin is one of my favorites along with the Ondes Martenot. Ancient instruments in many ways at least in the fast past world of electronic music, but in many ways, more expressive than the cliched pitch bend and mod wheel that seem to have enslaved us.

Now if the hand can break an invisible field and give way to pitch from visible circuits flowing with invisible electrons, then how much also can the same play with light. Photocells are abundant and easy to plug into synthesizer modules and yes, my favorite, moogerfoogers. I have used them and yes, they sing! Buchla knew this when he encapsulated the light of a diode and the photocell married in plastic covering, the multipurpose opto-isolator turned musical instrument. Light can be turned into plucked strings.

And so I thought, here is this Theremin. Now enter some really bright flashlights and, don't be scared now, even ones that can be controlled by MIDI. Combine with photocells and then the hand making gestures and playing a theremin. Add some accelerometers or gyros (aka alternate wii - you don't need Wii for this) or magnets or flex resistors and you have a whole word of light and motion and magetic fields all which can produce voltage and make foogers and synths sing perhaps, even the stuff of dreams.

Right now this is only the stuff of dreams. Some dreamy musings while the sleep wears off and the memory of the curtain of lights fades to nothing. But perhaps, like Robert Moog himself who dared to dreams of circuits made into instruments, there is more to the world than perhaps, we have ever dreamed. To sleep, perchance to dream and perhaps, to ask the question, will I dream and will my dreams begin to sing.

On Instruments and Methods

2009-06-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

I often wonder how much we play music and how much music and indeed our instruments play us.

I was struck tonight by this quote from Stravinsky, honoring his birthday, from the Yale School of Music:

Stravinsky: "I have learned... through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to fonts of wisdom and knowledge."

While I certainly would not stop learning from books (and I have many on music and many scores), there is a certain element of truth to this statement.

Music is, in part, learning from the past, but music is also an encounter with the instrments and tools themselves. This is especially true in the world of electronics where the circuts, the modules, the tubes, even the capacitors and resistors, are part of an exploratory process. Electronics respond to us and we respond to them and somewhere in that mix comes art (or so we can hope).