"On the 40th anniversary of the release of 'Moving Pictures' and in commemoration, MWGilbert has a new release, exclusively on vinyl. The title, 'Voice Ping Strum' is an anagram of 'Moving Pictures'. This new album was composed using a Eurorack modular synthesizer; especially noteworthy in his rig is the full range of Tall Dog Electronics Eurorack modules, which feature prominently on the recording. The only other sound sources used were sampled piano & sampled voices. There are 2 suites, 1 on each side. These have been described as more intricate than ambient, and more ambient than not!
MW Gilbert has been composing and recording actively from the 1970's through the present. In 1979 he released his 1st LP, 'Moving Pictures', with the goal of humanizing electronic music, using wooden flutes, percussion, and voice to complement synthesized sounds and textures. After 7 more albums, in 2018 he released 'Radio Omnibus', with cutting edge electronic music, two acoustic chamber pieces, and featuring Adam Holzman (Miles Davis, Steven Wilson) and Mark Walker (Oregon, Lyle Mays).
MW Gilbert grew up in the US and Belgium. While living in Europe he encountered the music of Varese, Stockhausen, and Pierre Henry, as well as the music of India, Africa, and Japan. After studying electrical engineering at MIT, he continued studies at the Boston School of Electronic Music, and became a teacher there. He graduated with a degree in music from Hampshire College, and then served as the technical director of electronic music studios at Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and UMass Amherst. He has taught electronic music at Hampshire College, UMass Amherst, & Holyoke Community College.
Note the above video is followed by:
Eliane Radigue - Triptych (1978) FULL ALBUM
Eliane Radigue | Feedback Works 1969-1970 [2012, Full Album]
Video Description:
"Un día me encontré con esta obra casualmente se mimetizaba con el sonido ambiente, fue en una casa de playa , por lo que no era fácil oír por el intenso sonido del mar, estaba atenta, quería escuchar que era lo que realmente sonaba, y no lo encontraba, hasta que aparecen fantasmagóricamente las voces soprano, despacio, atrás de todo, incorporándose poco a poco sutilmente la encuentro reproduciéndose en un lector de cd , aparece mi amigo Gerardo Figueroa, y me presenta a Eliane Radigue, máxima exponente de la música electrónica desde los años en que compartía con Pierre Schaeffer. y Henry en los años 60.............. nunca mas pude encontrar este disco, hasta hoy....por eso lo comparto. tiene la simpleza y sutileza de mezclar los sonidos puros y perderse infinitamente en las islas resonantes..."
Googlish:
"One day I found this work coincidentally blending in with the ambient sound, it was in a beach house, so it was not easy to hear from the intense sound of the sea, I was attentive, I wanted to hear what it really sounded like, and I could not find it, until the soprano voices appear spookily, slowly, behind everything, gradually incorporating the encounter reproducing in a CD player, my friend Gerardo Figueroa appears, and introduces me to Eliane Radigue, the greatest exponent of music electronic since the years I shared with Pierre Schaeffer. and Henry in the 60s .............. I could never find this record, until today ... that's why I share it. the simplicity and subtlety of mixing pure sounds and getting lost infinitely in the resonant islands ... "
Serge Tcherepnin has joined eurorack manufacturer Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer. The official announcement follows:
"Serge (himself!) is back
Synth legend Serge Tcherepnin joins Random*Source as Chief Innovation Officer
Frankfurt, 13 November 2018. Serge Tcherepnin, the inventor of the legendary Serge Modular synthesizer system and, like Don Buchla, one of the founders of what became famous as the 'Westcoast approach', has joined the Random*Source team as Chief Innovation Officer with a focus on developing the 5th generation of the Serge modular synthesizer system.
Serge Tcherepnin is an American composer, musician and electronic mastermind of Russian and Chinese descent who grew up in France and in Chicago. His first teachers in music include his father, Alexander Tcherepnin, Nadia Boulanger, Quincy Jones. He fast joined the musical avant-garde at Harvard, studying with Pierre Boulez and meeting Henry Flynt and other FLUXUS musicians, and some of the ONCE FESTIVAL group of composers, among which Gordon Mumma whose electronics were an early influence. Returning to Europe, he worked at the Studio di Fonologia in Milan and the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop where he became friends with Delia Derbyshire, while giving concerts with Irmin Schmidt, Jon Hassel, Katerina Krimsky, in Germany. Now back in the USA, he became known for designing unusual electronic devices for musicians like his brother, Ivan Tcherepnin, Maryanne Amacher, Mort Subotnick, Charlemagne Palestine, Kevin Braheny and Malcom Cecil. In '70 he joined the music faculty at Cal-Arts with the express goal of researching the uses of electronics for music. It's there he developed the idea and design of the first “Serge” modules and started his company, Serge Modular Music Systems, in Hollywood, in 1975.
Joining the R*S team will allow Serge to lead the development of a number of new and previously unreleased Serge ideas and designs. As Serge states: “I’m excited to work even more closely with Ralf and the Random*Source team as we share the tech savviness, obsession with quality and constant urge to push limits further. The main goal is to expand the range of modules and sub-modules that lend themselves to being 'patch-programmed" in unusual and unforeseen ways, thus to add to and expand musicians' studio synthesizers way past standard synth configurations. I’d like to see the Serge system to grow wide and large, modules all talking to each other, whether they originated in my Hollywood lair in '75, or in the '80s on Haight Street, or now, coming from Random*Source.'
About Random*Source
Random*Source is a project founded by Ralf Hoffmann near Frankfurt, Germany, with a mission to carry on and further develop and extend the work of synth pioneers Serge Tcherepnin and Jürgen Haible. Since 2015 Random*Source has been working in close cooperation with Serge on a new generation of the Serge system. Using high-end parts and components, SMD technology and modern production methods allowed to improve audio performance significantly and develop more compact, slimmer modules and systems. Together with Serge, Random*Source also faithfully translated the Serge range from its original (“4U”) format to the eurorack format – using identical circuits and sticking strictly to the unique user interface of the Serge system, the “Serge grid”. Latest offspring of that collaboration is the New Ring modulator which Serge designed for Random*Source in 2017."
We have to keep this one short as the festivities are about to begin of course.
I just wanted to wish everyone a happy 2018! Keep strong and remember you are never alone. At least not as long as MATRIXSYNTH is around! :) I hope this site provides an escape for everyone. Remember to take time out to play your gear!
As for gear... In 2017 we saw a total of 764 new products featured on the site along with 119 new makers on the scene. We also saw 29 vintage products never featured on the site before. The following is the break down (you can click on each to bring up the posts in reverse order. Note only 20 posts per page will load so don't worry about overwhelming your browser):
Update: 1/8/2017: I forgot to mention the stand out posts of 2017! You can find them here. There were 62 this year. These are essentially the rare and oddball synths you may not have known existed or you rarely ever see.
No New Years post is complete without a look back at who we lost in the synth community. This year we lost five:
I hate ending on a sad note, but we can't forget who we lost.
I wish everyone a great 2018. Make the best of it!
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy days to visit the site. Thank you to all who take the time out to create the videos showcasing the gear we love, and of course the makers who make the gear that inspire us. And finally, thank you to all the supporting members of MATRIXSYNTH, and of course the sponsors you see via the banners on the site!
Musique Concrete and clectonic music pioneer Pierre Henry has passed away at the age of 89. You can find a number of posts featuring his influence here on MATRIXSYNTH. Below is a tribute from Polynominaldotcom and The Art of Sounds documentary featuring Pierre Henry.
"The life in my sounds is an echo of the life within me."
Pictured: Pierre Henry in January 2008 (via wikipedia).
RIP Pierre Henry : tribute to electro pioneer musician (l'apocalypse de Jean) Published on Jul 6, 2017 Polynominaldotcom
"A modest tribute to a great musician, pioneer of the musique concrète genre. A true visionary man, 50 years ahead of its time.
Repose en paix."
The Art of Sounds (2007) - Pierre Henry
Published on Jan 18, 2013 mekonin
"Directors: Éric Darmon & Franck Mallet
Year: 2007
Time: 52 mins
Music: Pierre Henry
Veteran and co-inventor of Musique Concrète, Pierre Henry invites us for a short walk through his long career, his music, his concerts, his film-collaborations, and his home. An unique personality who fathered some of the most important developments in the music of the 20th century, remaining faithful to his vision and work till today."
Hi everyone! As you know Barry Schrader will be giving his farewell concert at CalArts on September 26. The following is the beginning of my interview with him. I opted to post the questions and answers as they come in. New QAs will get a new post so you do not miss them and they will be added to this post so we have one central post for the full interview. This should make it easier for all of us to consume in our busy lives, and it will allow you to send in any questions that may come to mind during the interview process. If you have anything you'd like to ask Barry, feel free to send it in to matrixsynth@gmail.com. This is a rare opportunity for us to get insight on a significant bit of synthesizer history, specifically with early Buchla systems, and I'd like to thank Barry for this opportunity. Thank you Barry!
"The 'Cristal Baschet' is a novel acoustical music instrument of a type of friction idiophones. Vibration as an element is used to produce musical tones by means of friction. These vibrating elements are metal rods embedded onto a heavy plate. The pitch of the sound tone is determined by the rod's length and weight position at the equilibrium point. The vibration is caused when an attached glass rod is gently stroked with wet fingers...
The Cristal Baschet was developed around the same time as musique concrète (Avant-Garde musical style introduced by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry), Electro-Acoustic music and early Moog synthesizers. The Cristal Baschet produces music similar in style with these other musical forms, but it's completely acoustic without the involvement of an electric amplifying-device."
Many of you will be familiar with the Access Virus compositions by Marc-Henri from previous RADIOKLOW posts. Marc-Henri bridges the gap between electronic music and other forms of art. His most recent work is a poem in tribute to Pierre Henry accompanied by the Access Virus. The tribute is hosted on La poésie au cœur des arts : le Blogart which translates to "Poetry at the core of arts". Click through and click on the Access Virus image to get to the piece.
via Marc-Henri:
"This site called 'Poetry at the core of arts' is the net the extension of a book of the same title, an anthology of poetry published by the french publisher : Editions Bruno Doucey. The book contains a poem I wrote about electronic music. The site was conceived to developp an exploration for some of the poets and artists of the book. I am one of them for, poetry , music and painting.
You will find the poem I wrote for the book, three pieces of music composed in january 2014, four poems by other authors of the anthology, three improvisations performed in early february 2014, a former composition called De Haute Vallée you have seen in the form a video in late 2012, an interview in french and some photographs taken at my flat when I was interviewed."
The following is Marc-Henri's poem translated into English:
"Orpheus veil"
Fly down into Orpheus ear,
Where roll clockworks
Of the forbidden stars
And voices shreds seeking vision.
Listen at the well of walls
Echoes of illuminated faces
In their bronze palaces.
Pavings, folds of roses,
The naked heels
Playing the freshness game
With embers
And the childhood kisses.
Travelling back to horizon,
In the limestone of nights,
Is now the prophecy of the spices,
With its tissue gifted with red
And the sobbings of an initiation.
Marc-Henri Arfeux - 2013
----------
Update: the following an English translation of the interview with Marc-Henri Arfeux on "Poetry at the core of arts". It is a fascinating read and reminds me of why I initially got into synths. My first synth was a brand new Oberheim Matrix-6 back in 1986. When I first started exploring the Matrix-6 I had no idea what the parameters did, so I just dived in. For me it was an exploration of sound for the sake of sound and a fascination in creating musical instruments never heard before. The focus was on that exploration rather than the attempt to mimic real world instruments. Much of this spirit is covered in the world of musique concrete and is captured in the interview below. Do not miss the part on the short wave radio. Truly fascinating and an inspiration for sonic exploration.
Published on Feb 17, 2014 Peter Grenader·23 videos
"From the album Secret Life, available on iTunes or CD Baby through Coda Recordings (link below).
Je Suis Anonyme (I Am Anonymous) is an A-B-Aprime-Coda arranged as a canon in both a micro and macro sense, meaning the construction of each gesture and the relation of one gesture to another. The process parallels elasticity and soft focus - stretching phrases to maximum duration while keeping elements loosely synced. The entry phrase was recorded in the late Summer of 2009. The work was completed during a three week period in September of 2010. It is distantly familiar to a work I did many years ago entitled "The St. Mathew's Passion, Part 2" (a lot of nerve there)!.
I approached Je Suis Anonyme with a rather empty conceptual pallet. This was by intention. Instead I relied more on noesis, something I became aware of while an art director where the distinct impression was that much of the creation was coming from the unconscious. Allow the piece uncover itself, continue until it tells you it's completed. In print art this manifests as carving an image out of a blank white page. In sound art that relates to silence and attested to synesthesia [1] - the visualization of colors, in this instance cobalt blue hues. Eastern culture defines this as Svadhisthana or The Sacral Chakra. There are other accounts of this phenomena in relation to music by Bela Bartok, Pierre Henry, Oliver Messiaen, Hanspeter Kyburz, Judy Collins and Robert Fripp [2].
JSA didn't begin as a dedication though through it's process it became evident it was a release of sorts to my mother, Harriet Avra Grenader. A final goodbye - something that's been long brewing. By sheer coincidence it was completed in the late evening on September 12th, the eve of her birthday.
TECHNICAL NOTES:
Most of the timbres in JSA were built utilizing source material recorded from the Plan B Model 30 Digital VCO Subsystem prototype in the Spring of 2009. Additional base reinforcement was added using a standard Plan B Model 15 VCO.
While the motifs in JSA may appear to have been generated in a single pass, they are actually the result of many layers of soundfiles. While the melodic progressions were scored utilizing a polyphonic instrument as a reference, governed by the monophonic attributes of the Model 30 the translation of this information involved multitracking. In instances where the required tonal information was not available in the original source material, Amazing Slow Downer was incorporated to generate those frequencies.
REFERENCE:
[2] Robert Fripp - 'Creativity: Finding The Source' (quote used through permission of the author): "Most musicians have experienced those moments of inspiration when magic seems to flow, when every note seems effortlessly right - but such moments are rare and their fleeting existence seems governed by capricious forces beyond our control. Is there any way to bring us into more consistent and productive contact with our Muse?
[1] Color Synesthesia: a phenomena in which voice, music, or assorted environmental sounds can trigger color manifestations which fade when the sound stimulus ends [3]. Until recently, synesthesia was believed to be rather uncommon, effecting only 1 out of 2000 individuals. Later studies indicate this percentage more towards 100 out of 2000 individuals and in some cases paralled to psychic perception in those tested. Although perception is often personalized (composers Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov famously disagreed on the colors of music keys) sonic variation often affect the perceived hue, brightness, scintillation, and directional movement. In relation to amplitude: loud tones appear brighter than softer tones; in relation to frequency: lower tones are darker than higher tones; in relaiton to timbre: complex timbres appear brighter than purer tones. For some, the stimulus type is limited (music only, or even just a specific musical key); for others, a wide variety of sounds triggers synesthesia.
[3] Cytowic, Richard E; Eagelman, David M (2009). Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia (with an afterword by Dmitri Nabokov). Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 309. ISBN 0-262-01279-9.
PERFORMANCE NOTES:
Je Suis Anonyme received its world premier at the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey in Pasadena CA in November 2013
Available as a high resolution FLAC download on CD Baby at:
Marc-Henri (aka RADIOKLOW) wrote in to let me know electronic acoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani has passed away at the age of 86. He was mentioned here on MATRIXSYNTH a few times in the past.
The above image is from conceptoradio where you'll find a feature on him in Spanish. The following is some of the text translated to Googlish:
"Editions Mego is refocusing on the work of Bernard Parmegiani under his Recollection GRM series. reissued it "De Natura Sonorum" album first published in 1975 and probably one of the most important works of the French composer. This work consists of twelve movements, constituted in two series of six, combining analogue sounds with electronics, and is a true reflection of his studies at the Research Group Concrete Music (GRM) of Pierre Schaeffer. This work was also inspired by artists such as Aphex Twin or Autechre, since, as well quote the press release, 'has indelibly marked the classical period of electroacoustic music.'"
Bernard Parmegiani: De Natura Sonorum (1975)
Published on Jun 3, 2012 TheWelleszTheatre·1,789 videos
"Bernard Parmegiani (*1927): De Natura Sonorum (1975).
Création 3 Juin 1975, Paris.
Dédié a Michel Descombey et au Ballet Indépendiente de Mexico."
via Marc-Henri: "By a strange mystery of time, the INA-GRM has just released a few days ago a new version of his most important works in CD. Bernard Parmegiani was not so famous as Pierre Henry (still living and now around 85 years) but of the same artistic level in a very different style."
Parmegiani: "La Création du Monde" (Complete)
Published on Aug 29, 2012 NewMusicXX·836 videos
"Bernard Parmegiani: 'La Création du Monde' (1982-84) (Complete)
Lumière Noire (Black Light), Métamorphose du vide (Metamorphosis of the Void), Signe de vie (Sign of Life)
I have received many requests to post this work in its complete form, so here it is."
"Siralia is the second piece I composed on sunday 8th of September 2013, as a tribute to the two Voyagers traveling in the distant border of the solar system, without knowing at that moment the NASA would announce officially the crossing of this border by Voyager I who - I say "who" instead of "which" because I feel these ships are part of us an kind of distant brothers - now travels in the interstellar space, first of all the human spaceships to explore this open region of the unknown.
Siralia precisely refers to this unbelievable extraordinary journey in the outer space, according to my sonic and visual imagination. When I composed it, only knowing the two Voyagers where traveling in the Héliopoause I wanted to jump one step beyond to anticipate this great adventure in the interstellar void. Now Voyager I runs and glides in this mysterious ocean of silence and my composition becomes a message to "him" !
I called this composition "Siralia", for two reasons. Sirius is the nearest star that can be reached from the solar system, and it is also the title Karlheinz Stockhausen gave to the first opera of his Week of Light cycle, in 1976. At that time I was 14 years old and discovering the contemporary electroacoustic of the seventies with passion, having been initiated to this music by my father. The first record I heard in the early seventies was "Le Voyage (The Journey) by Pierre Henry, a major composition of 1963. Before that, in the late sixties, when I was 8 or 9, my father would often play with his radio at the extreme regions of the short waves band to produce strange sounds he compared to tibetan music, and I was found of it ! I think this is the first root of my passion for electroacoustic music and wanted here to pay this tribute to my father who will be happy to be quoted here for this beautiful reason, as well as my mother who will be very pleased to read here this little but essential anecdote about him !
Siralia was composed on my favorite Keyboard Virus TI. The film is done after personal videos and pictures treated for the circumstance as well as various pictures of astronomy, including images of Voyager, of the message it carries and of star Sirius, also treated by various means to produce this film."
What's interesting is Marc-Henri aka RADIOKLOW composed and then published this piece earlier today just before news broke that Voyager 1 has indeed entered interstellar space. That's some great timing. :)
"In 1977, The NASA launched two space shuttles, Voyager 1 and 2, to explore the solar system and reach if possible its limits to cross them and travel in the interstellar space. The last news about them let us think they are now somewhere on this border called heliopause, may be just one step beyond. From time time to time, I have a though for them as I would of distant twins who would be brothers of mine, with a deep tenderness. This is the reason why I composed this piece as a tribute to them and their journey to the unknown. Heliopause was composed for keyboard Virus TI, film and music by Marc-Henri Arfeux"
"Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space. The NASA spacecraft, which rose from Earth on a September morning 36 years ago, has traveled farther than anyone, or anything, in history. Now Voyager 1 is in the space between the stars. How did Voyager 1 get there? How do we know and where is it going? For more information on humanity's first emissary to what lies beyond, explore the videos, images and stories below..."
"Siralia is the second piece I composed on sunday 8th of September 2013, as a tribute to the two Voyagers traveling in the distant border of the solar system, without knowing at that moment the NASA would announce officially the crossing of this border by Voyager I who - I say "who" instead of "which" because I feel these ships are part of us an kind of distant brothers - now travels in the interstellar space, first of all the human spaceships to explore this open region of the unknown.
Siralia precisely refers to this unbelievable extraordinary journey in the outer space, according to my sonic and visual imagination. When I composed it, only knowing the two Voyagers where traveling in the Héliopoause I wanted to jump one step beyond to anticipate this great adventure in the interstellar void. Now Voyager I runs and glides in this mysterious ocean of silence and my composition becomes a message to "him" !
I called this composition "Siralia", for two reasons. Sirius is the nearest star that can be reached from the solar system, and it is also the title Karlheinz Stockhausen gave to the first opera of his Week of Light cycle, in 1976. At that time I was 14 years old and discovering the contemporary electroacoustic of the seventies with passion, having been initiated to this music by my father. The first record I heard in the early seventies was "Le Voyage (The Journey) by Pierre Henry, a major composition of 1963. Before that, in the late sixties, when I was 8 or 9, my father would often play with his radio at the extreme regions of the short waves band to produce strange sounds he compared to tibetan music, and I was found of it ! I think this is the first root of my passion for electroacoustic music and wanted here to pay this tribute to my father who will be happy to be quoted here for this beautiful reason, as well as my mother who will be very pleased to read here this little but essential anecdote about him !
Siralia was composed on my favorite Keyboard Virus TI. The film is done after personal videos and pictures treated for the circumstance as well as various pictures of astronomy, including images of Voyager, of the message it carries and of star Sirius, also treated by various means to produce this film."
This one in via Scott, via Bleep: "Bleep's guide to Electronic Music is a 55 track compilation charting the historical emergence of electronic music by looking at landmark tracks from the 1930s up to present day.
Our aim with this selection of music is to show the length and breadth of the medium, providing a snapshot of the genres forms and styles, and the development of the artform. Whilst there are omissions and compromises that we have had to make, we hope that we achieve our aims and we do some justice to the variety of music that we love.
This compilation developed out of a project to create a Facebook timeline charting the development of electronic music from the late 19th Century until now."
The collection begins with Olivier Messiaen's Oraison from 1937 performed on Ondes Martenot & Theremin (you can find the original full track previously posted here and a beautiful cover on Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum from the late Richard Lainhart here):
"Originally composed by Olivier Messiaen, this beautiful and contemplative piece of music is a monumental moment in electronic music. Argued to be the first piece of purely electronic music written expressly for live performance on the Ondes Martenot, an instrument closely related to the Theremin."
The collection ends with James Blake's CMYK"
"At just 21 years old, London producer, James Blake releases on newly relaunched R&S Records.
At its core 'CMYK' is forged from a myriad of 90's R&B samples (Aaliyah, Kelis) their voices mangled, barely recognisable and thrown into a red-eyed fire of DSP and hours spent in the waveforms."
"Experimental French composer Pierre Henry, one of the pioneers of musique concrète, is the subject of this documentary that traces his development of a new sound that shocked the music world. During the 1950s, the radical innovator and his colleague Pierre Schaeffer created a unique form of music based on electronically modified environmental noises.
"Warren Burt has to be one of my favourite composers, up there with the likes of Sun Ra, Merzbow, Morton Subonick, Pierre Henry, Parmegiani etc yet his recordings have remained unheard by the masses. Even today people interested in early electronic music may have missed his recordings.Thankfully they are available via his web site http://www.warrenburt.com/"
"Hollywood, however, had already been utilizing instruments such as the theremin in movie scores for many years, and the first widespread American public exposure to the possibilities of the electronic medium occurred with the 1956 release of MGM's feature film Forbidden Planet. In addition to its elaborate space sets and advanced visual effects, Forbidden Planet featured an exclusively electronic musical score composed by Bebe Barron (b. 1927) and her husband Louis (1920-1989)....
Once they decided on the characters' moods and situations, the couple completed a series of electrical circuits which functioned electronically in ways analogous to the human nervous system. Decisions about the circuitry were strongly influenced by their studies of the science of cybernetics which proposes that certain natural laws of behavior are applicable to both animals and more complex modern machinary. The composers employed their noise-producing circuits to emulate such needed characterizations as serenity, anger, and love....
Bebe and Louis' success signaled the beginning of the effective use of electroacoustic music by the modern movie industry."
via Peter Grenader of Plan b:
"We have lost a bright little little light and a dear friend. Bebe Barron has passed. She has captivated us with her charm, her modesty and her enchanting smile and her memory will remain in our hearts, our art and our spiritforever."
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Bebe Barron on April 20, 2008 at the age of 82, of natural causes. Bebe was the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music. She was a close friend, an enthusiastic colleague, and a most gracious lady.
Bebe Barron was born Charlotte Wind in Minneapolis, on June 16, 1925. She received an MA in political science from the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Roque Cordero, and she also spent a year studying composition and ethnomusicology at the University of Mexico. In 1947 she moved to New York and, while working as a researcher for Time-Life, studied composition with Wallingford Reigger and Henry Cowell. That same year, she met and married Louis Barron (1920 - 1989). Shortly thereafter, the Barrons began their experiments with the recording and manipulation of sound material by means of a tape recorder that they received as a wedding gift. They created a private studio in New York and, in 1955, composed the first electronic music score for a commercial film, Forbidden Planet. In 1962 the Barrons moved to Los Angeles; they divorced in 1970. In 1973, Bebe married Leonard Neubauer, a screen writer. Bebe became the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) in 1985, and also served on the Board of Directors. In 1997 Bebe was presented the SEAMUS Award for the Barrons life work in the field of electro-acoustic music. She is survived by her husband, Leonard, and her son, Adam.
Bebe’s last public appearance was on January 12, 2008, at an event held at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, celebrating the work of her good friend, Anais Nin. Bebe was too ill to speak in public at this point, but she agreed to be interviewed for a video piece that was shown at the event. This is her final interview, and you can see it on YouTube.
Bebe’s final composition, Mixed Emotions (2000) was composed in the CREATE studios of the University of California at Santa Barbara. I'll be putting this work up on the Downloads 2 page of my website, along with some photos of Bebe and myself taken in 2005 at her home on the Photos page within the next week.
I first met Bebe Barron in the middle 1970s; I don't remember exactly when, but I think it was around 1975. I had asked Bebe and her former husband and composing partner Louis to attend a showing of Forbidden Planet that I had arranged as part of a class at CalArts. They agreed to do it, and I quickly became good friends with Bebe and we remained close over the years.
In writing about Bebe Barron, it's impossible not to focus on the pioneering work that she and Louis did in electronic music. They began their experiments in 1948, shortly after they were married. This early work was done using a tape recorder, preceding the work of Luening and Ussachevsky and the switch from disks to tape by Pierre Schaeffer and the GRM. But, to my knowledge, the Barrons' early experiments did not result in any completed works, a state of affairs not uncommon with early pioneers in the field. In 1949 they set up one of the earliest private electro-acoustic music studios and began their experiments with electronically generated sounds. They built their own circuits which they viewed as cybernetic organisms, having been influenced by Norbert Weiner's work on cybernetics. The circuits, built with vacuum tubes, would exhibit characteristic qualities of pitch, timbre, and rhythm, and had a sort of life cycle from their beginnings until they burned out.
The Barrons recorded the sounds from the amplification of these circuits and this formed the basis of their working library. They also employed tape manipulation techniques as part of their compositional procedures. The sound qualities of these various amplified tube circuits and the tape manipulations that they underwent formed the musical language that the Barrons created in their studio. Unlike some of the work being done elsewhere, the Barrons' music reveals long phrases, often stated in tape-delayed rhythms, with the stark finesse of the tube circuit timbres. They created a style that was uniquely their own yet married to the technology they were using.
The Barrons earliest finished work, Heavenly Menagerie (1951) does not seem to have survived in a complete form. But their score for Ian Hugo's film Bells of Atlantis (1952), based on a poem by Anais Nin, who appears on screen, does exist on the film sound track. This may be the earliest extant work of the Barrons and presages what was to come with Forbidden Planet, the music for which was composed in 1955, the film being released the
next year.
The music for Forbidden Planet is truly a landmark in electro-acoustic music. This was the first commercial film to use only electronic music, and the score for the movie displays an attitude towards film scoring that was different from anything that had happened before. In Forbidden Planet, while there are themes for characters and events in the film, as was traditional in the scoring of that day, the themes are composed and perceived as gestalts, rather than as melodies in traditional movie music. Even more important is the fact that the scoring of Forbidden Planet breaks down the traditional line between music and sound effects since the Barrons' electronic material is used for both. This not only creates a new type of unity in the film sound world, but also allows for a continuum between these two areas that the Barrons exploit in various ways. At some points it's actually impossible to say whether or not what you're hearing is music, sound effect, or both. In doing this, they foreshadowed by decades the now common role of the sound designer in modern film and video.
The Barrons composed many other works for tape, film, and the theater in the 1950s. Their studio became the home for John Cage's Project of Music for Magnetic Tape, and they assisted in the creation of Cage's first chance piece Williams Mix (1951-52), as well as works by other members of the group such as Earle Brown and Morton Feldman. As a studio for the creation of their own and other composers' works, the Barrons' studio served as a functioning center for electro-acoustic music at a time when there was no institutional support of the medium in the United States. It's curious, then, that, for many years, the Barrons, their studio, and their works were largely overlooked by composers and historians in the field. Fortunately, that injustice has since been corrected, and, in 1997, it was my great honor to present to Bebe and, posthumously, to Louis, the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Bebe was involved with SEAMUS from the very beginning of the organization. She was one of the ten original members who responded to my organizational call and met at CalArts in November of 1984 to form the group, and she was SEAMUS's first secretary. There may have been a little strong-arming on my part to get her to be involved so actively, but Bebe was always ready to support the cause of electro-acoustic music in whatever way she could.
Bebe created a firm legacy in her music. If the importance of one's work is to be judged in any regard by it's influence, acceptance, longevity, and innovative qualities, then the score for Forbidden Planet is an enormous success. It remains the most widely known electro-acoustic music work on this planet. For me, Bebe Barron will always be the First Lady of electronic music." Update: BTW, if you have Netflix, you can watch Forbidden Planet online in IE here.
Update: see this post for the audio.
via this auction "Ultra-rare private pressing, the first promotional recording produced by Moog, given out to prospective customers to demonstrate the capabilities of their amazing products. Both sides are identical and contain a wonderful montage of Moog-sourced sound effects and short original compositions created especially for this record by Wendy Carlos, ranging widely from experimental to classical to pop to ambient soundscapes and a real treat for collectors of her work. It is narrated by Ed Stokes who explains the different types of waves and filters available, the basics of sound synthesis, and Moog innovations like voltage control. This extremely hard to find record is an awesome artifact of early electronic music history and a gem for Moog
and Wendy Carlos fans.
Wendy Carlos studied under Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, worked with Robert Moog to develop and popularize the synthesizer and pioneer its performance techniques, and scored films for Stanley Kubrick and Disney. Some additional points of reference for this synth demo record: Jean-Michel Jarre, Paul Beaver, Bernie Krause, Stereolab, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Mu-Ziq, Matmos, Dick Hyman, Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack, Pierre Henry, Tomita, Vangelis, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Gershon Kingsley, Tom Dissevelt, Ondioline, Theremin, Clara Rockmore, Arp, Donald Buchla, Chappell Recorded Music Library, De Wolfe, Montparnasse 2000, Patchwork, Piero Umiliani, Roger Roger, Cecil Leuter, DJ Premier, DJ Shadow, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Oskar Sala, trautonium, Morton Subotnick, John Eaton, Donald Erb, Bernard Parmegiani, Mort Garson..."
"from the album "Variation" 2000, originally from 1967 (my year of birth). Hope you like it." Previous posts on Pierre Henry including some of the instruments he probably used in this recording."
via synthetic in the comments of this post: "Neil Diamond's "The Jazz Singer" was on cable a few days ago and the synth player was rockin' an ARP Quadra. I think I saw a String Ensemble in there too. The last concert scene, "Fahhh, we've been travelin' faaahhh..."
Available from Burning Shed Records and Perfect Circuit 
