Left: "View of the concert performed by Robert Moog and the Moog Synthesizer, part of the Jazz in the Garden series, The Museum of Modern Art, August 28, 1969. Photographer: Peter Moore. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York"
Below: "Herb Deutsche performs at on the Moog Synthesizer during the Jazz in the Garden program, The Museum of Modern Art, August 28, 1969. Photographer: Peter Moore. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York"
Bottom: "Live at MoMA, 1969. Printed in Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, Analog Days (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 189"
Via the Grant Richter of Wiard on the Wiard Group:
"During the month of June, 2007, notable composers Gary Chang and Neil Leonard will visit several sites in Italy with the task of completing 5.1 installations of a program of music entitled "Sanctuaries," which are meditative ambient analog electronic music pieces composed by Chang and realized on a Wiard Modular Music System, specifically designed for playback in churches and other public locations.
The tour is sponsored by Sguardi Sonori 2007, Festival of Media and Time Based Art, for which Leonard is a also a curator.
The cities in the tour will include Rome, Benevento, Torino, Venice, San Galgano and La Spezia. While in La Spezia, Chang and Leonard will also have access to the Naval base, where there are very large rooms (indoor drydocks for warships, for instance) and other interesting ambiances, such as marble quarries and museums, where further explorations in unusual ambient spaces will be recorded and cataloged.
Utilizing Blue Sky Monitors and extensive Taralabs wiring at each installation, each location will be recorded using a Soundfield SP422B mic, which is a recording system that can yield from mono up to a 7.1 playback. Recording will be achieved using a tcelectronic Konnekt Live, interfacing to a laptop computer and portable firewire drives. In addition, Impulse Response data will be collected from each of the locations to create a library of interesting convolution reverb spaces for McDSP's Revolver.
Following the Italian journey, Chang and Leonard will give many presentations on the project, including a workshop presented by GASP Gallery in Brookline for senior students in electronic music at Berklee College of Music.
This project would not be possible without the generosity of sponsors, who include The City of Rome; The City of Venice; La Marrana - environmental art park, (for graciously coordinating recording and installation sites during a week long residency in La Spezia); Sguardi Sonori 2007, Festival of Media and Time Based Art; Blue Sky Speakers; TaraLabs Cables; tcelectronic digital audio interfaces and processors; The Wiard Synthesizer Company; Transaudio Group/Soundfield Microphones and The Berklee College of Music.
Confirmed Schedule - (Actual locations to be announced).
June 12/19 LA SPEZIA June 20 ROME June 21/22 BENEVENTO June 23/24 TORINO June 26/27 VENICE June 28 SAN GALGANO (Installation includes "Echoes and Footsteps" by Neil Leonard in addition to "Sanctuaries") June 29 - July 4 LA SPEZIA
SANCTUARIES An installation by Gary Chang and Neil Leonard San Galgano, Sienna, Italy
NOTES: GARY CHANG The music entitled "Sanctuaries" that I have composed for installation in churches is designed for such an environment of spirituality and meditation. The musics are ambient in quality, designed to fill the space with warmth and emotion, but never does the musics every confront the visitor - though there is some abstraction, the dynamics of the pieces are quite controlled, never overtly dramatic. In the best of all things, I am hoping that the music installation will simply be another contributor to the specialness of the Church's ambiance - my special prayer in the space. In loving memory of Diana Lee Chang.
NOTES: NEIL LEONARD Echoes and Footsteps is a reflection on the sound of Italy, where I lived and work for much of 2006. The primary sources are the sound of cowbells recorded in the region of Lazio, and the songs of workers celebrating the end of the work day in the Palazzo di Ragione market in Padova. The pointed gestures of the bells and bursts of cathartic song were transformed using time-stretching and delay techniques. The resulting composition evolves in slow motion and outlines large sonic contours that celebrate the essence of daily life as I head it while living here.
GARY CHANG SHORT BIO Sound artist and esteemed film composer Gary Chang worked his way up through the LA studio musician ranks playing with the best musicians in the country (e.g. Robbie Robertson, Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, Barbara Streisand and Henry Mancini,) later to compose music for many eminent filmmakers (including John Frankenheimer, Jonathan Demme and Stephen King). Few composers have mastered such a wide range of musical genres that Chang has (orchestral, electronic, installation, jazz, soundtrack, dance). Chang is a protagonist in the field of music synthesis. He has recorded on and programmed almost major every hardware and software synthesizer over the last thirty years, built dozens of custom systems, and designed a personal studio that is optimized for recording synthesizers in multi-channel and high definition audio. Chang won the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Jazz Composers while attending California Institute Of the Arts. Chang is a pioneer in the use of 5.1 surround sound in cinema, concert and installation settings.
NEIL LEONARD SHORT BIO NEIL LEONARD is a sound artist, composer and saxophonist. His compositions are a synthesis of concert, improvised and electronic musics that transcend categorization. Leonard's recently premiered works include Dreaming of an Island for orchestra, electronics and live-video (performed by Kirk Trevor and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra), Totems (performed by Byron and Caine at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City), and the music for Relatives (by Tony Oursler and Constance DeJong that was featured at the Whitney Biennial). His collaborative work with visual artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons was featured by premier venues for modern art including 49th Venice Biennial; Museum of Modern Art, NY; and presented by the U.S. State Department at DakArt/Dakar Biennial in Senegal.
Leonard is co-owner of Gallery Artist Studio Project GASP and curator of the GASP sonic arts series in Boston. His ensemble has featured Marshall Allen (Director of the Sun Ra Arkestra), Bruce Barth, Dave Bryant, Don Byron, Kenwood Dennard, Robin Eubanks, Frank Lacy, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Uri Caine.
Neil Leonard is an Associate Professor in the Music Synthesis Department at Berklee College of Music.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Mr. Chang and Mr. Leonard wish to thank Bruce Weisberg of Blue Sky Speakers, Rebecca Barnhardt of TaraLabs Cables, Ed Simeone of tcelectronic, Grant Richter of The Wiard Synthesizer Company, Bradley Lunde at Transaudio Group/Soundfield Mics, and Carl Dito at Coast Audio for their sage advice and contributing their companies' products on behalf of our project. Gary wishes to thank his family, Ann and Arthur Chang and Margaret Craig-Chang.
Special thanks goes to Stephen Croes and Kurt Biederwolf of Berklee College of Music for their continued support.
Thanks to Anthony Baldino, Tara Sarmov and Pierce Warneke, students of the Music Synthesis Program at Berklee College of Music for assisting with the installation.
Extra special thanks are extended to Carlo Fatigoni, Sandro Cecchi and Marisa Corazzol of Sguardi Sonori 2007. Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons of Gallery Artists Studio Projects GASP Gallery, Colonel Sergio Cavanna of The SAVTAM Aeronautica Militare, Cadimare - La Spezia Italy, and Gianni and Grazie Bolongaro of La Marrana di Montemarcello, La Spezia Italy."
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!
Calder Plays Theremin | Behind the Scenes
video upload by
Moog Music Inc
"We invite you to take a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Calder Plays
Theremin," directed by filmmaker Michael Tyburski, featuring an original sound
piece by composer and sound artist Dorit Chrysler.
In a new piece filmed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, Berlin-based
thereminist (and our dear friend) Dorit Chrysler brings a collection of
electronic instruments together with sculptures on display in the museum’s
'Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start' exhibition for a novel experiment in
sound and motion.
'Calder Plays Theremin' pays homage to both inventor Leon Theremin, whose
eponymous invention has inspired generations of musicians and musical instrument
creators, and sculptor Alexander Calder, who reimagined the art of sculpture as
“an experiment in space and motion, upending centuries-old notions that
sculpture should be static, grounded, and dense by making artworks that often
move freely and interact with their surroundings,” according to MoMA. In this
piece, Calder’s sculptures control the sound of each theremin, making for a
truly unique and magical composition among these objects, personified as artists
for the occasion. 'To hear a theremin trigger the Moog Model 15 synthesizer in
the Sculpture Garden—priceless. The sound of a Calder mobile element rubbing
against the antenna of a theremin producing microtonal sound in slight
movement—breathtaking.' -composer and thereminist Dorit Chrysler
"Yesterday i was at Lumiere II.2 by Robert Henke in Utrecht the Netherlands. The performance was part of the International Computer Music Conference 2016.
By change we had seats next to Roberts desk and took this pic. (sorry Gregory Taylor from Cycling '74)
Rober (Monolake) controls four big lasers with the sound, these sounds are also the music. The laserlight projection is super vivid, a real spectacle, combined with multi channel audio.
Last year is saw version II in Amsterdam, where Robert also gave a lecture at STEIM about the technique. (Ableton and Max for live and the special lasers)
Deep Web is a monumental immersive audiovisual installation and live performance created by light artist Christopher Bauder and composer and musician Robert Henke. Presented in enormous pitch dark indoor spaces, Deep Web plunges the audience into a ballet of iridescent kinetic light and surround sound. The work was presented as a preview at CTM 2016 Festival Berlin and will be followed by its original presentation at the Festival of Lights Lyon in December 2016.
The generative, luminous architectural structure weaves 175 motorized spheres and 12 high power laser systems into a 25 meter wide and 10 meter high super-structure, bringing to life a luminous analogy to the nodes and connections of digital networks. Moving up and down, and choreographed and synchronized to an original multi-channel musical score by Robert Henke, the spheres are illuminated by blasts of colourful laser beams resulting in three-dimensional sculptural light drawings and arrangements in cavernous darkness.
The installation brings together decades of separate research and experimentation by two artists with unique visions and passions for sound and light, and by innovative companies working in these fields. High-end laser system manufacturer LaserAnimation Sollinger provided the technical expertise and development for this very specific spatial laser setup. The high precision motor winch systems with real time feedback and the main control software are provided by Design Studio WHITEvoid in collaboration with Kinetic Lights. This novel combination of computer controlled kinetic elements and laser systems allows for setting animated end points to normally infinite laser beams. DEEP WEB uses light as a tangible material to construct threedimensional vector drawings in thin air.
The work was originally commissioned by the Festival of Lights Lyon 2015, and developed in cooperation with local producer Tetro. Due to the festival’s cancellation after the tragic events in Paris, Berliners had the unique chance to attend an exclusive preview before the project will be presented in December 2016 in Lyon for the Festival of Lights 2016.
Herb Deutsch passed away yesterday. He was born on Feb 9th, 1932, making him 90 at the time of his passing. If you come to this site you know who he is. You can find pages of posts featuring him here. He was constantly active in the synth community, from it's birth as the co-inventor of the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog, to this day. I thought I would share the recent GIANTS video featuring him above from February this year.
When the greats pass away, I like to capture images and bios at the time of their passing. To the left is Herb Deutsch's current Facebook profile image. Directly below that is the last update of his posted on December 7. Below that is an image from the Wikipia page for him with the text that immediately follows. Finally, below that are some images of him from the early days from Moog Music's Herb Deutsch Looks Back on the Early Days of Electronic Music tribute.
He and Morton Subotnick likely had the greatest influences on the design of synthesisers as we know them. Herb brought us the tonal influence via the keyboard as the direct interface for a synthsizer and Subotnick brought us atonal sound exploration akin to tape manipulation.
"Herbert A. Deutsch (February, 1932 - 9 December 2022[1]) was an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964.
Deutsch died on 9 December 2022.[2]
Herbert A. Deutsch (February, 1932 - 9 December 2022[1]) was an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964.
Early life and education
Deutsch was born in 1932 in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York. At the age of four, he first realized he had a musical gift. Through his childhood, he studied music and began composing at a young age. Deutsch attended the Manhattan School of Music, earning his B.A. and M.A. there.
Work with Moog
Deutsch had assembled a theremin based on Moog's design in 1962 and in November, 1963 he introduced himself to Moog at a music-education conference in Rochester, NY.[3] In 1964 Moog and Deutsch started investigating the possibilities of a new instrument to aid composers.[4] Deutsch has been credited with the keyboard interface of the Moog.[4] He composed the first piece ever for the Moog ("Jazz Images - A Worksong and Blues"[3]) and performed early Moog concerts at The Town Hall and The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1969's Jazz in the Garden [5]).[6] The prototype Moog synthesizer, developed by Bob Moog and Herbert Deutsch in 1964, is part of the collections of The Henry Ford museum.[7]
Career
Deutsch was a dedicated educator. In the early 1970s he taught at St. Agnes High School in Rockville Centre, New York. He has taught at Hofstra University for over 50 years and was twice the chair of the music department. Deutsch co-founded the Long Island Composers Alliance in 1972, and worked with music foundation NYSSMA. In 1994 he proposed its Electronic Music Composition Showcase.[8]
"On October 12, 1964, Bob Moog unveiled the first modular voltage-controlled synthesizer, an instrument that forever changed the course of modern music.
It began quietly, in 1964, when Bob Moog designed a new electronic instrument to composer Herb Deutsch's request. Herb wanted something to create complex and experimental sounds, tones not easily found from other instruments or with studio trickery. What Bob designed was not wholly new, it sprung from a powerful new combination of existing ideas. The concepts, when combined with some elegant design choices, made a very powerful and revolutionary new system. The new ideas found in the Moog synthesizer took several years to catch on, and it is likely even the first users had little idea what range the new instrument could truly offer."
Two tone generators have been programmed to match the pitch of the other. Intervention using various components prevents one from ever quite reaching the other. Shadow falling on the photocells in the middle of the piece will allow the dance of the two pitches to be heard though sometimes they exceed the limit of human hearing in their ascents.
Burlap Series 2006
Burlap is a continuing series of work inspired by Peter Vogel and Marc Nimoy that explores the blurring of the electronic circuit and traditional two-dimensional art forms. Small interactive, physically programmed musical computers have been embedded, woven into a skin of burlap, creating an electronic music composition in the form of a reactive textile. Gallery guests interact with the pieces by casting shadows over embedded sensors. CMOS 4000 series ICs are configured into circuits which produce tones, sequencers, and dynamically behaving oscillators that respond to shadows cast by guests. Each composition explores themes of cyclical and chaotic structures, iterative sequence generation, and dynamical feedback systems. The visual form of the Burlap pieces takes its cues from traditional circuit design and is the result of a dialog between the functions of the different parts of the circuits and the nature of the signals shuttled from one part of the circuit to the next. Weaving the circuits into a canvas of burlap juxtaposes natural construction materials with electronic technologies, and thus presents a challenge to the notion of the circuit as something that is cold, calculated, and non-human. The Burlap itself is used as a semiotically rich signifier indicating, amongst other themes, the historical origins of computing in mechanized weaving, pre-industrial age textiles, and a return to reliance upon renewable natural resources."
AANN (Artificial Analog Neural Network) - Phillip Stearns
"http://www.art-rash.com/pixelform
This is a short documentation clip of AANN from the 2008 Juried Exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum (City of Torrance, LA, CA, USA).
AANN is an interactive, handmade electronic sculpture that responds to changes in ambient light and sound. The sculpture itself is 45 interconnected, electronic neurons that are actively responding to environmental stimuli in a display of light and sound. Constructing the sculpture in such a way that function and form are keenly interconnected, borrows from the sculptural, musical electronics works of Peter Vogel. Great care was taken in the design of the electronics to accurately mimic biological neural behavior. The resulting form of the piece was influenced in part by layering models used in neural computing, and by Fibonacci based branching found in natural systems. AANN explores the notion of interactivity with electronics by making physical the abstract processes being used by modern computer scientists to solve complex problems in pattern recognition.
The science of robotics seeks to study, mimic and recreate life through the creation of automatons which are ultimately are designed to complete tasks that serve our desires. Here with the creation of AANN, the desire is to explore the possibility of making a thinking thing, one that is allowed to have its own desires. However, in the end what AANN becomes is a sign of the industrial military complex, signifying not only the possibility of the pursuit of such idealistic techno-fetishistic dreams of machine intelligence, but also their very negation through the terminal exploitation of the very life which it seeks to replicate (and eventually replace).
Questions which arose during the course of researching and developing the work branched outwards from the decade old debate about machine intelligence and its potential impacts on society and environment. What is interactivity? What are the preconditions necessary for such interactivity? Does intelligence play a role or is interactivity a generic feature of reality. What is it to think? Is it possible for a machine to think as we do? If it is not yet possible to understand what it is to think and how we humans do it, what is it that drives us to make machines think? Are we too lazy to think for ourselves? How much does structure factor into the functioning of a network both biological and artificial? What are the implications of accepting a networked model of understanding? What is the total impact of technology on society and on the biosphere which supports it? Is it possible for a technological work to affect enough positive change to offset the potential social and environmental damage wrought in its history of development and application? Can technology exist without economies of scale, and if not, can those economies of scale be maintained in an ecologically sustainable manner?"
"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.
"Sunday is the last day of the Museum of Modern Art's Soundings: A Contemporary Score
Each of the 1,500 speakers in Tristan Perich's Microtonal Wall is tuned to play a specific tone, dividing four octaves into 1,500 microtonal pitches across its 25-foot length. The resulting cloud of frequencies resembles white noise from a distance, transitioning into individual tones as the viewer approaches the piece.
MoMA's first major exhibition of sound art presents work by Luke Fowler, Toshiya Tsunoda, Marco Fusinato, Richard Garet, Florian Hecker, Christine Sun Kim, Jacob Kirkegaard, Haroon Mirza, Carsten Nicolai, Camille Norment, Tristan Perich, Susan Philipsz, Sergei Tcherepnin, Hong-Kai Wang, Jana Winderen, and Stephen Vitiello. Organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, with Leora Morinis, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.
Soundings: A Contemporary Score
On view: Aug 10 to Nov 3
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY (map)
More information: http://tristanperich.com"
Moog Music sent the following out to subscribers of their newsletter. I thought I'd share it with those that aren't subscribed, as well as capturing it in the archives. Keith was legendary.
"Thank you, Keith Emerson
'In general, everything we've ever done has always been in collaboration with musicians... there's constant experimentation. Keith Emerson was the first guy that really, in a professional way, took a large modular system on stage and made it work.' - Bob Moog
The sudden loss of Keith Emerson, a beloved member of the Moog Family, has profoundly impacted us. We were shocked and saddened to lose our hero, friend and collaborator so soon.
Keith discovered the Moog synthesizer with his band The Nice in 1969. Shortly thereafter, he reached out to Bob Moog and acquired one of the first Moog modular synthesizers, which was built for the Museum Of Modern Art's "Jazz In The Garden" public performance. From then on, the names Emerson and Moog were entwined forever. Keith became the most-visible proponent of the synthesizer revolution, using the Moog loyally onstage for almost every show of his career. Emerson became the brightest name in the world of progressive rock music, his influence and creativity rivaled only by Jimi Hendrix. He was a masterful musician in many styles, but also a renowned showman who understood that elaborate theatrics would elevate the experience of the audience to a fever pitch. Part of his "show" was to faithfully include the monstrous wall of modules and cables that his Moog had become over the years, as it had developed an instantly recognizable sound that no other instrument could duplicate.
In 2015, nearly 45 years after the beginning, Moog and Emerson worked to create newly-built exact duplicates of Keith's legendary modular instrument. Matching his original Moog to painstaking details, the new EMMS (Emerson Moog Modular System) was the first artist signature-series Moog synthesizer. It was an honor to recognize the great contribution Keith Emerson has made to the long Moog history, and to his enormous influence felt still today on the world of synthesis.
Through his enduring friendship with Bob Moog, his pioneering use of the Moog Modular and his lifetime of creative collaborations with Moog Music, Keith's fingerprints are on the very DNA of electronic synthesized sound. We can say for certain, that our company would not be where it is today without Keith's prophetic contributions. Our hearts are broken knowing our journey together has come to a close.
Thank you, Keith. Your spirit will live on forever in those electric moments when technical brilliance and unconstrained expression collide."
Bob Moog and Keith Emerson, 1974 (photo credit: Greg Hochman)
"This extraordinary and historic Moog modular system has been completely and expertly restored to full working conditon by E.A.R.S./The Analog Lab of New York City. They are New York's premier repair and restoration center for analog synths, and head tech Jeff Blenkinsopp has spent months (and I have spent several thousand dollars) on this restoration. All jacks, switches, and knobs have been thoroughly cleaned, all faulty modules have been repaired, the keyboard has new bushings for a smooth and consistent action, and it's tuning has been re-scaled, etc. In fact, the tuning is as good as you'll ever find on a 5 octave Moog keyboard- you can play the entire range and it will still be in tune with itself. Also, 3 of the oscillators had a factory mod done which makes the tuning more stable on them. This was done at the factory by Moog Custom Engineering, not by a third party. Everything else on the whole system is totally original and stock. A link to a video,below, allows you to hear the synth as well as see it, but first a bit more about what modules it consists of and it's history: It is actually several things put together- the guts of the system , over half of it, was the original modular system first owned by Gershon Kingsley. He was a famous synth pioneer of the 60's and a good friend of Bob Moog's. He used it in a group called The Moog Quartet, who famously gave the first ever live public performances of a synthesizer at The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. By the way, Gershon will be celebrating his 90th birthday this fall with a performance in NewYork at Lincoln Center and has expressed an interest in using this synth for it. If the buyer is on the East coast of the U.S. I can put you in touch with him, and you might be able to rent him the system for that performance. Several modules were added over the years, such as the reverb module (a great sounding spring reverb), and finally around 1977 the double sequencer cabinet. Most of the modules are dated Jan.1969 (they are stamped inside), some Oct.1969, some 1971, a few later than that. It is a huge system, with 6 oscillators, 4 filters (2 low pass, one high pass, & one fixed filter bank), 2 VCA's, 4 envelope generators, and many other modules, some quite rare (such as the filter coupler) and topped off with 2 sequencers, complete with sequential switches and a sequential interface A complete list of the modules follows. with cabinet #1 being the furthest left in the photos, #4 all the way to the right:
Cabinet 1: 1x 904a Low Pass Filter, 1x 904b High Pass Filter, 1x 904c Filter Coupler, 1x 911a Dual Trigger Delay, 1x 903 White Sound Source, Control Voltages (no model #), 6 blanks
Cabinet 2: 1x 901 VCO, 1x 903a Random Signal Generator, 1x 905 reverb unit, 1x 995 attenuator, 1x 912 envelope follower, 3x 901a oscillator controllers, 5x 901b oscillators, 2x 4 channel mixer modules (no model #) Cabinet 3: 1x 907 Fixed Filter Bank, 1x 904a Low Pass Filter, Filter and Attenuator (no ID #), 2x 902 VCAs, 4x 911 Envelope Generators, 1x 911a Dual Trigger Delay, 2x 962 Sequential Switches, Envelope and Trigger Voltage Module (no model #), Mult module, Power Module w/ trigger and pitch in/out (no model#)
Cabinet 4: 2x 960 Sequential Controllers, 1x 961 Sequential interface,
Here is a link to a video made by The Analog Lab, who just completed the restoration. If you have trouble opening this link, try pasting it into your browser, or go to their website,www.theanaloglab.com and you will find the video You can hear the synth-the entire piece was recored on it a few days ago."
4ms Company offers alternatives to traditional instruments with our poly-rhythmic clock modules that create evolving complex mathematical beat patterns, a resonator that can cast pop music into micro-tonal keys, a multi-channel wavetable oscillator, a routing matrix that's played like an instrument, and many more innovative devices. Rather than replicate concepts from the past, we strive to turn unique ideas into playable musical tools that expand the possibilities of music. We also offer Do-It-Yourself kits, and many of our designs are open-source.
Acid Rain Technology acidraintechnology.com
Acid Rain Technology is a manufacturer of music hardware out of Seattle, WA. We believe hardware instruments enable a unique connection between human and machine, and seek to improve this interaction through interface design for maximum playability.
After Later Audio afterlateraudio.com
After Later Audio is a boutique audio company located in Seattle, Washington. We make high quality Eurorack modules at accessible prices and we pride ourselves on responsive customer service. You can find our products for sale on our website, at various synth shops (Patchwerks, London Modular, Chuck Levin’s, and Modular 8), and on all of the major ecommerce sites.
via Roland: "Roland Launches Music Creation Platform 808303.studio with the Design Museum in London Featuring Legendary TR-808 Rhythm Composer Drum Machine and TB-303 Bass Line Synthesizer
In response to the global pandemic, museums have been forced to reimagine how visitors interact and engage. Now, Roland and Yuri Suzuki have teamed up with the Design Museum to create 808303.studio, a fun and educational music creation platform and online-learning experience.
The Design Museum is also currently showing its popular ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers’ exhibition featuring Roland’s legendary TR-808 Rhythm Composer drum machine and TB-303 Bass Line synthesizer.
808303.studio The 808303.studio, which features Roland’s innovative step sequencer interface, as well as emulating the sound of the original Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer drum machine and Roland TB-303 Bass Line bass synthesizer, is a professional-sounding online musical interface. The studio lets users record their masterpieces and allows sharing through social media or as a download. Acid House innovator ‘A Guy Called Gerald’ will also be on board to help visitors find their way around the platform and teach them how to program and play their own electronic dance music using 808303.studio.
‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers’ exhibition The ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers’ exhibition focuses on innovation in electronic instruments and key moments in the history of electronic subculture. Roland’s TR-808 Rhythm Composer drum machine and its TB-303 Bass Line synthesizer — arguably two of the most groundbreaking inventions in the history of electronic music – will be on display. The unique sounds, along with their interfaces and unique perspectives, will allow visitors to take unexpected and innovative approaches to making music.
Yuri Suzuki Yuri Suzuki is a sound artist, designer and electronic musician that explores the realms of sound through art and people. His work can be seen in several international museums and has worked with the likes of Google and will.i.am. to bring his collaborations to life.
The Design Museum Based in Kensington, London, the Design Museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. In 2018, the museum was awarded the European Museum of the Year Award.
Roland For nearly 50 years, Roland’s electronic musical instruments and multimedia products have fueled inspiration with trendsetting gear spanning from pianos, synthesizers, guitar products, and electronic percussion to DJ controllers, audio/video solutions and livestreaming products, providing modern software-based solutions and seamless creative workflows between hardware products, computers, and mobile devices.
Visitors are welcome to enjoy the 808303.studio and ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers’ exhibition until February 14, 2021."
Rather than go with a classic shot of Herb with a Moog synthesizer, I thought I'd go with what is currently featured on Wikipedia. Why? Why not? It's a reflection of popular culture outside of our inner synth community, and it's interesting in that this is the image they selected for him. It's also a great shot!
Here's a blurb from Wikipedia:
"Herbert A. Deutsch (born February, 1932) is an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964.
Deutsch had assembled a theremin based on Moog's design in 1962 and in November, 1963 he introduced himself to Moog at a music-education conference in Rochester, NY.[1] In 1964 Moog and Deutsch started investigating the possibilities of a new instrument to aid composers.[2] Deutsch has been credited with the keyboard interface of the Moog.[2] He composed the first piece ever for the Moog ("Jazz Images - A Worksong and Blues"[1]) and performed early Moog concerts at The Town Hall and The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1969's Jazz in the Garden [3]).[4] The prototype Moog synthesizer, developed by Bob Moog and Herbert Deutsch in 1964, is part of the collections of The Henry Ford museum.[5]
Deutsch is a dedicated educator. In the early 1970s he taught at St. Agnes High School in Rockville Centre, New York. He has taught at Hofstra University for over 50 years and was twice the chair of the music department. Deutsch co-founded the Long Island Composers Alliance in 1972, and works with music foundation NYSSMA. In 1994 he proposed its Electronic Music Composition Showcase.[6]"
via Richard Lianhart: "Friends: on Thursday, October 16, at Judson Church in New York City, I'll be performing the premiere of my EMF-commissioned piece "Threshold", for electric guitar and Kyma, as part of the Ear To The Earth 2008 New York Soundscape festival.
"Threshold" creates its soundscape through a process called cross-filtering, which runs on the Kyma system. In cross-filtering, the tonal characteristics of one sound, called the impulse response, are imposed on another, called the source, so that the end result is a sound that contains only the characteristics common to both. In this case, ambiences recorded in and around New York provide the source, and my guitar playing provides the impulse response. You hear neither directly, but only the result of the interaction between me and my environment.
Recording sources and locations: street traffic during a cab ride from 53rd Street to 89th Street; the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art, and a floor buffer in a side gallery; the lobby and galleries of the Guggenheim Museum; a trash compacter in the mid-50s; an air-conditioning compressor in the mid-50s; an industrial document shredder in the mid-80s; Olafur Elliason's New York Waterfall #4 at Pier 35; traffic on the FDR Drive at South Street; nocturnal insects and thunderstorms in Rockland County.
In addition, I'll be showing my short film LUX while performing a new live soundtrack consisting of the same NY sound sources used in Threshold, but this time processed with realtime spectral transformations to create a unique new ambience.
AANN is an interactive, handmade electronic sculpture that responds to changes in ambient light and sound. The sculpture itself is 45 interconnected, electronic neurons that are actively responding to environmental stimuli in a display of light and sound. Constructing the sculpture in such a way that function and form are keenly interconnected, borrows from the sculptural, musical electronics works of Peter Vogel. Great care was taken in the design of the electronics to accurately mimic biological neural behavior. The resulting form of the piece was influenced in part by layering models used in neural computing, and by Fibonacci based branching found in natural systems. AANN explores the notion of interactivity with electronics by making physical the abstract processes being used by modern computer scientists to solve complex problems in pattern recognition.
The science of robotics seeks to study, mimic and recreate life through the creation of automatons which are ultimately are designed to complete tasks that serve our desires. Here with the creation of AANN, the desire is to explore the possibility of making a thinking thing, one that is allowed to have its own desires. However, in the end what AANN becomes is a sign of the industrial military complex, signifying not only the possibility of the pursuit of such idealistic techno-fetishistic dreams of machine intelligence, but also their very negation through the terminal exploitation of the very life which it seeks to replicate (and eventually replace).
Questions which arose during the course of researching and developing the work branched outwards from the decade old debate about machine intelligence and its potential impacts on society and environment. What is interactivity? What are the preconditions necessary for such interactivity? Does intelligence play a role or is interactivity a generic feature of reality. What is it to think? Is it possible for a machine to think as we do? If it is not yet possible to understand what it is to think and how we humans do it, what is it that drives us to make machines think? Are we too lazy to think for ourselves? How much does structure factor into the functioning of a network both biological and artificial? What are the implications of accepting a networked model of understanding? What is the total impact of technology on society and on the biosphere which supports it? Is it possible for a technological work to affect enough positive change to offset the potential social and environmental damage wrought in its history of development and application? Can technology exist without economies of scale, and if not, can those economies of scale be maintained in an ecologically sustainable manner?"
"Herb Deutsche, the inventor of the Moog Synthesizer, joins our New New Yorkers Circuit Benders class for an afternoon Q & A and sharing of projects.
Herbert A. Deutsch is an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964. Deutsch has been credited with the keyboard interface of the Moog. He composed the first piece ever for the Moog (“Jazz Images – A Worksong and Blues”) and performed early Moog concerts at The Town Hall and The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1969′s Jazz in the Garden).
This event is free with Museum admission and open to the public. It will take place on the theater on the second floor."
The orchestra consists of 12 robotic manipulators of various designs, each of which is equipped with a sound-transmitting speaker. The manipulators, combined together, form a single multi-channel electronic sound orchestra. Due to constant displacement speakers in space, changing direction of the sound and the algorithms for generating compositions, the orchestra creates a dynamic soundscape. In order to interact with the orchestra, controller Leap Motion is used, that allows to control robots and sound by simple hands gestures in the air - similarly to conducting an orchestra.
The project is based on the idea of a combination of modern music, computer, interactive and robotic concepts and approaches for the creation of works of art. In many ways, it is inspired by well-known works that were presented in the recent past, such as Pendulum Choir (2011) and Mendelssohn Effektorium (2013). However, Nayral Ro is different from these projects in many ways. Its algorithmic system, in which sound and musical composition are being produced, is real time, and the acoustic environment also changes simultaneously with the process of creating the musical piece. Also, the whole process is completely subordinated by the 'conductor', so this a role is similar to such of a composer, performer and operator at the same time.
Creation of more sophisticated versions, more subtly revealing the potential of Leap Motion for tuning to the movement and changes in sound, is being planned for the future development.
video by Nikolai Zheludovich"
hard:
- arduino mega
- modified OWI-535
- servo motors + actuators
- 12 channel sound system
- leap motion
soft:
- ManosOSC
- Pure Data
Commission by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art & Geek Picnic Festival, Moscow - St.-Petersburg, 2014.
"We are honored to share that the Bob Moog Foundation Archives has received a major donation of nearly 300 items from the estate of electronic music pioneer Herbert A. Deutsch, who passed away nearly a year ago, on December 9, 2022, just shy of his 91st birthday.
Highlights of this extraordinary collection include:
1961 R.A. Moog Melodia theremin (the instrument that originally connected Herb and Bob Moog in 1963)
Vintage R.A. Moog Minimoog, serial number 1094 (one of the first one hundred ever produced) that was given to Herb by Bob
Original correspondence between Herb and Bob during the seminal period of their work together between 1963 and 1964
84-minute reel-to-reel tape of Moog explaining how the prototype Moog synthesizer works
Reel-to-reel tape of the landmark “Jazz In the Garden” concert held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on August 28, 1969
Sending our deep gratitude to Herb's widow, Nancy Deutsch, for entrusting us with the stewardship of this collection. We look forward to sharing this material with the world for generations to come.
Do you have material that you would like to donate to the Bob Moog Foundation Archives? Please email us at info@moogfoundation.org."
Left: "View of the concert performed by Robert Moog and the Moog Synthesizer, part of the Jazz in the Garden series, The Museum of Modern Art, August 28, 1969. Photographer: Peter Moore. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York"
.jpg)
.jpg)
