I'm sharing this experience to see if there's potential for electronic music sharing and dialogue. The following summarizes what I've learned and experimented with during the past year.
A music-sequencer is a digital electronic device that can record a melody, pattern, some sequence of notes, and then play it back on demand beginning on any note, at any tempo, chosen by the performer. The sequencer begins playback when it is triggered to do so....usually by pressing a note on its piano-style keyboard ....and will repeat the pattern ad infinitum until it's told to stop.
If the sequencer is mated with a synthesizer you may adjust timbre (and other charactaristics) while it's playing. Your pattern may be further altered by pressing keys during playback... pressing a key will cause an abrupt return to the starting point, beginning on the pitch equivalent to the key pressed. This allows for introducing randomness and other creative possibilities I chose to explore. My submission here is one outcome.
Score.pdf shows twenty-four notes I put into the sequencer of a Moog analogue synthesiszer (marked "actual"). The four bars marked "imagine" are the same twenty-four notes, but notated for a human player, and represents phrasing I considered as I was devising the melodic and rhythmic ideas to be played with/against the twenty-four note pattern. A digital sequencer does not phrase. It is inhuman, without emotion in its playback of notes.
This recording was made with a Moog Matriarch synthesizer using its built-in sequencer. A digital keyboard (DK) was connected to it via midi cable. I made up simple melodic fragments which I played on the DK while listening to the sequencer as it repeated over and over the 24-note pattern. I had the capability to engage a switch which caused the sequencer to react to what I was playing on the DK, or to not react....this choice drove my composing for the technology. I worked several days considering melody, rhythm and form....just like regular music....then rehearsed myself for several more days until I felt I could make a credible recording. Later I added chords and drumset, the function of which was to add sonic and polyrhythmic weight.
The very beginning of this recording is the sequencer attempting to play the 24-note pattern using one of four of the synth's oscillators. As I engage additional oscillators the pattern becomes more recognizable until, at 37" all four oscillators are engaged and the pattern is fully rendered. The ending is a reverse of the beginning. (An oscillator is where sound begins in a synthesizer).
If you listen to this piece, my thanks. If this preamble and the piece itself connect in a way that makes sense and triggers your own exploration, or sharing....even better.
I was inspired by, whom I believe, are the leading composers/peformers in the genre: Wendy Carlos, who helped Robert Moog develop a playable synthesiser; Suzanne Ciani, who championed the Buchla synthesizer development and performance; and, Lisa Bella Donna, from whom I discovered the possibilities in realtime sequential manipulation.
Sincerely --Ray
The notated pattern is here: Score.pdf
The recording is here: Sequential Study 1
Replies
I find it difficult to compose music on a digital piano with numerous LEDs and knobs. I never use electronic instruments. Electronic music, to me, sounds cold. I did appreciate what Carlos did, but that was essentially Bach on a synthesizer. Acoustic instruments will always sound superior to my ears.
I'm curious, Ray. Is your interest in these modern tools driven by an evaluation of your style or a search for a new one? Personally, I'm not a fan of the Sequential Study, but I genuinely enjoyed your Fugue in D Minor.
My interest in the synthesizer is driven by wanting to explore its use with the drum set. I'm interested in the rhythmic possibilities of running multiple sequences with drumming and percussion playing. I'll continue writing on guitar and piano, though, because those instruments let me realize ideas that won't happen on the synth, and vice versa. Separate compartments for me.
And, like you, I am first a fan of acoustic instruments. Ten or fifteen years ago I became, and continue to be, a fan of the pipe organ and of the works written for it through the ages through to the present.
It's nice to make your acquaintance here.
P.S. I don't have a D Minor fugue. I think on this point you mixed me up with someone else. :>)
--Ray
An interesting piece well done. Title seems most apposite.
I too have had a (fairly long) flirt with analogue synthesisers; still have the remnants of my ETI “Project 80” build. It used CEM chips (Curtis Electromusic Specialities), 1volt/octave control, published over a year or so. It is/was totally modular, though able to go up to 16 voices I stopped at 8 as it really got out of hand…you need 8 of everything (and miles of cables to patch the modules).
I also buiIt GD Shaw’s PE synthesiser which was worth its weight in Electronics tuition! I still build modules, currently using the Alpha clones of the CEM chips + the new ones of Alpha’s invention.
I was driven by novelty and the occasional need to break away from the chromatic scale. A different sound organisation, inspired by Varèse’s Poeme Electronique, then by Berio’s Omaggio a Joyce (which is closer to Concrète). If I did switch over to electronics it would be a mix of synthesiser tones and concrète.
Midi and computers have been a boon to replicable settings, so difficult on the original analogue-only machines.
I see ‘electronic music’ dividing into two main genres: i) a way of creating new sounds originating in oscillators – early exploitation by pop musicians along with multi-track recorders (which I regard as musical instruments). And ii) sound organisation that abandons the chromatic keyboard as such in favour of it being just a controller.
This work seems to fall into the first category. Shades of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, in its minimalist use of repeated motifs modified by subtle changes. It’s a most interesting work and I look forward to further of your explorations. Are you using a multi-track recorder?
I’ll keep my views of the Patriarch to myself except to say I can’t see how one can get by without patching. It’s a hugely expensive instrument for what it gives but then, Moog had a lot of work to do to get it in its current shape, finally going over to the CEM 3340 osc chips. I hate to imagine what his earliest instrument was like, built from discrete components! Massive.
I record into a DAW which gives me the all-important multi-track ability. The stereo outs from the Matriarch and whatever other keyboards are connected to a Cranborne Audio mixer/converter array, which sends to designated tracks in the DAW. A three-mic configuration is on the drumset, and mics are also used for percussion, guitars, and other acoustic instruments.
I suspect that if I were to hear your full view on the Matriarch I might agree with you. I love it because it forces you to learn how to make and modulate sound. Patching is a must. It's quirky. It's a commitment. I threw away the entire day-one recording of this piece because I let the oscillators drift out of tune without noticing (I noticed with fresh ears the next day!).
I thank you so much for listening and for your most interesting comments. And, if you can direct me to recordings of your analogue synth work I would look forward to listening. --Ray
Unfortunately, most were on 1/2" 8-track tapes that were eventually discarded as I now have nothing on which to play them! I think some bits were transferred to cassette. I used metal tape so if I can borrow a player perhaps I can transcribe a few to digital.
However, as I said, I'm starting to develop some new modules. With a midi-keyboard and midi to voltage-control converter hope eventually to get going again!
It says something about how technology can help. My 8-track Teac tape recorder + mixer (home made to as high a standard as possible) came to the best part of £2000, 35 years ago. Now I have a Teac 8 track digital (mixer incorporated) that cost just on £200!
It's good to learn that more aficionados are coming on the scene. This music is meant to be heard through loudspeakers where canned orchestral music isn't.
All the best,
Ivor