learning from acoustic musicians

[AK]

another good exmaple of limitations and also of expressive electronics is the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Very very limited equipment but very expressive electronic sounds.

Delia Derbyshire's realisation of the Doctor Who theme still sounds like the future.

She didn't even use a musically designed synthesiser for those pitch sweeps. I think that's just playing the dial on some weird oscialltor box (or maybe with some tape thing).

Lots of very talented musicians lurking around those parts.

Absolutely, and I'm well with the favour of the majority on this. I have some music of hers which was very experimental and way ahead of the time. It could be the earliest form of techno I have personally ever heard. Amazing. I thought the Dr Who theme was an MS20 though myself. I know I read the tardis 'warp sound' was done by running a key across a string of a Piano and adding reverse echo ( amongst other things )

But yeah, acoustic stuff plays a massive role I think in elements of any form of music. There's some really interesting stuff you can do with Guitar too. Just record chords or notes in on an acoustic and once you get past the plucky stage, there's a tail of harmonics left which really lend themselves well to further sample manipulation and layering. The nuances are retained through the dynamics of the playing but the sounds just come over as really weird timbres with just the tails and envelope shaping / LFO's.

Real world sounds and acoustic sounds also play a huge role in sound design too, all you need is a mic and a sampler and you are away. I read just the other day that the sound in Terminator 2, where the Liquid metal Terminator walks though the bars in the mental prison, was done by recording a can of dog food being emptied on a plate. It was then repitched, dropped in a sampler and combined with synth noises.

Ok, that's slightly OT but it's just another area of real sounds and acoustic stuff that can take form and end up creating a whole new image.

As for playing dynamics and stuff, anyone ever remember the Yamaha VL1? I think it was some sort of virtual modelled synth technology that never quite found a market. I'm always on the look for one of those, I think there's some real gems to be discovered with that as far as expression and playing dynamics are concerned.

[oblioblioblio]

Absolutely, and I'm well with the favour of the majority on this. I have some music of hers which was very experimental and way ahead of the time. It could be the earliest form of techno I have personally ever heard. Amazing. I thought the Dr Who theme was an MS20 though myself. I know I read the tardis 'warp sound' was done by running a key across a string of a Piano and adding reverse echo ( amongst other things )

It was made in the early 60s which predates the ms20 by quite a bit I think.

I'm 99% sure it was something like this:

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

"an electronic device primarily used for the alignment of receiver or transmitter intermediate frequency strips."

wow.

[AK]

Absolutely, and I'm well with the favour of the majority on this. I have some music of hers which was very experimental and way ahead of the time. It could be the earliest form of techno I have personally ever heard. Amazing. I thought the Dr Who theme was an MS20 though myself. I know I read the tardis 'warp sound' was done by running a key across a string of a Piano and adding reverse echo ( amongst other things )

It was made in the early 60s which predates the ms20 by quite a bit I think.

I'm 99% sure it was something like this:

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

"an electronic device primarily used for the alignment of receiver or transmitter intermediate frequency strips."

wow.

Yep, you are right ( I am sure I heard the MS20 made a version tho - I shall find out ) Anyway, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_theme_music

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

* build your own project using arduino's, max msp, pd, whatever... i love what luke fischbeck came up with for his lucky dragons project -> http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/0 ... de_so.html ... electronic sound but yet still very human.
-Dan

I hope this kind of thing is the future. I would like to see ways of interacting with instruments created that would blur the line between the experience of playing an acoustic and electronic instrument. Playing a acoustic instrument is far more nuanced and personal. It allows for greater ease of expression in a more instantanious way. With a acousic instrument a little tweak on a string can bring out a sound that may take hours of fidling with knobs and buttons to produce using machines.

I have a friend that plays a windsynth which is pretty cool. He has been playing the flute since is was a teenager and hes about 50 now so you can imagine... he can get amazing sounds out of this thing. Some windsynths are compatible with external sound modules so it provides a neat way to interact with music hardware.

This threads talk of doctor who and old equipment has brought to mind an old record that my friends mother gave me when i was 17 and got my first turntables. Its was called Snowflakes are Dancing by Isao Tomita(1974). It record of electronic performances of Debussy's impressionist/modernist music. He has done works of other composers as well as some of his own.

He did all this long before this new fandangled digital audio software was available... or even a desktop with the computational power to play music. On the back of the album is a list of the equipment that he used to record the music.

Component equipment used by Tomita for the album

MOOG SYNTHESIZER
Quantity -> Item
1 -> 914 Extended Range Fixed Filter Bank 1
2 -> 904-A Voltage-Controled Lowpass Filter 2
1 -> 904-B Voltage-Controled Highpass Filter 1
1 -> 904-C Filter Coupler 1
1 -> 901 Voltage-contolled oscillator
3 -> 901-A Oscillator Controller
9 -> 901-B Oscillator
4 -> 911 Envelope Generator
1 -> 911-A Dual Trigger Delay
5 -> 902 Voltage-COntrolled Amplifier
1 -> 912 Envelope Follower
1 -> 984 Four Channel Mixer
2 -> 960 Sequential Controller
1 -> 961 Interface
2 -> 962 Sequential Switch
1 -> 950 Keyboard Controller
1 -> 6401 Bode Ring Modulator

TAPE RECORDER

1 -> Ampex MM-1100 16 tracks
1 -> Ampex AG-440 4 tracks 1/2inch
1 -> Sony TC-9040 4 tracks 1/4inch
1 -> Teac A-334OS 4 tracks 1/4inch
1 -> Teac 7030GSL 2 tracks

MIXER
2 -> Sony MX-16 (8ch)
2 -> SOny MX-12 2 tracks (6ch)

ACCESSORY
1 -> AKG BX20E echo unit
1 -> Eventide Clockworks "Instant Phaser"
2 -> Binson Echorec "2"
1 -> Fender "Dimenstion IV"
1 -> Mellotron

Of course after typing this off of the back of the record I find this link...

http://www.isaotomita.net/recordings/pl ... technology

Here are a few links to his music. Its pretty amazing for its time and the equipment that was available. From the Planets series I like Neptune.

Isao Tomita - Holst - The Planets - Neptune - The Mystic (1976)
Isao Tomita - Gardens in the Rain (1974)
(I really want to know how this guy generated the fractal art in the video put to this music)
Isao Tomita - Arabesque No1 (1974)
The Tomita Planets: Part three (Venus)

[livecollective]

I can dig it Shepard.

I feel where your coming from.

Need more people like yourself on this forum.

[damagedgoods]

some of you clowns really are a trip

yes my grandpa guitar comment was tongue in cheek (metalocalypse)

yes the video link was a joke!

lighten up!

do you know YoYoMA "lipsync'd" their performance that day, since the cold air would detune their expensive little outdated stringed instruments.

even the "best" classical musicians couldn't overcome the weather? pitiful.


I've been playing music for 27 years and composing for more than half of that, on more instruments then I care to list.

in this time, I've learned

I personally hate acoustic instruments, and people that play them

yes, that is my opinion and I stand by it.

I play Electronic music with Synthesizers, Drum Machines, Sequenced, Recorded into a Computer, and distributed Electronically!

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and those ancient tribes, would have totally used this equipment and these tools if they'd had access to them!
They did compose on the newest invented instruments of the time after all!


If some of you have a problem with that

Why are you arguing for Acoustic instruments in an Electronic music forum?

go, unplug your computer, move in with the Amish

and play some folk music you Luddite Hippies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9JYq-mXprw

now go write some techno music!

on a completely unrelated note, something about the way you write - i think it's the sentence-long paragraphs - makes it seem like you'd be a stellar tabloid journalist...

[damagedgoods]

it's kind of ironic how a lot of playing an acoustic instrument (traditionally speaking - say, pre-20th century) has to do with getting the "purest" sound possible from your instrument, whereas so much of electronic synthesis is about adding more and more "imperfections" to the basic sine wave and applying variations to clean patches (pitch vibrato, very slow modulation of synth parameters, random elements, noise, etc) in order to make a sterile sound seem more "organic". what's interesting is how the work of certain electronic artists (eg sleeparchive, sahko, autechre) pursues "feeling" without even the faintest suggestion of the emulation of acoustic sounds: it arrives at the same goal from a completely different direction. the human touch comes from the composition, arrangement and sonic structure rather than an expressive performance.

it's interesting comparing the two main approaches to creating music using electronics: on the one hand, you've got the session musicians and studio engineers desperately trying to synthesise a grand piano to sound as realistic as possible and respond to a keyboard player's hands in the same way as a real piano might; on the other, you've got a bunch of techno heads who effectively say "fck trying to make a computer feel like a bunch of strings and hammers" and write beautiful and expressive music with a totally different set of tools - the total control over every synthesised parameter, rather than a virtuosic touch at a real, physical instrument that responds to how it's played.

when you play an acoustic instrument you coax out the sound you want by means of how you play it; when you make techno you decide what you want and set about building it from the ground up.

[oblioblioblio]

it's kind of ironic how a lot of playing an acoustic instrument (traditionally speaking - say, pre-20th century) has to do with getting the "purest" sound possible from your instrument, whereas so much of electronic synthesis is about adding more and more "imperfections" to the basic sine wave and applying variations to clean patches (pitch vibrato, very slow modulation of synth parameters, random elements, noise, etc) in order to make a sterile sound seem more "organic". what's interesting is how the work of certain electronic artists (eg sleeparchive, sahko, autechre) pursues "feeling" without even the faintest suggestion of the emulation of acoustic sounds: it arrives at the same goal from a completely different direction. the human touch comes from the composition, arrangement and sonic structure rather than an expressive performance.

it's interesting comparing the two main approaches to creating music using electronics: on the one hand, you've got the session musicians and studio engineers desperately trying to synthesise a grand piano to sound as realistic as possible and respond to a keyboard player's hands in the same way as a real piano might; on the other, you've got a bunch of techno heads who effectively say "fck trying to make a computer feel like a bunch of strings and hammers" and write beautiful and expressive music with a totally different set of tools - the total control over every synthesised parameter, rather than a virtuosic touch at a real, physical instrument that responds to how it's played.

when you play an acoustic instrument you coax out the sound you want by means of how you play it; when you make techno you decide what you want and set about building it from the ground up.

I agree on the ironic issues.

and yeah you are right. there is a certain uselessness to trying to recreate certain intricacies of acoustic material.

I too believe there is a goldmine of epxressive information available in electronics that functions completely seperately to acoustic instruments.

In the same way that digital synths are generally kinda bad at emulating analogue ones, there are many avenues that are not worth persueing in this territory. However, I think that there is some middle ground of dissasembling the technicalities of acoustic expression and using electronics at what they are good at.