The Official Sequential/Oberheim Forum
OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Off Topic => Topic started by: Sacred Synthesis on April 27, 2016, 08:57:34 PM
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This idea seems almost like a pipe dream. Every instrument has its repertoire. We speak of the organ or piano "literature," and by that is meant the more familiar or most famous pieces composed exclusively for the instrument. The church organ literature is vast, and every organist should know some of it, perhaps even from memory. But could there ever be a solo synthesizer literature? By "synthesizer literature" I mean compositions written exclusively for synthesizer (and for this discussion, I'm referring to keyboard pieces)? Could there ever be a substantial body of keyboard synthesizer compositions that were meant to be played with only one or two synthesizers from beginning to end, that required no multi-tracking, no looping, but only keyboard performance from beginning to end? I realize this could lead down all sorts of tangents, with some commenting about what constitutes "music," "noise is music and music is noise," What's wrong with looping?" and so on. Well, there's a humungous body of material including all of that, so there's no question about it. My question is, could there ever be a body of solo synthesizer compositions for keyboardists, something comparable to the organ and piano repertoire?
I believe there could be, and it's been my interest to contribute to it, but sadly, there are various reasons that render it unlikely. First, I would mention the extreme commerciality of the synthesizer. It is part of a market that is forever discontinuing older instruments and introducing new ones. This means musical turbulence caused by competition between manufacturers that has one company after another trying to reinvent the instrument, or at least outdo the competition with inventiveness and constantly changing features.
I realize that all instruments go through stages of development, and this is a good thing. It's certainly the case with the piano and organ. But at some point, in order for the instrument virtuoso to arise, there has to be a leveling-off and a stabilization of an instrument. If pipe organ designers had ever sought to re-invent the organ year after year and to change even fundamental elements, including the keyboard, then there never would have been a J. S. Bach, nor his magnificent and massive organ literature.
The establishment of a synthesizer repertoire is dependent on this sort of stabilization, on a normalization of features and design. But of course, the market would resist this, and synthesists themselves are forever demanding new features. Variety is nice, but in this case, it keeps the synthesizer from acquiring a repertoire of serious keyboard music that could stand up to the works of the keyboard/perdalboard masters.
One advantage of the recent analog synthesizer revival has been the return or popularization of a standard set of features - the classic VCO, VCA, VCF, LFO, and four-stage envelope generator design. Some people see this as a sort of stagnation and feel that the synthesizer, by its nature, must remain an ever-evolving instrument. But I see this "stagnation" as a much needed stabilization that could allow a repertoire to develop.
Second, the very nature of the synthesizer renders a repertoire unlikely. By this I mean the sheer vastness of the instrument's sonic capability. It's strength is also a weakness. What does a synthesizer sound like? It sounds like anything and everything! How on earth does one create a distinctive repertoire when the very substance of music - the sound - has no bounds, when one can practically design any sort of sound and effect on a synthesizer? I would suggest an unpopular solution: the standardizing of patches. No, I'm not suggesting limits on sound design. I'm simply saying that the synthesist needs to master his or her ego for the advancement of music. Meaning, we must not be afraid to use and re-use certain sounds that are musically rich and effective. And when other synthesists suggest that we're lacking in variety and originality with our limited repertoire of sounds, politely tell them to take a hike! We're in pursuit of fine synthesizer music, not vain congratulations and awards for having eight million different sounds stored in our sound banks.
Personally, I would love to see synthesists playing one synthesizer at a time and performing on it complete keyboard compositions from beginning to end - pieces that could be played on other keyboard instruments, but that are especially composed for the synthesizer. Marc Melia certainly comes to mind, but I'm speaking of looping-free compositions. He's at least close to what I have in mind, and his sounds have the potential. Anyway, this repertoire would certainly be helped along if synthesizers tended towards a larger size with full-length keyboards, and if the use of bass pedalboards became common as well.
Synthesists have a special hunger for large amounts of equipment, for constant development of the instrument, for new ways to trigger notes and sounds, for constant experimentation, and for variety seemingly as an end in itself. But what ultimately is the vision or goal of these? They can be useful and fascinating in some ways, but they also result in a monotony of change that leaves the synthesizer without a mature repertoire of its own.
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Phew, that's a tough one. Let me try to work through this paragraph by paragraph.
This idea seems almost like a pipe dream. Every instrument has its repertoire. We speak of the organ or piano "literature," and by that is meant the more familiar or most famous pieces composed exclusively for the instrument. The church organ literature is vast, and every organist should know some of it, perhaps even from memory. But could there ever be a solo synthesizer literature? By "synthesizer literature" I mean compositions written exclusively for synthesizer (and for this discussion, I'm referring to keyboard pieces)? Could there ever be a substantial body of keyboard synthesizer compositions that were meant to be played with only one or two synthesizers from beginning to end, that required no multi-tracking, no looping, but only keyboard performance from beginning to end? I realize this could lead down all sorts of tangents, with some commenting about what constitutes "music," "noise is music and music is noise," What's wrong with looping?" and so on. Well, there's a humungous body of material including all of that, so there's no question about it. My question is, could there ever be a body of solo synthesizer compositions for keyboardists, something comparable to the organ and piano repertoire?
I don't believe so. If you take into account the historical context, two technological developments are quite significant for the latter half of the 20th century: the advancement of studio technology and synthesizers. With the former becoming an instrument within itself - first utilized by the avantgarde, then in the more popular context that is now mainstream with the ubiquitous laptop studio - the use of the latter can almost not be separated from it. The simplest example would be something like Switched On Bach. So here you would artificially separate technological tools that went hand in hand with each other - historically speaking. The only thing I can think of that would come close to what you're asking for would be all-around entertainers with workstations, although even in that case not everything is entirely live. Second of all, that kind of music doesn't specifically need synthesizers as it typically hasn't been written with synthesizers in mind. And if you're looking for something that's as genuine as for example organ music, then every classical music falls flat, since organ music was written with the specific instrument in mind, just like string quartets or piano concertos were written for different purposes. The point is, none of these traditional instruments sound alike, so specific techniques and placements (as in instrumentation) have been developed. If you want the equivalent for a synthesizer, it either needs to be something that takes into account what only synthesizers can do, or - which is maybe more complicated - defining in the first place what kind of instrument a synthesizer is. With regard to the latter I'd say: many. I think it was John Bowen who brought that up in the context of FM synthesis that every synthesizer is in fact always many instruments, namely those you program. And it makes perfect sense if you think about how you can route certain controllers to particular parameters. Think of the possible destinations for aftertouch and expression pedals on a Prophet '08 for example. That way, you're basically programming (via software) a unique instrument with each patch. But that is only one example with regard to one particular instrument, which leads me to the next point.
I believe there could be, and it's been my interest to contribute to it, but sadly, there are various reasons that render it unlikely. First, I would mention the extreme commerciality of the synthesizer. It is part of a market that is forever discontinuing older instruments and introducing new ones. This means musical turbulence caused by competition between manufacturers that has one company after another trying to reinvent the instrument, or at least outdo the competition with inventiveness and constantly changing features.
Sure. That and the fact that most musicians who used synthesizers to perform music also chose what was available at a particular time for a particular budget. In the 1960s and 1970s this is very obvious. Not that much to choose frome around that time, and not at all many polys. Also, up to the digital revolution, those musicians who could afford it would mostly get the latest and most sophisticated equipment. As most musicians were not necessarily synthesists, the equipment was largely disposable, since the only thing that counted were the emulative capabilities. So you could argue, the more emulations, the more arbitrary the specific synths in terms of individual character, since the latter is not what you want if the synth should be equally good at anything.
I realize that all instruments go through stages of development, and this is a good thing. It's certainly the case with the piano and organ. But at some point, in order for the instrument virtuoso to arise, there has to be a leveling-off and a stabilization of an instrument. If pipe organ designers had ever sought to re-invent the organ year after year and to change even fundamental elements, including the keyboard, then there never would have been a J. S. Bach, nor his magnificent and massive organ literature.
It's not that people didn't try to improve those traditional instruments, but times were also much slower. What have been 100 years back then, is about a day today. So in today's world, Bach would have had to make artistic decisions in terms of the tools he'd like to utilize, just like anybody else. But most certainly he wouldn't have been the Johnny S. we know him for. That could only happen under particular cultural circumstances that can't be reproduced or repeated, since first of all the church doesn't play the same role as it did back then anymore and there are certainly many more instruments to choose from other than the choir, the orchestra, the organ, etc.
The problem maintains, though, even if you focus on the keyboard synthesizer exclusively - which leaves out many other synthesizers, which is not any less problematic: What is "the synthesizer" for which a specific music should be written? Plus: Isn't the synthesizer the non-traditional instrument per se? Can it even be canonized the same way as traditional instruments led to single genres and a dedicated literature?
The establishment of a synthesizer repertoire is dependent on this sort of stabilization, on a normalization of features and design. But of course, the market would resist this, and synthesists themselves are forever demanding new features. Variety is nice, but in this case, it keeps the synthesizer from acquiring a repertoire of serious keyboard music that could stand up to the works of the keyboard/perdalboard masters.
One advantage of the recent analog synthesizer revival has been the return or popularization of a standard set of features - the classic VCO, VCA, VCF, LFO, and four-stage envelope generator design. Some people see this as a sort of stagnation and feel that the synthesizer, by its nature, must remain an ever-evolving instrument. But I see this "stagnation" as a much needed stabilization that could allow a repertoire to develop.
Well, who is going to set the standards then with all the different types of synthesis available? I mean, it's mostly the professionals these days who make use of synths for scoring soundtracks and things like that, who wouldn't want to lack options.
But okay. Something that has stood the test of time as Dave always says is certainly subtractive synthesis as a kind of lowest common demoninator. That's a sort of standard with the components you've listed. In this case you're getting further and further away though from "the synthesizer," as you're exclusively focussing on an analog synth that utilizes subtractive synthesis with a keyboard. That's already a very specific device out of many, which leads to the next point.
Second, the very nature of the synthesizer renders a repertoire unlikely. By this I mean the sheer vastness of the instrument's sonic capability. It's strength is also a weakness. What does a synthesizer sound like? It sounds like anything and everything! How on earth does one create a distinctive repertoire when the very substance of music - the sound - has no bounds, when one can practically design any sort of sound and effect on a synthesizer? I would suggest an unpopular solution: the standardizing of patches. No, I'm not suggesting limits on sound design. I'm simply saying that the synthesist needs to master his or her ego for the advancement of music. Meaning, we must not be afraid to use and re-use certain sounds that are musically rich and effective. And when other synthesists suggest that we're lacking in variety and originality with our limited repertoire of sounds, politely tell them to take a hike! We're in pursuit of fine synthesizer music, not vain congratulations and awards for having eight million different sounds stored in our sound banks.
Now you're jumping back to "the synthesizer," although you had more or less only one of its incarnations in mind - the one that became popular since the Minimoog.
You follow a similar logic with the patches here. But in this case it gets more complicated, since we're entering an aesthetic discussion for which there is and can't be an ultimate guideline other than ideologies or world views. The uncertain variable in your equation is music or musicality, which is something each one of us would define differently. In the Middle Ages the tritone was Satan. With something like Musique concrète or futuristic instruments in mind, those aspects based on sheer intervals are laughable. And even that takes into account already historicized developments. And finally, there's all the microtonality outside of the so-called Western music. And furthermore, one could also argue that there are all these things outside of the actual aesthetic realm that play a big role too, like social impacts and so on. So based on these view points, it's going to be hard to come up with a clear definition of music or musicality, if it shouldn't end up being one particular genre in one particular tradition, which would be - at least in my view - diametrically opposed to what a synthesizer can be.
Personally, I would love to see synthesists playing one synthesizer at a time and performing on it complete keyboard compositions from beginning to end - pieces that could be played on other keyboard instruments, but that are especially composed for the synthesizer. Marc Melia certainly comes to mind, but I'm speaking of looping-free compositions. He's at least close to what I have in mind, and his sounds have the potential. Anyway, this repertoire would certainly be helped along if synthesizers tended towards a larger size with full-length keyboards, and if the use of bass pedalboards became common as well.
But if current studio technology is to be ignored - and I would include things like looping here -, aren't you basically asking for an organ player surrounded by a particular type of synthesizers instead of traditional organs? First of all: What about all the people, who play in bands? Are they discarded? Second of all: If you are indeed asking for an organ player surrounded by a particular type of synthesizers, then this music has already been written, and it's most likely called organ music - same clothes, different color, as it would basically equal swapping the keys. It would only turn into something else if you treat the synthesizers for what they are, which brings us back to the dilemma at the beginning: What kind of an instrument is a synthesizer to begin with?
Eventually, you basically state an aesthetic preference for the kind of sounds Marc Melia utilizes. Again, that and the notion of the organist sum up to a very contingent interpretation of what a synthesizer can be. And I'm only pointing this out because you called this thread "Could There Ever Be a Solo Synthesizer Repertoire?" - So, ex negativo, I would argue that you answered this question with "yes" by setting up a couple of rules and interpretations. But it is only based on these limitations that there could be one type of a repertoire, because as you say:
Synthesists have a special hunger for large amounts of equipment, for constant development of the instrument, for new ways to trigger notes and sounds, for constant experimentation, and for variety seemingly as an end in itself.
You try to reframe the above-mentioned limitation as something positive, which makes sense, but I would argue that this would only work with regard to technical questions, but maybe not aesthetic choices.
But what ultimately is the vision or goal of these? They can be useful and fascinating in some ways, but they also result in a monotony of change that leaves the synthesizer without a mature repertoire of its own.
And this ultimately touches upon aesthetic choices. The visions or goals behind experimentation (which is again something different for each of us) are pretty subjective. Part of it may be intellectual considerations, part of it personal experience, or simply intuition. Sure, things can get redundant, but that can also be part of an aesthetic agenda, which in itself is just as valid as any other. If I look at many current synthesists for example, young guys I know, people I've seen live or online, then there's certainly a movement that couldn't be any further away from what you're unfolding above. I mean, right now it's not only that modular systems are very strong, the music is also guided rather by a process itself instead of finishing something up, which challenges any concept of a work in the first place. Furthermore, and certainly on a larger scale than in the 1960s and 1970s, people seem to be ready to throw musical traditions overboard with the synthesizer these days, which is in many cases due to the absence of keyboards. So this can't be ignored either, especially if someone is interested in what could be described as a physiognomy of synthesizers, if that entails the question after what genuine synthesizer music would sound like. But it's a long discussion that has been going on ever since Silver Apples of the Moon and Switched On Bach had been released.
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Could there ever be a substantial body of keyboard synthesizer compositions that were meant to be played with only one or two synthesizers from beginning to end, that required no multi-tracking, no looping, but only keyboard performance from beginning to end?
If you think of the synthesizer as a keyboard instrument, it inherits repertoire in the same way that the pianoforte inherited from harpsichord and organ. The piano displaced the harpsichord as a domestic instrument because it (the piano) sounded better and was more expressive, and the piano had a huge body of playable music before it was even invented.
Composers took advantage of the piano's strengths until guys like Beethoven and Chopin totally blew the roof off the thing's potential. In less than a hundred years, there was a real piano repertoire.
A real instrument repertoire takes full advantage of an instrument's capabilities. It's not fair to exclude specific synthesizer idioms like sequencing, looping, and non-keyboard control from the definition of "repertoire." It's like asking, in 1750, "Will we ever get a real pianoforte repertoire that doesn't use things like dynamics and those crazy-low notes?" Asking the question this way, and accepting the premise, seems designed to require a negative answer.
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Goodness gracious. By posing the idea as a question, I had expected to generate a discussion, not a refutation and a rebuke. Ah well. The proper place for musical ideas is not on a synth forum, but in a music room. My error.
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Goodness gracious. By posing the idea as a question, I had expected to generate a discussion, not a refutation and a rebuke. Ah well. The proper place for musical ideas is not on a synth forum, but in a music room. My error.
But just because we don't necessarily agree on each aspect (although at least in my view it doesn't even have that much to do with any sort of agreement), it doesn't make it less of a discussion. My point was not so much taking sides, but rather to consider the different aspects of a synthesizer and its multiple uses as well as possibilities. In other words: if anything, your post proved to me that Chowning was not too far off by calling one synthesizer a plethora of instruments, of which you picked one. I'm not judging that decision, I'm just observing it, that's all.
In addition to what chysn wrote, I would add that as soon as a keyboard is involved you find yourself in the traditional line of keyboard instruments, from the harpsichord to the DX-7 if you like. One exception is of course the mono synth, which is conceived as a single voice, very unlike traditional keyboard instruments, but rather related to the human voice. The problem is, if you make the keyboard the common denominator, the genuine aspects of synthesis get somehow pushed back. You tried to make up for that by referring to the now somewhat canonized concept of analog subtractive synthsis. But in the broader sense that's an almost arbitrary focus. - Well, it's not arbitrary in the sense that you are referring to a widely accepted concept that proved to be immensely successful, so don't get me wrong here. But what I mean is that for every voiced preference in favor of subtractive synthesis you'll probably find a voice asking, "But what about additive synthesis," "what about frequency modulation," "what about granular synthesis," and so on. And who determines what of those options can serve better in terms of constituting a repertoire or canon?
What your example showed - and I'd like this to be understood as just a passionless observation - is that you can obviously only arrive at something like a repertoire at the price of exclusion (which is no news with regard to the whole art history) - the exclusion of non-traditional notation systems, performance based art, atonal music, or in general everything that couldn't have been done in the centuries before the advent of the synthesizer, since the keyboard is only one way to equip a synthesizer and the musical tradition you're referring to (from Bach to Melia) is only one way of utilizing a synthesizer.
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Huh. I thought it was a pretty good discussion. Nobody's rebuking, and any refutation isn't for its own sake, but is there to carry the discussion forward. It's not unreasonable to ask that assumptions be defended. And this all seems pretty respectful.
On the Run. All over the internet, folks want their sequencers to play On the Run. Eight notes. Looped. Sequenced. Played really fast. It's a thing people play, and provide tutorials about. Absolutely part of the solo synthesizer repertoire. If it doesn't count, then why?
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Just to be clear, my original point wasn't to pass judgment on popular synthesizer music; it wasn't to say anything at all about any synthesizer music. Nor is it my interest to go door-to-door, confiscating sequencers and drum machines or the music made with such devices. I was saying nothing at all about such things. My point exclusively regarded adding something quite new, something of which fans of popular synthesizer music are themselves quite critical. And that is, traditional keyboard/pedalboard compositions written specifically for the synthesizer, which, because of a love, respect, and adherence to traditional modes of music theory and composition, would also sound excellent on other keyboard instruments, or even in non-keyboard arrangements. This flexibility is not a flaw, weakness, or sign that the music has not been composed for a particular instrument and doesn't deserve credit for having been; rather, it's a sign of quality composing.
In the synth forum universe, because I've just uttered the above forbidden narrow-minded offensive notions, this is where the discussion quickly goes (and I've been through this a hundred times):
"Okay, Sacred Synthesis, you elitist absolutist fascist snob (No, I'm not exaggerating one bit; I've been called all of these things for expressing my "radical" [i.e. traditional] views). But what is music? What is sound? What is noise? What is a keyboard? What is a synthesizer? Who says a synthesizer even needs a keyboard? And who says synthesizer noise isn't music? Noise is music and music is noise!"
Fellas, this is where I have to unapologetically level with you. I've called it aesthetical relativism. If we cannot have a common vocabulary, if the essential terms of our discussions remain undefined, then there really is no point in communicating, then communication is actually impossible, and even education itself is only a fantasy. If you guys would prefer to go around and around with discussions that deny clear and specific meanings to such terms as "music," "sound," and "noise," then you can enjoy your Oh-so-sophisticated discussions without me. If every time we strike up such a discussion, we are dragged back to the same old relativism in which even the most basic concepts are defended as undefinable, then - sorry - I'm moving on. There's much good to be done in life, even while some folks would prefer the pedantic idleness of getting bogged down every day with the ABCs. Not I. I'm more interested in the DEFs.
When I use the term "music," I mean that which makes use of the traditional elements of music in an organized fashion - melody, harmony, counterpoint, and rhythm. When I use the term "sound," I mean that which does not make use of the traditional elements of music in an organized fashion, but uses the same medium - the vibrating of air molecules which are then received in our ear drums. And when I use the term "noise," I mean a type of sound that is in some way unpleasant to hear. In other words, "sound" is a neutral term that allows for non-musical material that is not especially caustic or irritating. Sound can be quite enjoyable, and I think it would be a most helpful term in our discussions, rather than forcing the term "music" to include everything and anything, so that the term becomes quite meaningless.
This is not to deny that a degree of vagueness or subjectivism exists in these notions, nor that interpretations can somewhat vary. It's only to deny that such vagueness and subjectivism are absolute, extreme, and unresolvable.
Undoubtedly, I've offended some with my fascist rhetoric. Pardon me, but for the purpose of climbing and staying out of the endless bottomless bog of relativism, I wanted to clarify at least what I mean whenever I use the above terms. If you strongly disagree with my definitions - so be it and God love you. But I guess there's no point in our discussing matters. However, at least you can understand what I mean when I write. And that would amount to some degree of progress in forum communication.
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Calm down, friends! Seems like every time I take a break from the forum you guys end up fighting. Any chance things could calm down again?
I just found this video today demonstrating a church organ. It could be that Katerina Chrobokova's dress is a bit too modern for churches in general. But the video clearly shows how a church organ works and how an immense sound it can produce. I can certainly see the quest that Sacred synthesis is on and I look forward to see it realized with synthesizers!
https://youtu.be/_4a2jkooXdE
Also I find the original posts quest for synthesizer pieces a great idea. So just go for it!
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Thanks, Dslsynth. I'm perfectly calm - passionate and determined, but calm.
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from another forum I have come across a little book "Pioneers of universal music" by Dalibor Dragojevic which can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6oLY4Ny_LBTMmFDVF9JRksxYWM/view?usp=sharing
I have started reading it and it's a good read, it made me think about this thread so I thought I would post a link to it here,
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Is it possible to give a summary of the book and the conclusions of the author?
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Interesting topic. If I understand the point correctly, I don't think synth music can ever be standardized really. Though a certain segment of it certainly could be-but we would need to name it somehow. Maybe something like "Traditional acoustic origin synthesizer sounds". When I think "what does a synth sound like", I do have a core set ideas that pop into my head. If you took all the patches we all have accumulated in each of our instruments and put them in one big pool- I bet there will be a good 20 or so patches that make up the vast mode (most commonly occurring). But these sounds are not usually acoustic in origin. But they are certainly familiar and repeated thru the years. That's why most polysynth demos sound so similar. I'm mean, we all know the sounds I'm talking about, and they are usually quite similar. Ironically, these are the sounds I personally use the least and I'm just one opinion. I'm sure we each have our bias, so how do we go about agreeing on a standard?
I agree with what someone mentioned here already, that perhaps traditional piano or organ scores would be a good starting point to drive the sound that is selected to be the standard. For example- Sacred Synthesis I'm guessing would lean to having traditional instrument sounds if he were to pick his top 20 patches. That approach actually seems to make the most sense to me because it would be most applicable to most existing published music. Though I confess, if I made a book, it'd probably end up being 20 species of birds instead ;) But such use of bird sounds would be limited obviously. So scores would need to be developed around using traditional acoustic sounds imo. Such scores could be arranged in a book and the book would start with patch pages- in which perhaps 20 defined sounds (lets say from the synthesizer cookbook) were spelled out. This concept would be like the orchestral scores that list all the needed instruments at the beginning: horns, harp, violas, violin, cymbals, etc...
I could see where such a book might be beneficial to a synthesist (assuming they were a keyboard player and could read music) to have some of book that might define certain sounds. Why not? I mean exactly such books exist for electric guitar for example- where the book that starts off defining a few standardized tones.
I think what has happened instead of published music anymore, and mainly due to the in the internet age, is that there's a good amount of traditional music already done on synth that can serve as a guide. Maybe there is just less need anymore? I suppose going back to Wendy Carlos we might have a good starting point if this were to be pursued.
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Good points.
I'm not theorizing about the old Carlos method of setting classical works to synthesizer. Personally (and this is a change for me), I don't care for the sound of - for example - Baroque music set to synthesizer. I'm theorizing only about new compositions.
As for scoring the music, it isn't a problem in the least. The music is all score-capable, and even the sounds can be approximated with notes such as, "violin-like sound," "oboe-like sound," or "organ-like sound." You might object that this will force the range of sounds into the acoustic or traditional instrument domain, and that's partially (and happily) true, but not necessarily. I would use such sound descriptions as only giving a general sense of the tone, leaving room for alterations by the performer. Besides, this is often the case in classical music. For example, Bach's organ works contain only occasional and vague references to how the organ should be registrated. He presumes that the organist knows how to registrate properly, based on the music, but this also allows for a flexibility of registration. This is easily demonstrated by listening to the different registrations used by different organists performing the same works.
The idea I've proposed is much easier to achieve than folks apparently think. The problems that have been posed simply don't exist. You design a body of synthesizer tones with exceptional musical potential, compose pieces that suit these tones, score the music, and then add notes to describe the general tones used, just as scores contain performance, dynamic, and tempo notes. Hence, a new solo synthesizer repertoire is born, and one that is uniquely musical in the traditional sense. All that I'm doing is resisting the tendency of the synthesizer to lure the composer/performer into the usual synthesizer domain - that of excessive gadgets and sound effects where technology dominates and pure and simple musicality suffers. In a sense, I'm trying to humanize the synthesizer with the aid of traditional music.
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Is it possible to give a summary of the book and the conclusions of the author?
Well I havn't read it all yet, I'm not sure there will be a conclusion even when I have.
It is just a history of pioneering synth users, a pretty interesting read.
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In my mind, such a repertoire would take full advantage of the unique capabilities of synthesizers, and therefore couldn't be played on other keyed instruments (at least not without some degree of compromise to the intended composition). Envelopes could expand and contract, filters could open and shut, oscillator voices could be faded in and out, waveforms changed, maybe even presets switched between. All in real time, as you play the keys. These features would be incorporated into the fabric of the songs themselves, and would be notated (somehow) into the sheet music.
Of course, any requirement could potentially exclude the piece from being performed on certain synths, so you'd want to stick pretty close to the standard features set present on most subtractive synths. You could hypothetically have a composition which takes full advantage of one specific synth, say "Aria for Minibrute in C-Sharp," but that seems rather contrary to the spirit of this whole idea.
I can't really think of any good examples. There's the first part of this piece (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRj6G6RB7jc) by Nihls Frahm. He's mostly fiddling with a chorus, but the effect is similar; the basic timbre of the song changes as he plays. He even changes presets at one point, but generally he morphs his sounds gradually, maintaining a similar tempo and tone throughout, so none of the transitions are too radical. Alternately, I can imagine something more akin a complex piano concerto, with various movements, and the voice of the synth changing on the fly, sometimes slowly, other times shifting quickly and dramatically. Certainly this is far from my current songwriting capabilities, and in fact I'm not entirely sure anything like this has ever been done at a high level.
Difficulties would be:
1) Music culture as a whole; The spectrum of musical tastes is so incredibly vast in our globalized culture, it would be hard to find agreement on what should be adopted as a "standard."
2)Synthesist culture: I've always gotten the sense that most of us are self-taught hobbyists who can't read music notation to begin with. The true musicians (in the traditional sense) seem to be pianists who have expanded their repertoire into synths. There really doesn't seem to be a traditional educational "path" into synthesis that I have encountered (but there absolutely should be!). Most everything I now know has been learned through simple trial and error, as well as random tips and ideas picked up on message boards, youtube and the like.
3) Lack of standardization in equipment. With what I describe above, there would be a huge amount of variation between performances, simply because, due to every synth being unique, there would be a fairly high amount of interpretation required in reading the notation.
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You've done an excellent job of demonstrating the need for many of the ideas in my original post. Indeed, it would have to be a different type of synthesizer music, and that's precisely what I proposed. It's entirely capable of being scored because it avoids the more radical characteristics of the synthesizer.
The predictable argument against this idea is that it would not take full advantage of the complexity of the synthesizer. Absolutely; that's my point, and I don't see this at all as a limitation, but more as a liberation from a norm. I would put it this way instead: such new synthesizer music would not be musically hindered by the elaborateness of the technology; it would be free to focus on pure music and those sounds that best serve such pure music. In other words, I consider the complexity of the synthesizer to often have the unfortunate effect of luring synthesists away from the more traditional forms of music that could be made. I've proposed resisting this effect and exploring the synthesizer in a new way.
The fact that the radical sounds of the synthesizer can be produced is no reason to feel that they must be produced. Most synthesists are already constantly using them, and many have used them for decades, so why not look elsewhere for something new and fresh? And why must synthesizer music, in order to be regarded as true and genuine synthesizer music, make use of such sounds and noises? Could there not be another approach, one that utilizes the synthesizer in its less radical capacity and, therefore, produces material that resembles traditional keyboard music? Actually, this would be radical.
This thread already seems old and wearisome to me. I don't want to carry on about something; I'd rather shut my mouth and do it. Hence, I'm not going to make an effort to defend my idea. I've stated it, and that's more than enough. So, if you'd like examples, see my Youtube channel. The more recent pieces are prime examples of what I have in mind, such as this one, which can be easily scored:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcDglUP7sE
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The more recent pieces are prime examples of what I have in mind, such as this one, which can be easily scored:
If you're tired of this conversation anyway, I won't worry about nudging it off-topic a little bit.
Are you scoring your stuff now, either with pencil-and-paper or software? If software, what do you use? If pencil, have you tried any software? This is a topic near to my heart, because I love the notation process, far more than recording.
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Your question, Chysn, is definitely on-topic.
I haven't scored my synthesizer music because, thus far, it's all been improvisational, but I've scored many organ compositions (by hand, naturally). The two are almost identical on paper. The synthesizer pieces would require only an extra bit of fussing, together with sound notes.
You've probably seen organ scores: from the bottom up, a bass staff for the pedal line, then paired bass and treble staves for the keyboard parts. This is nearly perfect for synthesizer. In most cases, changes from one synthesizer to another can be scored within the two paired staves, since in organ music there are regular changes of manuals. There probably will be occasions when another staff or two are needed, such as when there is a solo synthesizer part. All of this is quite workable on paper. And as for changes in sounds - again, this is already normal with organ music. Notes are simply added over the staves at the point of change.
All of my scoring thus far has been done by hand on paper. I'm a firm believer in developing skills, rather than relying on computers for everything. Hence, I can score well, and I also have excellent script handwriting - yet another abandoned art. The only computer program I've used so far is Musicscore. I honestly haven't made much of an effort with it, but I will when the time comes.
I'd like to some how do a demonstration of all this for the forum. It would include a page of composed music, both recorded and scored.
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Your question, Chysn, is definitely on-topic.
That's good, because I really like that part of the topic.
You've probably seen organ scores: from the bottom up, a bass staff for the pedal line, then paired bass and treble staves for the keyboard parts. This is nearly perfect for synthesizer.
It is, and it's almost how I do it; except I don't have a paired staff system because I compose for monosynths only. Usually the scores have between 3 and 5 parts: for three-part compositions it's usually one bass part and two treble parts; five-part compositions usually have two bass parts, with one of them being a drone, or pad point.
All of my scoring thus far has been done by hand on paper. I'm a firm believer in developing skills, rather than relying on computers for everything. Hence, I can score well, and I also have excellent script handwriting - yet another abandoned art. The only computer program I've used so far is Musicscore. I honestly haven't made much of an effort with it, but I will when the time comes.
Sure, skills must be developed. I studied all the best notation tomes and wrote music by hand for about ten years before moving to computer. At some point, there's nothing more to prove, and the benefits of software notation just outweigh everything else. I still keep a score pad around for quickly getting ideas down.
I'd like to some how do a demonstration of all this for the forum. It would include a page of composed music, both recorded and scored.
Well, it's not a thorough demonstration, but I do have a bound pair of score-and-music available. The score is attached, and the music is at https://soundcloud.com/beige-maze/a-boy-and-his-dog.
But as you can see, this is music written specifically for a certain set of synthesizer parts. Maybe not a "repertoire," but it's somewhat idiomatic in that the legato passages are written with monosynth envelope/gate triggering in mind, and the dynamics are specifically chosen to affect the behavior of my Little Phatty patches.
I have also notated sequencer-based music that was designed to be put together on the fly using an oracle, sort of an experiment inspired by reading John Cage's lectures. The point of which is that some more synth-specific idioms are perfectly at home with traditional notation.
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That was a great example. You know, your bass part was very Baroque-like and Bachian. I suspect there's some influence?
As for the scoring/writing skills being a matter of "proving something" - not at all. I don't care to prove anything to any one. I'm simply glad I had developed the abilities long before I started using a computer, and I would encourage others to do the same. Using devices is fine, but I wouldn't want to be at all times dependent on them.
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your bass part was very Baroque-like and Bachian. I suspect there's some influence?
Good catch; the specific reference near the end is his two-part invention in A minor.
As for the scoring/writing skills being a matter of "proving something" - not at all. I simply meant that I'm glad I had developed the abilities long before I started using a computer, and I would encourage others to do the same. Using devices is fine, but I wouldn't want to be at all times dependent on them. I value personal skills far more than the ability to press buttons and tap screens.
Definitely! Notation software isn't a time-saving convenience. At least, it never was for me. It takes me every bit as long to use software as to write by hand. But the accuracy is better, transposition is effortless, playback can be used for recording, and music can be moved all over the place without having to rewrite it.
I used Finale for many years, but recently switched to MuseScore2. MuseScore2 is a brilliant project, and pretty much makes spending hundreds of dollars on Finale unjustifiable.
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My wife was given Finale by her school system, where she teaches music to young children. She found it terribly daunting and therefore never applied herself to it. After deleting it, I chose MusicScore instead, because it was free ;) and seemed fairly simple. I've fooled around with it with some success, and can fully appreciate the value of a nice polished professional-looking score. But now you say there's a MusicScore2? Is it a substantial improvement over the previous one?
This is one area I do need to develop some additional skills, which would allow me to score my own compositions. Plus, it would also allow me to help out my wife with her job. I'm the occasional accompanist who bails her out of difficult situations (since she let her piano skills fade away), and being able to also score some of her songs just might make me into Mr. Wonder-Husband!
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But now you say there's a MusicScore2? Is it a substantial improvement over the previous one?
If you mean MuseScore, which you probably do, then yes, version 2 is a huge improvement. The original version was still well behind commercial software like Finale, and MuseScore 2 closes that gap in terms of capabilities. A lot. Also, I much prefer MuseScore's interface. Finale has all these windows floating around as Palettes, and they constantly need to be moved out of the way. MuseScore mise en places the whole thing, so it's all easy to get to. I'm a big fan, and I've never looked back.
being able to score some of her music might just make me into Mr. Wonder-Husband!
I'm sure she thinks you're that already.
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If you mean MuseScore, which you probably do, then yes, version 2 is a huge improvement.
You got me there! That shows how hard I worked with it - I didn't even get the name right!
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I'm sure she thinks you're that already.
Oh, the sarcasm there is just oozing. ;D
Anyway, I'll have to take a look at MuseScore2. Thanks for the advice.
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I think this is a great topic. It makes us consider what we mean by concepts like Repertoire (how rigid is it) and Synthesiser. For my 'fourpenneth' I would suggest that written music was a way of composing that was adopted because we could not record sounds. A score is a rigid framework that dictates some of the parameters of music, whilst some freedoms are left up to the performer. When I write sounds for my Prophet12 I am attempting to prepare my instrument for a performance that operates within the musical textures I have pre prepared, but I make great use of performance controls which take the programmed sounds to the edge sonically. I believe that another performer could use a different synthesiser to make a new version of one of my pieces and keep the integrity of the harmonic, melodic and expressive forms, but this new version would sound less like my piece than would be considered normal for more traditional instruments.
So I guess I fall on the 'There can be a repertoire for solo synthesiser Jim, but not as we know it' side of the discussion. ;-)
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I would give this last piece as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCXDGjMjUoI
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I really enjoyed that piece. Thanks for sharing.
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Your welcome.
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Some thoughts from Subotnick relevant to this topic, throughout the interview, but particularly at the beginning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKc3itXRxNY
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I would agree at this point that old music should be played on the instruments it was meant for, and new instruments should have new compositions of their own. I don't at all care for classical music of previous centuries performed on synthesizers. That always sounds displaced, irreverent, and terribly artificial to me. My original intention here was to propose new music of a classical sort for the synthesizer - new classical music for a new instrument.
The synthesizer has unfortunately been relegated almost entirely to rock, jazz, dance, and other popular styles especially popular among young people. I would like to see serious keyboard compositions created by trained musicians for solo synthesizer, without the inclusion of sequencers, drum machines, large amounts of effects, multi-tracking, and so on. This is one type of synthesizer music that does not presently exist, and I would love to see that change. So, I'm only suggesting the addition of something to the synthesizer's repertoire, not the exclusion of anything.
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Not in this interview, but another one, Subotnick said that he didn't want to write the sort of music that Beethoven wrote because he didn't believe that he could add to that conversation. He wanted to stake out his own territory.
And he did. He's a trained composer, widely considered to be a serious and influential composer, and Silver Apples of the Moon is a cornerstone, a common fixture in music history courses.
So I'd like one simple question addressed: why does sequencer use disqualify Silver Apples of the Moon as part of the solo synthesizer repertoire?
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All of my comments on this topic have to do with keyboard music. I'm not hiding, denying, or apologizing for the fact. Please understanding that I'm not preaching something here; I'm suggesting the addition of what clearly is a gaping vacuum in the synthesizer repertoire. I would like to see a body of synthesizer music composed for, and performed on, keyboard and pedalboard synthesizer. That I'm speaking of something similar to sacred and classical organ music should be obvious by now, as is the fact that this new synthesizer music could easily be performed on a church organ, and also arranged for harpsichord and piano. Regardless of all that, I'm speaking of true synthesizer compositions that use traditional triggering mechanisms - keyboard and pedalboard.
So, why no sequencer (presuming you mean one previously programmed, rather than one used as a modulation controller)? Simply because it's another type of instrument that is triggered mechanically. It lacks both a keyboard and a keyboard performer who is expressively playing each note with the arm, hand, fingers, toes, and heels.
Subotnick's music already exists, right? Synthesizer music with sequencers, drum machines, and tons of effects already exists, right? It exists in mass volumes and will continue to be produced. Well, I'm suggesting something new, something in addition to what already exists.
When you or someone else asks why I'm excluding sequencers, my only answer is, "Who's excluding anything at all?" Meaning, it all already exists! All I'm speaking of here is adding something new - a simpler and purer form of synthesizer music.
Chysn, if you really want to know what exactly I have in mind, it's precisely the type of music that's on my YouTube channel. That's it, plain and simple. My only intention here is to encourage and discuss the creation of a large repertoire of this sort of music - composed for and performed on synthesizer, light on technology and heavy on classical modes of music, and excelling in the elements of melody, harmony, and counterpoint.
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This thread is certainly derived from my own views of the synthesizer music that already exists. What I hear is volumes of material that leans extremely heavily on technology, to the point of sounding mechanical and impersonal. For example, the constant presence of pounding drum machines and syncopated rhythms gives the music a forced and tightly controlled quality - I would call it an enslaved unnaturalness - that I personally find to be the antithesis of beauty. Tons of this stuff exists, for those who like it. What I find lacking is a type of synthesizer music that breathes easily because of its freedom from exaggerated rhythm, that is sweet, melodious, and yet powerful, due to its proficient use of harmony and dynamics.
Again, I'm not forming a militia to go door-to-door confiscating sequencers. I only want to add something unique that I find lacking.
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I can't get past the idea that a "synthesizer repertoire" would optimize the synthesizer's idiosyncrasies. As you note, there's no shortage of such music.
If music would be equally at home on an organ or a piano, then it is "keyboard repertoire." There's no shortage of that kind of music, either.
I do not understand this vacuum of which you speak.
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Whew. Let's call a truce. I didn't intend to start a debate, but only to propose an idea. I've tried to explain it so many times and in so many ways, so that there's little more I can add. If you care to, listen to my channel once in a while. That's exactly what I mean.
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I can think of a ton of artists that I think do what you're talking about. Harmony and melody with synthesizers. Stuff like Vangelis, Kitaro, Yanni. But I'm pretty sure you've heard of these guys and might already have thoughts on their genre.
Edit: And "calling a truce" implies that there's some fighting going on. I don't see that happening. Imagine that I'm interested in the topic and am reaching for clarity.
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I realize that. There's no war going on here. I use 'truce" as a hyperbole. You and I get along fine and we have for years now. But I've said all I can and sound like a broken record. Rather than justify the idea here over and over, I was intending more to discus and develop it. But I seem to be stuck in the original post phase, still trying to explain the simple idea. I would say, if there's a problem, it's that the idea is so simple.
Regarding the composers you mentioned - yes, they are slightly similar to what I have in mind. But again, I'm speaking of technology-light solo synthesizer keyboard music. I wouldn't describe their music at all in that way. They rely heavily on either multi-tracking or an ensemble.
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You may be the only artist who has ever despaired of doing something unique.
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The only thing I'm despairing of is trying to explain this! And I'm already doing what I'm proposing, but I'd like to expand and improve on it. Hence, I proposed it here as a topic of discussion.
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Ok, a proposal for a quick tangent here. I don't intend to hijack the direction of this discussion, but I'm curious to know what your thoughts are, Sacred Synthesis on the idea of music written for an ensemble that includes synthesizer. I know that in the new music community the addition of electronic instruments has been happening for awhile, but the compositions in that genre tend more towards the experimental. Would you be interested in classical/sacred music written for, say clarinet and synthesizer? I suppose that may not be be exactly to your tastes, but the idea of synthesizer in an ensemble setting I feel makes for interesting food for thought.
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You're right, this is off on another topic.
I've played in such an ensemble. Personally, I don't think the synthesizer blends in well with wind or acoustic instruments - acoustic guitar perhaps being the exception. The synthesizer tends to stand out in an artificial way, and for starts, this is because it has such an extraordinary frequency range. But it's also due to the excessively electronic nature of its sound. I know many other people like such a combination, and it's common enough.
My ideas here concern solo synthesizer. The reason being, the synthesizer offers an individual musician a unique opportunity to achieve an immensely full sound, to a degree comparable only to a large organ or orchestra. This is the case, at least, when the synthesist plays bass pedals. I find it so very strange that a large repertoire of music has not grown up as a result of this advantage.
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...The reason being, the synthesizer offers an individual musician a unique opportunity to achieve an immensely full sound, to a degree comparable only to a large organ or orchestra. This is the case, at least, when the synthesist plays bass pedals. I find it so very strange that a large repertoire of music has not grown up as a result of this advantage.
That's a good point about the capabilities of synthesizer. Seems like there's an opportunity for composers to expand their sonic palette in very creative ways.
I'd have to update myself on some early synth history to say for sure, but I seem to recall an early interest in this direction of composition, but I wonder if the synth pop tide in the 80s swept up the potential for classical music to adopt the synthesizer.
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I'd have to update myself on some early synth history to say for sure, but I seem to recall an early interest in this direction of composition, but I wonder if the synth pop tide in the 80s swept up the potential for classical music to adopt the synthesizer.
That's an excellent suggestion. It's much like the case of the Hammond organ. Laurens Hammond invented his drawbar organ, intending it to be used by smaller churches that could not afford the installation and maintenance costs of pipe organs. It seemed like a respectable effort in taking advantage of developing technology. In the earliest days, there were even sacred and classical concerts and competitions, with pipe and Hammond organs performing one after the other, in an effort to demonstrate to people the Hammond's ability to emulate the pipe organ. Regardless, Jazz and Rock musicians soon seized the Hammond organ, and "the rest is history."
Let me emphasize the inspiration behind my idea: it is the ability of one single musician - equipped with keyboard and pedalboard synthesizers and guided by a deep love for traditional music theory and classical styles - to sound either wonderfully immense or stunningly delicate. But my point is, such a musician can do it all, without need of an ensemble or even that much technology.
Nothing offers what the synthesizer offers. Therefore, it cries out for a repertoire of a very different sort than has accumulated over its brief history.
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I have to agree with chysn here: Technically speaking, every kind of keyboard - no matter how the sound is being produced - is always already linked to the tradtion of any keyboard music, no matter when the latter was written. There's a reason why the concept of the Minimoog as we know it was controversial in the very beginning. Not everybody was fond of adding a keyboard to the synthesizer. By adding the keyboard, Moog did two things implicitly and explicitly: They went for a greater commercial appeal (more people were used to keyboard instruments than modules) and they embraced the tradition tied to keyboard music, which basically started with the advent of the earliest keyboard instruments being developed in the 14th century and became more and more standardized throughout the 18th and 19th century.
On the other end you had what is now known as west coast philosophy, which embraced all the innovative aspects of a synthesizer and hence did the most consequential thing, which was embracing the break with all preceding musical traditions. It was through that move that the developers (especially Buchla, but also everybody that is involved in modules these days) wanted to guarantee that the instrument called synthesizer could be appreciated on its own for what it does. Here, the synthesizer came to its own right so to speak.
That's the black and white view, seen from both extremes of the continuum.
The modular system ambassadors were of course proven right in their attempt to plea for a clear cut with any tradition by the countless synthesizer users that used to play in the Rock, Pop, and whatever bands of the 1970s and 1980s. Or let's say at least that the progressive synth developers had a point, since most of the first synth players were only searching for emulative sounds: brass, strings, horns, guitar-like sounds, clavinets, organs, etc., which is tied to imitating rather than inventing (it's the acoustic equivalent of making paintings that depict objects the way the painter thinks of them as being mostly true to the "original").
Of course those players were eventually granted their wishes with the advent of ROMplers, which could do the job best due to their sample-based engines. By that time, the players in question were ultimately unmasked as pure keyboarders only (as opposed to synthesists or innovative synthesizer users) that followed the wet bourgeois dream that was already inscribed in the upright and grandpianos ever since they started to populate more and more private households. What's that dream? - It's the dream of the almightly individual being able to play a fully orchestrated score all by him or herself. The 10 fingers became fully-controlled 10 musicians in that scenario and the by now standardized pitch range of up to 88 keys ensured the full palette. In that sense, the piano became the very antithesis of any collective musical practice, namely the orchestra. The piano as a substitute for an orchestra became even the basis for a position at the opera: the répétiteur. The ROMpler along with the typical preset user only took that model to a further level by also being able to reproduce not only the pitch range of an orchestra or a band, but also its individual sounds. The outcome is basically the solo entertainer, whether he's called Vangelis, or whether he's the random guy playing at weddings or grandma birthday parties.
There is - or at least there must be - a qualitative difference between between just any keyboard instrument and the synthesizer that happens to have a keyboard attached to it. What makes the latter interesting is that it embodies some sort of anachronism, which makes it a kind of hybrid instrument - not hybrid with regard to the sound engine, but hybrid with regard to the utilized technology, namely "synthesizer" and "keyboard." It's basically like having one foot in the past and the other one in the future. So in a way, the keyboard synthesizer user is an almost schizophrenic being: utilizing old scales and tonal systems (given alternative tunings are not provided or used by default) while being able to design new sounds and make them expressive as part of the design process and by assigning realtime modulation sources to various modulation destinations that have never been present on traditional keyboard instruments.
Another possible approach to avoid being caught up in the past of the aforementioned piano ideology as the peak of standardized keyboard instruments (the piano as the substitute for an orchestra) is of course the increased use of mono synths. And there are indeed ensembles, which resemble or reproduce classical ensembles (again, a hybrid), in which each synth is played as one single voice. In terms of tonal systems, they might not end up doing anything inventive, but at least they maintain a collective performance practice that escapes the idea of the solo entertainer with his or her "super keyboard."
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I've obviously struck a nerve with this thread, and it has surprised me. A place as progressive as a synthesizer forum is the last place I would have expected to find resistance to a new musical idea. As we head towards the fourth page, I'm still stuck in the justification phase. The debate (and yes - this is clearly a debate) has covered much about technology, but the real issue isn't technology; it's music. Rather than place the synthesizer ahead of music, having it determine the nature of that music/sound/noise, I've placed music ahead of the synthesizer, making the latter serve the former. I've proposed taming the wild side of the synthesizer with the relative restraint of classical keyboard music, and it has ruffled some feathers.
What I've proposed is the treatment of the synthesizer in such a way that offends many synthesists. I've suggested that the synthesizer should be treated (in this case) as just another keyboard instrument. Sort of an organ, sort of a piano, sort of a harpsichord, and yet none of these. I've suggested also that, rather than making audio recordings the primary means of presenting and retaining this synthesizer music, traditional music scoring should be used as well. This abruptly places the synthesizer in a category that it has, in its brief history, often led a revolution against; namely, traditional music.
In a sense, the synthesizer is the musical apex and symbol of modernity. More than any other musical device, it laughs at traditional music and shows its scorn perhaps most of all when it is used to create bizarre and often irreverent versions of traditional pieces of music. In truth, I'm laughing right back and rolling my eyes at this musical modernity. I don't deny that for a second. If musical/amusical modernity is one's preference, than such a person has plenty of company - a universe of contemporary music and musicians and a mass of the most caustic sounds and noises. It is an industry that only grows by the second. So be it. It's of no interest to me.
Agree with my idea or not, it makes perfect musical sense. The synthesizer with keyboards and a pedalboad can be viewed in a way that humbly places it right beside other traditional keyboard instruments. It hasn't much been viewed in this way, but nothing except imagination and creativity should prevent it. Its time has come to be used in a new way and in an old way at the same time, and if the old avant garde musical revolutionaries don't like it, then I guess they'll have to learn how to live with strange and unwelcome neighbors.
I have to correct myself regarding something I wrote above to Chysn. Actually, my YouTube channel presently is not a good example of my idea. Those pieces are almost exclusively improvisations; they required minimal effort in every way. Hence, the meanderings into dreamy ambient/electronica are only incidental and accidental, due purely to the ease of it all, and not at all what I intend for the future. The music I've described in this thread would not be improvisational but compositional - much more structured, developed, and capable of being scored. It would also require much more skill in performance. There are only two or three such pieces on the channel.
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I guess one of the problems is the fact that a synth can sound like many things.
If for instance I want to play the Cello, it basically sounds like a Cello and there is a large set of music or musical parts written for this instrument, it has a well defined place in the superset of compositions.
With a synth you can synthesise many different instruments, you could take NI Reactor and create a physical modelled Cello like the fantastic Serenade by Chet Singer (https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/7463/) now you can use Reaktor to play those Cello pieces, but Reaktor can also synthesise many other types of instruments or create new types of instruments.
Serenade doing a violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLkPvmr93K8
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Yes, that's true. But the choices are not only two: either imitating other instruments or designing entirely new sounds. A third choice exists: that of combining the two by designing sounds that resemble other instruments, but clearly are a synthesizer. The cello example is a good one. I would give this as an example of the third choice; it sounds like a cello or a cello section, but it clearly is something else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYWO2bX9C20
Another example is this sound. It's definitely not a forte piano, but it does resemble one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCXDGjMjUoI
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Well, first of all I didn't mean my remarks to be understood personally. I was only trying to address a couple of approaches and the different attitudes I can identify with regard to different incarnations of the synthesizer based on some historical circumstances, which is why specific judgements about according different musical forms were not part of my post - in fact, I believe that the latter wouldn't even help much in this discussion.
The debate (and yes - this is clearly a debate) has covered much about technology, but the real issue isn't technology; it's music. Rather than place the synthesizer in front of music - having it determine the nature of that music/sound/noise - I've placed music in front of the synthesizer, making the latter serve the former. I've proposed taming the wild side of the synthesizer with the relative restraint of classical keyboard music, and it has ruffled some feathers.
But what you write in the end is something you can only achieve by technology, or rather by mastering it. Also: If we're talking about different kinds of instruments, we're also talking about technology. A piano, or a violin are just as technological as a synthesizer. On one side, all instruments - no matter how primitive they are - have to be engineered. On the other side a technique has to be developed to master each of these instruments, whether one aims for a virtuos attempt or not. And as long as you repeat something once, you already enter the learning process, get more and more familiar with a specific instrument's response and so on.
What's so special about a synth is that you can actually play its technology in a way no other instrument allows for. In order to achieve that flexibility, you literally had to transform the piano into an organ, and then into a violin, and then into a tuba within a couple of minutes. You can't do that. You can do something similar with a synth though, and it can even be part of the performance itself, basically: instant sound design, that what people had to be good at with synths without patch memory. That's still not something that places the instrument before the music. Quite the opposite: the more analytical you become with programming a synth, the quicker you can achieve your musical-only goal.
What I've proposed is the treatment of the synthesizer in such a way that offends many synthesists. I've suggested that the synthesizer should be treated (in this case) as just another keyboard instrument. Sort of an organ, sort of a piano, sort of a harpsichord, and yet none of these. I've suggested also that, rather than making audio recordings the primary means of presenting and retaining this synthesizer music, traditional music scoring should be used as well. This abruptly places the synthesizer in a category that it has, in its brief history, often led a revolution against; namely, traditional music.
Right. The problem is that if you treat the synthesizer just as a keyboard like any other, it will end up being just that, which is fine, but then the synthesizer portion gets lost somehow. And of course you can also aim for playing it exclusively live, which is not even an anachronism, but it will still differ from how traditional instruments are being used. Just like the specific physicality of an acoustic instrument shapes its sound (unlike the synthesizer, which is largely independent of that with the exception of PCB components of course), so does the specific architecture of the place where it is played (also unlike the synthesizer - at least to the degree that its sound is already mediated by speakers, meaning that there is no direct interdependency between a synth's sound engine and the shape of its surroundings).
In a sense, the synthesizer is the musical apex and symbol of modernity. More than any other musical device, it laughs at traditional music and shows its scorn perhaps most of all when it is used to create bizarre and often irreverent versions of traditional pieces of music. In truth, I'm laughing right back and rolling my eyes at this musical modernity. I don't deny that for a second. If musical/amusical modernity is one's preference, than such a person has plenty of company - a universe of contemporary music and musicians and a mass of the most caustic sounds and noises. It is an industry that only grows by the second. So be it. It's of no interest to me.
I can't see that truly innovative synthesizer music has become mainstream. At least I can still not imagine seeing "Silver Apples Of The Moon" listed in the top ten anywhere in this world. The sort of EDM stuff you're referring to is not innovative and wouldn't even have been called that 100 years ago, except for maybe sonic reasons, but definitely not purely musical ones. There's nothing in that sort of music anybody could have done hundreds of years ago. In that sense it's also not modern aesthetically. It's modern only in that it's exclusively based on consumerism.
But approaching a synthesizer for what it is has to go way further than that. It mostly requires a clear conceptual notion about the uniqueness of a synthesizer. That also has to imply the development of a clear understanding of the particular technology it introduces. If you ignore the latter, you basically ignore the synthesizer, and then it strictly speaking doesn't really matter whether you use one or not.
Agree with my idea or not, it makes perfect musical sense. The synthesizer with keyboards and a pedalboad can be viewed in a way that humbly places it right beside other traditional keyboard instruments. It hasn't much been viewed in this way, but nothing except imagination and creativity should prevent it.
I would argue that it has been used exactly like this for ages - especially by most mainstream artists in the 1970s and the 1980s. Maybe not always based on the organ concept, but definitely based on any precedent keyboard instrument. That is precisely the reason why synthesizers are being discovered for a second time now - at least on a wider scale.
I have to correct myself regarding something I wrote above to Chysn. Actually, my YouTube channel presently is not a good example of my idea. Those pieces are almost exclusively improvisations; they required minimal effort in every way. Hence, the meanderings into dreamy ambient/electronica are only incidental and accidental, due purely to the ease of it all, and not at all what I intend for the future. The music I've described in this thread would not be improvisational but compositional - much more structured, developed, and capable of being scored. It would also require much more skill in performance. There are only two or three such pieces on the channel.
But isn't improvisation just another word for "instant composition"?
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None of this is taken personally, so let's put that away altogether. But it is at this point a debate, in that I apparently haven't sufficiently explained and defended my position.
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None of this is taken personally, so let's put that away altogether. But it is at this point a debate, in that I apparently haven't sufficiently explained and defended my position.
No need for any retreat. I guess I haven't fully understood what in particular you haven't seen fully realized yet.
Also: Is not the synthesizer's implicit independency of any form of canon represented in it still being used more traditionally and in a complete academic avantgarde way at the same time?
Let me please add one more thing: My remarks are purely theoretical (please don't read that as impractical), i.e. they are not even influenced by my personal attempt or practice of handling synths. And you know that I still own quite a few synths that come with a keyboard. In that regard I would describe myself as a hybrid user too.
Notwithstanding, my point is simply that the idiosyncracy of a synth (and I don't mean a particular model by a particular brand, but the synthesizer on a conceptual level) can be explored only by stripping it bare from the tradition that did not incorporate it in the first place, which is basically any sort of music that has been released, performed, or written up until the point the synthesizer was eventually released.
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I didn't mean to imply that there is no technology involved. That would be absurd, considering that we're talking about synthesizers. But the issue is primarily about music, and not technology. In fact, an abundance of technology would ruin the whole project. What I've presented is the idea of making synthesizer music that is technology-light, compared with the usual material.
The synthesizer has been used almost exclusively for contemporary styles of music. Yes, there has been the stereotypical arranging of Bach's music, but that has occupied very few.
If you can, please point out to me five individuals who have produced the following:
- solo synthesizer music (one person performing all the music)
- original compositions of the classical type
- performed live without any multi-tracking or sequencing (every note played spontaneously by hand or foot)
- using keyboard and pedalboard synthesizers
- all the music meticulously scored and available, so that it could be accurately performed by another synthesist
For all I know, there are such musicians and music, by I've never heard of them. One guy that comes to mind is Don Muro, but even he is far from the type of music I have in mind.
There is obviously a similarity between improvising and composing, but the differences are many; hence, the results are substantially different. Plus, improvisations generally do not get scored, and therefore, cannot become a part of a repertoire. Yes, there is learning a piece by ear, but have you ever tried to learn a Baroque Double Fugue by ear and then play it from memory?!
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So, arguendo, let's grant your contention that the music you're talking about does not exist. Nobody on earth does what you'd like to see done, including yourself. Why?
Seriously, I think it's because any single synthesizer can't cut the mustard as a solo keyboard instrument in a real concert hall. Just about anything that meets your criteria is going to sound better played by a virtuoso on a grand piano, or on a real pipe organ. I mean, a lot better. The composer can be all, "I wrote this for synthesizer," but if the piece is worth performing in the first place, the synthesizer will not be the instrument of choice when you put it on a stage.
For synthesizer music to be worth playing, it has to exploit the instrument's native advantages, which have nothing whatsoever to do with a particular controller. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IIOdxgQurM You might not like the music, which is okay, and you might choose to lump it in with crappy dance music, but there's a place for it in serious concert halls.
(If it seems like I'm on a Morton Subotnick-obsessed kick, that's only because I'm on a Morton Subotnick-obsessed kick)
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If you can, please point out to me five individuals who have produced the following:
- solo synthesizer music (one person performing all the music)
- original compositions of the classical type
- performed live without any multi-tracking or sequencing (every note played spontaneously by hand or foot)
- using keyboard and pedalboard synthesizers
- all the music meticulously scored and available, so that it could be accurately performed by another synthesist
I can't. But you should also consider that the above list represents a very, very specific catalog. There are loads of keyboardists that perform solo, but either they utilize a sequencer, or perform a type of music that you don't have in mind, mostly ambient or improvised pieces. Then there are various synth ensembles that don't need any sort of multi-tracking, but who are of course more than a single person. Finally, not everybody is able to play an organ-like setup or to even score or read music.
So I get what you're asking for and its rarity in today's world. On the other side it seems to me that you're projecting your goals and approach onto a larger scale, which I don't mean in a provocative sense. I'm just asking myself why the rarity of your concept has to be such a bad thing. After all, not everybody is equipped with the set of skills you have: Being able to play organs, being classically trained, being able to write and read sheet music, and so on. On yet another hand, the skills you're asking for are not necessarily practical to many users. There are even professional film composers out there who went through the full traditional training at college or the conservatory who hardly use the skills of scoring by hand, or even reading sheet music anymore, which makes them less and less proficient at those tasks, which are simply not necessary anymore in the realm of digital recording and processing, unless you're involved in a huge collaboration (at which point an assistant will do that work for you anyway). That was even being discussed on last week's SonicTalk.
But why not just doing it your way? - I wouldn't interpret the lack of that particular combination of things you've listed above as an implicit sign of the synth world not getting it. It's just that you won't find many at all who would be capable of it. Not everybody who is drawn to synthesizers can handle more than one keyboard at a time, or decipher notation. One could also argue that the only arbitrary ingredient in your list is the synthesizer. On the other hand, not everyone who's traditionally trained all around might be interested in synthesizers. So why not getting comfortable in between the two stools?
There is obviously a similarity between improvising and composing, but the differences are many; hence, the results are substantially different. Plus, improvisations generally do not get scored, and therefore, cannot become a part of a repertoire. Yes, there is learning a piece by ear, but have you ever tried learning a Baroque Double Fugue by ear?!
Well, improvising can be described as a means of composing without fixating anything. Of course it leads to different outcomes, but it also takes place in collectives or bands mostly. In that regard it also serves as a means of communication between musicians or performers.
There is not really any reason for learning a Baroque Double Fugue by ear, since this is a format that largely profits from being read on paper - not exclusively, but that element definitely enhances any interpreter's understanding. Its iconography is also quite strong, so in a way, reading Baroque music is like reading an emblem. Let's not forget though that the Baroque era or rather the Baroque music repertoire created loads of pieces that left space for improvisations, especially on top of a basso continuo. That caused no less improvisations than in the Jazz age.
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I can't.
I'm rather shocked at this. I presumed this discussion was building up to the point where you guys would prove to me, once and for all, that lots of people had done what I've proposed. Apparently, it's just the opposite.
I rest my case.
I'm interested only in producing something unique and beautiful, regardless of the instrument and whether or not many will appreciate it.
I have nothing else to add.
Arguendo
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I rest my case.
Wait a minute... I thought "No, can't happen" was my case!
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I can't.
I'm rather shocked at this. I presumed this discussion was building up to the point where you guys would prove to me, once and for all, that lots of people had done what I've proposed. Apparently, it's just the opposite.
I don't understand what's shocking. I've only tried to explain that the combination of aspects you'd like to see realized in a composer and performer whose work could be part of or even establish a solo synthesizer repertoire are very specific and exclusive: because of the particular skills being involved, because of a particular musical style or aesthetic, and so on. It would be a little less exclusive without the synthesizer in the equation, but then you would simply end up with a traditional organist, and that - on the other hand - has been around for centuries already.
And that basically leads back to the other discussion about the technological, but also - to use an old-fashioned term physiological differences between just any keyboard and a synthesizer. I guess at this point it seems to me that the whole debate is about how much one should emphasize the keyboard aspect of a synthesizer or vice versa.
What would interest me, though, is whether you would like to see program settings to be part of any score.
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What would interest me, though, is whether you would like to see program settings to be part of any score.
Absolutely. I'm sure I've already posted this here and on the old forum. My method in filling up a bank with my own programs is to group them, generally in tens, according to sound categories, using traditional instrument names: strings, brass, organ, choir, piano, harpsichord, solo patches, pads, and sound effects (bells, chimes, wind, surf, rain, etc.). I've done this with both the Prophet '08 and Poly Evolver Keyboard, and named them (for example, Strings I, Strings II, Strings III, etc.). But these instrument categories are only general, and are open to all sorts of synthesized variations. So, what I actually mean by "Strings" is, "string-like." Similarly, the piano group will include various PWM patches that sound very little like a piano, but that I use like a piano - generally, for left hand arpeggiated accompaniment.
Now apply this to a music score. The traditional instrument category is given over the proper section of music, but the variations of it are entirely up to the performer. He or she can tweak away at a piano-like sound until they find something that sounds pleasing and appropriate. This method is both orderly and flexible. It passes on what the composer had in mind, and yet leaves the performer free to make changes or improvements.
All I can say is, it works.
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I'd be interested to see how standard music notation could be augmented to include things like modulation controls and program changing.
Sacred, have you sought out any composers from whom you could commission a piece, or would you consider composing yourself?
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Modulation would obviously be left up to the performer. Since it's an essential part of expressive playing, it would be strange to try to dictate it. Program changes would be indicated above the staff using the appropriate general sound categories, as I described above.
I have no plans beyond doing this myself. It's been my practice as a composer of organ music, and adapting to the synthesizer is not that difficult.
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Again, this is not about compositions for solo synth in particular, but I found this interview pretty inspiring and felt it fits the topic in a general way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbBQuYpG3s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbBQuYpG3s) - Will Gregory's Moog Ensemble - Interview
and their webpage: http://www.willgregorymoogensemble.co.uk/ (http://www.willgregorymoogensemble.co.uk/)
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Again, this is not about compositions for solo synth in particular, but I found this interview pretty inspiring and felt it fits the topic in a general way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbBQuYpG3s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbBQuYpG3s) - Will Gregory's Moog Ensemble - Interview
and their webpage: http://www.willgregorymoogensemble.co.uk/ (http://www.willgregorymoogensemble.co.uk/)
That's the closest I could think of too.
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I think it could be a great idea and can certainly be achieved in some way.Whether by score only,score with indication on performance(filter,mod wheel,variations etc),score with predetermined preset and performance indications etc.
I think with the event of presets easily movable through internet it could be done.Linking a score and presets together for performance.
It could yield really great things!!!
But the thing is:
A lot of electronic musicians:
Don't know how to write in score
or are not/less interested in producing music to be performed by others imo than just recording.
(the hassle for performance indications could be a turn off for me for example,losing time recording and instead writing performance notes)
It is more of a recording culture than performing culture,it seems,more of a do it yourself attitude in electronic,a lot more anyway than in Classical.
If this was going to happen it would be probably coming from the classical scene more than the electronic scene.
But i think it's an excellent idea!!!!
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Some notes by Music Thing Modular's Tom Whitwell about notation for synthesizer performances:
https://medium.com/music-thing-modular-notes/how-i-recorded-an-album-in-an-evening-with-a-lunchbox-modular-and-a-python-script-443ca08f34da#.fetj945yq
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I composed this piece with this thread in mind. The music is not yet scored, but only because I haven't applied myself to it yet. From start to finish, the piece could easily be played on a piano, but it was written specifically for synthesizers and it sounds best on them. I would propose this mediation as an example of exactly what I had in mind in starting this thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYkS3LgRRqA
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I composed this piece with this thread in mind. The music is not yet scored, but only because I haven't applied myself to it yet. From start to finish, the piece could easily be played on a piano, but it was written specifically for synthesizers and it sounds best on them. I would propose this mediation as an example of exactly what I had in mind in starting this thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYkS3LgRRqA
That's nice! It's funny to hear such a "busy left hand" from you, since you would usually play far more sustained notes for accompaniment. So that element immediately stands out.
I really like the oboe-like sound. Sounds very ARP-ish.
As for synth-specific notation systems: I'm not sure whether you've read Trevor Pinch's and Frank Trocco's "Analog Days," but when they mention Mother Mallard, they also go a bit into detail about their techniques, which in turn reminded me of this thread: "The new technology required performing musicians to evolve completely new sets of practices. Mother Mallard typically used standard musical notation for their compositions and made special shorthand patch diagrams to delineate the labyrinth patch changes–sometimes as many as a hundred during a single piece." To clarify the context: Mother Mallard used a big Moog modular setup.
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Thanks, Paul. Yes, I read that book when first getting back into synthesizer shape about seven years ago.
Regarding the piece of music, no unusual notation would be required. Just a traditional three-staff score with occasional notes about sounds, manual changes, and dynamics, such as one would commonly find on an organ score.
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I've been listening to Mid-Winter Meditation II several times this morning. You continue to stretch the boundaries for excellence with this beautiful piece.
Under "Instrumentation," I expected to see "DSI Prophet '08 Module (2)" Have you not yet received your new module? As I recall, you were getting it from Pro Audio Star. I ended up driving to their Brooklyn location recently to return some faulty refurbished QSC K12's. (I am now very pleased to have a pair of EV ETX 12's, which I think are much better.) I wouldn't recommend going to the location unless you absolutely have to; it's not like a store-front music store. But, they gave me great service, and it worked out well for me in the end.
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Thanks, Jason. Yes, I did get the second Prophet '08 Module, but I haven't used it at all yet. I'd better try it later this week before my warranty is up. The problem is one of room and a lack of mixer channels. I was thinking of organizing an all-Prophet '08 set up for a few weeks or months, but I first wanted to get the last piece recorded, and I needed the Poly Evolver for it.
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More on notation:
http://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources/149/7