Could There Ever Be a Solo Synthesizer Repertoire?

[AdamPloof]

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.

[Sacred Synthesis]

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.

[AdamPloof]

...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.

[Sacred Synthesis]

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.

[Paul Dither]

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."

[Sacred Synthesis]

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.

[BobTheDog]

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

[Sacred Synthesis]

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

[Paul Dither]

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"?

[Sacred Synthesis]

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.

[Paul Dither]

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.

[Sacred Synthesis]

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?!

[chysn]

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)

[Paul Dither]

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.

[Sacred Synthesis]

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

[chysn]

I rest my case.

Wait a minute... I thought "No, can't happen" was my case!

[Paul Dither]

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.

[Sacred Synthesis]

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. 

[AdamPloof]

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?

[Sacred Synthesis]

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.