How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
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How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
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Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#2I still enjoy listening to my Clockwork Orange soundtrack that I got for my 16th birthday. I used to listen to it all the time when doing math homework. Good music for concentration.
My fave track being 'Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana)'.
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#3The secret ingredient in Switched on Bach is that it is an outrageously good musical performance.
Lots of other synth albums are technology demos, collections of cool sounds. Switched On Bach stands out because Carlos adapted Bach for the medium of the Moog synth, clearly understanding the compositions' underlying gestures, and ensured that those gestures all come through. In some cases, they come through more clearly than on the original instrumentation, especially bass lines where the synth speaks more clearly than acoustic instruments can.
Such details in another performer's hands could be distracting, messing up the relationship between foreground and background elements and drawing attention to the wrong things -- but Carlos's arrangement and performance are exquisitely balanced. This could only have been achieved by someone with a deep and sophisticated understanding of the source material, combined with incredible patience to wrestle with difficult and immature technology until the recordings were perfected.
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#4I still enjoy listening to my Clockwork Orange soundtrack that I got for my 16th birthday. I used to listen to it all the time when doing math homework. Good music for concentration. My fave track being 'Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana)'.
Thanks, I'm going to give that one a try too!
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#5Also a pioneer for the trans community. What a fantastic person.
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#6I was lucky enough to get _Beauty in the Beast_ when it came out on Larry Fast's short-lived Audion label. It is well worth your time (and ever since I've wished that Wendy Carlos and Terry Riley would collaborate on a piece or an album).
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#7The secret ingredient in Switched on Bach is that it is an outrageously good musical performance. Lots of other synth albums are technology demos, collections of cool sounds. Switched On Bach stands out because Carlos adapted Bach for the medium of the Moog synth, clearly understanding the compositions' underlying gestures, and ensured that those gestures all come through. In some cases, they come through more clearl…
In case anyone feels like listening to this masterpiece: https://soundcloud.com/mikekraze/bach-switched-on-full-album
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#8"The Well-Tempered Synthesizer" is still one of my favorite albums, although it is a bit obscure. I had to wait for many years before it finally came out on CD.
Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" is the other classic synth album as far as I'm concerned :-)
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#9I'm particularly fond of "Secrets of Synthesis". It gives you some idea of the difficulties she had to overcome to create this amazing music using such early versions of the hardware.
Re: How Wendy Carlos Changed Music
#10No mention of the Tron soundtrack ... I guess it didn't "change music" but I really liked her compositions.