That sound was made on an instrument designed by Don Buchla, who lived to the age of 79 and died last week.
His inventions were prized for the flexibility and richness of the sounds they produced and the possibilities they suggested. ... In the 1960s, Mr. Buchla’s instruments represented what became known as the West Coast philosophy of electronic music: more experimental and less commercial, breaking away from tradition and virtuosity....
On the East Coast, [Robert] Moog built synthesizers that could be played from a keyboard, a configuration that working musicians found familiar and practical. Mr. Buchla, in San Francisco, wanted instruments that were not necessarily tied to Western scales or existing keyboard techniques. To encourage unconventional thinking, his early instruments deliberately omitted a keyboard....
The Buchla Box also supplied sound for the writer Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, the freewheeling multimedia happenings at which attendees, including Mr. Buchla, used LSD. Mr. Buchla was at the electronic controls for sound and visuals at the Trips Festival in San Francisco in 1966, a pinnacle of the psychedelic era. In his book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (1968), Tom Wolfe wrote about the “Buchla electronic music machine screaming like a logical lunatic.”...
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5 comments:
breaking away from tradition and virtuosity....
Yes, because who is going to listen to some loser's political views if you demand standards of musicianship!
i was lucky enough to actually get to play on one of these devices very recently. it really does force you to think about music in completely nonlinear ways. there's a great documentary about modular synthesizers called: i dream of wires.
Can't remember the name of it now but there is a video on Netflix about the invention and rise of synthetic music in the 60s and 70s.
It was pretty interesting even to a non musician like me.
John Henry
Now I see Vicari's note!
Yup, I Dream of Wires is the doco I was thinking of.
Love Suzanne Ciani!
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