Rediscovering an old love...

[acroyear]

and no, not an ex- girlfriend.

In my never-ending quest for new music with strong melodic sense, great rhythm, good harmonies and chord progressions, and a true sense of composition and strength, I often find myself facing bands that had been doing what I love for decades.

XM Radio's AudioVisions-103 has led me to rediscovering a very strong love for Tangerine Dream. Along with Jean-Michele Jarre and Kraftwork, TD were among the early pioneers in synthesizer-based music, and very early experimentors in analog and digital sequencers. Unlike the standard dance-music that would popularize sequencers with producers at the expense of the careers of session drummers, TD used sequencers solely as a compositional tool, to be blended with other technologies, sounds, and melodies to create something real, not something for "a market".

Me thinks a new collection will start to grow...once some of the debts of the last 4 months get whittled down.

Warning: that link will likely launch a sound-file automatically. There's a stop-button in the top frame. Its a preview of their new album. The current lineup only has one member of the original group / key 70s-era lineup, and that member's son.

Comments

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

they've done quite a few soundtracks that I love and their other CDs are fantastic to just listen to as you plop down and enjoy a book.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

"[...] among the early pioneers in synthesizer- based music"

Er ... I have trouble thinking of them as early synth pioneers. Yes, they're important and broke new ground, but wouldn't that particular label go to folks predating Wendy Carlos? I'm trying to figure out what counts as "synth we'd think of as a synth" for this, but if one wanted to be a stickler, we'd have to include the Theremin and the Ondes-Martenot -- for musicians, look at Clara Rockmore -- and we'd be talking about the 1920s and 1930s, rather than the 1970s and 1980s.

"and very early experimentors in analog and digital sequencers"

And that brings us again to Wendy Carlos and the Synclavier, in 1968, nine years before TD, right?

Early (for the sequencing), maybe. "Very early", I don't think so. What made them important was what they chose to do with the synths in terms of composition and arrangement, not for pioneering the idea of synth-based performance.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

The first TD album with sequencers was in 1972 or 73.

And i did say "among the very first", of which I fully acknowledge that Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos also counts. Certainly she counted for the first to attempt to make an entire film soundtrack from synths (the studio opted to go back to orchestra for some of the parts, but there's early adoption for ya).

About when do you think the first synth that looked like a modern one, meaning it used a keyboard, was? the early experiments were mostly knobs and buttons, if i recall.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

"The first TD album with sequencers was in 1972 or 73."

I stand corrected. The earliest I had been able to find when I went looking for a sanity-check was 1977. Yeah, five years is enough to spell the difference and make 'em early.

"About when do you think the first synth that looked like a modern one, meaning it used a keyboard, was? the early experiments were mostly knobs and buttons, if i recall."

Well when I wondered what counted as "a synth we'd recognize as a synth", one of the things I was wondering was whether it had to have a keyboard to count. I don't think so myself, but I may get outvoted.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the trouble is that the development went through phases. first was the strictly hardware research level, the knobs and buttons from the 20s to sometime in the early 60s.

second was the keyboard & knobs phase, the kind of equipment moog was producing, among others. from these, standard settings became the first home "organs" of the late 70s. as with any electronics, the buttons and knobs got smaller over time.

then the digital age hit, with the fairlight and other digital keyboards making things real small.

midi was the next stage, standardizing the trigger as a separate entity from the sound (initially coming from the electronic percussion directions of the early 80s) and synths (and samplers, once memory got cheap), and thus the switch happened, that the keyboard could be just a trigger to a rack-mounted computer located off stage (or in another country -- its been done).

so now, we have synths that are just boxes on a wall, back to what they started with ages ago. but until the late 80s, all synths were recognized by being keyboards without "organ cases". that's kinda what i meant by it.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

"the trouble is that the development went through phases. first was the strictly hardware research level, the knobs and buttons from the 20s to sometime in the early 60s."

But both the Theremin and the Ondes-Martenot had musician's interfaces, not scientist/researcher's interfaces. (The Theremin is unlike any other instrument until the late 1980s or early 1990s when things like the "light harp" were developed, but it's still an interface that makes sense to think of as "playing" instead of "operating" the instrument. And it's not buttons and knobs. IIRC, the Ondes was played in a way that more resembled a monochord, but I'd have to look it up again.)

"second was the keyboard & knobs phase, the kind of equipment moog was producing, among others."

Here, I think, is where we get into the "what counts as a synth" question. I consider the electronic instruments from the 1920s and 1930s to be "kind of" synthesizers, and I consider everything Moog designed (and some of the larger machines that came before his) to be "synths I immediately recognize as being synths" ... but some folks are going to only count the ones with piano-style keyboards and/or MIDI ports. The 'keyboards without "organ cases"', as you put it. I heard "synth" and didn't parse that as "keyboard synth".

"then the digital age hit, with the fairlight and other digital keyboards making things real small."

Ah! I didn't realize the Fairlight was digital!

"midi was the next stage"

As long as we're talking about the next stage of interface, yes. But not really the next stage of synthesizer, per se. Dividing the interface from the action does allow an awful lot of neat tricks (including the ... "NetJam", was it called? ... that I think you were referring to when you mentioned having the instrument and the player in different countries). In addition to making synths easier to drive from computers (and vice-versa), and stage tricks involving triggering various synths together as though they were one large instrument, an important feature is that the musician can now pick the input device that best suits his or her body and playing style independent of the sound and features ... pick one of those rack-mounted boxes that has all the right sounds, and then go shopping for the keyboard that feels right for your hands, or even a MIDI woodwind interface or a MIDI guitar controller.

At the same time I feel something has been lost in the transition to all-digital (digital control as well as digital sound generation). I have trouble imagining playing "Frankenstein" on the modern synths I've seen up close, and would be surprised if MIDI supports the level of control over the shapes of the sound required for that piece. Or have the controls gotten more sophisticated than when I last looked closely? (Out of curiosity, do you happen to know what kind of synthesizer Winter used for "Frankenstein"?)

I don't want to take a step backwards from MIDI; I just want to see the old options preserved alongside MIDI, for that special magic that the analog synths were so perfectly suited for.