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Scintillating Synthesizers: Wendy Carlos Computer-Generates New Sounds and Scales
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11837 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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8 / 1987 |
2,572 Words |
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Lou Fournier
Lou Fournier is music editor of the Washington Times. |
I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.
- Vincent van Gogh
Her voice shares many of the characteristics of her music: soft, but with sudden accents mirroring her passion; rhythmic, and even colorful. This is Wendy Carlos, the person who, in a previous lifetime when she was Walter Carlos, wrote her way into musical history in 1968 with a landmark recording called Switched-On Bach. Today, after changes of age, gender, musical taste, and direction, she is attempting the feat again with a new milestone recording called Beauty In the Beast.
With Switched-On Bach - or "S.O.B.," as she affectionately calls it - Carlos almost single-handedly wrought the synthesizer age. Synthesizers were then playthings of the avant-garde, bulky and incredibly complex instruments that no one was really sure what to do with. Carlos took Bob Moog's instrument and put together an album of works by Bach. It remains one of the biggest-selling classical recordings of all time, and the sound of the Moog synthesizer quickly made its way into other recordings. As cheaper and easier synthesizers became available, soon no album was released without a synthesizer being heard on it.
Breaking Ground
With Beauty In the Beast, the latest in a trail of innovative recordings since "S.O.B." that have included a number of movie soundtracks (notably A Clockwork Orange and Tron), Carlos breaks new ground that may augur the advent of another new musical age. This
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