from the Technology Institute for Music Education (TI:ME) Newsletter

(Thanks to David Mash for the inspiration to add photos)

My father realized I had perfect pitch, so he arranged violin and piano lessons for me when I was 5. In my early teens I started playing guitar in a rock band, and when I asked my father for a portable organ, he bought a Hammond organ with a 28 note pedal board. I became fascinated with the pedal board and began studying classical organ.

I also began experimenting with our Sony tape recorder, playing tapes backwards, at different speeds, creating loops, and using an overdub feature called "sound-on-sound". At 16 I was creating "one-man band" tapes by playing the guitar, keyboard, bass and drum parts myself. I became very interested in recording techniques and spent countless hours experimenting with my equipment and analyzing rock, jazz and classical recordings.

First love - the Sony 464-CS tape recorder circa 1962.  The internal speakers on each side made it easy to create exotic feedback effects by "dancing" the two mics around the speakers while recording.

Throughout this period I was studying organ. My teacher was the organist and choirmaster at the Episcopal cathedral on Long Island, and I had the opportunity to direct the men and boys choir and to play services on a large four manual instrument.

I also had an interest in composition. I composed a "Father’s Day Sonata" when I was 11, and I began formal studies at 16.

Student days - receiving an Exchange Club award

There were four important influences on my development as a synthesist. As a teenager I was familiar with some of Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky tape pieces, but the sound that totally captivated me was Wendy Carlos’ "Switched-On-Bach." This was the first time I had heard tonal electronic music and I was floored by the sound of the Moog synthesizer.

Discussing the past, present, and future of electronic music withfellow presenter Vladimir Ussachevsky at New York University in 1983.

The second major influence on my synthesizer work was "Snowflakes Are Dancing", Isao Tomita’s electronic realizations of Debussy’s piano music released in 1974. I heard the original quad masters at RCA in New York and was deeply impressed with both the synthesizer textures and the ambient effects.

Another influence was the lead synthesizer work of Jan Hammer. Hammer was one of the first keyboardists to incorporate sophisticated pitch bending techniques into his synthesizer solos. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Hammer approached the synthesizer as a unique instrument and created an identifiable sound.

Jan Hammer performing in Prague in 1965

My fourth influence was not a synthesist. Virgil Fox was one of the greatest organists of the twentieth century and I had the opportunity to study with him in master classes held over two summers. I learned a great deal about keyboard expression, technique, and tonal coloration. There are many similarities between the pipe organ and the synthesizer, and my organ background has been the foundation of my approach to playing synthesizers.

I learned the basics of synthesis on a modular Moog synthesizer. I had met Bob Moog in New York around 1970, and I was serious devotee. Moog Music loaned me a Mini-Moog synthesizer for the premier of a multi-media composition I wrote in 1972.

With Bob Moog and son Derek at the Audio Engineering Society conference held in New York in 1997.

The first synthesizer I owned was a "blue-meanie" prototype ARP 2600. In those days, most synthesizer owner manuals were glorified schematics, so I learned a great deal by trial and error. I also learned how to get around the instrument very quickly. This was important for playing live, especially in the days before programmable synthesizers. I used the 2600 on my first published piece for choir, organ, and tape. "O Be Joyful in the Lord’ was published by H. W. Gray in 1973 and was premiered at the Riverside Church in Manhattan.

1971 - proud owner of a "blue meanie" ARP 2600 synthesizer.  Only 50 - 100 "meanies" were produced.

I subsequently established an artist relationship with ARP and used an Odyssey synthesizer to create the tape parts for my first two published stage band pieces. These pieces were published in 1975 by Hal Leonard and were among the first commercial pieces to include notated synthesizer scores. I used ARP instruments on my first album, "It’s Time", which I produced in 1977.

I should also mention that my first AGO synthesizer pedal board was custom built by ARP in 1976. It was biphonic and used the controller module from the 2600 keyboard. The synthesizer pedal board opened up tremendous possibilities for me in real-time performance techniques.

My first programmable polyphonic synthesizer was an 8 voice Oberheim OB-X that was customized by Jim Cooper, Oberheim’s chief engineer at the time. I had used the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, but the knobs on the Prophet were absolute, making it difficult to edit or tweak sounds in live performance. The OB-X knobs were incremental, which made it much easier to edit sounds in real time. I used the OB-X extensively on my second album in 1980.

The "monster" setup circa 1978

My studio grew with my instruments. I purchased all kinds of signal processors - noise gates, tape echo units (I owned three Roland Space Echoes), distortion units, phase shifters, reverberation units, compressors, etc. My tape recorders went from stereo to 4 track, 8 track and then 16 track recording capabilities.

I was fortunate to be able to study computer music with Hubert Howe, a pioneer in the field. Howe helped to establish computer music facilities at Princeton, and in 1966 wrote MUSIC4BF, a sound synthesis program for the IBM System/360 and Sigma-7 computers. Program input was created by typing data onto eighty-column punched cards. By today’s standards it was almost unbelievably tedious, but in the early 1970s it was very exciting to create music on the same computer that processed your grades and to learn about CPUs, sampling rates, quantizing, and A/D – D/A conversion.

The first computer I owned was an Atari 800. I later used a Commodore 64, Apple II and IIe, and then an IBM computer with a "huge" 10 Meg drive.

I’m afraid I don’t have a unique way to use computers in music. I, as many other musicians, have made computers the basic tools for harnessing my creativity. I am most impressed with the elasticity of music recorded into computers. Almost any aspect of any acoustic or electronic sound can be edited. Today’s students take this for granted, but I grew up in the multi-track analog tape recording environment when this type of sound control was impossible.

I presented my first teacher workshop in 1974. My first summer workshop was in 1975 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It was a three-day workshop with about 40 teachers, 1 ARP Odyssey synthesizer, and me in a room without air conditioning! Although I have been fortunate in traveling extensively over the years, I have also been on the faculties of Adelphi University, Teachers College of Columbia University, and the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.

Teaching mode - Future Synthesists of America!

Technology has made the study of music more active than ever before, especially for non-performing students at the middle school and high school levels. I think of music technology labs as biology labs. Instead of just passively listening to the teacher talk about music, students can now dissect music in a way that was never before possible. Students with no performance skills can learn a great deal about music composition and arranging through hands-on activities. To me, the synthesizer/computer combination is the most powerful classroom "instrument" that has ever been available for music education.

I believe that music educators should concentrate on only one thing – music. One of the great dangers of music technology is the preoccupation with the technology instead of the music. Of course, there is a certain amount of technical information that must be learned, but the bottom line should be music. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard teachers and students talk endlessly about the technology – computer specs, software used, instruments used, etc. – but when the music is finally heard, it’s second rate. It’s a big problem. Over the years, I have been constantly tempted by the alluring nature of new technology, but I have had to say that if it doesn’t make me a better composer, performer, or listener, I’m not interested. I’ve had to constantly remind myself when teaching that music, and most specifically, the sound of music is the bottom line.

I would put more emphasis on musicianship. Electronic instruments can produce beautiful musical sounds, but so few of these sounds are heard in the classroom. Too often I hear loop based "songs" with no change of key, tempo, or volume level. In much of the electronic music I hear, the two musical elements usually missing are sensitivity and evolution.

The Internet is a mixed blessing. It’s a tremendous resource for communication, research, and technical information about product updates and compatibility issues. Distance learning is currently one of the hot topics and many institutions, seeing the profitability of this application, are proclaiming it as the future of education. I am not yet convinced, however. The classroom environment, even in a music technology lab, is unique. Each group of students is different. Each class has a unique personality, and the questions and activities resulting from group discussion can be terrific. I don’t yet see how a group of people, sitting alone in front of their computers at home, can generate a similar chemistry, even when full bandwidth video and multi-channel audio become the norm. It will be interesting to see the impact of this technology in the next ten years.

Much has already been written and said about the future for the music educator. Undoubtedly, the tools of technology will become more powerful. Educators will need to learn several generations of new technology during their teaching careers. This is where TI:ME can provide a tremendous service. But the greatest challenge for all of us, however, will be to aim high and to keep the music in music technology.