The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

Meanwhile, Lilburn was preparing to take his second sabbatical
leave, with the expressed intention of furthering his knowledge of
developments in electronic music overseas.
127
His letters to Peter Crowe,
pu bl ~s " h e d" ~n D oug 1 as L"lb ~ urn, ,27 wr~tten " over a per10 "d 0 f tree-an h d -onehalf
years (August 1961 to January 1965) make fascinating reading and
provide an excellent insight into the progress Lilburn made in understanding
this new medium.
In the first letter, dated 4 August 1961, Lilburn talks of the
music for The Axe.
In the letter dated 19 January 1963, he mentions the
discovery of two oscillators and a number of echo and filter devices at
the broadcasting studios. He described to Crowe the experiments they
(Lilburn and a young broadcasting technician) were making with these
pieces of equipment:
playing sounds at different speeds and discovering
that the tonal qualities of the sounds alter. In the letter dated 2
February 1963 he speaks of discovering"
a whole battery of electronic
gadgets in the Electronics Lab. at the V.U. & the technician is hitching
them on to the Music Room speaker on Monday morning for me!,,28
In the letter dated 9 March 1963, Lilburn thanks Crowe for sending
circuit diagrams and information for building various sound~generating
equipment and notes that:
" ••• checking over your list of aids I think
that we can already meet most of them.
Physics Dept. have at least half a dozen
sine or square wave generators,' and NZBC
have a white noise generator (but as yet
no suitable filters). Physics say they
could quite simply build a mixer for a
bank of generators. They could also build
ring modulators, bell gates etc. out of the
spare parts mainly. NZBC are capable of the
various treatments you mention. So far so
good, but here the difficulties begin."29
H transpires that the difficulties are mainly financial. Lilburn
is not optimistic about persuading the University to spend money on
constructing anew studio, particularly at a time when the music
department is badly in need of other musical equipment, such as a grand
piano. Lilburn also writes:
"As for the electronics I still feel in a
27 Douglas Lilburn, Getting into electronic music: letters of Douglas
Lilburn to Peter Crowe, 1961-66. Douglas Lilburn op.cit. pp.63-72.
28 ibid.p.65.
29 ibid.p.66.