Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in ... - Aaaaarg

MUSIC FROM MAINFRAMES 215
Cybersonic performance by Gordon Mumma during a Sonic Arts Union concert
at Brown University in New York City, 1973. The work is Ambivex which uses
electronics to modify and generate sounds triggered by a cornet. Left: Closeup of
Mumma’s equipment for Ambivex. Photo courtesy of Gordon Mumma.
piano sound had already begun. Near the end of the performance an
accompaniment was added: a recording of further cybersonic processing
of the piano sounds.” 14
Circuits didn’t always work as expected, which was a constant source of
discovery for these composers. This trial-and-error approach to making circuits
sometimes paid unexpected dividends. The sound character of Behrman’s
Runthrough was largely due to imperfections in an off-the-shelf electronics kit that
he used to build one of the key circuits:
That was a collection of analog homemade circuits that had some
components from Lafayette Radio kits that were supposed to make
sounds. And sometimes they didn’t work properly. I remember one
of the components of Runthrough was a Lafayette kit for tremolo.
It was supposed to make the sound get louder and softer. But
somehow because of some feedback or impedance thing it made it
go up and down in pitch, which is sort of an accident and the basis
for that Runthrough sound. 15
The invention of their own circuits for making music implied a radical
shift in the way that music itself was being conceived. In contrast,
composers working with mainframe computers were mostly applying
new technology to the same old rules of composition. The technical
pioneers at Bell Labs “thought that they understood music when in fact
they only had a very fuzzy understanding of music.” 16 Composers who
could afford to use commercially manufactured synthesizers were
working with cookie-cutter sounds, rhythms, and preset controls. The