Bruce Haack On Mr Rogers Neighborhood, Blowing Children’s Minds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZqDfFDK5Y

Pioneering electronic musician Bruce Haack visited Mr Rogers Neighborhood on May 22, 1968, blowing minds of children everywhere.

Watch closely, and you’ll see that Haack demonstrates a wide range of electronic music techniques that a lot of musicians would consider experimental today, close to 50 years later. Haack’s techniques included circuit bending, found instruments, experimental instrument interfaces, skin conductance music controllers, gestural controllers and more. 

Here’s the second half of Haack’s performance on Mr. Rogers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yybwvm1r1Sg

Bruce Clinton Haack (May 4, 1931-September 26, 1988) was a musician, composer, and pioneer of electronic music. Haack released a series of electronic albums for children in the early and mid 60’s.

He also allegedly ‘had a notoriously disturbed childhood’ and ‘took Mescaline with Native Americans at the age of 8’, according to Wikipedia. See the Bruce Haack site for more information on Haack and his music.

if any readers grew up knowing the music of Bruce Haack, leave a comment and let us know about your experience!

Note: The Wikipedia entry on Haack has been updated, removing the reference to his disturbed childhood and noting that he used peyote, not mescaline. The Haack entry is not well referenced, so it’s not clear how accurate his biographical information is.

via coveryourears

15 thoughts on “Bruce Haack On Mr Rogers Neighborhood, Blowing Children’s Minds

  1. That was very cool; Mr. Rogers was awesome. I grew up watching him, but I don’t think I’d ever seen that segment. I’m going to go put on a sweater and tinker with synthesizer stuff.

  2. Mr. Rogers had really interesting people and topics. He was a genuinely kind and curious man.

    I remember seeing Guy Klucevsek (a wonderful composer and musician) on Mr. Rogers. The music he played on that show was so haunting and deeply beautiful. It was one of the great moments in childrens’ television.

  3. That had to be one of the most frightening demonstrations of child mind-control technology that I have ever seen. Clearly Bruce the Haacker brought his circuit-bent alien mind controller back to 1968 from the future.

  4. I LOVE Bruce Haack. He was utterly amazing, ahead of his time, autodidact…I recommend everyone to watch the DVD Bruce Haack: King of Techno and get the compilation out on Stones Throw.

  5. Amazing. Mr Rogers is on keys throughout the entire series. In the 2nd video, does anyone know what kind of ep he used to score it? I’m on my phone speaker but it sounds like piano mixed with maybe a Celeste?

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