The ANS synthesizer (named after Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin) is a photoelectronic musical instrument created by Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin between 1937 to 1957.

The synthesizers uses cinematography, which makes it possible to “photograph” a sound wave, as well as synthesizing a sound from a drawn sound wave.

The introduction is in Russian, but about 4:15 into the video, the ANS synthesizer is demonstrated.

Here’s a Googlish translation of the text that accompanies the video:

Synthesizer [ANS] photoelectronic musical tool is designed by Russian inventor by Eugene [Murzinym] in 1958. With the aid of [ANSa] the composer can create music of any colorings in the directly reverberating form, without the musicians of executors, he writes sounds on the glass, necessary to it, covered with the opaque nondrying paint, removing by cutters paint in the specific places. This glass- is the unique musical score of tool, working on the musical score of synthesizer, composer it becomes similar to artist, who records the picture: it tints, it retouches, it erases and new code figures are brought, achieving auditory control of the obtained result.

The freedom of work in this musical score conceals the inexhaustible possibilities.

Invention was named by the designer “OF [ANS]” in the honor of composer Alexander Nikolayevich [Skryabina]. The large part of the music to the films Andrey Tarkovsky [Eduard] [Artemev] wrote with the aid of [ANS].

Video demonstrates experiment; [ANS] reproduces the figure of the artist of Svetlana [Bogatyr] ” Unknown Of [miry]“. On October 21, 2009 [GTSMMK] [im]. OF [M].[I]. Of [glinki] concert [posvyashchennyy] to 95- anniversary from the birthday of Eugene Alexandrovich [Murzina].

If you can summarize the commentary from the video, leave a comment below!

Stanislav Kreichi explains the significance of this rare synthesizer:

“The ANS remains a unique apparatus available to only a limited circle of musicians: the single experimental model of the device in existence currently belongs to Moscow State University, where a general lack of space and technical support have prevented a widening of the circle of ANS users. Although the ANS has not achieved widespread fame, the idea of directly transforming graphic structures into sound structures has not lost its relevance and can now be used successfully in computer music.”

via Octopusvision

Sonic State scored a very nice interview with Eigenlab’s John Henry Lambert, creator of the radical new Eigenharp electronic instrument.

See part II below – it’s great stuff.

touched echo is an electroacoustic artwork that uses bone conduction to take people back in time:

The visitors of the Brühl’s Terrace (Dresden, Germany) are taken back in time to the night of the terrible air raid on 13th February 1945. In their role as a performer they put themselves into the place of the people who shut their ears away from the noise of the explosions. While leaning on the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through their arm directly into into the inner ear (bone conduction).

It’s a very interesting use of bone conduction to enable a private art experience in a public space.

via Todayandtomorrow

Yuri Suzuki is an artist and musician interested in “revamping and giving new forms and meanings to the turntable, a device which very few of us still have in their house.

Music is become more and more digital and abstract, and Suzuki is interested in exploring the physical, tangible representation of sound.

The Prepared Turntable, above, is an analog answer to the digitalized DJ. The turntable has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader. Users can make or play music with special loop groove records.

More examples of his work are available at We Make Money Not Art.

Then check out Matthew Davidson’s gorgeous new release, A Towering Achievement of Indescribable Beauty. It’s a collection of piano improvisations, recorded May 27th – June 11th 2008, between 8:20 and 8:50am each day.

Here’s what Davidson has to say about the album:

There is only one preset on a piano. However, that didn’t stop the synthesist in me from attempting to simulate orchestration by processing elements to shape the sound into something ensemble-like. I used EQ, reverbs, delays, phase-vocoding, creative fading, reversed audio, etc… It isn’t processed to the extent of something like One of the Most Interesting Kinds of Sounds, but the uninitiated may think I sweetened with synthesizers. I didn’t. Just the piano.

It’s really lovely music – especially for Budd/Eno fans.

Preview one of the tracks, Plain and Broken, below:

You can download the full release from Davidson’s site. It’s free, and released under a Creative Commons license, so you can share it with your friends or put it in a podcast.

David Byrne has announced the opening of his electroacoustic installation Playing the Building.

Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation transforms the interior of the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.”

Byrne’s project consists of a retrofitted antique organ placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery that control a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes.

Says Byrne:

I felt bad that folks were waiting in a line to get in, but it was one of those lovely NY days, and lots of the folks seemed to run into old friends (I did too), so the waiting didn’t seem all that tedious. At times the party seemed to spill out to the street.

I was happy to see that the crowd has few trepidations about getting their hands on the device, and the New Yorkers were, contrary to their reputation, incredibly polite about not hogging the thing. It was also good to see such a demographically diverse crowd: little kids (well, with their parents), students, twenty-somethings, hipsters, artists and musicians (I met one of the guys from Mouse on Mars), city officials, and some folks even older than myself.

Elsewhere on my website and on the Creative Time site there is more information about the installation. It will be open to the public every weekend through most of the summer. Big thanks to Anne Pasternak, the donors, and to Mark McNamara, Justin Downs, and Danielle Spencer for their work on this piece.

As much as people enjoyed the device, I think they also enjoyed entry into an incredibly beautiful building in downtown Manhattan that was previously closed to the public for fifty years! It’s almost hard to believe such a thing could be possible, so thanks to CT and others for opening up that secret doorway in our city.

Analog Suicide’s Tara Busch visits Off The Wall Antiques to have a peek at the RCA-Victor “Electrified” Piano from 1939, a gorgeous Art Deco electroacoustic instrument.

Here’s a track listing:

• A Christmas Carol – Composed in 1963 as a message to President Kennedy about the Birmingham church bombings. The night after Bob Moog heard this piece in concert, he and Herb discussed getting together to create a new electronic instrument.
• The Abominatron – The historic tape recording wherein Bob Moog discusses and plays the first prototype synthesizer. It’s worth the price just to hear this excerpt. Bob’s personality shows thru in this fascinating piece.
• Jazz Images, A Worksong and Blues – The first piece of music composed on a Moog!
• Prologue To King Richard III – 1971 piece for Minimoog, trumpet and voice.
• A Little Night Music, The Ithaca Journal, Aug 6, 1965 – Headlines, Comics News Articles and Moog. From the historic 1965 Moog Music Workshop in Trumansburg, NY.
• Longing – For Piano and Theremin.
• Circling (But You Did Not Know) – For Piano and Theremin.
• Abyss – Featuring Soprano and Piccolo, from the CD “WOMAN IN DARKNESS”
• Sleight Of Hand (Mister Magic Man) – 1989, from the CD “WOMAN IN DARKNESS”.
• Fantasy on “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” – For saxophone and electronics. Moves from plaintive spiritual melody to jazz improvisation.

The CD is available at the Moog Music site.

Each concert will feature an 8.1 speaker diffusion system. Any composer regardless of region, age or nationality may submit one work for consideration in the following categories:

1) Two channel works for tape alone
2) Up to Eight channel works for tape alone
3) Instrument(s) and tape or electronics
4) Works for video
5) Sound Installations and Interactive Media (composer must provide all non-standard equipment)
6) Live Laptop works
7) Live Interactive works

In addition, submissions for research and technical papers, panel discussions, and technical demonstrations are also requested. Student submissions are strongly encouraged.

Deadline: June 1, 2007, postmark deadline (scores must arrive by June 15, 2007)

Entry Fee: none

Submission Guidelines:

1) Accepted formats for consideration are CD, DTS CD, DVD, DVD-Audio. Multi-channel works, up to 8 channels, may be submitted as individual mono files (aiff or wav) on data-CD or data-DVD. A diagram must also be included describing the speaker assignment or placement of the sound files in a multi-channel sound system.
2) For consideration, applicants must complete an online submission form available at http://www.emmfestival.org.

March 02

All month, we’re going to help you kick the RIAA habit by highlighting great electronic music that’s available for free on the Internet.

Jeff Harrington is a classically-trained composer, a programmer and an advocate of music technology.

He has dozens of musical works, ranging from piano pieces to complete electronic works, available for free download from his site. For many pieces, he also provides the scores as Adobe Acrobat downloads.

Harrington describes his music as “tonal and intensely contrapuntal, inspired by New Orleans and classical music traditions.”

Espace, Harrington’s 2nd completely electronic album, is a collection of slow, sometimes brooding works, employing granular resynthesis and time warping of timbres. The music should appeal to fans of ambient music, space music and classical music alike.

The track High Noon, below, uses “a physically modelled shakuhachi in deep resonant space to explore virtuosic gestures.”

You can learn more about Harrington and download the complete Espace CD at Harrington’s site.

At the recent 2007 NAMM Expo,the classic Rhodes piano was reintroduced, with a flurry of recommendations from notable keyboardists. The new Rhodes Mark 7 A is a true electromechanical instrument, available in 88-, 73- and 61-key sizes.

“You got it better than right, its unbelievable,” said Stevie Wonder., while Brian Auger of Oblivion Express said that “The new Rhodes are awesome.”

We had a chance to check these out at NAMM, and they looked great and brought a lot of welcome updates, including MIDI.

Here are the details:Rhodes Mark 7A Features:

• All Rhodes Pianos True Rhodes Electromechanical Designed
• 9 new models featuring state-of-art-design and Mark 7 technology
• Three different sizes: 88-, 73-, and 61-key sizes in passive, active, and active MIDI configurations
• Light, transportable, hi-performance neodymium speaker systems
• Volume controled front to back Speaker Platform
• Lighter overall weight
• Mark 7 technology
• Modular format
• Passive-to-active capability with MIDI
• Pre-amp with hi-performance 3-band equalizer
• Tremolo and pitch bend
• Wood keys and key bed
• LCD screen
• Ventilated humidity system
• Mark 5 action design
• Dual-panel USB ports
• New stand design
• New pedal design
• Safety locking system
• Headphone capability
• Durable custom and soft-touch finishes

The concert will include the world premieres of Barry Schrader’s “Wu Xing: Cycle of Destruction” (solo electronic version) and Rodney Oakes’ “Variations on the Krakow Fanfare”. Also on the program are live/electro-acoustic and studio compositions by Roger Bourland, Tom Flaherty, Frederick Lesemann, and Samuel Magrill. Featured performers will include Cynthia Fogg on viola, Rodney Oakes on Trombone, William Powell on clarinet, and Susan Svrcek on piano.

SCREAM 2006 – 20th Anniversary Reunion Concert

• When: Saturday, November 4
• Where: Music Recital Hall
  Los Angeles Harbor College
  Wilmington, CA 90744
• Time: 8:00 P.M.
• Admission: $5

The release captures a live event featuring Carya Amara on electronics and Hypnotique on theremin and sax.

“The organisers of the event had asked performers to accomodate feedback from the audience – and Rhythmicon took the request literally,” note the artists. “Noise from the audience was, for once, encouraged: these reactions were electronically processed in real time and fed back into the performance.”

The three tracks vary widely, but are held together by their consistent instrumentation. In Part 1, a driving synth sequence provides a framework upon which Hypnotique creates a freeform sax solo. Further depth is added by delays and additional processing, sometimes making it sound like a bizarre sax duet.

Part 2 starts with the sound of the audience clapping. This slowly turns into processed effects, out of which the sound of a theremin emerges. This track is the longest, at about six minutes, and is the most satisfying. It has an aggressive, industrial edge to it, but balances that with moments of delicacy.

In Part 3, metallic noises and drones, along with sequenced percussion, create a backdrop for alternating sax and theremin improvisations. The theremin sections, especially the final improvisation, are the most interesting because Carya Amara’s sounds and Hypnotique’s theremin blend so effectively.

You can find this release at the Earthrid site, along with MP3 samples of the tracks.

Tracks

• Feedback Machine Part 1
• Feedback Machine Part 2
• Feedback Machine Part 3

The international program will include works by Kristine Burns (USA), Richard Carbonell (Spain), Elsa Justel (France), Dennis Miller (USA), Joran Rudi (Norway), Diana Simpson (Scotland), Mario Verandi (Germany), Hsiao-Lan Wang (USA), and Daniel Zajicek (USA). This program presents the state-of-the-art in video/eam work.

Sounding Images Encore Presentation

• When: Saturday, January 28
• Where: Roy O. Disney Hall
  California Institute of the Arts
  Valencia
• Time: 8:00 P.M.
• Admission: Free
• Driving directions

via Barry Schrader

The site features several free MP3 downloads of his classical electronic music, including Goose Bumps.

The tracks on Cellosphere are serene dronescapes, falling somewhere between the tape-loop canons of Fripp and Eno and the abstract soundscapes of electronic artists like Steve Roach. The effect of the pieces on Cellosphere is that of evolving, pulsing soundscapes. Ayres’s processing blurs the source of the instrument, taking one cello and making it sound like an orchestra, or turning a bow scrape or a harmonic into a primary sound element.

Sounds recur throughout the pieces, not unlike the tape-loop guitar of Fripp and Eno’s 70’s early ambient pieces. Here, the layered sounds create an otherworldy, abstracted orchestral texture.

There are four pieces on Cellosphere. The first track has a languid canonic feel to it, with sounds recurring and layering to create a complex soundscape. The Cellosphere title seems apt, because it is almost as if Ayres is creating an entire soundworld from the cello.

Harmonic is a short piece, but one of the most interesting on the CD. Listening to it, it would be difficult to identify any obvious cello or violin. The most prominent sounds are low drones and a pulsing noise. Listeners familiar with Steve Roach’s recent work may hear similarities in the way Ayres explores sounds at a micro-level. It’s almost as if this whole piece is developed out of one sound, at times emphasizing various harmonics, at other times exploring noise within the sound, and at other times the fundamental.

Jeannie is a lovely drone piece. Ayres manages to evoke an orchestral palette from his cello, violin and effects. Overlapping string lines create a shifting string backdrop, and Ayres uses harmonics to create an effect that’s almost choral. David Hyke’s Harmonic Choir came to mind while listening to this. By mixing the layers of sound as the piece evolves, Ayres gives the music form and creates a wide range of textures from a limited set of source materials.

The final track Sensory, again brings to mind the early ambient tape canons of Fripp and Eno. On Sensory, Ayres creates a rich orchestral texture out of overlapping Cello and violin lines. The string sounds are presented relatively unaffected, bringing the lyrical quality of the cello to the foreground. Sensory is listed as a bonus track on the CD, but its combination of drone effects, orchestral string textures, and lyrical string lines suggests an entire world of possibilities for electro-acoustic music.

Ayres Cellosphere is highly recommended for fans of electro-acoustic and ambient music. The music is highly creative and crosses-over between the worlds of classical music, electro-acoustic and ambient sounds.

This album features four recent electro-acoustic music works: First Spring, Beyond, Duke’s Tune (the first and only musical work based on a melody composed by a pig), and all three movements of Death: Before Death, Into Death, and After Death.

Regarding the music on this CD, pioneering electro-acoustic music composer Bebe Barron proclaims “This music conjures up a whirlwind of emotion from some primeval source that permeates the listener with awe.”

Concerning the work Death, composer Judy Klein writes “ I am captured in the very first moment. And then, what subtle enhancement in the second section, and what a journey in the third! I hear the release of the spirit, its energy, its guides; darkness, hugeness, powerful monsters. Images foreign but not unfamiliar come to mind. There is such musical drive and such unity throughout the piece. I feel I’ve heard transformations of an element through gaseous and solid states, and that in the end, a spirit has become one with the voices which called to it in the beginning.”

Beyond has a street release date of September 27, at which time it will be available from online and retail stores. Beyond is available for purchase online directly from Innova.

The CD explores the ambient territory pioneered by Brian Eno and Harold Budd on releases like Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors, and The Pearl. Though Lane visits similar territory, the CD sounds fresh and original, because he brings his own unique musical perspective.

The tracks feature piano and other keyboards treated with cavernous reverb and other effects. Lane makes the ambient environments a prominent part of the sound. In a sense, the pieces are Lane’s musical explorations of these otherworldly acoustic environments.

On Piano Dreams and Nightscapes, the space between notes becomes almost as important as the notes themselves. The cover of Lanes’s CD features a blurred photograph that hides the image’s subject matter, yet reveals colors and contrasts in the image that might otherwise go unnoticed. In a similar way, the tracks on this CD focus your attention on aspects of the sound that often go unnoticed.

There are seven tracks. First, there are three sets of two tracks, where each pair explores a common soundscape. In the first pair, Piano Dreams, Lane explores the sound of treated acoustic piano.

The next pair, Fallen Nightscapes, has more of an organic feel. Very quiet insect noises and other night sounds and synths create a backdrop for Lane’s piano work. On these pieces, the piano seems to have a reverse echo on it, so that each note fades in and out, rather than sounding percussive. 

The final pair, Moonlit Reflections, brings to mind some of Steven Halpern’s proto-new age work. The pieces feature electric piano in a more synthetic landscape. Faint metallic sounds fade in and out, along with high-pitched tinkling keyboards, almost like an electronic version of chimes blowing in the wind.

The final piece, Daze Gone By, is the longest, at 15 minutes. This piece has the most electronic feel of all the tracks, with buzzing synth washes and echoing droplets of white noise. The track also has more of an abstract feel, because of its lack of clearly recognizable instruments.

The overall arch of the CD moves from the familiar sounds of acoustic piano towards more abstract sounds, and from intimate soundscapes to more unfamiliar territory. The music is so gentle and relaxing, though, that even the abstract soundscapes towards the end of the CD don’t seem too alien.

When Brian Eno coined the term ambient music, he explained his concept like this: “Ambient Music…must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

With Piano Dreams and Nightscapes, Brannan Lane creates real ambient music. Play this CD quietly, and it will lull you off to dreams. Turn it up, though, and you may find yourself wondering at the strange and quirky sounds that Lane almost sneaks by you.

Highly recommended for fans of ambient music!

Tracks:

1. Piano Dreams (Pt.1)     
2. Piano Dreams (Pt.2)     
3. Fallen Nightscapes (Pt.1)     
4. Fallen Nightscapes (Pt.2)     
5. Moonlit Reflections (Pt.1)     
6. Moonlit Reflections (Pt.2)     
7. Daze Gone By

Schrader’s compositions for tape, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. Schrader is also the founder and first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). He is also the author of the book Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.

According to Schrader, “The site will be changing on a regular basis, particularly the image and download pages, and I’ll be sending a quasi-regular e-mail newsletter announcing what’s new as well as giving information on upcoming concerts, CD releases, and other events.”

Upcoming site features:

• Photos and block diagrams of the “Fortune Modules” built for Schrader in the early 70s by Fukushi Kawakami of Yamaha for use with the Buchla 200 modular system
• Sound file downloads of selections from upcoming releases as well works unavailable on commercial recordings
• Announcements of premieres and other concert events.

Offsite link: http://www.barryschrader.com/

Most of the work that Schrader presents here is entirely electronic. One piece, Dance from the Outside, combines electronic timbres with music concrete sound manipulation. Schrader does not discuss his techniques or tools, suggesting that the tracks should speak for themselves. In his liner notes, Schrader argues that “The various technologies behind the compositions on this CD…are…of little or no importance to the value of the music presented. I hope that the listener will simply accept these works for what they are: forays into musical invention and explorations of the world of sound.”

Schrader is a long-time advocate of electro-acoustic music, as an educator, author and composer. Schrader is also the founder and the first president of SEAMUS, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States.

Electro-acoustic music is a term used to describe a broad range of modern classical electronic music. It often explores the interaction of natural and electronically generated sounds and effects. As a musical genre, electro-acoustic is sort of a catch-all term. As electronica is used to refer to any pop electronic music, electro-acoustic is often used to refer to any electronic music in the classical tradition.

With EAM, Schrader delivers a set of interesting and exciting pieces. The works showcase Schrader’s skill at creating music that carries on the experimental tradition of classical electronic music, while still managing to be immediately accessible.

The first work featured on the CD, Bachahama, reworks the music of Bach with synthesizers, but won’t be mistaken for a Switched-On version. Schrader arranges the originals with imitative electronic timbres, but that doesn’t seem to be the focus of this piece. He also uses the compositional capabilities offered by electronics to reshape the lines of the music, and to evolve the sound of individual voices over time.

The piece draws upon two works of Bach that will be familiar to fans of classical music: the C-Minor Fugue from The Well Tempered Clavier; and the Air on the G String. Schrader creates a fast-slow-fast form by sandwiching the Air between two takes on the Fugue. In the Fugue, Schrader arranges it with percussive harpsichord-like timbres that lull the listener into expecting traditional Bach. Schrader then begins to shift notes in time, and tone clusters begin to jump out of the stream of traditional counterpoint, punctuating the fact that this is a modern reinterpretation. In the middle section, the lyrical Air is also arranged with traditional-sounding tones, but they evolve over time in ways impossible with traditional instruments.

Bachahama serves as a fitting introduction to the music on the CD. The rhythms and textures of this piece, and others that Schrader presents here, have the feeling of a performance. They seem full of movement – they would be an ideal match for modern dance. With these pieces, Schrader embraces the experimental tradition of electro-acoustic music, but does not distance himself from the greater tradition of classical music.

The next piece, Ground, is based on the idea of an ostinato, or repeated figure, that continues throughout a piece. Schrader’s use of repeating material isn’t as static as many classical examples. Like traditional works, though, much of the interest in this piece is in how the composer weaves the figure into changing contexts, sometimes bringing it to the front, and sometimes disguising it.

Ground begins with a restrained expression of the figure. Schrader evolves the timbres of his voices, creating a sense of tension, and brings the piece to two clangorous climaxes before returning to the calm of the beginning.

Dance from the Outside combines pure electronic sounds and sampled, or music concrete, elements. The sampled elements add a more organic texture to this piece. Schrader contrasts breathy wind tones with percussive sounds. Some listeners may hear echoes of Otto Luening’s electro-acoustic flute pieces.

Still Lives is a set of five brief pieces. The first piece explores slowly evolving timbres. There’s no real melodic or harmonic movement, but the shifting tone color creates a feeling of constant change. The second piece is very polyrhythmic. Metallic, percussive sounds are added one after another, creating a texture that increases in complexity until the section ends in one climactic pop!

Schrader returns in the third piece to the slowly evolving textures of the first piece. The middle piece, though has a darker feel to it, because it uses more aggressive, discordant timbres. The fourth piece echoes the percussive feel of the second piece, but uses more drum-like sounds. The final piece again features slowly evolving textures, but also has a sense of foreground and background voices.

The last composition on the CD, Triptych, seems to sum up Schrader’s approach. It’s the longest of the works, with three main sections that run together continuously, lasting about twenty minutes altogether.

The piece has an overall slow – fast – slow form. Each section seems to focus primarily on one aspect of music: pitch, rhythm, or timbre. The first section explores slowly evolving timbres, and contrasts lyrical elements with harsher or piercing sounds. The second section is more rhythmic, and uses more traditional percussive sounds, including bell-like pitched sounds and drum tones. It alternates the melodic pitched sounds with driving tribal drum rhythms.

The final section explores changing electronic timbres, almost like an electro-acoustic parallel to Ravel’s Bolero. Schrader repeats a short musical phrase throughout the piece. With each repetition, the sounds used to voice the phrase change slightly, evolving from percussive tones to long, shifting tones.

With Triptych, Schrader starts with minimal material, yet creates a lengthy work that is full of interest, through variations in fundamental elements of music. His use of slowly evolving and changing timbres help give his work a unique voice.

With the works on EAM, Schrader balances the impulse to be experimental and original with a need to connect with the emotions and instincts of listeners. The result is music with lyricism, passion, rhythm and drive that makes music the master of technology. EAM is a must-have for electro-acoustic music fans.

Tracks:

• Bachahama
• Ground
• Dance from the Outside
• Still Life 1
• Still Life 2
• Still Life 3
• Still Life 4
• Still Life 5
• Triptych