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Hubert BognermayrArticle from Music Technology, February 1989 |
From the first all-electronic record label to the first ARS Electronica concert, Hubert Bognermayr has been one of electronic music's pioneers. David Bradwell makes the Austrian connection.
Hubert Bognermayr is one of the unsung heroes of electronic music - his record label claim to have released the first all-computer album, he organised the first Ars Electronica and now he's working with ultrasonic instruments.
"At the moment I'm designing an entire room with about nine ultrasonic fields - dancing in this room produces music, which is fascinating."
"As for strings, if you have electronically synthesised strings you can play them much more like a piano. On the other hand if you have individual sampled lines you have to know exactly how to arrange them. I do a lot of multisampling of all the instruments and then use two Fairlights to connect four lines together, detuning every line a little bit which then produces a really natural sounding string section."
The inspiration for a Blue Chip Orchestra composition can either come from a sound or a musical idea. For Bergpredigt Bognermayr went to a hospital and interviewed people, sampling excerpts from the interviews and then using those to compose in real time on the computer. The Boleros on the new album were written down traditionally, before being orchestrated on the Fairlight. Bognermayr points out that experimenting on the computer offers the constant inspiration of new sounds, leading him off on creative tangents.
"Harald and I have different working methods", he explains, "but his studio has identical equipment to mine. That means I can take the information straight out of my Fairlight and into his and we decide together which directions we are going to pursue."
One of the most distinctive aspects of Blue Chip Orchestra is the use of reverberation. While more mainstream popular music is still experiencing a backlash against the excesses of Trevor Horn's production work, Bognermayr is using reverb as if it's just about to go out of fashion. But reverberation turns out to be an integral part of Bognermayr's approach to composition as well as to production.
"A lot of my former pupils are not composing music at the moment because they only have time to read the equipment manuals."
"Obviously you can do things with sequencers", he begins, "but personally I've always played in real time with quantisation to the sequencer program. Of course you can play something slowly and then speed it up, but I think it's very important to have a good playing technique and also good composition training because if you don't, I think you will come to a stage with your music where you can't go on. I only speak from experience in Austria, but there are no popular schools using computer equipment to show people how to colour sounds and the basic lines of composition. In Austrian conservatories you can only learn to play a piano. Why shouldn't people be able to learn how to play a synthesiser? If you want to learn to play a synthesiser you have to learn the digital techniques, the analogue techniques and how to use a computer. If you want to go on with computer music you have to first learn all these basic things.
"The Austrian government believes that the only kind of music worth listening to is traditional classical music, and this reflects upon the cultural music scene in Austria. English people and Americans write much better rock music than Austrians because it's in their blood. Musicians in Austria and Germany can only copy pop music.
"If you are a musician you have to be a technician as well as a composer, and you have to know about computer equipment. A lot of new things are coming on to the market, and a lot of my former pupils are not composing music at the moment because they only have time to read the equipment manuals. It's important to decide to pursue one direction and to study the equipment necessary for that. I have decided to found a school in Austria next year for the training of students and teachers, because I think that within the next 20 years the music computer will be a very important thing."
Bognermayr is fully conscious of the problems of playing computerised music on stage. The audience expect more for their money than simply to watch somebody press the start button on a sequencer. With his colleague Joe Drobar, Bognermayr has designed some pieces of equipment known collectively as the mirror instruments. The centrepiece is an ultrasonic harp, similar in concept to Jean Michel Jarre's laser harp, but much more complex. Bognermayr explains how the equipment works in practice: "The mirror harp looks similar to an acoustic harp, but it doesn't have any strings. Instead you have an ultrasonic field, and when you move within it you can transmit all sorts of different kinds of MIDI information. You can change sounds and alter their pitch. I think it is very important to be a musician to understand what is to be done with the design, it could be very interesting for live performances to transmit MIDI data to visual programs, so that's what I'm looking for now - a new kind of performance where music is expressed in special colours and a new kind of visualisation. Currently all we are using visually are the mirror instruments and a few basic lights, because I haven't found a really new way to bring all these colours and visualisations to the stage. I hope I can find a system which can do it for our future concerts, and I will always be looking for new things.
"At the moment I'm designing an entire room with about nine ultrasonic fields. Dancing in this room produces music, which is a fascinating sensation. It's very important for the future of music to be able to give your inspiration easily to the computers. In the early days the machine dictated to the user what was possible and what wasn't, but now the user-friendliness has improved so much that the machines can handle a lot more in the way of human feelings."
Looking into the future, Bognermayr may be tempted to stray from the Fairlight system by new instruments such as the Waveframe Audioframe.
"I'm seeing a demonstration of it next month", he says, "and it has a new resynthesis feature which I think could be very interesting for me in the future. I think it has many more possibilities for real-time manipulation. Resynthesis systems will be able to make the sound appear natural with only one sample, as it will calculate other pitches without shifting problems. A lot of memory costs a lot of money, so I think any attempt to reduce the amount you need is a step in the right direction for the future.
"I also think the old 'knobs and buttons' approach to programming will come back with machines like the Waveframe, so that you can manipulate the sounds with your fingertips on the monitor. I think that is very important because you can hear in real time what you are doing.
"A technician of ours has built a special wind controller system which looks like, and has the technique of a clarinet, and it works perfectly. I think it's very important to develop instruments to enable people who play wind or string instruments to control the computer, because it is important to bring the inspiration of the moment to the improvisation you can do in real time, and express it on an instrument which is different to a keyboard."
As far as music in the future is concerned, Bognermayr sees a return to the direction pursued on the Erdenklang Symphony album, using natural sounds that don't come from traditional instruments and experimenting with them. The next Blue Chip Orchestra album has already been recorded, and is scheduled to be released in the autumn. Meanwhile, he still believes in taking the music to the people, both through education, and public involvement in recording.
"We did a project back in Austria where we asked people to send sounds on cassette to the local radio station", he begins. "I then made up a composition just using samples from the tapes, so people could hear their own sounds the next day on the radio. It was a simple way to tell people how you can make music just by using natural sounds. There is so much people don't know about the capabilities of musical technology, but I believe that in the next 20 years there will be a music computer in every living room. Austria has a very good name in traditional music but not in new technical music."
If Bognermayr gets his way, that may all be about to change. His final words of advice further reveal his optimistic approach and informed outlook: "You have to find out for yourself exactly what equipment is going to be best for your own needs, and then you should try to discover every detail about it. It's very important to work with a system that suits your ideas, because if you always feel the need for new equipment you will never get deeply into the music. Ten years ago it was a question of money, but now cheap samplers are widely available. It has ceased to be a question of how much you can afford, instead it's of knowing your direction, and of musical education."
I, for one, couldn't agree more.
Hubert Bognermayr (Hubert Bognermayr) |
Interview by David Bradwell
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