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Article from Polyphony, November 1977


SYNTHESIZERS FOR THE MODERN COMPOSER

Dear Polyphony,

I am one of those saving pennies for a computer system to realize my dream music, so I really appreciated both the D/A Converter article and the Lab Notes on computer music - without the computer.

Please have Polyphony do more articles on non-performance oriented music systems. I am trying to design and then build the cheapest possible microprocessor-based synthesizer; or as I fancy it "The Digital Orchestra". Seriously, I will probably have to have someone build it for me - although I think I could come close and am certainly going to try.

Eight years ago when my music theory teacher told us that Bell Telephone had made a computer synthesize all sounds - natural or not, with any theoretical morphology (attack-sustain-decay characteristics) possible, etc., I thought - in fact our whole class thought - that all synthesizers would be like Bell Telephone's work of love (our teacher was a profound idealist). Anyway, when I learned about Moog's synthesizer I was completely disappointed; same with the Arp, Buchla, Aires, etc., but you guys (PAIA) seem like you're willing to give the people what they want, for a price that sounds great.

In my Music Theory class we were exposed to a lot of modern experimental music and became used to a musical world that used chromatic scales of 24 and more tones; chords, or, more appropriately tone-clusters or sonorities, built of, say, 84 different simultaneous pitches; the general rhetoric and syntax of another galaxie (or so it seemed at first). We were shown how modern music evolved from traditional music.

It soon became clear that in order for the modern music to be performed accurately, it would require an orchestra of the world's greatest virtuosos - more likely, superhuman players. See how well your favorite violinist can whip through Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto, and then thank him or her, for they will be nearly dead from just 30 minutes of astonishingly demanding violin playing.

I mention Berg's Concerto because he was one of the forerunners of modern music, and he wrote this masterpiece around 1925, and to "traditional ears" it is still rather rough going (forgive my condescending tone). However, after Schoenberg, Berg and Webern broke the ice, all hell really did break loose, and this is the point: fifty years after Berg's masterpiece, the last thing a modern composer is interested in is a synthesizer based on a traditional piano keyboard. We could care less if it is equally tempered, uses just intonation, or the opinion of the guy down the street; we want all the pitches.

That's why we're going for computers, learning digital logic, programming languages, calculus and wishing we'd studied electronics as well as music. At least that's why I am.

I'll try to make it short: ever since Popular Electronics came out with those features on micro-computers, I knew I could build the synthesizer system which could "play" the music I had in my head, (and on paper) - at least, I could learn enough to tell someone who knew electronics just what I wanted.

Sincerely,
Brian Hartzler

AUTOMATED MUSIC TYPOGRAPHY

Dear Polyphony,

Two years ago KVB spent $6,000-$7,000 on a study of the economics of automated music typography. Our conclusion was that we could not compete with those already in the business (only one of whom is automated on a commercial scale).

It occurs to us that the economics would be favorable if two conditions are met:
1) quality should be equal to that of manuscript rather than to fine engraving
2) the music should be generated by the composer/arranger in machine readable form so that transcription into the computer is not necessary

Toward that end I have begun design of a music type font for KVB's Printronix dot-matrix printer. If a suitable standard language and format for cassettes were developed, KVB could print music as a service to people who have computer controlled synthesizers. The article I discussed with you on existing computer-music languages should give us some ideas for such a standard medium of communication.

Sincerely yours,
Charles A. Bodeen, Asst. Controller KVB, Inc.

Editors Note:
The article Charles mentions in his letter will hopefully appear in an upcoming issue of Polyphony. However, I thought I would run his letter to see if any of you were interested in his proposed "custom music printing" service. As he said, it would be mandatory that a universally accepted high level music language be established. After we read his article on existing music languages, perhaps we can pool all our ideas and arrive at a workable solution.



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Publisher: Polyphony - Polyphony Publishing Company

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Polyphony - Nov 1977

Donated & scanned by: Vesa Lahteenmaki

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