Posts Tagged musical instruments
What does a Moog synthesizer sound like? The word itself is often mispronounced. Moog sounds nothing like the moo-ing of a cow. I was guilty of this faux-pas myself for many years until I was chastised by a musician friend: “No! Not like the cow! Moog rhymes with vogue!” When the experimental composer Herbert Deutsch first met Bob Moog, he told him that he wanted an instrument that didn’t exist. He said he wanted something that could “make these sounds that go wooo-wooo-ah-woo-woo.” Moog’s electrical engineering skills and openness to collaboration played well alongside Deutsch’s musical engineering talents. And so, as they developed the instrument together, the short version of the story is that Deutsch began to hear the first signs of his “wooo”’s and “ah”’s in July of 1964. By October, Deutsch was composing electronic music on the first complete Moog prototype – the very same synthesizer that was eventually acquired for our collections here at The Henry Ford.
Love for the Moog continues today, evidenced by the recent celebration of its 50th Anniversary at Moogfest 2014: The Synthesis of Technology, Art & Music. I was privileged to be able to attend this festival, and to meet the foundational members behind the history of synthesized music, to hear presentations by people influenced by Bob Moog and his legacy, and to participate in demonstrations alongside current visionaries in the field of technology and sound.
Music to the engineering world’s ears would align the Moog synthesizer’s best qualities as coming from its feats of interior technology: electronically generated sounds, driven by voltage-controlled transistor technology, organized into standardized modules, oscillators, and a keyboard. I promise I won’t go too far down this technical rabbit hole, because while this history was absolutely crucial to its invention, I believe that the legacy of the Moog synthesizer is rooted in what it can do, and what is has done, rather than what it is. In a world that is saturated by creative invention (and equally rapid obsolescence), it is often difficult to imagine there being enough space left for something truly original and lasting. But Bob Moog’s synthesizer was pure innovation: no one had ever heard anything like the sounds it produced.
So while I’m doing a roundabout job of describing what the Moog sounds like, I’m comfortable in assuming that you have probably heard it, and perhaps not realized it. While Wendy Carlos’ 1968 classical application of the instrument in “Switched on Bach” is considered to be the first commercially successful Moog recording, its use quickly branched into popular music: The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, and Giorgio Moroder’s production on Donna Summer’s disco hit “Love to Love You Baby.” Musicians working today love the Moog because it supports organic experimentation and seemingly limitless sound potential, distilled down into a portable instrument with a physical interface. In spite of the widespread availability of computer-based music programs, many performers are choosing to return to analog instruments. Clicking buttons on a laptop is simply less satisfying than making a physical patch with a cord. Signals travel from one patch port to the next, travelling over wires, producing otherworldly sounds.
Moogfest attendees logged many hours of play on UM Projects’ theremins (left); thereminist Dorit Chrysler kicks off the festival at Pack Place Lobby, April 23, 2014 (right).
Daily performances by Dorit Chrysler were played out among the custom-built theremins by François Chambard of Odd Harmonics / UM Projects. In addition to being considered one of the world’s preeminent thereminists, Chrysler is also one of the founding members of the New York Theremin Society. Attendees were welcome to try their hand at playing the theremins during the open play hours. Most people (this curator included) were shocked to find out how difficult it was to get any sense of control out of the oddball instrument.
Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make Magazine, introduces the creative powerhouses that will appear in Make Magazine’s day-long panel (right); Nic Collin’s Tall Poppies film showed how simple contact microphones could be used creatively, to amplify the sound of the metal rods of fireworks sparklers. Watch (and listen!) here.
Make Magazine’s lineup for a day-long session did not disappoint. Tom Zimmerman, Master Inventor working within IBM’s Research Division, opened the floor by discussing his career in the foundations of human-machine interaction. His first patent was for the Data Glove, the same technology that helped to support early efforts in the Virtual Reality arena. His recent inventions have included digital tracking devices that alert a control center when endangered sea-turtle eggs are hatching, and Project Autobahn, a system to convert the mechanical data of a Ford automobile into music. Zimmerman’s passion for the importance of STEAM (that’s STEM + Art) education is clear, as he shared his mantra: “Hands-on wins, hands down.”
Jay Silver of Joylabz and Intel demonstrated the abilities of his creative platforms Makey Makey and Drawdio. With these devices, the world essentially becomes an electrical, interactive playground: you can turn your kitchen sink into a theremin, or make a working video game controller out of Play-Doh.
Nic Collins, author of the influential book Handmade Electronic Music, spoke about his career trajectory through the avant-garde music scene of New York in the 1970s to his current position as Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When he first arrived at SAIC, he realized that his students were “digitally saturated,” and that they were hungry to learn about the messiness of analog circuitry. Collins shared his knowledge of circuitry, ultimately sparking off a riotous revolution in sound-making and art at his popular workshops. A favorite moment was Collins’ description of his Tall Poppies project in which he built microphones to capture the sound of sparkler fireworks burning down and cooling – from the inside.
Forest Mims III has written over 60 books, many of them well known to Makers and electrical enthusiasts. His books Getting Started in Electronics and the Engineer’s Mini-Notebook series for Radio Shack have sold millions of copies and sparked off generations of garage workbench tinkerers in the process. Mims recounted his work over the years: the “Jokes That Bomb” noisemaker for the Johnny Carson Show, the Atari Punk Console, and infrared travel aid glasses to safely direct the blind. In 1975, Mims also wrote the very first manual for a home computer, the Altair 8800, manufactured by his company, MITS.
The vocoder began as a room-sized interface called SIGSALY, equipped with two turntables that are suspiciously reminiscent of the performance setups that hip-hop DJs would later use (left, image courtesy of the Audio Engineering Society); Douglas Vakoch (right) of the SETI Institute spoke as part of the Science Fiction & Synthesized Sound workshop presented by OMNI Reboot.
The overwhelming amount of incredible speakers to choose from found me session-hopping for the remainder of the festival. Favorites included hearing the history of the vocoder unfold through the captivating and humorous expertise of Dave Tompkins. His book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach, traces the vocoder from its beginnings as the behemoth SIGSALY, a WWII-era speech encrypting device, to its diminutive (but no less impactful presence) into its days of being harnessed for science-fiction film and television, and eventually bleeding over into robotically-inflected effects used in hip hop and electronic music.
Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, spoke in depth about the history and content of “goodwill messages,” those inscribed pictorial plaques sent into space onboard Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft. The Institute continues this type of highly coordinated communication through their Earth Speaks project. Using crowd-sourced contributions, SETI invites people to submit pictures and text to be broadcast in the event that an extraterrestrial civilization is ever detected. The themes they ask contributors to respond to related to what it means to be human, and the provocation: “Should we reply, and if so, what should we say?”
Module synthesizers continue to be designed and crafted by hand at the Moog Factory in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. In a surprise unveiling, the factory wowed the crowd with a painstakingly recreated version of Keith Emerson’s iconic instrument. This engineering feat took three years to complete, and is a powerhouse of workmanship and commitment to the vintage synth spirit, from hand-soldered circuit boards to photo-etched aluminum designs.
The new Emerson Moog Modular System, unveiled at the Moog Factory (left); Herbert Deutsch and Kristen Gallerneaux talk about all things Moog (right).
I was also honored to be able to spend some time talking to Herbert Deutsch himself in his down time between performances. Suffice to say, Deutsch’s role as collaborative advisor in the development of the synthesizer meant that he was well-armed with amazing stories and information about our artifact. I will look forward to revealing some of these in a future blog post. At his lecture, “From Moog to Mac,” Deutsch performed early compositions from the heyday of Moog experimentation, including music that was originally created on The Henry Ford’s own synthesizer.
When Deutsch played a recording of a correspondence tape from 1963, sent to him by Bob Moog, the audience fell silent. Above the stunned hush, we heard the first sounds of the synthesizer, and Moog himself, jokingly calling his invention “the old Abominatron,” warning Deutsch, “It doesn’t sound like much when I play it, but maybe somehow, someone with a bit more musicianship and imagination can get some good things out of it…”
Kristen Gallerneaux is Curator of Communications and Information Technology at The Henry Ford. Be on the lookout for sound and synthesis-related events at this year’s Maker Faire Detroit, July 26-27!
North Carolina, 21st century, 2010s, technology, musical instruments, music, events, by Kristen Gallerneaux
Owosso, Michigan, native Vera Richardson (born 1891) was a musician of considerable talent, evident from an early age, and by age 10 she was singing and playing the piano publicly. Formative performances took place in the neighboring Shiawassee County city, Corunna, where she appeared as part of the entertainment assembled for club gatherings held in local residences. She attended Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) and was the pianist for her own graduation ceremony in 1914. She continued her education after college, including an advanced piano course in New York. In August 1919, she married fellow Owosso native Leigh H. Simpson, a high school teacher, and the couple settled in Detroit.
Though the young Vera was obviously gifted, her modest early years gave little indication of the unique path her life would take.
It wouldn’t be long into her professional career before Vera Richardson was known as a highly skilled musician and performer. In the June 7, 1922, edition of The Detroit News, the paper could barely contain their praise of her “in all departments of the difficult art of piano playing,” noting her “ready facility which makes a technical achievement seem quite simple,” adding, “life and vigor are in the tones she achieves,” and “a real sincerity makes her work vital.” She was backing singers for the WWJ broadcast, but listeners responded so strongly to her playing—lighting up the station’s switchboard with requests for more—that the pianist closed out the evening with three solo pieces.
In addition to her piano virtuosity, Richardson was also a composer, arranger, and recording artist, laying down piano rolls for the Duo-Art player piano in the mid-to-late 1920s. At an April 1930 event held at the Women’s City Club in Detroit, she seemingly concluded the performance by turning on a Weber Duo-Art baby grand, which started to play one of her own piano rolls—but she wasn’t done yet. For the conclusion, she sat at another piano and began playing as the automated Duo-Art rolled on. The audience, blown away by such an unusual duet, insisted on an encore. Once again, she obliged.
In the mid-1930s, Richardson began a weekly residency at the Dearborn Inn. Envisioned by Henry and Edsel Ford, the hotel incorporated design elements from New England inns built during the colonial period. A stone’s throw from the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the inn opened in 1931 and quickly gained a stellar reputation for its elegance and colonial charm. It was in this environment that Vera Richardson performed her Sunday concerts, which were likely held in the hotel’s cocktail lounge. This time, though, it wasn’t her piano skills that she shared with the audience. Instead, the instrument she manipulated was unfamiliar to most. It was a device that didn’t exist in the not-too-distant past, and was seemingly from a world that did not yet exist. With just a wave of her hands, Richardson was able to produce otherworldly sounds, both beautiful and frightening.
The theremin was the world’s first electronic instrument. Invented in 1920 by Russian-born Lev Sergeyevich Teremen (better known as Leon Theremin), it is the only instrument played without ever being touched. The theremin consists of oscillators, housed in a wood cabinet, which stands on four legs. A vertical metal rod is to the right, a metal ring to the left. Once turned on, the theremin emits an electromagnetic field, so when a person enters that field the unit produces noise. Moving one’s right hand near the metal rod influences the pitch, while gesturing with the left hand near the ring controls the volume. When operated by a skilled player, the sound of the theremin is similar to such string instruments as the cello and violin, while the musical tone emanated can vary significantly. A piece might begin in a soothing or lovely fashion and then escalate into moods that are alternately haunting, suspenseful, or hair-raisingly alarming. During performance, the musician operating the instrument—depending on the spectator’s perspective—might resemble a conductor or even a magician.
RCA began manufacturing the instrument in 1929. Though the company boasted that “anyone can play” the theremin, it is actually quite difficult to master. So much so that even a musician as capable as Vera Richardson felt she could learn a thing or two about the instrument and returned to New York in the mid-1930s to study theremin development and technique with Leon Theremin himself.
The theremin was featured in the popular radio program, The Green Hornet. The instrument was used in the show to create an ominous buzz, representing a monstrous bee that sounded like it was about to fly right through the speakers. It marks the first time most of the public heard the theremin used in such a way—if at all. The thereminist, from day one in 1936 until the series ended in 1952, was none other than Vera Richardson.
Around the time of her Dearborn Inn concerts, she opened her music studio in Detroit. Located on Ferry Avenue west of Woodward, in the apartment she shared with her husband, she offered demonstrations of the theremin and taught piano. Richardson continued performing with the theremin, including such notable dates as her return to Owosso for a solo performance on July 3, 1936, as part of her hometown’s centennial celebration; and the October 25, 1936, appearance at the Women’s City Club, where she was backed by the Detroit String Ensemble. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, she had a radio show on WWJ, playing the organ and the Novachord, an early synthesizer. She was also the organist at the Detroit Institute of Arts every Sunday morning from 1935 to1950, and beginning in 1946 she performed monthly organ recitals at veteran’s hospitals across Michigan. Her last known public appearance took place on September 17, 1957, at a home in Grosse Pointe. Performing as one of four pianists at a “get acquainted tea” social for a local organization, the event was similar to her humble beginnings in show business over fifty years prior.
Vera Richardson Simpson died in September 1977 in Santa Barbara, California. She is buried near her hometown of Owosso, in Corunna, the same city where those youthful performances took place.
In July 1986, the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor received Richardson’s theremin from her estate. In January of the following year, the Vera Richardson Simpson Memorial Scholarship was announced. The scholarship was to benefit 18-to-22 year-old college students majoring in music. In this way, Vera Richardson’s legacy as a community-minded individual, musician and pioneering electronic music performer continued for new generations.
Bart Bealmear is former Research Support Specialist at The Henry Ford.
1930s, 20th century, women's history, musical instruments, music, Michigan, Dearborn Inn, Dearborn, by Bart Bealmear
When you think of Henry Ford, you think of cars almost immediately. Violins probably don't come to mind, do they? While it may come as a surprise to some today, Henry was a lover of violins and classic American music. He loved the fiddle and country dancing, two things that reminded him of his childhood. Henry could often be found in Lovett Hall dancing with Clara Ford as the band played and dances were called throughout the night.
Henry amassed an impressive collection of violins in the early part of the 20th century. Those violins are now within the collections of The Henry Ford, but occasionally they are loaned to other institutions for exhibition or, in the case of Sphinx, loaned to promising young musicians, like Gareth Johnson, to be played for new audiences. Gareth recently played the 1709 Siberian Stradivarius during our National Day of Courage in February.
In this video, Curator of Domestic Life Jeanine Head Miller shares additional insight on Henry and his violins, and why having someone like Gareth play them today would have made him very proud.
Europe, Michigan, 18th century, 17th century, 20th century, violins, musical instruments, music, Henry Ford Museum, Henry Ford
Conservators at the Henry Ford Museum are collaborating with violin experts to prepare Henry Ford’s personal violin collection for an upcoming permanent display in Henry Ford Museum. The violins, which have been in storage for a number of years, are being examined, analyzed and in some instances conserved for long-term display and potential use in concerts.
As a violin enthusiast, Henry Ford purchased some of the finest instruments including violins made by Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), Bartolomeo Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri (1698-1744) and Carlo Bergonzi (1683-1747).
In 2010 master violin restorer Ashot Vartanian of Shar Music in Ann Arbor, Mich., repaired the Bergonzi to prepare it for exhibition and a concert in Cremona, Italy.
Later this year Henry Ford’s 1703 Stradivarius violin will travel to Cremona to replace the Bergonzi, which will return to The Henry Ford for examination and analysis. Sharon Que of Sharon Que Violin Restoration and Repair is currently working with Chief Conservator Mary Fahey to evaluate the condition of the violin and to make necessary repairs. The retention of original varnish and wood as well as the preservation of the extraordinary sound of the violin is paramount.
Radiologist Dr. John Bonnett of Henry Ford Hospital and luthier Ray Schryer (Schryer Violin) partnered with Henry Ford Museum staff in 2010 to create CT scan (computed tomography) images of the violins in a quest for information concerning their condition and past repairs. Among other findings the scans revealed areas of old insect damage, previously unseen by the naked eye, in addition to delicate repairs on the interior of the museum’s Guarneri Del Gesu violin.
21st century, 2010s, Michigan, Dearborn, Europe, 18th century, 17th century, violins, musical instruments, music, Henry Ford Museum, conservation, collections care, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
