Electronic music and its creation

Robert Moog died last week. I tried to think of something to post and couldn't really think of anything appropriate until I rememebered this 1968 record by Beaver & Krause. It's called the NONE SUCH GUIDE TO ELECTRONIC MUSIC and it's a demonstration of the sounds that could be made on the early Moog synthesizers.

It's interesting to listen to but it's not something your likely to throw on at a party. I copied all of the names of the sounds and the times so you can follow along. The samples can bring songs to mind right away. The "White Sound" sample at the beginning of the filtering section reminds me of Joy Division or early Human League. And some of the sound descriptions are just waiting for Stereolab to write a song to go with them.

There's also two versions of the song by Beaver & Krause. The notes say they're different anyway, both of them sound pretty much the same to me.

Paul Beaver died in 1975. Bernie Krause stays busy doing Bio-Acoustic recordings.

I. Peace Three - 3:08
II. Signal Generators
A. Sine Waveform
1. Slow-Motion audible example - :05
2. Composition - :50
3. Harmonic Synthesis - :33
4. Non-harmonic Synthesis - :37
B. Sawtooth Waveform
1. Slow-motion (negative- and positive-going) - :12
2. Composition - :34
C. Rectangular Waveforms
1. Slow-Motion audible example (1/8-1/2) - :28
2. Composition (Using 1/8, 1/7, 1/3, 1/2) - :35
D. Triangular Waveform
1. Slow-motion audible example - :05
2. Composition - :20
E. White Sound Composition :13
III. Control Generators
A. Transient Generator, amplitude, frequency, and timbre modulating in slow-motion - :08
B. Sequential Voltage Sources, Composition - 1:55
IV. Frequency Modulation
A. Keyboard Control
1. 12-tone - :32
2. Quarter-tone (one real octave=2 keyboard octaves) - :40
3. Ditone (four real octaves played in keyboard range of one octave) - :31
4. Portamento - :23
B. Ribbon Control
C. Periodic
1. Vibrato 'S' (speed increases as pitch rises) - :28
2. Sine - higher frequency - :27
3. Sawtooth - swept - :38
4. Rectangular 1/2 Swept 'L2' - :32
5. Triangular - swept - :31
D. Periodics Combined
1. 3 Square waves at different frequencies - :28
2. 3 Triangular waves at different frequencies - :37
3. 4 Different waveforms '2l', '2n', '2v', '2s' at different frequencies - :46
E. White Sound - :12
F. Transient
1. Up an octave, back to pitch - :17
2. Up a 3rd, back to pitch - :07
3. Down an octave, back to pitch - :09
4. Down a 3rd, back to pitch - :13
V. Amplitude Modulation
A. Keyboard - :13
B. Ribbon Controller - :10
C. Periodic
1. Tremolo - :25
2. Sine - higher frequencies (S sweeping S) - :47
3. Sawtooth (negative- and positive-going swept) - :1:20
4. Rectangular 'L2' swept - :28
5. Triangular - swept - :50
D. Periodics Combined
1. 4 Square - :44
2. 3 Triangular - :23
3. 4 Different 'S', 'N', 'L2', 'V' - :23
E. White Sound - :38
F. Transient
1. Slow - :08
2. With rising pitch - :15
3. Staccato - :14
VI. Ring Modulation
1. Sine waves
A. Series of sub-audible constants - :2:00
B. Tune in parallel - :40
C. Tuned in opposite direction - :30
2. Sawtooth - :33
3. Rectangular 'L2' - :39
VII. Filtering
A. White Sound--with fixed filters selected 3rd octave - :25
B. White Sound--Tuned Filters
1. Broad - :43
2. Sharp - :25
C. Low-frequency sawtooth-tuning through harmonics - 1:05
D. Composition-tuning through 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and 16th harmonics - :50
E. Swept with ribbon controller - :40
F. Periodic
1. Sine-timbre vibrato effect - :25
2. Sine-variable rate and depth - :36
3. Sawtooth (descending and ascending) - :50
4. Rectangular 'L2' - :25
G. Transient (sawtooth with transient controlled filter)
1. Descending - :12
2. Ascending - :10
3. Ascending, peaking, descending - :09
4. Descending, peaking, ascending - :08
VIII. Tape Delay
1. Single repeat - :13
2. Multiple repeat - 2:55
IX. Peace Three (Recap) - 3:08