Wiardgroup

I wrote:

>>Hell, do you know how many manuals I wrote for Ampex without ever 
seeing the equipment? <<

Gino wrote:

>That's supposed to be a good thing? So, because you've heard a 
Buchla album, this gives you enough experience to talk about the 
instrument? <

The point was that it's a tad unfair to dismiss me as "uninformed" 
simply because I don't own a Buchla. I know the instrument's history 
and the kinds of uses it was designed for. I've seen schematics.

The Ampex analogy was to illustrate how it's possible to speake 
intelligently about an instrument without owning one. I was literally 
an authority that Ampex owners turned to to learn about their 
equipment--yet I had no physical contact with it.  (Just because an 
astronomer hasn't been into space doesn't mean he can't describe 
what's there and the properties thereof.)

By the same token, I learned to program an analog synth a good decade 
before owning one. I don't own an Arp 2600, but I'm willing to bet I 
could sit down at one and come up with far more sophisticated sounds 
than some owners who haven't the foggiest idea of what the thing is 
really about. Ownership does not necessarily equate to knowledge, and 
lack of ownership does not necessarily equate to ignorance. You will 
never, ever hear me claim to be a Buchla authority.  But please don't 
assume I don't know enough about the system to discuss it 
intelligently.


>>I would challenge you to name five traditional recordings using 
Buchla.<<

>I'm not sure what you mean by the word "traditional". The tradition 
of electronic music is one thing: playing Bach on a modular synth is 
not"traditional,"<

The instrument isn't traditional but the music is.  Perhaps I should 
have said "equally tempered."

>I would suggest that any Subotnick recording using the Buchla is a 
traditional use of it.<

No, you missed the point.  Subotnick produced the very kind of 
atonal, experimental work I spoke of, and for which the Buchla was 
designed.  Outside of that kind of thing, the Buchla doesn't seem to 
be a very efficient choice of instrument.  To quote Douglas Leedy,

"[The Buchla] was conceived with a different purpose in mind from 
that of the Moog instrument: it is most suitable for the exotic forms 
of electronic musical expression. It can be programmed to 
produce "random" music.....or it may be "played" by a performer in 
the traditional sense (though to perform an arrangement of a pop song 
or a Bach fugue would be extremely difficult)."

>But I would like to remind you that Suzanne Ciani made her name 
using the Buchla for commercial music, in NYC no less.<

Yes, primarily as a sound effects machine. She turned to other synths 
for more musical applications, if memory serves me.

>And she's currently getting it reconditioned from what I've heard, 
so she must have some plans for it...<

What?  I thought her Buchla had been stolen.

johnm