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Monday, 16 September 2002
Control ::
I’m a control freak. Why else would I choose a career of telling machines what to do in exact detail? Why else would I decide to build my own musical tools - at first a random patch generator for a DX7 (in 1986; this later became Opcode’s Galaxy’s Patch Factory) - and now starting with the guts of the audio portions of the operating system?
So I find this quote tantalizing and fascinating:
“Everything that can be controlled, must be controlled.”
– Wendy Carlos
She was speaking about musical synthesis. (The concept of effort has always been important to me in music; I don’t care how wonderful a sound is happening in a performance if it came from someone pushing one key and then just standing there. Maybe it took two weeks of tweaking in the studio to make that sound, and I can appreciate that in a recording, but in a live performance I want to see the perspiration that comes from effort - and the possibility of a complete train wreck.)
Anyhow, this idea of control is a great quote when thinking about synthesis. In what ways can I make the electronic tools in front of me into a means of expression?
It gets interesting when taking this quote out of the context of synthesis. How about computer programming? Well, yeah, an amazing amount of software has to be functioning properly in order for me just to be typing these words on a screen, or for you to be reading them. It’s been controlled ...
I can control so much of the technology around me ... how much more can I control? The more things I have, the more things I have to control! At some point I need to sleep!
And then there are the wise sayings about accepting the things we can’t control. Death and taxes, sure, but especially the people around us. We can’t control them, but we can influence them. How? By not trying to control them!
“I don’t get upset over things I can’t control, because if I can’t control them there’s no use getting upset. And I don’t get upset over the things I can control, because if I can control them there’s no use in getting upset.”
– Mickey Rivers
And now I’m remembering two tracks from Wayne Shorter’s Phantom Navigator album. It came out in 1987, heavily produced, lots of intense synthesizer and drum programming, layers upon layers of saxophone tracks, intricately arranged. [wow, it seems to be out of print] Two of my favorite tracks are Remote Control and Forbidden, Plan-It!
References:
Bottoms Up! (or, from micro to macro) (17 September 2002)
| << Coincidence contagion | 2002 > September | Bottoms Up! (or, from micro to macro) >> |