An Interview With Donald Buchla ~: JohnK. Diliberto ••, think thai elet!lronle terltllo.'" oglJ oflerll .11 the p6l1l1ibilltfl 01 IIlconlng fJUrMe'vetl lro.. the nerell.,tll 01 virtHollltfl, lfill"o.t II/conin.g oUNJe'V#!8 1,..111 tlte potlMlbllitfJ ollnulIlIl! .lId 1I1f!..... IlIglul I"ternctlflft lfiith our llill/rlu.elltll. n 14 musicians like Wendy Carlos, Keith Emerson, Tomita, and Jan Hammer. Buchla, on the other hand, was himself a practicing musician and composer. He's a self-proclaimed avant-gardist and experimentalist, and his instruments reflect those concerns. He is opposed to the concept of imitative synthesis to the point that he doesn't even like hsving keyboards on his instruments: his concession is a metal touch-plate system. So, Dnald Buehla ia a classic it's not surprising to him or American loner -- a living realianyone else that his instruments zation of the all-too-mythical have been embraced by artists on individualist who follows his parthe sonic frontiers, such as Morticular vision despite all the ton Subotnick, rather than the obstacles, hardships, derision, popular Plainstream. and easy exits that are available DeterlQined individualislQ can to him. Like Lewis and Clark, becolQe self-righteous smugness Buckminster Fuller, and Harry with some artists, and Buchla has Partch he flies against the winds been almost willfully obscure in of convention and sometimes, by pursuit of his musical purity. his very effort, changes those More than one musician has told me conventions. stories about trying to buy a Donald Buehla makes electronBuchla instrument and actuslly ic music instruments. And though being turned down because Buchla those instruments resemble what we didn't think their music was seriknow as synthesi2:ers, and work in ous enough. ' much the same way, Buchla insists Despite being an innovator of that they are not synthesizers. electronic music design, Buchla He sees. each of his devices as claims to know little about the part of the larger electronic actual technology in his creamusic instrument family. "Elections. "I don't care about cirtronic instruments are a family of cuitry", he asserts. "I design my instruments", he claims, "just instruments from the outside in". like the wind family, the brass He speaks of music in terms of family, or members of the string language, gesture orientation, snd family." interactiveness. He doesn't seek Buchla began designing inthe touch-sensitivity of so many struments for the electronic famikeyboard synthesists, but rather ly when he was at the San Francisan almost cybernetic interface co Tape Muaic Center in 1962. His between the body, mind, and inname and instruments are not as strument. His own concert perforwidely known aa those of Moog, mances entail audience interaction Arp, or Prophet, but among those with his computers. He relates who know electronic instruments, how at one concert he gave flashthe ~ame Buchla is one to reckon lights to audience members, who with. He's generally credited then aimed them at a screen which with arriving at the voltage con,triggered the instruments. With trol modular synthesizer at the·· Buchla conducting and playing his same time as Robert Moog. But instrument, it created a true from that point on their parallel feedback loop between artist sod paths diverge. Moog geared his audience. instruments towards a burgeoning Buchla is now involved with popular market that he in fact had digital technology. His newest created. His instruments were instruments, the 400 Series, detailored to the expressed needs of ~--------------August1983 part from hi8 modular de8igns and contain everything, including 8 touch-plate keyboard and real-time score editor, in a unit the size of a medium 8uitcase. (The 406 Hodel has a more traditional weighted clavier keyboard.) You can create any waveShape imaginable with this instrument. During a demonstration he gave me, one waveshape looked like a coastal map of Norway and sounded equally jagged and complex. After more than 20 years in the vanguard, Buchla has evolved an enigmatic personality that tends to undercut his obvious enthusiasm for his music and in8truments. His Sahara-dry humor cuts through many of his often cryptic answers, at once daring and provoking further inquiries. But he was also happy to talk about his creations and verbalize the concepts that are embodied in a Buchla electronic instrument. As he said, "I'm used to sitting in my ivory tower and passing schematics out under the door. I don't get to talk about them that much". Here, Donald Buchla talks. John Diliberto: When did you start putting together electronic componenU and synthesizers? Donald Buehla: Electronic musical instruments in about 1961-62. JD: What were you working with then? DB: Instruments of my own invention. They were an outgrowth of my own personal need and acouatic instruments. JD: So you came to it as a musician. DB: Yes, as opposed to a technician. JD: What were the in8truments that you were working with at the time? DB: Well, the studio of the early 60s, the traditional studio, was equipped with sn array of electronic instrUlllents, none of which were designed to make music. The concept of designing electronic instruments was new at the time. My firlt instrument was a device that read the shape of the hand and interpreted it as a waveshape. It embodied the philosophy that the ins trument had to be highly interactive with the human being who was playing it. It was a way of transcending the limitations of the instruDlents that I was acquainted with, which tended to be Hewlett-Packard oscillators, Ampex tellt equipment, borrowed World War II gunli ..hr_ '1nd ,,"rl> "I'", eOIlef!rned ,.,lIh 'angaage a..d Inpat 8trueture ever" hit 08 ".ueh a. 1'". wlleerned ,.,Ith generative .trueiare." JD: A lot of people feel that thi,: recent generation of synthesizers is still very non-interactive. DB: I'd say that'l generally true. JD: What then makea yourl l.nteractive? DB: I'm concerned with language and input structure every bit as much as I'm concerned with generative structure. JD: How doea that translate into your electronic designs? DB: It influencell the man-machine interface, the way one communicstes with the instrument. It takes place at the tactile level snd the language level. JD: It seemll that one of the benefits of synthesi:/:ers is that they have lIlade lIlusic more a function of the lIlind and less a function of tactile dexterity, something that has been the tradition of music for hundred8 of years. DB: Well you chose the word dexterity, I didn't. I think that electronic technology offers us the possibility of divorcing ourselves from the necessity of virtuosity, without divorcing ourselves from the possibility of intense and meaningful interaction with our instrUlllents. "I ,.,oa'''II't ea.1I a""thlng that I',;e ballt, II ."nthesner." JD: When did you first start designing whst you might call a synthesizer.? I)B: I wouldn't call anything that I've built a synthesizer. I first started designing members of the e:lectronic falllily of instruments in 1962. JD: What differentiate8 what you design frolll a synthesizer? DB: A synthesizer, according to ?opular usage., is a keyboard inJtrument with the expectation that when you strike a particular key that you will get a particular pitch. I would even extend the expectation to having a certain type of oscillator followed by a filter and a gate, keyed by an envelope with an expected rise time, fall time, 8ult8in, and 80 on. I would expect II certain imitative aspect to s synthesizer -- i1llitative to the extent of copying what we expect f-co'm percussive sounds of the world to wl'ich we are accustomed. "'I har,e a/wa.8 beell olft.lde and I'r,e rhmlelt to I"@"'alnthere. I'r,e been an e.l:perl",elttallsl "Inre mil earl. ehlldhood." JD: Why did you feel a need to go outside these expectstions? DB: Because I didn't fee 1 a need to go inside them. I have always been outside and I've chosen to re1llain there. I've been an experimentalist since Illy early chi ldhood. I've been interested in avant-garde and experimental music far more than I've been interested in, as a COlllposer, more traditional fo-cm and structure. Hy instruments have reflected that nep.tl. "'I gl"@w up IIurpr/8ingl" Igllol" antol.ehai'l1all going on In other ptmple'. ",••Ie." "'...there are hu..dredll 01 thoulland. 01 people interested In alternatlee modell 01 e..c pre.. .10""" JD: Who were some of the people that you were listening to in your eady days? DB: I grew up surprisingly ignorant of what was going on in other people's music. I was ama:/:ed to find, in the early sixties, ·people in San Francisco that were composing and experimenting along lines that did not adhere to the status quo. Since then I've learned that there are hundreds of thousands of people interested in alternative modes of expresaion. JD: Out8ide technology is still having an effect on electronic instrument design. "'The advent til the nd~ro~o",· puter hall renllg made It ptltfsl~ hie to "'ake the eleetronlr medl.", aver" vlahle perl",.. manee ",edl.",." "'Belt*re the ",ierowmputt!r, we ,.,ere verg limited a. pe,.. for",eN." ~ --------=-------AugusI1983 '5 DB: The advent of the microcomputer has really made it possible to make the electronic medium a very viable perforlllance medium. Before the microcomputer, we were very I imited as performers. But no........e have a flexibility that should be admired by a player of .n instrument. JD: the touch-plate. are something that is very much a.aodated with your instruments. Why did )'ou go to them instead of aome other triggering device? DB: Well, it's a cop-out, a compromise bet\leen the expectations and demands -- the paychological demands, at least - of the black and \lhite keyboard versus the generality of the sky-blue input structure. It's easy to adapt to the eJlpectationa that many of ua have, and easy to tranacend those same expectations with a keyboard oriented in alightly known traditional \laya. h''''''.M;r aM u;e klltJlr-lI I. rooled III a gl'eal de.I ollradltio,., nlld ill NUli.'a,,' 10 l!"a"ge 011 ,.allg Ieee"'... " JD: Your basic philosophy aeema to be derived from a concept of breaking a\lay fro'll any traditions that pteceeded you. DB: I would gues, so, yeah. My o\ln interelts are in that direction. We're tr.dition bound. We have Concepti of \lhllt music is, and \lhat 11 and IoIhat ia not rouaic. We h,ve virtuosity, that ia performanc:e technique, developed after yeara of atudy .nd centuriea of tradition. We have in.truments that have been refined .nd refined, generation after generation. So muaic as .... e kno .... it il rooted in a great de.l of tradition, and ia resilt.nt to change on roany levels: the inltrumental, the performance, .nd the listening levels. I'm not well-rooted in any of the traditions .nd I'd like to inveatigate the sonic experience in a very gener.l w.y. JD: 00 you think th.t electronics are a better way of delving into sound? DB: t'm not that involved with the intricaciOl)a of .ound •• aOlDe. 1 puraue the inveatigationa of timbre, but I'm lllore concerned .... ith the investig.tion of musical structure. I think that's where more music liea, than with ....hat we oight eall the atatic ti.brel. JD: 'tou and Robert Hoog bea.n 16 instruments have been more orideveloping electronic instrumenu ented to traditional concepts of at abollt the same time. music.l structure and mine to...ards DB: Yila, \Ie both had our Itarts non-traditional concepts. At one .bout the same time. We both used tillle ...e ...ere considered to be We.t modular designs also. The idea of coast versus Ealt coast and in voltage control was lignificant in ,ome sense there is truth to that that it allololed us the pouibility concept. Certainly ten or twenty of discreetness in realml that yeaI'I ago lllore eJlperitllent.tion were other ... ise limited to contook place on the West coast than tinuullls. Everybody's favorite the Ealt coast. osdll/ltor in 1961 was the HewJD: Electronic instrutllenta have lett-PJlckard becaule it 10' • .1 very changed since the first Hoog and stable and predict.ble, and very ...ell cal ibrated. The big 1imita8uchl.a with their big patchbo/lrds attached to a keyboard. What tion .... s accepted • • • o'llething ideas have gone into thOle th.t could never be tran.cended, nalllely it had /I knob on it ao that changea? DB: A lot of learning has gone if you ",anted to go frolll 440 Hz to do...n in t ...enty years. We've found 770 Hz you had to go through every that certain kinds of structural frequency inbet ...een. Conaequentinter.ctionl can be assullIed. Cerly, to aake a juap in frequency tain othera c/ln be taken over by you had to spl ice a t.pe and put the computer that control a the the piecea together. As ailsple .a innarda of our instruments, and that aay seea, it \laa a very funcan be apecified in a ....y that can d.mental limiUtioa of the daasimake changes in patches instancal studio. Voltage control .1taneous inatead of tedious. The lo...ed lIs to generate and conceive discreet changes in pitch, as cOlllputer has .ade a lot of ch.nges but it'a only a ItIlall part of it. opposed to continuous changes. We The language is the Illajor part of can then extend that the voltage it. The operative language behind control of other parameters. our in. truaent has taken over a The concept of the modular lot of the role of establiahing design was the original concept of the synthesizer, that is to aynthesizll the ...hole out of the aum UT"eni,. lief.' '''e e.:s:citl.g pe81f1of the parts. And the 1Il0dules .""/e8 01 elel!Irollic ilUlt.rD· were ttle partl. If we needed a _e.'S: '''e ifUJIa.talleo•• reo lot of generators ...e would obtain a lot of 1Il0dules th.t had genera,.appillg olllle N(at.io. .llip tive hlnctions. If ... e wanted to .elllleell illp.' geMtDre a"d 0.'. do • l.~t of analysis, ... e ... ould pDI re8poIIMe. u obtain modules that did envelope detecti,:on and perhapa filtering. the relationship between input If ...e ... ~nted rhythmic elelllents, \Ie gelture and instrumental re"'ould ftring together. lot of sponses. sequencers. So the lllodule. alJD: What do you lIlean \lhen you lo ... ed ua"to engross ourselves in apeak of language? different kinda of biues, depenD8: I like to regard an instruding on what we ... ere interelted ment as consisting of three major in. If ... e ...anted ...e could emphapartl: an input structure that we size the structure, or the density contact physically, lin output or processing capabilities venus structure that generates the the generative cap.bilities. It sound, and a connection between allo ...eq us interconnection at a the two. The electronic falllily of very important level, th.t i, the instruments offers UI the I imiatructtiral level .II oppoaed to tation, if we approach it tradisyltelllS that callie along shortly tionally, and the freedolll if we thereafter that made .11 kinda of approach it in a ne ... way, of total assumptions like the sawtooth independence between input and should precede the filter, ,hould precede the envelope generator or " _ output. And in f.ct the necessity of 'o...! .... y of generating a con... hatevllr. I don't even know how nection between the t ...o. L.nguage the typic. 1 aynthesizer has come becolllea an illlporUnt aspect in the togethet. electronic family of instruments, JD: Ho... would you coapare your ...here it h.d played no part ... ith work to Moog's? all traditional acoustic instruDB: It's like coap.ring applea to ments. The relationship between oranges. Both of UI .re lIaking input .nd output is fixed with viable additiona to the ..uaical traditional inatrulllents; it's toinstrument fa .. ily. I 'uppose hia ~-------------August /983 tally tlexible with electronic instruments. It waa eatablished by the aetting of knoba and routins of the patch corda in the electronic instruaent of the 60s. But in the electronic inatruments of the 80s it ia eatablished by human intelligence vorking throush aophisticated electronics. Therein lies the exciting posaibilitiea of electronic instrumenta: the instantaneous re.appins of the relationahip between input gesture and output response. We've only begun to investigate this because of our own ignorance and our dedication to tradition, in that we continue to build electronic instruments with linear sdditive input structurea, assuaptive connective atructures and iaitative output atructurea. JD: You talk about gesture orientation and interaction with the instrwaent, yet touch-platea hardly aeem to give muaieians the touch-aenaitivity that a lot of them vant. . DB: Thoae aame 18uaiciana are the onea vho go into the storea and say "I'm the keyboard player from auch and aueh sroup and I'd like to aee what you have in the way of 'synthesizers'." And the rock and roll ayntheaizer expert ahowa all the black and wbite keyboards and aure enough, they're all springloaded keyboards with switches on the other end. They're all organ keyboarda and they're all adaptationa of aOlllething that waa developed to throw ha.mera at atrinsa. It'a a really crude problem and not too sraceful an answer. That'a what theae guya have demanded, that'a what the .arketers have picked up on, and that's all we've got down there in ayntheaizer-Iand. These aallle suys tbat are complaining that their $6,000 instrument doesn't make every aound that they vant, that it won't imitate anything, finally ,tart to realize that it really will .ake any sound. But it won't i.itate the muaical atructure of the thing that they had in their .inda that it would do. The rea.on that it won't do that is that it only has a finite number of pitchea and they're all designated as pitchea. There'a no interaction between them. It'. all a very aimple linear-additive syatem "I didn't e/a/", to Molr-e tlte pro" Ie",. I'", i"st Itere to el.e/4ate It." that doesn't lend it.elf to alternative musical StrUCture.. Did I evade your question? JD: Yes you did. DB: 1 didn't clai. to solve the problelll. I'. ju.t here to elucidate it. JD: la it: a problem that you want to .olve? DB: No. What I try to do ia persuade aa many people as pouible that are in a position of influencing our mu.ical heritage and instrument de.ign, to look on tbe pouibilitiea of the electronic family as a legitimate family of musical instruments and not as an imitation or a bastard or a apace warl. We ahould have the I,r.,. 4." lle •• nlt'lt.t J'ertl•• •••• pe.ple . . ".__'6k tlt.t .re I • • ".,,1l1•••,I.n.e.el•• • •r • • •'eallterlt••e ••4 i . eat t. Olf tlte "."./6I1ltiea 01 lite elee/ro.ie 1_.11• •• a leglti• •/e ,.",11. 01 ..../e.1 i""tr...elfls... " ,,'r•• fleM"., '0010 a"lIt! variety of approache. in tbe electronic faCllily as any other family. Ji.t.. .hould stop compet.ini; =~~ ~h~hP~~~~l~c'nid. ·bai:..n~ t ~ c r a ~ .i.lng toward ... :~ tat-1l'jlproache. and IllUSlc-at""t. ai an 'II' ance Let'. g ao.ething that reflect. the true pouibilitiea of the techno108)' at hand, a. well as the lIIu.ic and creativity behind thelll. ""We .IIo.ld It.ve tile 1I11".,! "arle/••I.pproaelle" i" lite electro.le 1_.11• •• 'I• • oilier I• •II•• ~' NEXT ISSUE. BUILD AN ELECTRONIC BASS qRUMI ~----------
© Copyright 2024