The secret ingredient in Switched on Bach is that it is an outrageously good musical performance.
Lots of other synth albums are technology demos, collections of cool sounds. Switched On Bach stands out because Carlos adapted Bach for the medium of the Moog synth, clearly understanding the compositions' underlying gestures, and ensured that those gestures all come through. In some cases, they come through more clearly than on the original instrumentation, especially bass lines where the synth speaks more clearly than acoustic instruments can.
Such details in another performer's hands could be distracting, messing up the relationship between foreground and background elements and drawing attention to the wrong things -- but Carlos's arrangement and performance are exquisitely balanced. This could only have been achieved by someone with a deep and sophisticated understanding of the source material, combined with incredible patience to wrestle with difficult and immature technology until the recordings were perfected.
The secret ingredient in SoB is the fact that much of it was recorded at half speed and played back at double speed. This doubles the tempo and also hugely alters the timbres, making the sound much brighter, punchier, and more sparkly than the usual rather ponderous Moog sound.
You can use an editor like Audacity to halve the pitch and you’ll hear the sounds become much more like the usual Moog timbres on later records from that era. (And yes, Carlos has admitted this herself.)
The records were a team effort. The arrangements were shaped by producer Rachel Elkind, and Baroque specialist Benjamin Folkman.
I’m just as impressed by the fact that Carlos built her own mixer (difficult, but not entirely exceptional) and multitrack recorder (extremely difficult, and definitely exceptional) for the recordings.
Creatively I prefer some of the other work, especially Beauty in the Beast, which is still far ahead of its time now, and By Request, which has some outrageously clever and fun arrangements of other music. (The Elgar pastiche is genius-level and just plain hilarious.)
Oh my god this is bringing back memories. When I was a kid, I'd put Best of Tomita and Switched on Bach on the record player back to back and listen for hours. I must have been a freaky kid, but it was synth heaven.
If you know synths it’s pretty easy to reverse engineer the sounds on SoB. They’re unfamiliar by modern pop standards, because there’s a lot of layering and paralleling with simultaneous envelopes and multiple filter sweeps that (boringly...) isn’t done much today. But they’re not opaque.
I have no idea how to copy some the sounds Tomita got from his Moogs, and I’m fairly sure no one else does either. Some are easy, some are “That’s really clever.” But there are more than a few that I have absolutely no clue about.
The fact that he patched up and recorded these huge flamboyant orchestral-sounding pieces note by note and line by line with such a creative range of unique and original sounds is just astounding.
Yeah I totally agree! I love SoB but the arrangements and patches are way more traditional and straightforward. Tomita really explored and extended the canvas of the synthesiser as a musical instrument in its own right. JMJ too.
Unsurprising, as the most complex orchestrations in SoB and its sequels are the small-ensemble Brandenburg Concerts; parts are already written, creative orchestration is limited to designing four or five instruments to play them.
On the other hand Pictures at an Exhibition is a piano solo piece. If it has a fancy "synthesized orchestration" Tomita, like others before him, developed a fairly arbitrary adaptation.
It’s a solo piano piece orchestrated by Ravel, who was a master orchestrator.
That’s the point about Tomita - there’s nothing “arbitrary” about the orchestrations. They’re an updated and exotic take created by someone who is rooted in that lush late tonal school of orchestration, but is using a completely new instrument to make original sounds.
Snowflakes Are Dancing sounds a lot more pianistic. The later Tomita albums sound more like attempts to reinvent symphonic music, with some quirky additions. He’s very consciously shaping the music like a conductor would, while painting with evocative sounds - very much not arbitrary at all.
The tools she had on hand were as primitive as it gets no DAW or anything we think of as a sequencer she had to build all this from analog modules and patch cables.
The Tron score did a wonderful job blending early synth sounds with an orchestral backdrop.
It also has a odd and memorable theme that moves around using augmented triads yet isn't octatonic nor based on a whole-tone scale.
There's also a nice moment at the beginning of the credits-- where the theme previously wandered through harmonies quite rapidly, here it gets anchored to a single key with a fairly lush orchestral accompaniment. Then that leads in to a massive pipe organ solo doing the chromatic version of the theme for a final time, then to more fitting electro-orchestral credits music that cycles chromatically through augmented triads. (I think there's a reference to this music in the NES metroid game somewhere, I think it's Ridley's lair)
Anyhow-- the strange orchestral changes and lyrical melodies are the kind of thing that make you stick around for the credits. It's all very simple in a way, but extremely effective, too.
Contrasting that-- I almost laughed in the new Star Wars movie when at the climax the brass just loudly ascends up root position minor triad. It's like being served a steak with a side of a stick of butter.
Edit: I guess I should have written "spoiler" about the loud arpeggiation of a minor triad in the Star Wars movie.
You made me really happy with this comment. Tron was a big movie for me in my youth and a big reason why I was drawn to computers and ultimately programming. I also came to love synth and electronic music (Art of Noise etc.) around the same time and have always thought the Tron soundtrack to be amazing, especially the credits track. But I know nothing about music theory, I'm just glad it's good music. Thanks.
I heard as an aside that the London Philharmonic parts of the soundtrack were commissioned and recorded because Disney didn't have confidence that Carlos would finish her work on time (or at all, the relationship was a little strained), and using both was a decision made only afterwards.
You made me really happy with this comment. I have Tron (and Dad's Vic-20 of course) to thank for opening many doors. Boards of Canada, newer music but puts me right back where it all started. Almost like Tron
I love the whole score, especially the pipe organ solo. It's interesting that the theme was in 7/8 right from the start -- you'd have thought a power of two would be more appropriate for computers! But somehow it works. The rhythm and harmony both feel like they're pushing towards the future.
No mention in the article of Switched on Bach 2000. This is the album that was a distillation all of her knowledge and skill. Entirely digital (DKS Synergy and Yamaha FM), except for a single Moog note! (She leaves it as a challenge to listeners to locate it...)
The tracks are almost unreal: as different from 'modern' subtractive 'fat' analog-style synths as can be. She champions complex timbres and original tunings, and it makes a tremendous difference to the music. I compared a classical organ recording of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to her version, and what a difference! Her tuning makes the music so much richer, and she surrounds the listener with a dizzying web of sound - the surround sound is incredible!
Her articles in Keyboard magazine, about the making of SoB2000, were a huge influence on how I came to perceive music.
Oh man, listening to Switched on Bach now. First music I loved as a kid; it still evokes an emotional response. Life has been hard recently, living through a serious illness with lots of pain, feels good to kick back and listen to this.
BTW, archive.org has the best quality recordings I've found of Switched on Bach. It's not got a very full sound, but there are less pops and crackles than other sources online such as soundcloud. I wish Wendy Carlos would reissue this as a re-mastered CD
For all fans of Switched on Bach, Claude Debussy, and synth dorks I highly reccomend "Snowflakes are Dancing" by Isao Tomita. You can find the full album on youtube easily :)
I still enjoy listening to my Clockwork Orange soundtrack that I got for my 16th birthday. I used to listen to it all the time when doing math homework. Good music for concentration.
My fave track being 'Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana)'.
I bought the Clockwork Orange soundtrack when I was a teenager, and it took quite some time for me to appreciate _Timesteps_.
(IIRC there are at least two versions of the soundtrack, with various tracks added or missing. Caveat emptor . . . but I cannot find any of Wendy's music online to purchase or stream now anyway).
This article mentions Carlos's collaborations with Kubrick. She actually composed a full score for The Shining, but the director ended up using only parts of it. [0] Instead, he used existing pieces by other contemporary classical (acoustic) composers. Carlos's influence on music was huge, as this article points out, but Kubrick's eventual choice of music for The Shining has also gone on to influence horror movie scores since then. To this day, many emulate the sounds of Bartok, Ligeti, and Penderecki.
I just noticed that the album cover refers to her production company as 'Trans-Electronic Music Productions, Inc.' I guess 'trans' was a term in the 60s, but not likely that many listeners realized the significance.
I was lucky enough to get _Beauty in the Beast_ when it came out on Larry Fast's short-lived Audion label. It is well worth your time (and ever since I've wished that Wendy Carlos and Terry Riley would collaborate on a piece or an album).
I'm particularly fond of "Secrets of Synthesis". It gives you some idea of the difficulties she had to overcome to create this amazing music using such early versions of the hardware.
SOB is great and all, but Beauty in the Beast is absolutely phenomenal. She really pushed the boundaries there, creating a musical universe all of her own.
Really. I'd heard most of Carlos' early works up until the 80s many times, but never BitB (release 30 years ago). A close listen to <i>Just Imaginings</i> last night was mind-blowing ... even more than 'Seasonings' was way back when it released.
I've seldom heard anything using scales with dozens of notes in an octave that was particularly musical. JI is very musical ... and yet with enough mastery of timbres and rhythms to keep it just edgy enough. Wow.
When I read about the 35-note octave, I was not expecting something positive. I had never heard anything done with non-traditional scales that I liked. However, I went ahead and listened to the Beauty in the Beast track and I was enchanted. I will check out the rest of that album. I think Carlos has a sense of beauty that may be missing from other experimental music artists I've listened to.
"The Well-Tempered Synthesizer" is still one of my favorite albums, although it is a bit obscure. I had to wait for many years before it finally came out on CD.
Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" is the other classic synth album as far as I'm concerned :-)
It is not her, it is a random spotify artist releasing public property music recorded by himself, listen to the pieces in the articles it is definitely not it.
Lots of other synth albums are technology demos, collections of cool sounds. Switched On Bach stands out because Carlos adapted Bach for the medium of the Moog synth, clearly understanding the compositions' underlying gestures, and ensured that those gestures all come through. In some cases, they come through more clearly than on the original instrumentation, especially bass lines where the synth speaks more clearly than acoustic instruments can.
Such details in another performer's hands could be distracting, messing up the relationship between foreground and background elements and drawing attention to the wrong things -- but Carlos's arrangement and performance are exquisitely balanced. This could only have been achieved by someone with a deep and sophisticated understanding of the source material, combined with incredible patience to wrestle with difficult and immature technology until the recordings were perfected.