Max Mathews
with Joan Thomson
Bell Labs
Murray Hill, New Jersey
January 26, 1977
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side a pp. 1-13
Lejaren Hiller's work in computer music, early '50's--production of sound via computer--simulation of telephones at Bell Labs--computer programming building blocks--acoustic understanding of timbre and human ear functions--digital synthesis--Groove system--Conductor program--Groove and computer control programs developed in '70--Berio's visit to Bell Labs--The Norland device--IRCAM and prototype of a powerful digital instrument--acoustical behavioral research.
Side b pp. 13-27
Study of motor control processes--Aldo Sax and creating new sounds--Edgar Varèse at Bell Labs--work with John Cage--Pierre Boulez and institute in musical acoustics, Paris--training in electrical engineering--IBM 704--Jean-Claude Risset--early violin training in Nebraska--Columbia-Princeton--Ussachevesky and tape studio--computer and improvisation--series of five music programs--concept of note cards and building block concept.
Max Mathews
with Joan Thomson
Bell Labs
Murray Hill, New Jersey
June 4, 1977
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side f pp. 1-10
Webern Bagatelles---musical example--Conductor program--Music Five--DDP224 synthesizer--graphic representation of music--Manny Gent’s program for graphic notations--Dick Moore and Groove
Side g pp. 10-25
continuation of musical example--computer verses a string quartet--Webern Bagatelles---Boulez’s visit to Bell Labs--concert in London at City University--Ussachevsky mixing panel--Newman Gutman’s work with Varèse on tapes for Dèserts---Gutman’s interest in cycle acoustics--recording sounds of a large buzz saw--John Cage’s piece for the New York Philharmonic--Gerald Strang--algorithmic improvisation--electric string instruments--Michael Rabaniack’s experimentation with the electric violin--Stradivarius and frequencies of resonance
Max Mathews
with Joan Thomson
Bell Labs
Murray Hill, New Jersey
January 17, 1978
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side h: pp. 1-15
Mathews' first record: ¨Music for Mathematics--conservative musicians as obstacle to development of computer music--Newman Gutman & “Music 1”: first computer music composer and program--John Pierson and Mathews as engineers writing music, not composers--David Lewin, Studies Nos. 1 and 2: first professional musician to write for computer--Jim Tenny, Toccastic Quartet, Noise Study--Tenny’s composition in memory of Ives--Tenny’s “Ives Clusterboard”--problem of finding support for computer music programs--Charles Dodge--Mathews’ earliest computer music: Frere Jacques, Fantasia (Orlando Gibbons), Bicycle Built for Two--John Kelly: synthetic speech and singing--John Pierce: ‘difference frequency’ melodies--Mathew’s Numerology--his musical background--learning the violin: unsatisfactory for learning harmony, encourages focus on timbre and color--timbre: “most important aspect of music”--evolution from classical to serialism as gradual diminution of focus on timbre--Debussy and Varèse as exceptions to this trend--contemporary reawakening to the importance of timbre--listening to records as replacement for Mathew’s lack of formal musical education--using sub-audio vibrations to produce vibrato effects--digital vs. analog synthesis: computer sound production vs. synthesizer: precision vs. immediacy--blurring of these distinctions in the near future--John Appleton's "Alonso" as example of synthesizer-computer hybrid--its real-time performance capabilities--other real-time synthesizers: Hal Alles' at IRCAM, Peter Samson's "Samson Box".
Side i: pp. 16-25
Peter Samson's 'Samson Box' (continued)-- Hal Alles and Pepino DiGuigno's real-time synthesizer at Luciano Berio's department at IRCAM--more pieces from Music for Mathematics: Joy to the World, The Second Law, May Carol--Mathews' interests split between acoustical/behavioral research and music--Estes Spieth's seismic wave composition--second record: The Voice of the Computer--Mind Masquerades, piece composed with theme-based transformation programs--collaboration with John Cage on a piece for the NY Philharmonic--Cage’s interest in computer music--Jean-Claude Risset: Little Boy Suite--Bell Labs resident composers: John Chowning, Carol Strang, Manny Ghent--Roger Shepard’s aural illusion for Risset’s Little Boy Suite--Jim Tenny’s Toccastic Quartet--Wayne Slosson [sp?]--“Inharmonic” music: John Pierce’s eight-tone canon, Risset’s Inharmonique, John Chowning--“inharmonic” vs. enharmonic--Mathew’s Slider and Swan Song: graphic scores.
Side j pp. 25-35
Current state and future prospects of computer music technology--short history of electronic and computer music: three routes to electronic music: (1) tape-studio--(2) synthesizer: manually-controlled, voltage-controlled, difficulty of real-time performance--(3) computer: large, expensive, slow studio machines--digital-to-analog converters and computer/synthesizer hybrids finally make real-time music synthesis and ‘performance nuance’ possible --the ‘groove system’: real-time computer-controlled synthesizer designed by Dick Moore and Mathews at Bell Labs, similar models by Peter Zenovia in London, Bucla in San Francisco--limitations of such models: mobility and reliability for real-time performances, analog synthesizer element limits precision of digital computer control--efforts to make purely digital real-time music--past limitations: computers too slow, too expensive--recently overcome with new digital integrated circuit technology, making possible transportable real-time digital synthesizers: Peter Samson’s SCDS, or ‘Samson Box’, at John Chowning’s lab at Stanford; similar machines by Hal Alles’ at Bell Labs, at IRCAM in Paris, and by Sidney Alonso, John Appleton [and Cameron Jones] at Dartmouth [the “Synclavier”]--description of the input and output functioning of these real-time digital synthesizers--the “intelligent instrument”: a computer-controlled synthesizer that uses the computer’s memory and logical capabilities to take control of all ‘mechanical’ aspects of performance, leaving only the ‘musical’ aspects to the human performer--only recently able to make intelligent instruments, still presented with problems of performance--Appleton’s composition for chorus and Synclavier as example of the dilemma of “intelligent instrument” performance: the more a computer is used to control the mechanical aspect of performance, the less immediate control is left to the human performer.
Side k pp. 35-49
Dilemma of “intelligent instrument” performance (continued)--future of computer music technology: Mathew’s proposal for a new percussion-controlled intelligent synthesizer that would overcome the performance dilemma, based on the model of humans as ballistic animals--a mass-marketed easy-to-play intelligent instrument--the orchestral conductor as the ideal model of the intelligent instrument performer--Hal Alles’ digital synthesizer at Bell Labs--developed for extra-musical purposes, but general enough to be applied to music--demonstration of Bell Labs synthesizer at Palladium in Hollywood, CA--Bell Labs restricted from producing theatrical [and musical?] sound equipment by a Justice Department anti-trust consent decree--advantages of Alles’ instrument over Appleton’s (at Dartmouth): smaller, more powerful--disadvantage: cost--advances in producing cheaper, smaller and more powerful integrated circuits: Silicon chips, making powerful computers more affordable--public attention given to advancing computer technology--building libraries of programs for people at home--reproducibility of computer programs--Samson Machine (continued)--John Chowning’s “Music Ten”, a pure digital synthesis program at Stanford--instruments created slowly on Music Ten transferred to the faster Samson Machine and produced in real-time.
Side l pp. 49-57
Samson machine (continued)--John Chowning’s specialization in computer reverberation and the apparent spatial position of sound sources--Samson's musical involvement--advantages of Samson machine: largest, most powerful intelligent instrument available--chronology of the development of the four major digital synthesizers: predecessor to Appleton and Alonso's latest machine [the Synclavier] at Dartmouth (first operational digital synthesizer), Alles' general-purpose touch-tone filter, DeGuigno's 4-A and 4-B (latest) machines at IRCAM, Alles' latest synthesizer at Bell Labs--limited collaboration between the four major labs: all working somewhat separately towards the same goal (real-time performance and portability)--the four machines prioritize different functions: portability vs. capacity--collaboration/sharing between Alles and DeGuigno: mutliplex circuits, 4-B board, Alles' filters and reverberators--software differences more important than hardware similarities to the performer--all oscillators used presently based on Alles' design from the '60's--oscillator design decisions: production price vs. sound quality--Bell Labs' sales of equipment: prices--Chowning's Music Ten developed after studying Mathews' Music Five: (no Six through Nine)--Barry Vercoe's Music 360.
Side m pp. 57-68
Mathews' involvement at IRCAM as scientific advisor: planning of IRCAM's new building, computer and audio equipment, and recruiting of new personnel--scientific basis for IRCAM: science's potential contributions to musical art: psychoacoustics; digital computers and integrated circuits; and physical acoustics--present form of IRCAM vs. Boulez's original conception: psychoacoustics: new focus, experimental psychologists replacing physicists and physical acousticians, questions for prospective pyschoacoustic research at IRCAM--digital/electronic instruments: Mathews' opinion that IRCAM should focus on developing electronic instruments rather than attempting to change traditional acoustic instruments or to invent new ones, because there is little room for improvement of these traditional instruments, which have already been developed for centuries--Boulez's disagreement, in favor of improving existing acoustic instruments--physical acoustics: Boulez's Grand Salle, a concert hall with computer-controlled variable, customizeable acoustics--IRCAM's initial planning and construction--Boulez's original conception for a center for research and musical acoustics, petition for support from the German government, refusal after objection from the 'entrenched musical establishment'--French President Georges Pompidou lures Boulez back to France by agreeing to create the Institute--IRCAM's status within the French government: supported entirely by government funds, but allowed to solicit funds from outside as well--IRCAM's budget--Boulez invites Mathews to be scientific manager of IRCAM, Spring 1974--IRCAM organization: departments, department heads, staff and their responsibilities--Berio's [head of electroacoustic department] preference for large, powerful machines; his proposal for a 1,000-oscillator synthesizer made possible by new digital technology.
Side n pp. 68-83
IRCAM departments and staff (continued)--Vinco Globokar's instrument and voice department, his conservatism: preference for traditional acoustic instruments--Gerald Bennett's 'diagonal department': Dave Wessel, psychoacoustician; Andy Moore, Mathew's assistant as scientific manager--deliberations on and modifications of Boulez's original design of the Grand Salle, Mathew's involvement--Mike Davis, primary architect of IRCAM building and Grand Salle; (Rogers and Piano, head architects of entire Centre Pompidou--choice of non-French architects after anonymous design competition--IRCAM building site selection--Grand Salle design: Manfred Schoeder's input on the acoustics, unnamed Dutch acoustical consultant--Grand Salle opening and inaugural concerts--Grand Salle's three variable wall textures: materials--loudspeakers in the Grand Salle--current status of Grand Salle construction--seating arrangements--recording in the Grand Salle--use of Grand Salle by non-IRCAM musicians and scientists--composers' access to IRCAM: IRCAM's criteria for deciding whether to invite a composer--IRCAM's intention to promote scientific understanding and progress, not simply aesthetic accomplishment--invitation/application of composers to IRCAM, computer courses for composers at IRCAM to train them in the basics and to evaluate their technical abilities and learning capacities--funds to support resident composers--relationship between Mathew's work at Bell Labs and at IRCAM: transmitting and applying technical byproduct of commercial work to music--Mathew's responsibilities at Bell Labs, the various departments he supervises as Director of Acoustical and Behavioral Research--his career trajectory (from speech-coding engineer to director) and educational preparation (computers)--rapid changes in technology during his career--parallels between Mathew's thinking in science and music: innovation as seeing beyond the boundaries between fields--psychology and the study of musical languages and the way they are perceived--Mathew's proposal for a fretted violin--theory of limited mental capacity--limited room for improvement of traditional acoustic instruments--'improvement' of instruments from the performer's point of view, before the listener's.
Side o pp. 83-94
The Future of Electronic and Computer Music, ["FECM"] a hypothetical 'science fiction' account of the future of computer music, delivered by Mathews to the American Association for the Advancement of Science--Mathew's views on the very different direction new music will take, in contrast to traditional classical music--his favorite computer music--John Chowning's [called "Howning" in FECM] quadra-speaker 'revolution'--Mathews' and Gerald Bennett's opinions on the "unplayable and unlistenable music composed at the end of twentieth century by the successors of the twelve-tone school"--the banning of music critics in Mathews' hypothetical fiction--critics "not alone in the difficulties they are having in assessing new music": an even more serious difficulty for composers and musicians--the attitude of older composers and musicians [Vladimir Ussachevsky, in particular] that they are "too old" to want to look at computers--Mathews' idea, explored in FECM, to use "eye-trackers" to control a synthesizer with the movements of the eye on a musical score--using "psychads", the little irregular jumps made by the eye when reading, to control the presentation of certain sounds--making new instruments by electronically mixing the timbres of traditional instruments: hypothesized by Mathews in FECM; produced in reality by Dave Wessell at IRCAM--idea of the difficulty of evaluating new things which one is not used to, applied to these new timbres--the real possibilities of the "Out-In" system, hypothesized in FECM, in which the computer is placed in a different room than the instrument it controls: eventually, computers will be built right into the instruments--profane excerpts from the FECM story: sex/bathroom humor, P.D.Q Bach-esque puns--Berlioz's utopian musical world, from Evenings in the Orchestra, keeping the unmusical from music-making--the "untouchables" and "archivists" of the "Chew-lard" [Juilliard] order: recording engineers and sound-manipulators given due credit--the 'perfect recordings created by Mathew's generation: "the thing that [will be] remembered about our generation by the future".
Side p pp. 95-106
Discussion of Mathews' The Future of Electronic and Computer Music parable continued: 'perfect' recorded music as better medium for listener, but more difficult for musician--hierarchy of the FECM world: audience excluded from the elite Chewlard monastery and from the educational amateur "Audances"--perfect recorded music excludesthe audience absolutely: making them accustomed to a level of perfection impossible in human performance--audience also more comfortable in the living room than in the concert hall--small, intimate concerts can improve audience's experience and compete with the living room--Mathews' answer to Gerald Bennett's paper on 'today's musical outlook'--Mathews' theory of human opinions and human feelings in terms of mental spaces: perceptual space, similarity space, and preference space--the current golden age of Bell Labs: recent developments: electric telephones, picturephones--the economic and functional value of picturephones: the effectiveness of the face as a medium of communication , considering its deceptive and dramatic capabilities--adjusting to a new communication service compared to adjusting to a new musical style--the essence of the problem dealt with in Mathews' response to Bennett: predicting how people will like a new musical style before they've learned it and adjusted themselves to it--Mozart and Bach as examples of genius at the culmination of a style's development--the current rapid development of new styles and machinery delaying culmination--composers wasting their lives with musical styles that eventually prove to be ineffective--development of electronic technology a 'fact of life' to be adapted to--Bell Labs' place in the musical world, when viewed by contemporaries and by historians in the future
Side qi pp. 106-
[With Michael Biegel]
Biegel's degrees from MIT--the engineering scene at the beginning of Mathews' career, mid-1950's--computers become powerful enough to be useful in Mathews' area of research, speech coding--speed of the computers at that time: about ten times slower than real-time--analog-digital/digital-analog converters at that time: very large and expensive, the only useful one at IBM in Poughkeepsie--700-series computers: magnetic tape used to sample sounds, simple speech encodings approach real-time--beginnings of Mathews' involvement in music: when digital-to-analog converters make calculation and synthesis of music possible--first efforts to make an efficient but flexible music program--1957: Music One: extremely basic triangle wave-form synthesizer, first music generating program—1967: first analog synthesizers: RCA, Columbia--Music Two: allowed for arbitrary wave forms, multiple voices-- John Pierce, Newman Gutman, and Dave Lewin write early pieces for Music Two--new techniques used in Music Two: stored wave forms--the problem of "aliasing" explained--aliasing encountered in Music Two-- major concepts of present-day music programs complete in Music Three: musician creates an instrument out of unit generators as "building blocks" which plays a numerical score--most important unit generator in Music Three: the digital oscillator and envelope wave shapes--scores: traditional discrete notes vs. the potential with computers of describing music as a continuous evolution--Jim Tenney’s Noise Study No. 1 as example of this continuous concept of music--major characteristics of notes, as described in traditional scores--traditional notes as obstacle to the composer’s communication of a continuous event.
Side qii
[untranscribed]:
Les Paul, Hal Alles, Greg Sims and Doug Bayer talk about and demonstrate the Alles Digital Sound Synthesizer at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey on April 19, 1978. Recorded by Joan Thomson.
Side r pp. 122-137
Music Five: subroutines and algorithms to generate notes: variables computer-controlled with random-number generators or by human decisions--graphic scores--PL (first pass subroutine) and PLS (second pass subroutine)--pass three: music is produced--combining multiple voices in pass three into a single output--sequencing multiple voices in pass three--multiplexing --description of Music Five concluded: last rewriting of One through Four. written in Fortrand for IBM 7090--Music Five: as basic structure for future music programs. derivatives thereof: Music Ten, Barry Vercoe’s Music 360 and Music Eleven--Mathews’ 1968 paper on the interactive graphic terminal, which allows the musician to draw a graph that will be read by the computer as a score--efforts at that time to recreate traditional scores with computers: Leland Smith at Stanford--using traditional scores to control computers: Barry Vercoe--the “Groove System”: first attempt at a computer-driven real-time musical instrument--other real-time systems at that time: Peter Zenovia’s system in London, another system at the University of California at San Diego--the Conductor program: an intermediate mode of the Groove system between real-time performance and recorded playback, where the “conductor” controls the computer’s playback of the score
Side s pp. 137-144
timbral problems in computer music synthesis--Fourier analysis--methods of controlling computers in Electrowski’s World paper: interactive intelligent instruments--the need for musical and psychological application of the newly developed technological riches .