Computer Music (P. Fishwick)

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All music Copyright © 1997 Paul Fishwick

Profile of Myself and Music

I like many types of music, including rock, jazz, and classical. The music that I like the best and like to create is "electronic music." It is hard to assign names to styles since names and genres change. In the late 60s, I was introduced to electronic music with Walter Carlos playing "Switched On Bach." This album really struck home with me and, interestingly enough, launched an interest in classical music in addition to electronic music. I had previously heard my father play Beethoven and Mozart and just could not appreciate this at all. There was something magical --and still is-- about that Moog sound. I bought some electronic music albums at the time which featured such artists as Stockhausen and Babbit. This was somewhat interesting but did not really capture my sustained attention: too many bleeps and whistles without any hint of melody or harmony. In the 70s, many rock bands had an orchestral kind of sound using synthesizers as a base. Tangerine Dream is probably my favorite band, but Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP), Yes, Genesis and Rush are great favorites. In the mid 70s, I was fascinated by Jean Michael Jarre's music (with Oxygene) and enjoyed music by Eno and Fripp. In the 80s, I found myself with many artists to choose from including the original Tangerine Dream (I fell in love with Poland and Logos), Patrick O'Hearn, Steve Roach, Don Slepian, Klause Schulze, and Richard Burmer to name a few. Recently, I have obtained CDs of ambient and techno groups such as Autechre, Orbital, Aphex Twin, Future Sound of London and Spacetime Continuum. I have also re-discovered some of the solo CDs from Tangerine Dream members Christophe Franke, Edgar Froese and Johannes Schmoelling.

Musical genres come and go. If I reference the categories in record/CD stores to illustrate my musical interests, it all started in the "Special Effects" or "Electronic Music" sections in the 60s. Then, many rock bands featured orchestral-quality electronic pieces (ELP and Yes) and so the "Rock" section was the place to be. "New Age" arrived in the 80s and we have genres such as "Ambient", "Techno", "Industrial", "Dance" and so on. With the birth of the personal computer and MIDI in the 80s, I now classify my own music as "Computer Music" for no particularly good reason. Although I've had a long-time love of music, I have not been in a good position to create my own music due to a lack of technology and equipment expense. With inexpensive sound cards such as the SoundBlaster 32 and AWE32, suddenly, a person with an interest in electronic computer music finds himself with the right tools. I have recently bought a Sound Blaster Live! which has a very nice sound capability for under $200. I highly recommend it if you are in the market for a PC card. If you get it, get two extra speakers for the 3D environment. The Live card supports surround sound using Creative's "EAX" technology. I believe that everyone should make music and that we are too constrained to think that to make music, we must spend years on "manual finger exercises." Prior to having a personal computer with MIDI capability, I had spent a year playing piano (1983), and getting nowhere quickly. This was boring. Using a computer, sequencer and the SoundBlaster, in addition to my other MIDI hardware (ref. the section on digital audio), I have finally found the right tools for the kind of music I like. I am simply not satisfied spending hundreds of hours on a piano or with a saxophone developing "muscle memory." After all, I am not interested in live performance -- I am out to design music, not reproduce it "live." I want to create extravagant orchestral-size scores, which is now possible. I spend more time thinking about editing and composing and less on the finger dexterity. This is as it should be.

With the right technology now at my disposal, I am willingly relearning scales and music notation on the side. I am thirsty to learn more about music theory. But it is important to see the causal relation: I am having fun learning music theory, scales and orchestration as a result of being able to create pleasing music quickly, and not because I had to wade through torturous years of playing music that just doesn't interest me. What a great way to learn!

We are at the start of a revolution in music, mainly due to the computer and its relation to music, but also due to the MIDI standard which is really all about "control". Do people spend countless hours to learn how to paint and draw or to create pleasing visual artforms? Well, of course they do. But, here is a key point: people will derive more pleasure in art when they are able to generate their own pleasing artforms after only a modicum of time investment. It really cannot work any other way. I don't mind spending 10 weeks in an oil painting class if I can graduate from it with the feeling that I am deriving some level of enjoyment from some of my own creations. With photography and computer graphics, visual art has come to the masses. Many people snap photographs and use graphics and computer art packages to design things they actually like. Why can't this work in music as well? The answer is that "it can." When you visit the local bookstore, ask yourself why there are many books on digital art and computer graphics but hardly any on computer music. Is music destined to be practiced only by those whose hands and heads were forced from early childhood to play musical instruments? The time is ripe for change. Go and get a software sequencer and an inexpensive sound card with at least wave-table synthesis. Now, you are ready to compose your own music that you will actually enjoy, and so will your friends.

Musical Friends

General Midi

MIDI with E-mu SoundFont Banks

The following pieces are made specifically for the Sound Blaster AWE32 (or Sound Blaster 32).

Software for Computer Music (IBM)

Here is the software that I use and like for making electronic music.