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Originally Posted by Jake  Several years ago Access put together a decent intro guide called "Programming Analog Synthesizers." Although it's geared towards the Virus a lot of the tips are applicable to any analog or VA synth. Access Music | Support contact and resources |
I just came across this guide and wanted to second this recommendation. It's actually written by Howard Scarr and it's really interesting for the non-techy asides.
Check out this excerpt from his site:
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Originally Posted by On the Origin of Music - Howard Scarr As far as I know, the father of ambient sounds in western popular music was one Bernie Krause, who teamed up with organist Paul Beaver during the late 60s. In 1967 Beaver and Krause released “The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music”, still considered a standard reference in the annals of electronic music history. Bernie Krause is a highly interesting character who was not only instrumental in promoting the use of synthesizers in the broadcast media, but also put forward quite a plausible theory on how music-making began all those millennia ago. The following paragraph is a short excerpt from Bernie’s article “THE NICHE HYPOTHESIS: How Animals Taught Us To Dance and Sing”. I think it is worth quoting here, although the good Doctor Krause says this section is a bit out of date..
“Experienced musical composers know that in order to achieve an unimpeded resonance the sound of each instrument must have its own unique voice and place in the spectrum of events being orchestrated. All too little attention has been paid to the possibility that insects, birds and mammals in any given environment have been finding their aural niche since the beginning of time... A complex vital beauty emerges that the best of sonic artists in Western culture have yet to achieve. Like the recent acknowledgement that medicine owes much to rainforest flora, it is my hunch that the development our sound arts owes at least as much to the "noise" of our natural environments.” - Bernie Krause
Whether this really applies to Cro-Magnon bone-bashing or not, this article certainly got me thinking a bit further than usual. I came up with the following, very obvious answer to a big question that had been bugging me for many years: Because of the huge advantage of listening intently and recognising patterns in all the animal noises around us (otherwise we get eaten and/or fail to catch our prey), early humans evolved to take great pleasure in this activity - it was another survival factor like eating, sex and physical exercise. OK, that applies more or less to all animals with ears, but we humans were the only species brainy enough to develop highly structured music over a few generations (memes require intelligence). So the sonic pleasure of the whole tribe is maximised and they stick together through thick and thin. I suppose we now have “death by chocolate” type foods, porn and hooliganism for similar reasons - there are a few downsides to being an intelligent species of pleasure-seekers! |
He has a v-synth guide too. I hope it's just as interesting.
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