[HN Gopher] Living sound forever: The genius of Wendy Carlos
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Living sound forever: The genius of Wendy Carlos
Author : CharlesW
Score : 97 points
Date : 2023-05-20 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (xtramagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (xtramagazine.com)
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Her Brandenburg concertos are amazing. I've got them on CD - I
| think they might have been remade with direct to digital output.
| vr46 wrote:
| Sadly, I fear Wendy has already vanished from current culture as
| I cannot access her work, only reams of writing on her. I have
| the Clockwork Orange LP that I bought in Canada for $5 back in
| 1998 but attempts to get much else have failed. It's just too
| expensive, and while I can be a fan of the artist, I would like
| to be a fan of the art.
|
| Maybe whoever inherits her works will make it available for a new
| generation to discover, and hopefully there's enough writing and
| analysis that contextualizes her achievements.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| You can easily find her albums in FLAC or WAV/CUE (not quite
| legally, or possibly somewhat legally via archive.org), or even
| get the vinyl records second hand (often for fair prices,
| although state of the record may vary).
|
| She certainly didn't disappear from the collective memory of
| many people around the world (and anyone seriously in to
| synthesizers will know her works). Her music just isn't
| available on whatever streaming service is popular now, or
| whatever Apple or Google are pushing.
|
| It'll come back available to all eventually.
| klik99 wrote:
| I have so many stories about Wendy Carlos - one of my college
| teachers wrote the early moog manuals and was fond of saying
| "Walter was an asshole, Wendy was the sweetest person I've ever
| met" - someone told me of a time they were synthesizing a trumpet
| and someone invited Wendy in, who listened for 20 seconds and
| said the third partial was a few dbs off, sure enough it sounded
| much more real after adjusting just that - but at the end of the
| day, something everyone forgets to acknowledge is just how great
| of a performer she was - switched on Bach wasn't great because of
| the patches she used or the mixing or anything technical, she was
| really an amazing interpreter in the classical sense of Bach, and
| her works shine for it - pity that she is so regressive when it
| comes to digital rights, but a reminder that being a genius in
| one field does not make you a genius in related fields
| klik99 wrote:
| The first time I heard Carlos on a college radio station I had
| to stop and pull over - it was as close to a sea change moment
| in my life as anything - at the end of the day she was/is a
| human being and it sucks that she has to be an icon of anything
| because her work speaks for itself and independently of that
| she is who she is - I love Wilhelm kempff for his
| interpretation of Beethoven but have no idea of his self-
| identify - I truly don't agree with Wendy's view on copyright
| but that doesn't delegitmize what she has created - it takes
| strong personalities to break conventions and that force isn't
| always "right", but we're better for those that have them
| blueblimp wrote:
| Some time ago, I listened to Switched-On Bach out of historical
| interest, and I was surprised to find that it's largely gimmick-
| free. It's a (good) classical music performance that just happens
| to be performed using synthesizers.
|
| It's a shame that, as the article mentions, Carlos's music is
| currently inconvenient to listen to due to unavailability on
| streaming services.
| slowhadoken wrote:
| I've always been cool with trans artists but I'm not drinking the
| arcus foundation kool-aid. People are always looking into the
| past to validate their skewed contemporary perception. It's a
| drag.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| It's really unfortunate that the only example of her work easily
| available to most people is the Tron soundtrack, which frankly
| isn't very good; as she herself has said, the synthesizer is out
| of tune with the orchestration due to circumstances beyond her
| control.
|
| (Not to be confused with the Tron Legacy soundtrack by Daft Punk,
| which is incredible.)
|
| edit: grammar
| speed_spread wrote:
| Switched-on Bach is readily available if you're willing to, uh,
| look for it. Not her compositions admittedly but still seminal
| Wendy Carlos.
| manbart wrote:
| There's also the 'Clockwork Orange' soundtrack
| dahart wrote:
| Oh Switched-On Bach was just foundational for me as a kid, it
| cemented my love for both Bach and for digital music. I found it
| in my dad's vinyl collection and used to put it on, turn it up
| loud (sometimes waking my parents up and/or really irritating
| them) and rock to it. My dad might have been secretly a little
| disappointed when Switched-On Bach led me to seek out lots more
| digital music (found stacks of Isao Tomita at the library) and
| then go deeply into digital art, because my dad was a luthier who
| made violins by hand, but he never judged me openly.
|
| I think I didn't even realize the first time I saw TRON or The
| Shining or Clockwork Orange that it was Wendy Carlos, it just had
| that Moog sound I knew I loved. Yes looking back it's
| unquestionable that the mark Wendy Carlos left on the world is
| enormous.
| hammock wrote:
| There is a great podcast called Switched on Pop that goes deep
| into pop songs and I just made the connected to Switched on
| Bach :)
| efficax wrote:
| oh but switched on bach is so delightfully _analog_
| anonymousiam wrote:
| While reading this, it got me wondering about proper pronoun
| usage for past-tense. AFAIK, Wendy was Walter when Switched On
| Bach was released, so is it proper to say "his" work, or "her"
| work?
|
| The article refers to Carlos with "her" in all cases.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/release/1343533-Walter-Carlos-Switch...
| burk96 wrote:
| The Wikipedia Manual of Style is a good guide to cases like
| this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gend...
|
| To answer your question, she/her is correct, and a brief note
| that she went by Walter at the time is sufficient to avoid
| confusion.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Thanks! I'm somewhat ignorant of these things, and I did not
| mean to offend anyone.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Article also refers to her "deadname". I suppose that is how
| she likes to view it: Walter never existed.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > HRT involves rewiring the endocrine system to alter one's mind,
| body and emotions to their desired state.
|
| I don't think that's what Carlos was doing; she was using a Moog
| synthesiser, which is an modular analogue synthesiser rigged so
| as to simplify making "patches" - roughly, a Moog put you on
| tramlines. Carlos wasn't re-wiring anything.
| alar44 wrote:
| She was trans. Started as Walter Carlos.
| gossamer wrote:
| My favorite piece of hers has always been the 13 minute version
| of Timesteps from the Clockwork Orange movie. Some of her works
| are on Spotify.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > The trans synth pioneer changed music--and the world--forever
|
| > it contained a nod to her identity, hidden in plain sight.
| There it was, on her 1968 album cover: Trans-Electronic
|
| One thing that Wendy really didn't want to be is an icon for
| "trans" anything. I remember reading an article on her website
| years ago about her transition, but now I can't find it.
|
| What I remember is that she wants to be known for her music, but
| not for her transition. She just wants to put the whole thing
| behind her. It's not part of her identity. (I really wish I could
| find the article, because her words are better than mine.)
|
| As a huge fan of her music, I see her as a musician first and
| foremost. The gender change is just an interesting footnote, not
| her identity.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I would say she succeeded in that, because for decades I have
| listened and enjoyed and respected her music, and today is the
| first day I learned that she was trans.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I only noticed when I started out with the Clockwork Orange
| soundtrack and noticed her name varying in different
| releases. It's completely irrelevant to her work.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > It's completely irrelevant to her work.
|
| I don't think it is from her perspective. Lost connections,
| lost time, and she can't even get her name on her work.
|
| "By 1981, Carlos was known everywhere as Wendy: she had
| completed her gender confirmation surgery in 1972, and
| talked about it for the first time in a 1979 Playboy
| interview. Only two columns were devoted to her music in
| the piece, which she saw as a betrayal. Nevertheless, she
| revealed just how much "forced secrecy" had affected her
| career. Switched-On Bach's popularity had made things hard
| for her, she said. She had "lost an entire decade" avoiding
| live performances and connections with other artists
| because she didn't yet feel ready to disclose her gender
| transition publicly. Once, Stevie Wonder came to check out
| her synthesiser set-up, and Carlos hid as he knocked.
| Sewell writes in her book how Carlos still faces prejudice
| from record companies today: Warner Music has not still
| corrected her name on the soundtrack to A Clockwork
| Orange."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/11/she-made-
| music...
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Like the sibling comment, I saw the same work attributed to
| different names and got confused. When I was a kid, it was
| the kind of thing that was pretty much verboten to really
| discuss, but mockery was acceptable, so I can imagine it just
| wasn't really spoken about and I'm sure hampered her career.
|
| The BBC has an archived interview[0] where I believe she was
| wearing fake sideburns to keep up a more masculine appearance
| in public while transitioning. The effect is a bit odd.
|
| I actually first came across her work perusing the public
| library and actually found the technical excellence of her
| playing combined with the simplistic sounds of the early
| synths to be a bit off-putting; it sounded like a 90's midi
| file. But I could certainly imagine the interest of that in
| the 60's, and while it's grown on me a bit since then, I can
| see why it hasn't aged particularly well.
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsW2EDGbDqg
| laratied wrote:
| I love Wendy so much and to me it is gross to even mention she
| is trans. It is the least interesting part of her.
|
| Digital Moonscapes and especially Beauty in the Beast are two
| of my all time fav albums.
|
| I am really not much of a fan of Switched-On Bach. Have to
| consider that people had not really heard synths before that
| album so I don't think it quite holds up.
|
| It is a shame she is so reclusive. Her website use to be a
| wonderful source for news about her but hasn't been updated
| since 2009. In early 2000s she was sharing more online than
| most musicians and then basically vanished. I remember she
| hated youtube and would defend her IP to have things taken down
| more than any artist I recall when youtube started.
|
| I always hoped to be able to see her play live but to no avail.
| I don't even know when the last time she performed in public.
| It must be decades.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > I remember reading an article on her website years ago about
| her transition
|
| It may have been a link to her '79 Playboy interview, where she
| talks (shockingly for the year, IMO) frankly about her
| transition and the realities of being trans:
| http://transascity.org/files/history/Carlos_Wendy_Playboy_In...
|
| It talks about her music, but also dives into things like
| masturbation post-operation, sexual encounters before and
| after, and more.
|
| Her closing statement seems to align with your summary, but
| goes even further:
|
| > _Wendy: [..] I think I would feel happy if a reaction to this
| interview were a yawn. I mean, who cares? I 've gone through a
| procedure. It's done with. Just let me live my goddamn life and
| I will let you live yours._
|
| > _Playboy: It 's certainly not boring. And by doing this
| interview, you're showing that you do care._
|
| > _Wendy: I don 't want to become a proselytizer. I don't want
| this interview to champion the cause. I think it's very
| important that my condition be acknowledged as very rare, so
| that it's seen as a highly unlikely solution for other people
| with an unhappy life, or suicidal impulses, as I had. The fact
| that there were some "successful' transformations doesn't erase
| the many tragic cases in which an operation was not the full
| solution for particular individuals. No one should follow this
| hellish path if an alternative exists. Try other options
| first._
| chpatrick wrote:
| It's incredible how much of today's discourse comes up in
| that interview. We haven't come very far since 1979.
| skupig wrote:
| Wow, this is a great interview. I didn't think I'd read the
| whole thing but I couldn't stop. What a candid and touching
| account of a person becoming themself.
| slowhadoken wrote:
| Exactly.
| pnw wrote:
| The page you are thinking of is probably
| https://www.wendycarlos.com/pruri.html
|
| I agree, Wendy is a pioneer and has an incredible body of work.
| It's a shame her music is mostly out of print and not available
| to stream. I realize that's her choice but it leaves her legacy
| unavailable to modern audiences.
| [deleted]
| boopmaster wrote:
| "Beauty in the Beast" album on streaming services or re-issues
| would be wonderful.
|
| The title track is, to me, absolutely epic and transports my mind
| to a parallel dream dimension.
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j1gy2
| lelandfe wrote:
| I know it stems from the bias of western music, but this is
| really not enjoyable to me. Those weird scales to my ear just
| sound wrong, like a synthesizer with some frayed wires.
| pavlov wrote:
| Yes! I remember reading about this album in the '90s and
| decided to buy it as soon as it's reissued. Still waiting.
|
| I don't quite understand how that's possible for someone with
| as much name recognition as Carlos. Are the rights to this
| album held by a bankrupt record company or something?
| killerstorm wrote:
| I wonder what's her reason to not make her music available
| online. This is really unfortunate.
| fweimer wrote:
| Not just online, the CD re-releases (and LPs) are only
| available second-hand as far as I can see, except for the Tron
| re-release from last year.
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