Wie ist der Klang? [How is the sound?] AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF HARALD BODE’S INSTRUMENTS
Posted on: February 28, 2013
- In: acoustics | art | audio | audio processing | avant-garde music | Computer Generated Music | computer music | Creativity | design | electroacoustic music | electronic music | Experimental Music | hardware | Music | Music Analysis | Music History | music software | musical instruments | Recording History | special effects | synthesizer
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This is a great overview of Harold Bode’s electronic musical instruments from: the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC)
In one of his notebooks ca. 1937, Harald Bode wrote, “Wie ist der Klang?” The following article gives an overview on his instruments from 1937 until 1981. “How is the sound?” is an expanded version of a text the author prepared for the Harald Bode exhibition “A Lifetime for Sound” at the Estey Museum (Brattleboro VT) in 2010.
Harald and the Audio System Synthesizer, a modular synthesizer and sound processor.
Early version of the Bode Vocoder model 7702.
Apparatewerk Bayern [Bavarian Machine Factory] advertisement for the Polychord III with tone cabinet.
The Polychord.
The Melochord in the Studio für elektronische Musik, Cologne, Germany.
Photograph of the Melodium from a period magazine article.
Photograph of Warbo Formant Organ from a period magazine article. All images and recordings in this article © Harald Bode Archive.
“Tones from out of Nowhere”: Rudolph Pfenninger and the Archaeology of Synthetic Sound (PDF)
Posted on: February 23, 2013
In this essay from New Media, Old Media [2006], (originally published in Grey Room) Levin proposes an alternative history that takes into account underexamined developments in synthetic sound reproduction. While contemporary accounts of new media make it sound like threats to “real” or indexical sound only come with digitization, Levin explores well-documented events in the history of sythentic or “hand-written” sound by analog means.
Press Here To Download The PDF: Tones From Nowhere
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998. Daphne Oram was a true pioneer of electronic music and this great gallery of photographs gives some great insight into the work being done at BBC.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop: http://whitefiles.org/rwg/index.html
Daphne Oram at the north-west end of Room 13.
Room 12. Delia edits a tape as Desmond stands in front of the Leevers-Rich 8-track and reads the script.
Delia at the controls of the desk in Room 12. The rotary control to the extreme bottom right is a ‘Glowpot’ gain control.
Daphne Oram demonstrating Radiophonic techniques on television by means of Brenell tape recorders and Jason oscillator.
Room 13 in 1958. Daphne Oram plays the Mijwiz, an Arabic twin-reeded double shepherd’s pipe.
An early view looking north through Rooms 14 and 13.
An early picture, taken on the 13th of May, 1958, looking through the window of Room 15 towards Rooms 13 and 14
A Tempophon, similar to the one used at the Workshop. The drum at the centre contains the rotating heads. The pitch control is marked in musical intervals.
One of the prototype keying units and its oscillators in 1962.
Original Documents and Reconstructions of 72 Key Works of Music, Poetry and Agitprop from the Russian Avantgardes (1908-1942)
Great Historical Site
Press Here To Enter The Site: Symphony of Sirens:
“A comprehensive overview of the complexity and breadth of the many early 20th-century Russian avantgarde movements, followed by detailed notes and contexts for the individual recordings – including summary biographies of the main actors; additional work notes about the process of the extraordinary Baku reconstruction; a bibliography, rare photographs, web research links, artwork, facsimiles of contemporary documents, a comparative timeline of European and Russian Avantgardes and the first English translation of an article by Avraamov about the symphony. This is a definitive library collection, some seven years in the making and possibly our most important release of recent years.”
Files for a special project
This site provides information about the digital restoration of an Edison tinfoil record which dates from 1878. The restoration was done as part of a larger project to restore, preserve, and create digital access to sound recordings using non-invasive optical methods. This project is a collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Library of Congress.
Press Here To Enter The Site: 1878 St. Louis Edison Tinfoil Recording
Original Tinfoil
Complete Scanning System
Detail Of Scanning Device
Complete Recording
This device was designed and built in the laboratory and instrument shop of the Physics Dept. of the Case School of Applied Sciences. It is built from Lord Kelvin’s harmonic synthesizer design of 1873. This may be the world’s first additive synthesizer. More information about the project is here:
Physics Dept. of the Case School of Applied Sciences
The Harmonic Synthesizer was used was used by Dayton Miller to check the results produced by the harmonic analyzer against the original phonodeik curves.
The phonodeik is an instrument designed by Dayton Miller. It allows one to photographically record the shape of complex sound waves more precisely than previously possible.
PhonodeikThis all started with Lord Kelvin inventing an analog computer to predict tides.
