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TOD DOCKSTADER: additional comments
I think I was aided, in my time and circumstances, by not having a synthesizer of any kind: no keyboards, no pre-set voices.
My "synthesizer" for everything on this CD was one or two sine-wave test generators ("oscillators" in those days) which were "played" by turning a dial. I forced them to produce harmonics (square waves) by amplifying them into distortion, and got pulse-trains out of them by temporarily rewiring them into instability (temporarily, because they had to resume life the next day as stable test generators). The "notes" they produced were achieved by editing tape, note by note (by note by note...). For Quatermass, I acquired a Heathkit test generator of my own, which I built to allow me to "switch" tones instead of having to "tune" them (like a radio). Also, when turned on or off, it made marvelous shrieks and groans.
Some composers who worked in what's been called the "glorious
junkshop" of
the now-classic tape studios have looked back in awe and dismay at the
amount of hard, physical work it took to make a piece. But easier isn't
necessarily better. I enjoyed it: I found it was like the best part of
painting – standing
on your feet all day, moving around, working with your hands, sometimes
very fast, more often very slowly, mixing, cutting, stitching it together
with the sound in your ears. It had a muscular joy to it. I think a lot
of us had fun up on that singing high wire, teetering between control
and chaos, trying to push the sound a little farther toward Something
we hadn’t
heard before, working in it... Listening.
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