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In the world of geeks and
hackers, I have "Old Guy" credentials, usually meaning I was
programming computers before there was an IBM PC.* One
of the more dubious benefits of gaining this status is having young
people ask you questions like "How did you realize computers were
the coming technology back in the 60's?" It's probably
disillusioning for them to hear that I did no such thing; I was trying
to make music.
In the computer industry, on discovering my degrees were in music,
people often asked me about the relationship between music and
programming computers. Folks had noticed that musicians often made
superior programmers, and many abstruse theories were advanced to
explain the observation. I typically mumbled something to the
effect that it was easier to find someone who would pay me to program
than it was to find someone who would pay me to make music. That
was an evasion, of course, which deflected the question so I wouldn't
have to tell them what I really thought.
In the current UNT School of Music building complex, you can find the Merrill
Ellis Intermedia Theater, complete with a bust of Merrill Ellis in
the front. Merrill was my major professor and mentor during my
student days at what was then NTSU, and I think he would have immensely
enjoyed the whole thing. I believe studying music composition with
Merrill did a great deal to prepare me to work with emergent
technologies in ways neither of us fully appreciated at the time.
When I began studying with Merrill, his greatest enthusiasm was in weird
stuff he called "Electronic Music." Now this is not
weird stuff to most college students today, it's just M-TV, but in the
late 60's it was the lunatic fringe. Some of his colleagues
considered Merrill eccentric to the point of absurdity due to his
interest in that electronically produced cacophony, not to mention the
colored lights, slide projectors, costumed dancers and aerosol room
deodorizers we variously tried to work into productions. None of
his detractors, I can't help but notice, have theaters named after them
today.
His first electronic music studio was an upstairs room in the old
Orchestra Hall (long since torn down) which nobody in their right mind
wanted because it was situated over the Lab School Band rehearsal hall.
I don't remember ever hearing Merrill complain about it though. Ronn,
Bruce and I (his student helpers AKA lab assistants) found it
satisfactory, partly because of the view overlooking the Bruce Hall
cafeteria. During our daily chore of cleaning off the plaster that
had fallen from the ceiling onto the equipment the night before, we were
sometimes entertained by co-eds sunbathing on the cafeteria roof,
accessible from their windows I suppose. Besides, what we were
doing was exciting and completely different from anything we imagined we
would be doing in college. It was fascinating, and we could always
put on earphones when band practice started.
Eventually, the faculty research committee awarded Merrill domain of
an old house on the edge of campus christened the Electronic Music Center.
As a matter of fact, all of our financial support came from the faculty
research committee; we couldn't even get recording tape from the School
of Music in those days. At first Merrill was concerned that
someone would steal the equipment one night, since we didn't enjoy the
benefit of campus police patrols like real university buildings, but it
quickly became apparent that there was seldom a time when "the
lab," as we referred to it, was not in use. Merrill preferred
working in the morning, and his cadre of wild-eyed young composers
worked through the night most of the time (classes were taught in the
afternoons).
Those early electronic sound synthesizers (we had the second Moog
synthesizer ever sold and a custom version named the EII which Robert
Moog made to Merrill's specifications for live performance) were really
just glorified test instruments, bolstered by unsanctioned liberties
with some old recording equipment. We had banks of oscillators,
filters and amps crawling with bright colored patch cables and winking
lights just like any science lab, but we weren't expected to do science.
We were encouraged to make music with the equipment. In addition,
we augmented the synthesized sounds by burning holes in recording tape,
slamming car doors, throwing tennis balls at bass drums, and eventually
even programming computers to generate radio frequency interference that
could be picked up on an AM radio.
We had no designs on a career in the high tech industry, though several
of us ended up there. Changing the course of western civilization
was more to our tastes, and probing the boundaries of what was accepted
as music because we could, and in ways nobody had ever been able to
before. To define what we were doing and make some sort of sense
out of it was the perennial topic of conversation in the kitchen (labs
occupied the living room and front bedroom while Merrill's studio/office
was in the back bedroom). We all had lots of course work in what
music had been, but were convinced that was mere prologue; undeniably
great art but as far from comprehensive as was science from the same
period.
During breaks one of us might venture a definition of music as an
arbitrary but internally self-consistent protocol for ordering sounds in
time. If you were able to defend this proposition well enough, a
supporter might offer that it was art rather than science because the
protocol is open rather than closed. A helpful chum would observe
that perhaps it was your lack of knowledge about both science and art
that made your music so obnoxious, while another might conclude that no,
it was intermodulation distortion acting to lower the threshold of pain
at those high volume levels; perhaps it was time to change the tubes in
the 354's again. We would then retreat to our various
responsibilities pondering arguments to buttress the positions we had
staked-out.
So what does all this break-time banter have to do with musicians making
good programmers? Perhaps it wasn't the discipline of music that
was important, but the opportunity of music. The willingness and
even zest we were allowed in attacking the unknown and unknowable were
the real preparation for predictable change in unpredictable directions.
You know, to boldly go where no man had gone before.
I once had an otherwise attractive young woman tell me she thought
Stevie Wonder (turn the way-back dial) was the greatest musician that
had ever lived or ever would live. Now I was a Stevie Wonder fan
too, and anxious to impress my date, but I could not imagine a more
bizarre definition of music. Nobody has a universally applicable
standard for what is music, so why would you ever want to believe it is
something exhaustively explored? Who would want to live in a world
where there could be no profound new music? As I remember, my date
was not amused with me either.
Today so much emphasis seems to be placed by students and administration
alike on "degrees that pay," I thought perhaps I might pen,
virtually speaking of course, a few gentle words in praise of the
adventure in learning; of the value in wandering out of your depth. If
there's a point here, I suppose it has to do with the idea that our
expectations mold our concepts of technology as much as the other way
around. Whether it's test equipment or a new musical instrument
should remain open to interpretation. Sure you need to master
fundamentals, but try to take some time to make music with what you are
studying. Who knows, they may name a building after you some day.
* Duane firmly established his "Old
Guy" credentials when he penned "Mindset 1946" last year.
- Ed.
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