RIP Bebe Barron

Wow, I didn't know any of this. RIP.

1951's 'Heavenly Menagerie' almost always cited as the world's first piece of 100% electronic music, predated Ussachevsky & Luening, Eimer & Beyer, everyone. I always wondered why it wasn't commercially available, Schrader's eulogy there is the first I've read that no copies have survived. It's still bizarre that there isn't a career-spanning compilation of all her compositions, there have got to be tons of people who are dying to hear 'Bells of Atlantis'.

She's sharp & amazing in her interview on the OHM Gurus DVD, and the best interview with her that I know of is in issue 3 of ei magazine, Spring 2004, some remarkably candid remarks about the realities of being a female composer.

The 'Forbidden Planet' soundtrack has always been available & I hope we don't have to wait too long for more

RIP RIP RIP

Flurry Of Dust - A Robot Approaches
An Invisible Monster Approaches
Robby Arranges Flowers, Zaps Monkey
The Mind Booster - Creation Of Matter

^^ some of the best track titles of all time on the forbidden planet sdtrk

amendment >cited as the world's first piece of 100% electronic tape music

no known recordings of teleharmonium solos, there might be some 78's of theremin / trautonium solos out there somewhere, but the Barrons were tape recording their own circuit bent oscillators & feedback loops that played themselves before GRM or WDR had music studios or most people even knew what tape was

from Richard Zbonar's ei article describing the late 40's experiments

The most intriguing aspect of this work was the apparently organic behavior exhibited by some of the circuits. They were not designed to produce a particular output or to respond in predictable ways to control inputs. Rather they would "come to life" and begin to produce a range of outputs that could then be influenced by tweaking values of various components. Many of the circuits had compound feedback paths and by adjusting the levels of these some extremely lively behavior would be achieved. Sometimes this was "to the death" and a circuit would expire, often with spectacular results.

thanks for info milton.

RIP

another correction, Richard Zvnoar

not like google turns up anything for either, where goes Zvonar

RIP.

Last interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXz22-_Io-c

All her memories gone for ever, another thread connecting us to awesome creativity from the past broken, very sad. She deserves/ed to be far better known than she is.

sadly, I don't even have "Morbius Is Overcome" playing in the background...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/movies/25barron.html?_r=1&ref=movies&oref=slogin

yeah i have a record of oskar sala playin trautonium (not sure the date w/o findin it) but the barron system was not just some old keyb, which the trautonium really pretty much was

(theremin appears on plenty 40s film soundtracks, celluloid = neither vinyl nor tape strictly...)

what no dedicated thread for Louis & Bebe Barron?

ILM you've failed me

two of the all time greats. a gateway recording for me. i still on occasion play "deceleration" in my sets. it's the scariest / most techno thing ever.

only discovered these guys because of the 50s poll. phenomenal stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-7qEftad8

Bells of Atlantis, 1952, directed by Ian Hugo w/ narration by Anais Nin
Electronic Music by Louis & Bebe Barron

amazing stuff, spent half of last night listening to youtubes of early electronic music but didn't find that one

You compare that to Eimert's 1952 pieces, or Stockhausen's first two Electronic Studies from 53 and 54, and there's just no comparison in terms of the musicality. The Germans aren't listening to the new instruments, they're trying to conform them and the results are interesting but just primitive. In the Barrons' hands they're already singing. They had a few years head start on WDR, but it's not just that, they were better listeners

Even though Forbidden Planet gets regularly namechecked, they still haven't got their due. They created the first electronic music studio in the United States, producing the first electronic music compositions in this country, same year as the French (if you count concrete, which even the French would distinguish themselves from) and well before the Germans. How often does that get mentioned? It gets mentioned just about never.

It gets mentioned just about never.

oh it will get mentioned soon!

story of a lifetime you're working on geeta. can't even believe it really

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Acousmatrix-History-Of-Electronic-Music-VI-Cologne-WDR-Early-Electronic-Music/release/1240528

http://www.discogs.com/Louis-and-Bebe-Barron-Forbidden-Planet/master/285980

Not to take sides, the first one is inspiring & more than just history, but...

Just guess

"We design and construct electronic circuits which function electronically in a manner remarkably similar to the way that lower life-forms function psychologically. There is a comprehensive mathematical science explaining it, called "Cybernetics", which is concerned with the Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine. It was first propounded by Prof. Norbert Wiener of M.I.T. who found that there are certain natural laws of behavior applicable alike to animals including humans) and electronic machines. In scoring FORBIDDEN PLANET-as in all of our work- we created individual cybernetic circuits for particular themes and leit motifs, rather than using standard sound generators. Actually, each circuit has a characteristic activity pattern as well as a "voice". Most remarkable is that the sounds which emanate from these electronic nervous systems seem to convey strong emotional meaning to listeners. We were delighted to hear people tell us that the Tonalities in FORBIDDEN PLANET remind them of what their dreams sound like. There were no synthesizers or traditions of electronic music when we scored this film, and therefore we were free to explore "terra incognito" with all its surprises and adventures."

vs

Studie I is composed with "groups". Like the table of pitches, these groups are also constructed from sets of six numbers so that, for example, the first six "vertical" groups of the composition contain 4, 5, 3, 6, 2, and 1 notes each. Stockhausen calls these note groups "note mixtures", and extrapolates the same grouping principle to the formal structure of the entire work: successive note mixtures form horizontal sequences, groups of these sequences form "structures", and these structures are organized into one large "group series" that produces a unifying proportion series for the entire work (Stockhausen 1992, 104). In order to increase the contrast between the note groups, a set of six envelope curves was added: steady amplitude, increasing amplitude to a sudden cut-off at the specified maximum, and a gradual decrease from the specified maximum; each of these occurs with and without reverberation to produce six forms in all (Stockhausen 1992, 111).

zzzzzz

oh stockhausen had some pretty fantastical rants, though--in this book i have of essays on mysticism and magic(k), there is this insane essay by stockhausen

just found it, typing some of this out:

'We have forgotten that once all music composed was sacred music. That is the greatest problem today: to make music that does not smell of church (so that most people would immediately say 'I have nothing do to with that'), yet which is experienced quite obviously as spiritual music, without allying itself to specific forms of religion . . . I would actually like to make more and more music that is heard above all by people who are religious; and religious in such a way that they will let the whole be set in vibration within themselves, that unlimited Self which allows us to make contact with the fantastic feelings of unity that embrace the whole cosmos.'

'That which in my music is not Stockhausen--the most essential part--is timeless, universal. 'Stockhausen' is only a label, a name. When I have gone, it is no longer there. But the music lives on. Then my name is merely a word, as when I say 'Moments' to name something. But that no longer has anything to do with me. None of you knows 'Beethoven'. He is a myth! He is a series of letters.'

oh man it just gets better and better

'I will tell you: Stockhausen's music is not Stockhausen, but this spirit which is using me. And you, too, are not what you appear to be. Your human personality is quite limited and temporary. You are little lights, as I am, which flicker--which whisper something to one another, to pass the time.'

yeah that guy never really came back from 1968. I loved 'Stimmung' a lot more before I read the translation of the lyrics.

Wendy Carlos' tribute page, including her pilgrimage to the outside of their NYC electronic music studio. Pictures of the doorway Cage & Tudor & co walked through every day for several years for those who are likewise obsessed with aura

http://www.wendycarlos.com/people/BebeNYC/index.html
http://www.wendycarlos.com/people/BebeNYC/Barrons56b.jpg

that photo is so great

re: Bells of Atlantis, up above: Ian Hugo (real name Hugh Guiler) was a super interesting guy. he was one of Anais Nin's (many) husbands:

http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2009/03/ian-hugo-filmmaker/

he also made a film called 'Jazz of Lights' featuring music by the Barrons

whoa:

"In Jazz of Lights, the street lights of Times Square become, in Nin’s words, "an ephemeral flow of sensations"; this flow that she also calls "phantasmagorical" had a crucial impact on Stan Brakhage who now says that without Jazz of Lights (in 1954) "there would have been no Anticipation of the Night" (in 1958)."

http://www.roberthaller.com/firstlight/hugo.html

Stockhausen's first quote isn't a lot worse than Barron's. Some stuff about 'dreams' and 'animals' - you could reproduce both in a SF pulp classic with the right context behid it and it would scan ok.

I like the two Stockhausen quotes Geeta posted. And of course I'm a simple fan of Stockhausen 1955-1969ish. He's just a good comparison point because he's the person who notoriously kicked off each of his program notes with sentences on the order of 'XXXX is the first musical composition to ever achieve XXXX' and for decades, many people didn't doubt him, but history's more complex

It is of course dangerous to be making the claim that the Barrons were -the- first, something else is always turning up, like that Australian Jack Ellitt cut-up piece from the early 30's presaging musique concrete, but they certainly anticipated most of the people who made it to the wider market first. And perhaps they were inhibited as much as helped by the fact that their one widely available release was a Hollywood film soundtrack, those associations kept people from hearing it as music in and of itself.

http://www.filmcement.org/rummage/archives/000286.html

Hunted the Ellitt sample in the above link - well worth tracking down. Thanks, as always, Milton. If you slipped some bits of the above in some random Warp comp it would pass you by.

I know what you mean - don't care for the ego, always liked quiet ppl more. otoh you need to kept shouting to get ppl to hand over money for more grandiose projects - unfortunately history will record it has not been wise to keep giving Stockhausen money after '69.

Nowadays people woud certainly recognise a great soundtrack. Then again there is the 'soundtrack to my life' dimension to music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biqz1r2d_xY&feature=youtu.be

the place to be in nyc tomorrow: http://www.lightindustry.org/barrons

& this new page is eye-opening: http://barronsoundportraits.com/

Looks good. Where is that, Freeman Street?

OK, I see, Greenpoint.

good taste, DJ Premier

http://www.whosampled.com/sample/view/72374/The%20Notorious%20B.I.G.-Kick%20in%20the%20Door_Louis%20and%20Bebe%20Barron-Robby,%20the%20Cook,%20and%2060%20Gallons%20of%20Booze/

that sample always sounded familiar. don't remember this being included in the sample credits, though that does not necessarily mean that they did not license it (though that is often what it does mean)

http://www.effectrode.com/the-self-destructing-modules-behind-revolutionary-1956-sountrack-of-forbidden-planet/

http://www.effectrode.com/magnetic-delay/the-first-electronic-filmscore-forbidden-planet-a-conversation-with-bebe-barron/

not Bebe, but I hear these two were close

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLD0PICgTnk&feature=youtu.be

Driver's Education: "What's The Big Hurry?" circa 1974 Sid Davis; Music by Louis Barron

in many interviews bebe was taken to be the primary 'composer' or organizer of the recordings they'd make of their circuits, so it is pretty interesting to hear and compare a solo score from louis

A couple of months ago I saw Geeta Dayal and Ben Burtt give a great talk at the Exploratorium about the Barrons as well as Forbidden Planet -- really enjoyable evening, and as I'd just never known about them before, very informative.

that was a good night / very special to see 'Jazz of Lights' which is very rarely screened and the remastered 'Bells of Atlantis' drew audible gasps during the first few seconds, either because the images were so inherently beautiful or in my case because I couldn't believe how clear & sharp the images were after years of only seeing the terrible online version that looks like it's a 4th generation VHS transfer, and they feature a few extra credit stills, including a credit noting David Tudor as an assistant. the music in those films are so timeless and first it is almost hard to believe what you're hearing, or that they are not referenced more often

after coming across 'What's The Big Hurry' last night I briefly scouted for any of the other films / scores listed on wiki but nothing immediate turned up, if anyone else ever comes across anything please post to thread.

Shirley Clarke's Bridges-Go-Round had two separate scores, and she often screened them back-to-back. The second half of this video has the Barrons' version (Teo Macero's jazz score is pretty great, too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gxX74iGRTc

There are some sections in the score lifted from Forbidden Planet which brought up copyright issues so Clarke had to get someone else to score it.