The Holmes Archive of Electronic Music

Episode 160

Chapter 21, The San Francisco Tape Music Center. Works Recommended from my book, Electronic and Experimental Music

Welcome to the Archive of Electronic Music. This is Thom Holmes.

This podcast is produced as a companion to my book, Electronic and Experimental Music, published by Routledge. Each of these episodes corresponds to a chapter in the text and an associated list of recommended works, also called Listen in the text. They provide listening examples of vintage electronic works featured in the text.

The works themselves can be enjoyed without the book and I hope that they stand as a chronological survey of important works in the history of electronic music. Be sure to tune-in to other episodes of the podcast where we explore a wide range of electronic music in many styles and genres, all drawn from my archive of vintage recordings.

There is a complete playlist for this episode on the website for the podcast.

Let’s get started with the listening guide to Chapter 21, The San Francisco Tape Music Center from my book Electronic and Experimental music.

Playlist: THE SAN FRANCISCO TAPE MUSIC CENTER

Time

Track Time

Start

Introduction –Thom Holmes

01:30

00:00

1. Terry Riley, “Mescalin-Mix” (1960-62). Early tape collage and one of Riley’s first works for tape.

14:23

01:38

2. Terry Riley, “Concerto For Two Pianos and Five Tape Recorders” )1961). Piano, LaMonte Young; piano and tape assemblage, Terry Riley. Recorded live. 1961 Riley-Terry_ConcertoForTwoPianos-b.wav

04:36

15:56

3. Pauline Oliveros, “Apple Box Double” (performance 2008). This piece was composed for various configurations of apple crates that were touched and scraped with various objects while being amplified. The original dates from about 2006. This performance by Seth Cluett and Oliveros took place in 2008.

12:45

20:30

4. Steve Reich, “Melodica” (1966). Tape piece and the last of Reich’s works before moving onto instrumental composition in his minimalist style.

10:42

33:16

5. Morton Subotnick, “Laminations” (1966). For orchestra and electronic sounds, on tape. By this point, Subotnick was working with an early model of a synthesizer built for the San Francisco Tape Music Center by Donald Buchla. This synthesizer material was also used for the opening of Silver Apples of the Moon the following year.

10:29

44:08

6. Morton Subotnick, “Prelude No.4 for piano and electronic tape (1966). Another Subotnick work for instruments and tape with synthesized electronic sounds.

06:58

54:36

7. Pauline Oliveros, “Alien Bog” (1967). Utilizing the original Buchla Box 100 series created for the Tape Music Center by Don Buchla and a tape delay system.

33:17

01:01:30

8. Morton Subotnick, “Silver Apples of the Moon” (1967). Subotnick, recently departed from San Francisco and taking up shop at New York University, brought synthesizers constructed for him by Don Buchla when he was at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. This electronic composition represented a high point for the use of synthesizers at that time and was recorded on commission from Nonesuch Records.

32:01

01:35:00

Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes.

My Books/eBooks: Electronic and Experimental Music, sixth edition, Routledge 2020. Also, Sound Art: Concepts and Practices, first edition, Routledge 2022.

See my companion blog that I write for the Bob Moog Foundation.

For a transcript, please see my blog, Noise and Notations.

Original music by Thom Holmes can be found on iTunes and Bandcamp.