Wendy Carlos

[Music] Welcome to the first episode of Synth History, a podcast on synthesizers, drum machines, and the musicians that use them. I'm your host, Danz, and today we're going to be talking about legendary composer and pioneer in electronic music, Wendy Carlos. You might already know Wendy Carlos and her story. You're listening to a podcast called Synth History, after all. Wendy was renowned for her first class renditions of classical music, reinterpreted on the synthesizer, at a time when synthesizers were relatively new to the world. With her 1968 album "Switched on Bach", she introduced the world to what synthesizers were capable of. Before it, synths were mainly used in experimental music, but we'll get to that. She scored the soundtrack to a few familiar movies, Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining", "Disney's Tron". Wendy was also one of the first openly trans musicians to come out, at a time when coming out as trans was relatively new to the world as well. So whether you're familiar with Wendy or a newcomer to the history of this legendary pioneer, may I be the first to welcome you to Synth History Episode 1, "Wendy Carlos". Chapter 1. The Music World Changes Forever Roughly 50 years ago, in 1968, the music world would change. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkund recorded "Switched on Bach" in New York City on the west side of Manhattan. Recorded in a basement, they used a custom-built eight-track. The record featured 10 pieces of music by German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, performed entirely by Wendy on the recently invented mocksith. The record would garner critical acclaim. Not just that, it would in fact blow. "People's!" "Look out!" "Minds!" "Look out!" "Oh my, would you look at that?" The groundbreaking record, whose artwork contained a man dressed as Bach sitting next to a mocksynth, would sell over 1 million copies worldwide and win several Grammy Awards, including Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance Soloist, and Best Engineered Classical Recording. The list of legends influenced by "Switched on Bach" is long. A father of disco, Georgiomoroder, cites the album as one of his earliest and deepest influences. Georgiomoroder would go on to produce disco hits for Donna Summer, score Scarface, the never-ending story, and more using a synthesizer. Other musicians that cite Wendy as an influence include space music pioneer Tomita, synth wizards Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, even Dave Smith, founder of the synthesizer company Sequential, and inventor of MIDI was influenced by Wendy. MIDI, of course, is a technical communication standard that connects musical instruments together, away from them to kind of talk to each other and send information. Most musicians rely on this technology today. Dave's famous synthesizer, the Prophet 5, would be used by Phil Collins, John Carpenter, and Madonna. So you can think about it in terms of a butterfly effect. Dave's first exposure to synthesizers was "Switched on Bach." Who knows just how much history in terms of music, Wendy has either directly or indirectly impacted with that record. Now, let's get to why it was so groundbreaking. Up until "Switched on Bach's" release, synthesizers were mostly used in experimental music, or were simply obscured in the background. When Robert Mogue released the synth in 1965, musicians were kind of warming up to it. They were wary to say the least. The Beach Boys dabbled a bit. They famously used an electro-theramin on pet sounds, making dullens of the monkeys, while one of the very first Mogue synths. And the door of Strange Days also featured a Mogue. The Mogue was there, but it was way in the background. The concept of recording a whole record, solely with a synthesizer, seemed pretty far-fetched to almost everybody. The idea of electronic music was still a baby. And the Mogue was heavy. It certainly wasn't very portable. Oh, I can't fit that thing in here. I have them in most music studios. The sounds were otherworldly, and for most musicians it was pretty difficult to use. Even John Lennon said, "No, I can't fit that thing in here." When switched on back came out, the world finally heard what synthesizers could do, in the most classy way possible. Wendy Carlos brought synthesizers to the spotlight. Alright, I'll take one. Chapter 2 Growing up Wendy Carlos was born on November 14, 1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Born to working class parents, she had a brother, 22 months younger than she, and two older siblings who unfortunately passed just weeks after her mother gave child birth. At school, Wendy was an impressive child. She loved numbers, arithmetic, the sciences and art. She built a computer, which she won a Westinghouse science fair scholarship with. She even fancied becoming an astronomer at one point. We choose to go to the moon and just decay and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Wendy describes herself as, "I guess I was somewhat one of those, you know, smart, ethnirty little kids who could catch on to something quickly." Gender dysphoria was something that Wendy struggled with at a very early age. Wendy was born as a male, Walter Carlos. In her coming out article with Playboy in 1979, Wendy recalls one of her first memories of 5 or 6 was not knowing there was a real difference between boys and girls, and she couldn't understand why her parents didn't see it clearly, why her parents insisted on treating her like a little boy. And because she wanted her parents to love her, she began hiding her feelings at a very early age. Her childhood was difficult because she was different. Kids with throstones and punches, high school wasn't much better. But Wendy, the prodigy, had arts, music, and sciences on her side. [Music] When the time for college came around, Wendy decided to study physics at Brown University in Rhode Island. In high school, she was a straight-a student, but in college, as she puts it in her own words, she just couldn't cut the mustard. She'd been ill-prepared and the mathematical side of it got to her. She went from sitting comfortably at the top of her class to falling around. right to the very bottom. One of Wendy's professors would come up with an interesting idea to combine science and music together. I don't see any reason why you have to make the decision of being only in sciences or only in music. Why can you combine the two of them and do something that embraces both the scientific side that you're interested in? A coup sex and all of these things with the more artistic creative impulses that you feel. Brown University ended up developing something for Wendy through their special projects program to essentially pursue a hybrid major in music and physics, rising from the bottom to ending up on the dean's list. Chapter 3 New York City. Lots of important things are about to occur in Wendy's life. She moved to the Big Apple in 1962 to pursue her master's in music composition at Columbia University. She studied with Otto Luning and Vladimir Usichevsky. Otto and Vladimir both co-founded the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center, where Wendy studied. They were early pioneers of tape music and electronic music. A really important thing is about to happen. Wendy met engineer and inventor Robert Moog. Robert Moog. Wendy was attending her first audio engineering society conference. This conference for audio professionals still goes on today. Robert Moog had set up an exhibit that year. The story of how they met is kind of funny. She accidentally woke him up as he was napping on a banquet on the mezzanine of the Barbizon Plaza hotel. They became very good friends. It was a natural and almost perfect fit. Robert was a creative engineer who spoke music, and Wendy was a musician who spoke science. To Wendy, it felt like he were her older brother. She'd give him advice and technical assistance in his newly developing moog synth. She even recorded a nine-minute single-sided mono-LP as part of an introduction to the technical aspects of the moog. For people to learn how to better understand the new machine, part of her compensation for making the record was in moog equipment. And by the time 1966 rolled around, she had her very own moog synth. The first modest design was even hand-delivered by Robert Moog himself. He brought it up to her tiny walk-up studio apartment on West End Avenue near 79th Street in Manhattan. They carried it up together straight from the station wagon. Her professors encouraged her to get a job at Gotham Recording Studios. There, she would make jingles for commercials and provide sound effects with her moog. Around this time, she met another longtime friend, collaborator Rachel Elkund. The two would become very close. Rachel was working as a secretary for Gdard Liebersen, the then president of Columbia Records. At the time, Columbia was starting a campaign called Back to Bach. Basically, for this campaign, they needed contemporary recordings of Bach for their musical library. A way to make Bach hip again. Rachel and Wendy thought this would be a great way to showcase the synthesizer. They got a deal with Columbia Records and with the $2,500 dance, Columbia granted Wendy Carles and Rachel Elkund their artistic freedom to produce and release a Bach-inspired album. No one knew it would become such a commercial and critical success. No one knew how swept up the world would become by the synthesizer. Wendy ended up moving out of her small West-Stand Avenue apartment and in Rachel's apartment, where an entire floor would be dedicated music studio. Chapter 4. Internal Struggle Great things were indeed happening in Wendy's life, but still, Wendy faced an internal struggle. She began hating her body, becoming more and more masculine as an adult. She couldn't even look into a mirror. The idea of suicide even crossed Wendy's mind, and she had to do something about it. She decided to jot down a list of what she needed to do to survive. At the top of the list was finding a doctor someplace to aid in the process of affirming her gender. She read a book entitled "The Transsexual Phenomenon" by Harry Benjamin and it helped her. Reading the book made her realize there were others out there like her. And in the fall of 1967, she called the Harry Benjamin Foundation. Years later, in her coming out article with Playboy, she speaks of her experience. It would be a long process of hormone pills, consultations, and confusion. After all, a chemical battle was going on. At one point, throughout the process, she thought she had been given tranquilizers, only to learn later that they were in fact estrogen pills. And for the first time in her life, Wendy felt peaceful. She began living permanently as a woman in May of 1969, awaiting a gender reassignment surgery that would come three and a half years later in 1972. She would become one of the first public figures to speak openly about it. If she did make an appearance as a male, it was only for the sake of her business. Rachel would do a great job at covering for Wendy, so she didn't have to make any uncomfortable public appearances. When the phone rang for Wendy, who in the professional world was still known as Walter, Rachel would say, "He's in Providence, is in in his family." Or "He's on tour." In 1969, Wendy was asked to perform with the St. Louis Symphony. At this point, she was wearing women's clothes and insisted to Rachel that she would not fly to St. Louis, dress as a man. So, indeed, flew down to St. Louis on the plane and women's clothes, checked into the hotel as a woman, walked up to her room as a woman, and began the transformation into Walter. They paced it on sideburns, stuffed long hair under a man's wig, even ran an eyebrow pencil over the chin to simulate a five o'clock shadow. When Wendy emerged from the hotel room as Walter, the hotel concierge was confused and thought Walter's sister had checked in earlier. Wendy didn't identify as Walter and disliked having to perform as him. She disliked the four secrecy, but in a cruel world, not accepting of people who were different. What was she supposed to do? Chapter 5. More music. Wendy released her second studio album, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, in November of 69. Nominated for two Grammy Awards, the album consisted of classical music, performed on none other than the Mogue Synthesizer. The album contained music from Johann Sebastian Bach, Claudio Monteverre, Dominico Scarlotti, and George Friedrich Handel. The album's title is a plan words, from Bach's set of preludes and fugues named The Well-Tempered Clevver. [Music] The following year, Wendy recorded Sonic Seasonings, marking her departure from classical pieces. Sonic Seasonings featured four ambient tracks. Each of the tracks loosely based on one of the four seasons. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. She combined various field recordings with sounds from the mockson. And actually, Sonic Seasonings predated environmental ambient forms of new age music by over a decade. Wendy, a perfectionist, would soon meet another perfectionist. Chapter 6 Stanley Kubrick The first movie Wendy scored was Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." Based on the Anthony Burgess novel of the same name, a clockwork orange takes place in a near future dystopia. Wendy became enamored with the novel's imaginings of an ultra-violent future. Once Wendy and Rachel learned about Kubrick's adaptation, they immediately sent examples of their work. Kubrick was excited by what he heard, and he invited Wendy and Rachel to work on his film. Wendy rearranged many pieces of classical music that Stanley Kubrick had already gained permission to use, including the Thieving Magpie, William Tell Overtrue by Racini, and other works by Beethoven. In the film's opening, otherworldly sounds followed by synthesized, timpani hits, transition into Wendy Carlos' mo-grendering of Henry Vercels' music for the funeral of Queen Mary. Right now, you're listening to some Wendy Carlos inspired covers of these songs, using MIDI and software synths. Wendy also implemented the use of the vocoder on a march from a clockwork orange, based on the choral movement of the night symphony by Beethoven. In her usual style, this was a pioneer move, as vocoders had yet to be used extensively. [Music] Three months after the official soundtracks release, Wendy Carlos released a second version of the soundtrack, containing unused cues and musical elements unheard in the film. Walter Carlos' "A Clockwork Orange" would be re-released 30 years later, the new title, Wendy Carlos' "A Clockwork Orange." Stanley Kubrick and Wendy Carlos would work with each other again, with the shining. A psychological horror film, it was based on a novel of the same name by Stephen King. After seeing the first 10 to 15 reels of the film, Rachel and Wendy talked with Stanley Kubrick about his philosophy and what he envisioned musically for it. Over the course of a few months, they recorded about four and a half hours of music, mostly synthesizer, according to cues notated extensively throughout the film. But the music didn't quite grab Stanley Kubrick. Their taste had shifted slightly since they had scored a clockwork orange. Wendy and Rachel were doing more theatrical, richly textured things, and Kubrick's fix on why he had called them in the first place became disturbed. He asked Wendy if she knew any theme that might be "ideal for the movie." She suggested "D.S.R.I.T. to him, Latin for "Day of Wrath," a Gregorian chant from the Middle Ages. "D.S.R.I.T. to him, Latin for the movie." She suggested French romantic composer, "Ariolio's Treatment of D.S.R.I.T. specifically, symphony fantastic." Other composers may sympathize with the story. Sometimes directors become fixated with the temp music in their film. Kubrick was no exception. He wanted Wendy to do something with an orchestra in the same vein as Barrios. So Wendy and Rachel hired 36 musicians on a very modest budget and recorded an orchestra in London. Mainly using instruments and textures in the bass region, they added synthesizer at the very last step. All of it, based on D.S.R.I. But even still, Kubrick could not hear anything other than Barrios' version. Wendy and Rachel re-recorded again, and after seven hours of recordings, only two cues ended up being used in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." [Music] When work on the "Shining" was complete, Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind parted ways. Rachel moved to France with her husband in 1980, and Wendy remained in New York City, sharing a converted loft and grinch village with her new business partner Anne Marie Franklin. Chapter 7, Tron In the hot months of the summer, in June of 1981, Wendy received a call from Michael Framer. He was in control of the production of Disney's upcoming sci-fi adventure film, Tron. Michael was committed to producing a soundtrack whose artistic and technical quality would be second to none. And so of course, Wendy Carlos came to mind. He was a big fan of hers. Tron of course, would go on to become a groundbreaking film for computer-generated imagery. Written and directed by Stephen Lisberger, the movie was originally inspired by the early Atari video game, Pong. When Wendy asked to see a copy of the script, she recalls, "The concept of the film and story itself intrigued me. It looked like a beautiful film from a graphics point of view. I was a little disappointed in the script itself, which seemed written in a somewhat soft-mooric, comic booker style, but one can overlook these things if the other aspects of the film make it attractive. I had to decide if this was something that I would devote the better part of a year to. As I thought about it, it became clear to me that the part of the score for the computer world should be as full of color as possible. I wanted to use a combination of symphony orchestra and synthesizer for the computer world, and just a string orchestra for the real world. I felt that the symphony orchestra and combination with synthesizer could be a strong factor in the film. [Music] Wendy cites her work on Disney's Tron as the most difficult and tightly packed amount of work in her life. The score was a gigantic undertaking in a very short period of time. A team consisting of Wendy, Michael, Ann Marie Franklin, who coordinated the project, arranger and orchestrator Georgie Callendrelli, and music editor Jeffrey Gusman worked day and night to meet the deadline of the movie. She describes it as grind. Followed by grind. Followed by grind. Followed by more grind. It was difficult. The team worked all the way up until 11 p.m. the night before the London Philharmonic was booked by Disney to record orchestral parts. Coral parts were recorded by the UCLA, Corus and LA, and Wendy recorded synthesizer in her home studio in New York City. She used a mix of analog mugsynth and crew mars GDS digital synthesizer. When Tron came out, Wendy was not happy with the use of the orchestra, which Disney initially insisted upon. Wendy's music for Tron, with its variable time signatures, was too difficult to perform, and the time the orchestra was allotted. She would end up replacing portions of the performance, with her GDS synth. In the next chapter, eight, solidifying her status as a legend. Between the movie scores, Wendy released switched on box. 2. In 1973, the sequel to Switched on Bach. She released a record entitled "By Request" in 1975 and "Switched on Brandon Bergs" in 1980. A double album consisting of all six of Bach's Brandon Berg concertos. It was the fourth record in Wendy's project of classical music. The Brandon Berg concertos are widely regarded as some of the best orchestra compositions of the Baroque era. In addition to the music, there's something else a little special about this record. It was the first album she released under Wendy Carlos. In 1984, Wendy composed digital moonscapes. She was yet again a pioneer. Comprised of two suites for digitally synthesized orchestra, it was inspired by astronomical subjects. Digital moonscapes incorporated an entirely digitally simulated symphony orchestra. Using digital synths GDS, the same one she had used in Tron, Wendy built a library of voices replicating as closely as possible the features of acoustic instruments to replicate in orchestra. Fine tuned by ear, there were no digital sampling techniques and no microphones used at any stage. The world's first digitally synthesized orchestra. Wendy's record Beauty and the Beast was released in 1986 on Audion Records. The album uses alternate musical tunings and scales influenced by jazz and world's music. Wendy even dove into the comedy world. She made a parody record with weird alianca Vic. Together, they made a gentle satire on Peter and the Wolf. The project was a chance for Wendy to, how she puts it. Weird al adapted and narrated the story while Wendy rearranged the music with a midi orchestra. Her first venture using the digital interface. Weird al says, "A quantum leap in the evolution of mankind." And it also makes a swell Christmas gift. I knew it would be a great thrill for me to work with Wendy Carlos. Having enjoyed her work since I was in embryo. To mark the 25th anniversary of Switched On Bach, Wendy re-recorded the album with her set of new digital instruments and recording techniques. Released in 1992, it took roughly one and a half years to produce and around 3,000 hours. In 98, Wendy released Tales of Heaven and Hell. It featured the epic 18-minute-long clockwork black, a sequel to her work in Clockwork Orange. Chapter 9. In Conclusion. As of 2020, Wendy's catalog is somewhat difficult to come across on streaming services. Reading through the information via her website, it seems that the distribution company she had been using, East Side Digital, suddenly just discontinued its albums and operations without warning. Her site reads that she's currently working on a new distribution agreement. Time to start looking for some vinyls, I guess. If you check out Wendy's official site, you'll find that in addition to composing, her interests are plenty, ranging from painting, map making, and photography. You might be surprised to know that she is also an accomplished solar eclipse photographer. Her work even published by NASA. Perhaps it's not surprising, though, considering Wendy's childhood interests. There are some words I keep thinking of by Vincent Van Gogh. Words that Wendy included on the artwork for her record Beauty and the Beast. They read, "I'm always doing what I cannot do yet in order to learn how to do it." Her influence is immeasurable. Her story is remarkable. Wendy Carlos is, without a doubt, one of the world's most important living composers. A true pioneer, in more ways than one. [Music] [Music] All right, that wraps up the first episode of Synth History. I hope you enjoyed it. I just want to take a second to thank all the folks who donated to the GoFundMe. I had going on for this a while back. It seems so long ago now. After COVID-19 hit, things just got a lit to look crazy. This episode was written, recorded, produced, engineered and edited by yours truly in the heart of New York City. The music featured in this podcast is original covers or under the public domain, like the Gregorian chant DSRI. A transcript of this episode with references will be available on SynthHistory.com, where you'll also find links to recent interviews I've done with Gary Newman, Pete Townsend, Rick Wakeman, Suzanne Chiani, Vince Clark, One O'Tricks Point, Never and More. Also on the site, you'll find a link to the Synth History Spatify Playlists. Synth History Volume 1 and Synth History Volume 2 are currently up. So be sure to check those out. If you'd like to support Synth History or become a sponsor, you can email [email protected]. Synth History's handle on Instagram and Twitter is @Synth_History. On Facebook, there's no underscore. It's just Synth History. The original music in the podcast will be available at some point. Lastly, I want to give a shout out to my voice actors who were nice enough to comply when I sent them random stuff to a recorded and a voice memo on their phone. So that is Bailey Cook. Hi! Cody Crump. Hello. Oh my would you look at that. And Matthew James Riley. Howdy. This is John Lemon Take Wasp. This is the professor take this is mispronunciation of the words that size are in three different ways. Synthesizer at Pfizer. Before I go, I just want to say it's really been an honor researching somebody I have so much respect and admiration for. Anyway, thank you very much. My name is Dan's and that's Synth History. [Music]