There are pioneers and artists — and then there are people whose impact is great enough that they become inseparable with the history of a medium. Bebe Barron, along with husband Louis Barron, was far enough ahead of her time that her ideas remain futuristic today. The Barrons didn’t just produce the first full-length electronic film score with Forbidden Planet; they created an ambient sonic world between music and special effects, and tied it to cybernetic theories. That score stands in contrast to films still dominated by Alfred Newman-style, post-Wagnerian theatrics. Today, artists are only just re-discovering the possibilities of electronic sound without the use of synths and samplers, built from scratch as the Barrons did.

Bebe Barron’s work went well beyond Forbidden Planet, however. She went on to produce music for film, tape, and technology well into her later life. She was an early leader of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, and continued — with her husband, and as a solo composer following his death — to lead the way in finding new compositional purposes for electronic sound. (And apparently even seduction through witchcraft! Viva electronics!)

We’ve seen a lot of obituaries in the three and a half years of this site; there’s no question that a generation of composers is passing into history. Bebe died of natural causes at age 82. I was struck by a quote from Barry Schrader, who called her "the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music." That may be, but listening to Bebe’s sounds and ideas, I wonder what the next generations might still be capable of pioneering, and who will take up the radical element from 1950s and 60s sound and bring it into the coming decades.

The best insight I’ve heard into the Barron’s work comes from a 2005 interview with Bebe on NPR’s Morning Edition:

The Barrons: Forgotten Pioneers of Electronic Music

Matrixsynth has an enormous obituary with lots of background information — a must-read:

RIP Bebe Barron

And here’s Bebe’s last interview, from the beginning of this year, speaking about Anais Nin. That’s poignant to me — my great aunt and uncle were part of the New York circle that ran with Anais Nin and crowd. It’s a reminder to value your crazy and radical creative friends, to keep supporting what they’re doing to enjoy the short time we all have to make art.

Anais Nin has the best quote — she described the Barrons’ music as sounding like "a molecule that has stubbed its toes."

VideoHelper, a sound production house, has a new library of sounds they call “narrative sound design,” a combination of “experimental” sound designs. You may have already heard some of the sounds from the two-disc collection, “Modules”, as the sounds have popped up in trailers for the likes of Spiderman 3, House of Wax, and Transformers. Since we love strange sound design techniques, though, I was just as interested in the techniques used to record the library, so I asked the boys of VideoHelper to share some of their favorite recording techniques. Sure enough, they’ve got some great examples — ones that might inspire you to go grab your mobile recorder and see what damage you can do.

Chris from VideoHelper searched his memory and mentioned these techniques, some of which even have subliminal political messages (hey, sound is powerful stuff). Some techniques you’ll no doubt know well (BANG THING! BANG THING RECORD WITH MIC! being one of my personal favorites to use), while others may be new. Chris writes that his favorite tips are:

1. Hitting and smashing everything. Mailboxes, dumpsters, whatever.
2. Homemade contact mics. $2 worth of parts from Radio Shack and some duct tape. They are piezo mics that can be wired to a 1/4” output and taped to an object.
3. Dry ice. We’ve bought dry ice and recorded the contact between it and metal cymbals and whatever else is laying around. Makes a squealing sound not unlike fresh sausage hitting a hot skillet.
4. Recording silence in acoustic spaces. I do this a lot…I’ll record in a big acoustic space (like a subway corridor) and use the files for ambient recordings/sound design. It’s cool b/c it’s not really silence, just nothing in the foreground…also I record at 96K so I get some really subtle sub-harmonic material.
5. Leave beats on my answering machine and re-record for a breakdown.
6. If I’m recording a trip-hop track around 100 bpm, I may record 3 half-steps slower, so I can re-pitch up to original tempo.
7. For my POLITIK score (SH02) I got to plunder our vaults of news music for sampling. The score is a political trip-hop score using some orchestral sounds, concrete elements, fair use bites etc. I used Bush’s 2000 ring modulated acceptance speech as an impulse/input (ala Paul Panhuysen) to a prefaded verb for the ambient element of the piece BIRTH OF A NOTION. I inter-cut Hilter speeches with the cheering from the 2004 RNC. Grabbed audio from protesters in Miami (anti FTAA) and cut up into rhythmic bits…did turntable cuts on police siren “records”. The last piece depicting 9/11 has design made of box-box recordings (CVR) which was difficult to listen to. ENERGY CRISIS has all sound to do with gasoline and auto maintenance. The piece AFGHANI HEROIN has concrete elements from the the floor of the NYSE, as well as Hamid Karzai’s acceptance speech.
8. Maybe my favorite: I have 1/4” blank audio tape that I buried in a graveyard in Sleepy Hollow over Halloween of 2003. The tape was washed and re-spooled and now I use it to lay off tracks to…also I recorded it back (blank) to a file so you can hear all the dents and pits and whatever other hallucinations you can find on it.
9. Oh and one more thing talking of acoustic spaces…Flavio and I got the opportunity to record in an empty water tower in my hometown of Hampton Bays (my father-in-law works for the water authority)…the tower was being filled that week but we got to crawl around in it while empty…

VideoHelper has full details on the Modules series, with searchable sounds and previews, at their website. The library includes “modular” cuts that can be edited into full designs, with individual and annual blanket licenses.

VideoHelper Music Production Library

Estesvan Carlos Benson sends along this film score he created for Godard’s Vivre sa Vie. Keep watching — he’s got a fantastic sense of picking up the rhythm of the actress. He explains:

It was basically produced with a Korg N364 and Sonar, back in 2004. Conceptually I just felt drawn to this scene. The original music created a stark irony (it was swing jazz I think). Additionally, and for whatever reasons, Anna Karina wasn’t quite dancing to the original rhythm. I was aiming for a tone that dealt with the larger aspect of the movie and her character, within the scene and outside of it.

Note to self: if I ever become one of the greatest directors of all time, be sure to get someone like Anna Karina in my movies.

Project details and lots more at his site:
estevancarlos.com

Estevan Carlos will hopefully be contributing some items to CDM in the future, so welcome him onboard!

It’s impossible to continue just to make music and ignore the serious threats to our security and the safety of passenger aviation. Tightened security has focused primarily on threats from the past, and reactive measures that can only prevent existing, known dangers. You know where I’m going with this: we need to evaluate screening methods and other security provisions to respond to the significant issue of snakes on a plane. I just can’t believe no one is doing anything about these motherf****** snakes.

Cult-hit-before-it-was-even-released movie Snakes on a Plane has none other than Trevor Rabin composing the musical score, as if I needed an excuse to bring up Snakes on CDM. Rabin has had an incredible history as a musician. Born to noted classically-trained parents, he went on to co-found the wildly successful Rabbitt, recorded a significant anti-Apartheid anthem, played with Yes, and wrote their #1 hit Owner Of A Lonely Heart. He even worked with Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Rick Wakeman. Now, like some other former rockers (Stewart Copeland comes to mind), Rabin has become a successful film composer, with a distinct action-movie tilt. (Armageddon, Bad Boys II, Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds — no chick flicks in there, really.) Pictured: both “Rocker Trevor” and (from SoundtrackNet’s great story on Snakes) “Composer Trevor.”

And Rabin is a Mac guy. His studio Jacaranda Studios is powered by Power Mac G5s and, evidently, too much cool gear to list. Various reports suggest he uses both MOTU Digital Performer (like Copeland) and Pro Tools (probably because the studio guys require it). It’s funny, even though audio often gets bounced to Pro Tools for compatibility, film composers really largely prefer Digital Performer to anything else out there, and it certainly includes the most film scoring functionality. If you want to get inside his studio:

Home Recording visits Trevor Rabin

Trevor Rabin Scores Snakes on a Plane [SoundtrackNet]

Don’t try to get in touch with me at 10 pm tonight, incidentally, because I will be at the first show. (Check out the official site for a fun Flash feature that lets you record custom Samuel L. Jackson messages for your friends.) And will I be disappointed when the movie is awful? Absolutely not. I’m betting on it.

Watch a behind the scenes video of film/TV composer, producer, and electronic musician James L Venable as he’s working on the final touches to the score for “Clerks 2″, in theaters now:

“Music Lessons” with James Venable, via Train Wreck: Video Chronicle of Clerks II Production

Venable is best known for the D&B inspired theme for “Powerpuff Girls”, as well as various Kevin Smith/View Askew scores starting with “Clerks: The Series”.

Pretty phat pad, check out special apperances by the JP-8080, Pod XT, [Logic Pro], and racks upon racks of gear.

Not to mention Scott “Snowball” Moser rockin’ the kalimba (thumb piano).

Check out this studio:

Ed: Brilliant composer, dream gig, dream studio, gear p-rn — what could make us happier? Adrian thought the software was Cubase SX, but it’s definitely Logic Pro 7. (I have to get that right; it’s my primary DAW aside from Ableton Live.) Logic looks like it’s primarily being used just to track external MIDI gear, from what I can see, and Venable appears to be checking scored ideas against both a paper manuscript and (in some instances) the notation view in Logic.

Any more gear spotting? (You know you want to.) -PK

Rivalries are good: they keep software developers competitive, leapfrogging each other in features. They keep the pressure on, and having seen what happens when one company gets a monopoly (Microsoft Office, I’m looking at you), progress generally slows. Notation users have benefited from the Finale/Sibelius rivalry, and that competition continues to produce better and better notation software. Finale 2007 looks like it will continue that trend.

Now, I’ve gotten in trouble before when I’ve said Finale was blatantly copying its music notation rival Sibelius. But I don’t think anyone can argue with me this time. The major features in Sibelius 4: parts linked to full score, and integrated video support and film scoring features. The major features in Finale 2007, based on a marketing email I just got from Finale:

1. Parts linked to full score
2. Integrated video support and film scoring features
3. Intel Mac native support

Sounds familiar, huh? Now, honestly, these were really features that both packages would inevitably add, so I’m glad to see Finale continuing to level the playing field.

Architecture mixed with electronics mixed with animation — we think nothing of mixing these elements now. In 1958, as Poème Electronique was unleashed on the Brussels World’s Fair, it was still experimental. The animation/installation/composition was the collaborative creation of legendary modernist architect Le Corbusier, his assistant Iannis Xenakis, who would later come to be known as a ground-breaking experimental composer, and composer Edgard Varèse. Varèse is certainly one of us: part of the reason he went into a compositional drought for many years was he was frustrated by the limitations of acoustic sound, and longed for the electronic labs we have today.

The results are, well, totally bizarre, even now. (Or, perhaps, especially now.) There’s a certain freshness, though, to the oddness of the work. I wonder what the ultimate Poème of the 21st Century could look like. I don’t think I’ve seen it yet.

Via Rhizome, via Screenhead — thanks to Marisa Olson, as I’ve been hoping this would crop up online for a long time!

More info on the work, with links, at the Electronic Music Foundation.

Updated: The old YouTube link wasn’t working; here’s a new one. If that doesn’t work, try a YouTube search for Poeme Electronique.

British sci-fi drama Code 46
has hit video shelves, and if you missed it on its first go-around,
you'll want to pick it up if only for the score by DJ and composer David Holmes
(aka Free Association, with Steve Hilton). With chilly but beautiful
guitar textures droning over the supressed agony of the film's main
characters, Free Association's music is the one thread that weaves
together a daring, if not entirely successful, picture of a dystopic
near future. (But wait, it's a good date movie, too!)