Re: [microsound] Tudor

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 9:45 AM -0800 2/18/04, Kim Cascone wrote:
>  > However, in my kno=
>>  wledge of Tudor he never took a mixing board and turned it into an instrume=
>>  nt of its own (i.e. he never used a no-input mixing board, and thus could n=
>>  ot be the founder of this technique).
>David Tudor built all of his electronic devices into small modular boxes -
>some of which were designed to mix signals (hence a 'mixer')...so it is very
>likely that Tudor was one of the originators of this technique since much of
>his work dealt with feedback systems (precursor to his neural nets)...

If there's a true "originator" it would be Louis Barron. He was 
building audio circuits with feedback as  early as 1948. His work was 
inspired by Norbert Wiener's book "Cybernetics" and the circuits were 
treated as autonomous cybernetic entities with behaviors and life 
cycles of their own.

Ironically, Louis and his composing partner (and wife) Bebe Barron 
spent one year working with David Tudor in the early 1950s, during 
which time they frequently put for the proposition to "let the 
circuits  express themselves rather than force the circuits to go 
along with your ideas." Bebe recalls, "Neither John nor David was 
particularly interested in that aspect. It's funny because Louis and 
I were the ones who would absolutely talk about this endlessly to 
people and nobody cared, nobody was interested, and now suddenly you 
know there's all this talk about David Tudor and Gordon Mumma."
-- 

______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com