From: Mike Metlay <metlay@atomiccity.com>
Michael Ridderbusch:
Regarding new timbres.
 
No one is tired of the oboe, violin, piano, etc.  So why can't taste in 
electronic timbre be similarly classic and chaste? 
 
I think there's too much knob-fiddling to clothe weak musical ideas in new 
timbres.  Either be a mechanic or drive a car.  Either be an electronic 
instrument technician or a composer. 
 
Real power is writing a musical line that can be played by, say, a soloist 
with piano accompaniment, or the piano alone.  How about the voice alone? 
On one of the many retrospective collections of music by IMO the most overlooked electronic musician of his era, Gary Numan, is an unassuming track wedged in between a bunch of dance mixes: it's an arrangement of Gary's 1979 hit "Down In The Park" for solo piano. No vocals, no Syndrums, no ARPs, no sequencers, no guitar riffs, nothing. And the transformation is extraordinary: the melody, harmony, and arrangement lift themselves out of the timbres and acquire a life of their own, seemingly without effort. A wonderful experience!

Michael's (by his own admission deliberately polemical) stance is echoed, I think, in my current wishes and needs. Brian Eno, in one of those ubiquitous and beginning-to-be-annoyingly-overquoted Oblique Strategies cards of his, says 'not building a wall but making a brick', a revelation that could only be stunning to a musician who doesn't work with synthesizers. With synths, it's all about making bricks. And you know what?

I'm tired of making bricks.
I've been making bricks for 19 years now, in all shapes and sizes and textures. Since I've started making bricks, I've started and ended a scientific career, worked on a dozen albums by myself and others, started a record company, gotten married, begun work in the music industry, had a child, and begun building my very own studio in my very own house for the first time, and all this time I've been making bricks. I have a big freaking pile of bricks, on floppy discs, stored in RAM and on tape and everywhere, I have notes on making bricks, I have catalogs of other peoples' bricks that I never read, I have bricks, bricks, and more bricks, I have mixers and kilns for making and drying the bricks and I have a whole set of bricklaying tools covered in dust and with the handles rotting away or broken because they're under a big-ass pile of bricks.

Screw it. I want to build a wall or a tower or a dam or a bridge or something and not have to worry about stopping after every layer to make more goddamn bricks. Find that goddamned card in that goddamned deck and pull it out and TEAR IT UP. It is no longer relevant. Write a new one that says, 'not making a brick but building a wall', and put that one in there, preferably more than once.

Walls. Structures. Things of beauty. If you want a pile of bricks, look at photos of Dresden after the Allies got done with it, or go to your local contractor's.

Bricks. BAH!


From: Nick Rothwell <nick@CASSIEL.COM>

I've been trying to formulate a reply to this for the last 24 hours. I'll report back as soon as I have something coherent, but in the meantime, for your edification:

Roland MC-303:
Lego brick.
Waldorf Microwave:
Brick in metric proportions, 3.5cm too wide to fit anywhere, 0.9cm too low to prop anything up, but with a metallic polished surface. i
Buchla Thunder:
Spherical brick.

From: Joe Frost <Joe_Frost@mh.blyth.com>
Roland TB-303:
Very old design of brick, with limited uses, and a mediocre exterior finish. Seems to have gone the way of old barns in respect of the number of people looking for them and how much they are prepared to pay.
Theremin:
Magic brick that lays itself.

From: Mike Metlay <metlay@atomiccity.com>
Korg Prophecy:
Very, very small brick, best suited for fixing trim.
Oberheim Xpander:
Six premortared bricks that can be arranged in any suitable configuration and colored to fit most walls....but you can't afford more than six at a time. (Well, twelve.)
Sampler:
High-tech morphing brick. Can look like anything, but sharp edges can tend to damage other parts of the structure.
Modular:
Two-ton pile of red rock and 8000 liters of water, with molds and firing kiln. For the very patient.
Roland D-70:
Large marshmallow painted to look like a brick. Mortars in place nicely, but goes SQUISH the minute it's expected to support anything.