"I DREAM OF WIRES"

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RAYMAN1970
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"I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by RAYMAN1970 »

I recently watched a documentary on Netfix called "I Dream of Wires" which chronicles the inception, birth and history of the synthesizer and electronic music.
What a TRAVESTY!
Absolutely ZERO mention of "the greats" such as TANGERINE DREAM, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, VANGELIS, KRAFTWERK.....NONE OF THEM!
Instead we get interviews and opinions of bandmembers from the likes of Erasure, Nine-Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and others. I am not in any way taking away from the ability and artistry of these artists, but they were not PIONEERS of synthesizer and/or electronic music. They merely stood on the shoulders of giants and took then next step.
How can you document the birth and history of electronic music and leave out artists like Edgar, JMJ, etc.? That's like making a documentary about the birth and history of the electric guitar and not giving Fender a single mention.
Very disappointing. I cannot recommend this documentary.
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Jon
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Jon »

Yes, indeed strange. I guess someone should tell the filmmakers this...
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projekt-elektronik
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by projekt-elektronik »

This documentary is primarily aimed at people who use modular synthesizers today, and it is to showcase how diverse musical styles are which modular synthesizers are used within today.

It is not suposed to be a historically concise documentary, it's basically filmmakers and users patting themselves on the back for being so clever users of modular oddities and being part of a "scene" of nerds -- the weirder, the better. It's impressive to see huge walls of synthesizers worth a fortune, sounding like R2-D2 on steroids. Main focus is the Eurorack community, the DIY community, the West Coast vs. East Coast community (i. e. Buchla/Serge vs. Moog/ARP) and the various Boutique manufacturers of 5U modulars.

I was at first tempted to order a copy but I have a go at playing a modular synthesiser myself rather than watching someone else playing it. It's a bit like watching a p-o-r-n flick, you know...

Bleep-bloop.
"Den Brüdern trau ich nicht. Den Brüdern trau ich nicht! Kommt alles vom Tonband." (Edgar Froese -- Signale aus der Schwäbischen Straße)
Network23
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Network23 »

RAYMAN1970 wrote: Absolutely ZERO mention of "the greats" such as TANGERINE DREAM, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, VANGELIS, KRAFTWERK.....NONE OF THEM!

Instead we get interviews and opinions of bandmembers from the likes of Erasure, Nine-Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and others. I am not in any way taking away from the ability and artistry of these artists, but they were not PIONEERS of synthesizer and/or electronic music. They merely stood on the shoulders of giants and took then next step.

How can you document the birth and history of electronic music and leave out artists like Edgar, JMJ, etc.?
The same reason a "rock" documentary 25 years from now will focus on Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and Carly Rae Jepsen instead of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Rush and Yes. (Well, I think Rush will get in there.) Producers of these sorts of things make them with a very narrow target demographic in mind. Nowadays it's the young download-only hipsters. I think it's funny a "band" (I must use quotes) like Erasure gets any kind of mention beyond being a pop fluff duo. Vince Clarke formed Yaz after Depeche Mode, and I think that was where he peaked. DM and Erasure are simply awful. NIN have a pretty eclectic sound for an industrial band, and Trent pushes the keyboards front and center, but NIN isn't the most diverse-sounding entity, either.

Tangerine Dream, Jarre, and especially Synergy (Larry Fast) and Emerald Web will forever get short shrift as progenitors of the progressive/symphonic and futuristic/pastoral electronic styles they became known for. Vangelis is mainly known as "the film composer of Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner" when he has a sizeable studio discography.

At least we know who they all are, and what they have done and continue to do for us.
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Jon
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Jon »

DM awful??

Excuse me?? One of the best bands in history.
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Hipgnosis »

projekt-elektronik wrote:This documentary is primarily aimed at people who use modular synthesizers today, and it is to showcase how diverse musical styles are which modular synthesizers are used within today.
...
Bleep-bloop.
This is odd ... like the folks we mention were not the very first folks to actually develop the use of these modular pieces.
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Hipgnosis »

Hi,

(sorry ... wrote a review and forgot to bring it!)

"I DREAM of WIRES" is an insteresting documentary on the actual development of the analog modules that ended up making up the synthesizer. The modern synth, no longer "uses" these things much, and in fact, almost all synthesizer use in music has become just a background sound that is simply regurgitating other instruments from an orchestra ... they are just "filler" as it used to be called in film, and theater.

There are some very nice things in this special, and one of them is the difference between the early modular/sound experimental folks in the West Coast and those on the East Coast, and by the time you even see one of those events (didn't get to hear the music much!), on the hills in California, you can get the idea how strange and weird the development of it was, and how seriously people took it or not. But the stoney feel of the California stuff was more interesting for me, as a person who loved to listen to music.

Eventually, it just becomes a side thing ... that Vince Clarke and Gary Numan used these simple modules alone on stage ... and nowadays, you will find that some DJ's in Europe are actually doing live shows with some Analog Synthesizers by simply experimenting with the noise and the sounds on top of whatever other work they have and do.

It is not a complete study, and could be better, and SHOULD have been better ... and it does suggest that "Switched On Bach" helped make the modules famous, but the music itself and design for the new pieces and composers were not exactly endearing with the public, and none of it really sold, and it left the modules in the hands of people that could help musicians use these better and more efficiently. Fair enough of a criticism, really.

All in all, one can see how things changed ... from "sound" to "music", and you can easily say, that a Tangerine Dream, or Jarre, or Vangelis, would not fit in this documentary, because they went the way of melodic classical music, and totally left behind the "sound" that they helped create, illustrate ... but not use after they were able to "control it".

And that process ... that has been somewhat forgotten, is what this special is about.

BTW ... supposedly there is a longer version of this, but I have not seen it. But the most fun part of this, is watching crazy geeks, create different modules that look really cool ... and make a lot of synthesizers look stupid! One can only hope that the analog synth, finally gets its well deserved spot as a proper instrument.
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projekt-elektronik
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by projekt-elektronik »

What exactly are you trying to convey?
"Den Brüdern trau ich nicht. Den Brüdern trau ich nicht! Kommt alles vom Tonband." (Edgar Froese -- Signale aus der Schwäbischen Straße)
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by T4N63R1N3 DR34M »

projekt-elektronik wrote:What exactly are you trying to convey?
Don't bother.....
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Hipgnosis »

projekt-elektronik wrote:What exactly are you trying to convey?
At one time, there was "noise" ... that noise, developed into a kind of "sound" that we ended up considering music. In those early days, it was a lot more about the "sound" and its "quality" than it was about the musical side of it. The big "suggestion" in "I Dream of Wires" was an odd one ... that in the West Coast, people wanted to trip on the sound, and the East Coast wanted to create "music" with it.

In the end, almost all the work that a synthesizer did a few years later became simply sampled sounds that could be adjusted to, mostly, replace the instrumentation in any orchestra, as an example. There were not many keyboard players, using these sounds as an instrument on its own, and in some ways, Tangerine Dream is a perfect example of this ... it was a somewhat "ambient" sound way early on, you did not think of listening to Alpha Centauri, or Atem, and thought of "music" per se ... you thought of a wonderful continuation of electronic sounds that created a wonderful tapestry for your imagination ... slightly different than "music" in the sense that an orchestra would have done within a given piece.

I am inclined to think that this had more to do with the creation and learning about these machines, than it did have anything with music at the time, although you could say that many folks used the knowledge they had to play ... like using chords and what not to create even more variations within the synthesizer design, which helped it grow even further.

Tangerine Dream was a part of the birth and schooling for these machines. However, I would like to suggest that today, 50 years later, that a lot of the sound itself, is basically lost, in favor of "songs" and a "composed" aspect, that in and by itself, is not as creative as the inventiveness required to learn something about a machine that essentially had "nothing" in the beginning, except one sound! And then make something of that sound!
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by T4N63R1N3 DR34M »

Hipgnosis wrote:
projekt-elektronik wrote:What exactly are you trying to convey?
At one time, there was "noise" ... that noise, developed into a kind of "sound" that we ended up considering music. In those early days, it was a lot more about the "sound" and its "quality" than it was about the musical side of it. The big "suggestion" in "I Dream of Wires" was an odd one ... that in the West Coast, people wanted to trip on the sound, and the East Coast wanted to create "music" with it.

In the end, almost all the work that a synthesizer did a few years later became simply sampled sounds that could be adjusted to, mostly, replace the instrumentation in any orchestra, as an example. There were not many keyboard players, using these sounds as an instrument on its own, and in some ways, Tangerine Dream is a perfect example of this ... it was a somewhat "ambient" sound way early on, you did not think of listening to Alpha Centauri, or Atem, and thought of "music" per se ... you thought of a wonderful continuation of electronic sounds that created a wonderful tapestry for your imagination ... slightly different than "music" in the sense that an orchestra would have done within a given piece.

I am inclined to think that this had more to do with the creation and learning about these machines, than it did have anything with music at the time, although you could say that many folks used the knowledge they had to play ... like using chords and what not to create even more variations within the synthesizer design, which helped it grow even further.

Tangerine Dream was a part of the birth and schooling for these machines. However, I would like to suggest that today, 50 years later, that a lot of the sound itself, is basically lost, in favor of "songs" and a "composed" aspect, that in and by itself, is not as creative as the inventiveness required to learn something about a machine that essentially had "nothing" in the beginning, except one sound! And then make something of that sound!

I told you not to bother ;)
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projekt-elektronik
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by projekt-elektronik »

My initial question was supposed to be a rhetorical one.

Unfortunately, a lot of sarcasm gets lost on the internet, which is a shame.
"Den Brüdern trau ich nicht. Den Brüdern trau ich nicht! Kommt alles vom Tonband." (Edgar Froese -- Signale aus der Schwäbischen Straße)
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by exit81 »

The comprehensiveness of any documentary is largely dependent on who you are able to agree to appear in it. I doubt you'll ever get Kraftwerk to appear in a documentary like this, but it can't be said to be definitive without any mention of 4 or 5 of the great names in the field. It's like a documentary on the history of great film directors and not including Tarkovsky, Ozu, Bergman, etc.
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Re: "I DREAM OF WIRES"

Post by Hipgnosis »

exit81 wrote:The comprehensiveness of any documentary is largely dependent on who you are able to agree to appear in it. I doubt you'll ever get Kraftwerk to appear in a documentary like this, but it can't be said to be definitive without any mention of 4 or 5 of the great names in the field. It's like a documentary on the history of great film directors and not including Tarkovsky, Ozu, Bergman, etc.
Absolutely. And that was my point, really ... however ... does that mean that your child or mine, when they write the same book, can not possibly write something nice and proper and all that?

My take is that the film was about the guy's friends, and helping them get more out of it, and that the history side of it was just something that needed to be in there, but it also suggests that there is a faction out there that does not think that KS/TD/ART and others are not considered electronic anymore, because they are "theme" music, and thus, somewhat "classical" by context.

It's all music, and wires or wireless signals ... it's all the same. But, in America, what the German scene in the late 60's and 70's with all the "noise" factories and such, is not considered "music", and is only appreciated by a group of folks, like you and I, that just do not look at music, as something with "limits", to top ten, and a format!

Latest stare ... I intentionally played FAUST on my car in a parking lot ... and you should have seen the ... wtfisthat faces out there ... it's like ... music is one thing only ... not others!
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