Renowned composer and synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani walks us through the modules, effects, and software in her live performance system in this episode of Patch Work. Read More on Reverb: bit.ly/Suzanne-Ciani-Patch-Work
I loved this interview so much. Fess made very thoughtful and interesting questions and I loved the way they interacted and when Suzanne asked him about his setup. I would have loved to watch them have an hours-long conversation. You can tell that they had a lot more to talk about with each other and if it weren't for the time constraints they would've. What both said about randomness and control or lack thereof and exploration really resonated with me and was the reason that I got into modular. Thank you for this!
I got my first two tiptop buchla modules, saw her perform over the weekend, and have been listening to some older interviews with her for even more inspiration and then this pops up. Amazing.
Had a chance to meet her some years ago and I just froze in place.. I guess I was star-struck cause I'd been seeing her on TV since I was a kid.. I'll always regret that
Great interview man… Had the absolute pleasure of experiencing one of her live performances earlier this year. It was an incredible thing to behold! A true legend.
Just wonderful to hear Suzanne talk shop and describe the philosophies behind the techniques. Absolutely love hearing her talk about randomness in nature and natural movements in the music we make. Exactly what drew me in. I'm looking for tickets to see her show now. Grateful to hear such valuable wisdom and knowledge. I'm searching for spatial control also.
Wow! Thank you for this interview with Suzanne Ciani. Listening to how she talks about electronic music and her seeing her enthusiasm is incredibly inspiring.
Great interview, great editing, despite the time constraints he asked questions that really allowed a good dive on her process and ideas. She is a true gem and the way she asked about his setup, really speaks to her character. I love how they are coming from different musical backgrounds but that's not a barrier but the actual meeting point, more of this and more interviews led by folks like Fess who may not get as much representation if you catch my drift.
If she were ever to come to the Philadelphia area, I would so love to see and hear her. She will be remembered for centuries as one of the Elder Gods of electronic music.
I remember seeing her for the first time on David Letterman in the early 80’s. I’ve been following her since, nice to see her still in the game and in good health.
@@Bati_ Well, regarding the quote that I took from the video, there is nothing "advanced" about it. What I take from Ciani's vision is not to be too concerned about pitch tuning and more about where the musical idea is going to go. Keyboard driven synthesizers are often oriented to have a specific pitch on every key (a stable pitch/frequency), however, music should be always in motion. A pitch that is a little unstable by nature of its voltages is already in motion and might lead our ears to a different direction when creating a musical composition.
I have only two CDs of her the 1995 10th anniversary of her 1985 CD that has only 5 content or songs.the second CD is a collection of her work threw the years it's "The Private Music of Suzanne Ciani. There cool awesome.👍🎹🎹🎹🤓
I wonder how well quad audio x2 with a matching set of speakers in the ceiling corners work. So you would have x, y, AND z (height). So a sound could be placed anywhere in the room, including its height, with the 8 speakers.
Covid disrupted at least some of the EU tour, but luckily it seems to only have been postponed - at least the Helsinki gig has a new date! (See you there :-)
Instead of using one gate to control the volume and feeling of each of her sounds, such as using one low-pass gate (LPG) or one envelope into a voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA), she often uses two different gates for each sound, or she will at least use control voltage (CV) to modulate or accent a single gate (giving the impression of two different gates being used). One way this can be done is by using two sequences: one sequence with more notes (triggers or gates on the sequencer) is sent to a short LPG or envelope, while the second sequence or a slower clock or square wave low-frequency oscillator (LFO) creates fewer notes which trigger a different LPG or envelope or simply increase the decay length (long notes) or attack volume (loud notes). This is how you might choose to create accents on drum-like sounds, or create strings with some notes that sound plucked and other notes that sound bowed; or in other words, sequences of 1/8th notes with some whole or sustained notes. Instead of creating a louder volume as an accent-or even creating muted notes like you would on all kinds of other instruments, like guitar, trumpet, snare-you could also send that gate to increase or decrease the pitch of the note on that step, or change the timbre of that note (wavefolding and waveshifting). Another way of "double gating" is to use the sequencer (or a slow clock or LFO) to switch between two different gates for a sound (gates being LPGs or envelopes opening and closing the volume, or VCA). Along with this technique, it seems she will even switch between two clocks used to trigger the sequencer, one going slower, one going faster, and the switch itself going slow or fast depending on the performance with some degree of random switching or other random modulation. I'm sure there's a simpler way to explain it. I thought it was a fairly simple concept to describe at first, then I realized with modular synthesis it can be used in a stunningly large number of ways. Suzanne Ciani seems to use that technique in at least a few different ways in every performance, and also seems to change at least some of these gates according to the acoustics of the venue she is performing in!
@@ichortide2189 Thank you for the detailed response! I actually use that sometimes too, but I didn’t know what it was called. I’ll have to start using it more and try out some of those examples you mentioned.
@@ichortide2189 Very insightful. I've used a wave folder as articulation before, the nice part of that is being able to vary the depth of the folding. I've never tried articulating envelope attack or release times! That's a lovely idea. Thank you!
