Music Makers Compose Electronic Vibes

The Harvard Music Department will reveal a 12-year-old secret this week. Despite the department's emphasis on classical music practice, performance, and theory, it will go public with the results of its dabblings in electronic music.

Eleven Harvard students enrolled in Music 159r, "Composition in the Electronic Medium," will perform their final projects--replete with dogs barking and glass shattering--in a free show this Friday. But though the students have had time to prepare for the show--which is entitled "Music and Other Drama"--most foresee minor difficulties. "Having to solve the problems of live performance is a big challenge," says Naomi Pierce '85-6, a student in Music 159r. Another member of the class, Alisa Clements '87, agrees. "I still get nervous every time I play in class. Presenting to the public is more of a test," she says.

Under the guidance of Senior Lecturer on Music Ivan A. Tcherepnin, the full-year course has been offered almost continuously since 1972. In the weekly two-hour sessions, Tcherepnin stresses understanding the technology and creativity required to create electronic music. He says he tells the musicians to use their minds rather than relying on their equipment. "All music starts out as electronics in the brain. Our heads are the most important synthesizers of all," he says. The professor, who came to Harvard 14 years ago, encourages students to do original work. "Rather than attempting to reproduce what has been done before, our emphasis is on trying at each instant to create a new reality," he says. "Our concerts are not finished products, but artistic invention in and of themselves."

The class includes students from a variety of concentrations. Most members of the course study outside of the Music Department. "Majors don't have anything to do with musical interest," says Pierce, a history concentrator. Though most Harvard music courses require proficiency with at least one musical instrument, Tcherepnin does not enforce this. Instead, the music professor says he looks for students who are open-minded, curious, and interested in learning. Pierce says she first discovered the course a few years ago when a friend brought her up to the electronic music studio on the third floor of Paine Hall. After talking to Tcherepnin, she was admitted on the basis of her determination and "the professor's vibes," she says. "I don't play an instrument, but I can still play music," Pierce says.

Music major Carol Millard '86 says she likes making electronic music because it offers more room for individual creation than other musical fields. "Jazz is too structured," she says. Tcherepnin echoes Millard's attitude. "Electronic music is one of the last remaining frontiers. Fifteen years of violin training in 20 years of life provides no advantage in this medium over pure curiosity."

But students' reasons for joining the fun on the third floor of Paine Hall are more varied than that. Clements says she enrolled in the class to find an alternative to the commercial fare. "I got disgusted with the pounding regularity of popular music," she says, adding that her interest was also sparked by her experience in Visual and Environmental Studies 158r, "Sound and Image." Co--taught in alternate years by Tcherepnin and VES Professor Alfred F. Guzzetti, the VES course combines electronic music with visual imagery. The result is in many ways similar to the multimedia, performance-art concept pioneered by artists like Laurie Anderson.

Though acknowledging the influence of Anderson on his course, Tcherepnin says composer John Cage is the "patron saint of Music 159r." The works of such artists as Brian Eno and Philip Glass are also among the most important developments in the genre in recent years, says Tcherepnin. But recent popular electronic creations have deviated from the experimental norm established by pioneering artists, say students in Music 159r. Tcherepnin and students agree that the germinating influences by figures like Cage have been redirected toward more commercial goals. "Artists don't control their own creativity anymore," says Tcherepnin. "The real trick now," Pierce says, "is to find someone doing what Laurie Anderson did then."

The course itself includes hands-on instruction in both analog and digital electronics. Analog systems use electronic oscillators, filters, tapes, and other means to create and manipulate sounds. Digital electronics, in contrast, use computers to create, reproduce, and modify sounds. Harvard's array of digital equipment in Paine Hall includes a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, a Mirage synthesizer, and an Apple Macintosh computer, as well as a rack of digital effects, mixers, and tape decks. Through an electronic interface called MIDI, the computer can be used to sequence the various synthesizers and to modify sonic waveforms. One interesting feature of the Mirage is its ability to take digital samples of sounds in the "real world" and alter their pitch via a keyboard. This technology can be used for such interesting creations as chords of barking dogs and melodies of clinking coins.

The analog room serves as a home for the infamous Serge Synthesizer. Created by Tcherepnin's brother, Serge, this complex unit--consisting of about a dozen small boxes interconnected by a web of wires--is the nerve center of a facility including mixers and tape decks. Though students with no experience can play digital synthesizers most easily, Tcherepnin says he stresses the importance of using the analog electronics to understand the fundamentals of creating sounds. "Disorientation is very important," says Tcherepnin. "You must learn to ride a horse instead of letting it ride you." Although Harvard's equipment may be no match for MIT's studios, Tcherepnin does not see this as a drawback. There are no plans to quell the creations of Paine Hall's budding Brian Eno's, which should give Tcherepnin time to learn more about his studio. "Don't give me anything new. I still don't know everything about what we've already got," he says.

Friday's show will start at 7:30 p.m. in Paine Hall.