messier81 logo    electronic music    Buchla synthesizer and patch diagram 

My interest in electronic music, surprisingly, predated my interest in popular music. I delved into the music of Varèse and Stockhausen before I discovered the Beatles.

(When the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album came out, I was all in!)

 Apart from some early piano pieces, my first serious efforts in composition were electronic works, and I have continued off and on creating electronic music ever since.
 Click on the album covers below for more information. (Click on the synth picture above for a 780x667, 116K image.)

If you are wondering about the difference in the titles between the two, here is a brief explanation.
"Electro-acoustic music" is often used interchangeably with "electronic music" but in fact the two terms can indicate an interesting distinction:
in electronic music, the sounds are usually entirely synthetic (such as the waveforms produced by oscillators) whereas in electro-acoustic music the sounds can be of natural origin as well as synthetic.
Since my compositions since 1989 have made increasing use of natural sound sources (often altered beyond recognition),
I felt it was appropriate to use the second term for my second electronic CD. (Click on that album’s cover, below, for more information.)

Whatever one calls this music, it should be noted that my style is very abstract and spaced-out sounding. It is not EDM.

This album has my earlier works, all done with analog equipment. (It might be called my undergraduate album.)
The first track was created with a Moog synthesizer, while tracks 2 through 4 utilized a Buchla synthesizer.
The remaining four tracks were created at home using a single sine/square wave oscillator with overdubbing and tape echo.

This album has more recent works, almost all using digital gear, though the passage of time has made it so most of the hardware and software I used is now out-of-date!
Nevertheless, each piece was an intense learning experience, and they were and still are thrilling to hear over big playback systems.
(This is my graduate album—I did the compositions as part of my master’s and doctoral studies.)



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