I met Professor Chowning in a composition class at Stanford in the late 1960's. At the time, I was a physics major and R&B/rock musician. The class and Prof. Chowning were inspiring. My class project was a multilayer, sound-on-sound, recording of a compostion I did based on a transliteration of the first stanza of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Vowel sounds to pitches, consonants to percussive sounds. Theme and variation. The other students' (mostly music majors) projects were predictable Western-based, competent, piano works. When my tape boomed out over the massive sound system of Dinkelspiel Auditorium, some jaws dropped and I suddenly had the sinking feeling I would fail the class. Instead, Dr Chowning and I had a wonderful discussion after class. He was very encouraging to me; to continue my explorations of modern composition. I became a professional musician. Thank you Dr. Chowning.
Years go, as a music student at SFSU, I ran into John at the Stanford Computer Music Center, and asked him for some help on a piece I was working on. I expected him to point to the door, but no, he stopped what he was working on and helped me, giving me some samples. He's a wonderful man, and a great pioneer in EM (Stanford sold his FM patent to Yamaha, making tons of money for Stanford). Thank you, John!
I went to junior high school with his daughter, at a school near Stanford the name of which is coincidentally a near homophone of the name of the inventor of a popular electronic music machine, Lev Sergeyevich Termen.
Playing this loud on a speaker facing upward, with a plate of cornstarch-water suspension on top of it so that the cornstarch would form shapes based on the vibration, might be interesting. Based as it is on the golden ratio, I wonder if we'd see behaviors that correspond to Penrose tilings or quasicrystals.
I’ve been trying to hunt down a physical CD copy of this album but without much luck. I know that it was released in 1988 and that the label, Wergo, is German and belongs to Schott amusic GmbH
One couldn't possible suggest the coders on Atari's Marble Madness didn't take some influence from this masterpiece along with many other software developers.
Or the programmers weren't very experienced with FM synthesis yet, as Chowning may not have been when he created this. This kind of bell sound I think is usually the easiest sound to make with FM synthesis that doesn't sound like total noise, so the similarities probably come more from this being the quintessential FM sound (and I don't mean any disrespect by that) than them taking inspiration from this, though they may well have listened to this when researching FM. Having just listened to a bit of it marble madness sounds a lot better than this IMO.
@@aaronberns8485 Certainly changed the course of synthesizer history. The mid to late 80's certainly would've sounded very different without his research. I love the fact that he only claimed to have discovered and not invented linear FM. Imagine music history without it and still evolving today and well into the future. Still sounds like the future. What is yet to be discovered we must ask?
This is most mysterious thing I ever heard in my life, I Am 2E philosopher with existential feelings :D It is really creepy, even more so than Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl OST!!! Like when you watch a lynchian movie... Everyone who listened to this now has to watch pi 1999! This is so existential it amazes me how it can be put me to so existential mood instantly! Literally sublime like when you see volcano with your own eyes for the first time! Luckily it didn't make me uncomfortable now, actually less so, it feels like infused with meaning of mystery, while I still don't like something about it... Well this induces feelings of perennial/unknown mostly, but since when I found out I Am god xDD I Am not as affected by this anymore
I wonder if Delia Derbyshire has known of this. And if she had known of this earlier than the did of she did at all, maybe she would've gone back to making music earlier.
According to a BBC documentary, Delia did not like synthesizers much, she had worked hard to build a tape-based skill-set and saw synths like the VCS3 as a job-stealer... she later relented when it became all too obvious that synths weren’t going away.
Skrillex, the guy who made dubstep like 5 years ago or something. dubstep growls and basses are pretty much always made with fm synthesis, which is what this track was experimenting with.
knowledgereignspreme He’s not daft, he’s 75% correct... though Frequency Modulated (FM) techniques are common in analog synth music, Dr. Chowning figured out how to do it in a computer... in the sixties... he taught computer music at Stanford, promoted digital FM synthesis then sold it to Yamaha FM caught on and a variant of digital FM was later the basis for NI’s “Massive”... that digital FM synth was the main synth Skrillex used in Ableton to make dance tracks (affordable af too). Actual knowledge is better than assumed knowledge.
The overtones in a bell sound are almost always inharmonic - likewise the overtone in the electronic timbre used here are inharmonic. To contrast, instruments using strings have largely harmonic overtones (i.e. those overtones line up with the harmonic series for the most part).
According to the CD liner notes, this was made with nothing more than algorithms and computers, with the audio signal being recorded directly to the master tape.
The implementation of this piece required hours and hours of computer time. I don’t recall exactly what language (Fortran?) or the hardware (IBM mainframe?). I would love to learn how the computer output file was converted into an analog tape.
This is music? Sounds like noise to me. I was at winter NAMM the year Yamaha introduced the GS-1 (and portable 2 version) Steve Pocaro, Jeff Lorber, James Newton Howard, and even Ken Gorlik (aka Kenny G) were all guest artist at the Yamaha booth, there were some true monster chops and music being hammered out on those new FM instruments, we in the audience as keyboard players were drooling over these new axes with unobtainium prices. Chowning was a genius inventor then .. but his chops as a musician were not .. imho. Thankfully a couple years later Yamaha dropped the DX7 and us club players could finally ditch our Rhodes which were sending us all to the chiropractor for back adjustments from moving the dang things around in the backs of our pickups. A very important man Dr. John Chowning (and company Yamaha Musical Instrument Division)
I met Professor Chowning in a composition class at Stanford in the late 1960's. At the time, I was a physics major and R&B/rock musician. The class and Prof. Chowning were inspiring. My class project was a multilayer, sound-on-sound, recording of a compostion I did based on a transliteration of the first stanza of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Vowel sounds to pitches, consonants to percussive sounds. Theme and variation. The other students' (mostly music majors) projects were predictable Western-based, competent, piano works. When my tape boomed out over the massive sound system of Dinkelspiel Auditorium, some jaws dropped and I suddenly had the sinking feeling I would fail the class. Instead, Dr Chowning and I had a wonderful discussion after class. He was very encouraging to me; to continue my explorations of modern composition. I became a professional musician. Thank you Dr. Chowning.
Sounds like your piece was Western-based as well :) and that sounds like a wonderful memory!
Years go, as a music student at SFSU, I ran into John at the Stanford Computer Music Center, and asked him for some help on a piece I was working on. I expected him to point to the door, but no, he stopped what he was working on and helped me, giving me some samples. He's a wonderful man, and a great pioneer in EM (Stanford sold his FM patent to Yamaha, making tons of money for Stanford). Thank you, John!
Sweet and inspiring anecdote. Pay it forward !
Invents FM synthesis. Makes this track. What a boss
boss is not a correct description of john chowning
lol. #ChowningFinalBoss
How about G.O.A.T.!!!✌🌻
"Stria" was commissioned by IRCAM for presentation in Luciano Berio's exhibition of electronic music, October 1977. Duration 16:57
exactly..thank you
I went to junior high school with his daughter, at a school near Stanford the name of which is coincidentally a near homophone of the name of the inventor of a popular electronic music machine, Lev Sergeyevich Termen.
Playing this loud on a speaker facing upward, with a plate of cornstarch-water suspension on top of it so that the cornstarch would form shapes based on the vibration, might be interesting. Based as it is on the golden ratio, I wonder if we'd see behaviors that correspond to Penrose tilings or quasicrystals.
Beautiful. Thank you.
È un peccato che per spropositato valore questi dischi non si possano comprare!
wow! I really love this.
this is brilliant in every sense! Testing arrangements of orchestras, creating new wave music and all in all beautiful and revolutionary in itself.
Sounds like a background music of a classic science-fiction movie. :) I like it.
Beautiful, Thanks
For some great early FM synthesis, get the CD The Digital Domain. There is one track on that album that is crazy
th-cam.com/video/bK1Qj6zK3do/w-d-xo.html
I use to have that one. With the test tones and all
thank you
Wonderful
Well, at least this particular track here can be found on the compilation "OHM - the early gurus of electronic Music".
I love this.
GREAT!thanks!
this is awesome
chowning's music heals dna
I’ve been trying to hunt down a physical CD copy of this album but without much luck. I know that it was released in 1988 and that the label, Wergo, is German and belongs to Schott amusic GmbH
still love it!!
Yuzo koshiro did techno with fm synthesis. Thanks john
lovely
Entering a cave in minecraft be like:
still love clusters.
love it!!
this beats me
One couldn't possible suggest the coders on Atari's Marble Madness didn't take some influence from this masterpiece along with many other software developers.
Or the programmers weren't very experienced with FM synthesis yet, as Chowning may not have been when he created this. This kind of bell sound I think is usually the easiest sound to make with FM synthesis that doesn't sound like total noise, so the similarities probably come more from this being the quintessential FM sound (and I don't mean any disrespect by that) than them taking inspiration from this, though they may well have listened to this when researching FM.
Having just listened to a bit of it marble madness sounds a lot better than this IMO.
I think Chowning was like the Stockhausen of the 70s and without him Atari wouldn't have changed gaming history with Marble Madness.
@@aaronberns8485 Certainly changed the course of synthesizer history. The mid to late 80's certainly would've sounded very different without his research. I love the fact that he only claimed to have discovered and not invented linear FM. Imagine music history without it and still evolving today and well into the future. Still sounds like the future. What is yet to be discovered we must ask?
존 차우닝 (John Chowing) -
Dubstep bros say hi to daddy
This is most mysterious thing I ever heard in my life, I Am 2E philosopher with existential feelings :D It is really creepy, even more so than Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl OST!!! Like when you watch a lynchian movie... Everyone who listened to this now has to watch pi 1999! This is so existential it amazes me how it can be put me to so existential mood instantly! Literally sublime like when you see volcano with your own eyes for the first time! Luckily it didn't make me uncomfortable now, actually less so, it feels like infused with meaning of mystery, while I still don't like something about it... Well this induces feelings of perennial/unknown mostly, but since when I found out I Am god xDD I Am not as affected by this anymore
massive.
When your Genesis is haunted
The Krell approve this message.
Where can I get a cd of all chowinning? Doesn't seem available anywhere...
I didn't know he made FM sounds until now. :o
really? he's a pioneer
존 차우닝 (John Chowing) - 스트라이어 “Stria” (1977)
why the fuck this last only 5 minutes? this work is suppose to be around 15 mins, with the Climax just on the golden ratio.
the climax on the golden ratio... ¿66%? like it... but i feel that is a bit cliché...
This composition is all based on the golden ratio. Google ir, very interesting.
Question: I´m reading an article about it now and it sais this music has 17 minutes, is that right?
I wonder if Delia Derbyshire has known of this. And if she had known of this earlier than the did of she did at all, maybe she would've gone back to making music earlier.
Delia was not a Composer. Chowning was.
She was.
According to a BBC documentary, Delia did not like synthesizers much, she had worked hard to build a tape-based skill-set and saw synths like the VCS3 as a job-stealer... she later relented when it became all too obvious that synths weren’t going away.
Delia Derbyshire made her name long before 1977 - check your dates!
She didnt
Skrillex should be thankful
who?
Skrillex, the guy who made dubstep like 5 years ago or something. dubstep growls and basses are pretty much always made with fm synthesis, which is what this track was experimenting with.
Not to mention John invented FM back in '64 :)
@@maxsync183 are you fking daft?!
knowledgereignspreme He’s not daft, he’s 75% correct... though Frequency Modulated (FM) techniques are common in analog synth music, Dr. Chowning figured out how to do it in a computer... in the sixties... he taught computer music at Stanford, promoted digital FM synthesis then sold it to Yamaha FM caught on and a variant of digital FM was later the basis for NI’s “Massive”... that digital FM synth was the main synth Skrillex used in Ableton to make dance tracks (affordable af too).
Actual knowledge is better than assumed knowledge.
Someone else would...
A shame. That copy is worth 200-300$ nowadays due to rarity an collector interest.
It sounds eerie but why does it sound like a bell ?
The overtones in a bell sound are almost always inharmonic - likewise the overtone in the electronic timbre used here are inharmonic. To contrast, instruments using strings have largely harmonic overtones (i.e. those overtones line up with the harmonic series for the most part).
@@Sevish Big man Sevish una. Thanks for the nugget of knowledge.
Pure Beauty.
thats not "stria": duration 17:03 in my cd player
I just had some blue elephant...now, I am inside said elephant...sound-wise at least ;)
Doesn’t this have something to do with the golden ratio?
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
I happen to rather enjoy programming FM synthesizers, so it's really interesting to listen to this. But, unsurprisingly, it turns out my cat hates it.
How do you program interesting sounds?
Les dijo la verdad no lo entiendo muy bien suena como algo tenebroso , pero muy bueno
It would be cool to know what specific equipment he used to make this?🎹🎧💫😵
According to the CD liner notes, this was made with nothing more than algorithms and computers, with the audio signal being recorded directly to the master tape.
@@Max16032 Thanks, bro. I appreciate you letting me know, from one Max to another.✌
The implementation of this piece required hours and hours of computer time. I don’t recall exactly what language (Fortran?) or the hardware (IBM mainframe?). I would love to learn how the computer output file was converted into an analog tape.
who is here for class?
Why is this recording so clicky though? Ugh
This is music? Sounds like noise to me. I was at winter NAMM the year Yamaha introduced the GS-1 (and portable 2 version) Steve Pocaro, Jeff Lorber, James Newton Howard, and even Ken Gorlik (aka Kenny G) were all guest artist at the Yamaha booth, there were some true monster chops and music being hammered out on those new FM instruments, we in the audience as keyboard players were drooling over these new axes with unobtainium prices. Chowning was a genius inventor then .. but his chops as a musician were not .. imho. Thankfully a couple years later Yamaha dropped the DX7 and us club players could finally ditch our Rhodes which were sending us all to the chiropractor for back adjustments from moving the dang things around in the backs of our pickups. A very important man Dr. John Chowning (and company Yamaha Musical Instrument Division)
this song gave me a headache
still love it!!