Todd Rundgren, who is an American representative song writer and
producer of Rock music, introduced interactive music to us and the
details of it were brought to light in November, 1992 in Japan leading
the world. Completely new systematic music that uses the computer as
much as possible was absolutely different from the way of composing
music before and it is worth pursuing another several years. But the
concept itself has so much potentialities that it is so hard to tell all
the abilities of it to the third party at the present time. Even if you
don't need interactive music now, please follow for a while.
Now that computers were operated unconsciously everywhere in our
life, it is not convincing of you to have visions for them. But how
many people on earth consider the potentialities of these machines
seriously ? Although my speciality is limited to music only, that music
is far from managing them. Among the musical instruments used in a
common rock band, a synthesizer is the closest to the computer and a
electric guitar is quite far from it. Even the synthesizer is far
behind from the latest technology of the computer. If you make the best
use of the high end's personal computer seriously , you can easily
produce the music of extremely precise but natural Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra (it is no matter why you should do that). Moreover, so many
possibilities are available that you lost count of them. This
simulation was introduced in the latter half of 80's and technology has
progressed so much that you could produce the sound of music without
using a sampler which was said to be an ultimate musical instrument
sensationally. By the way, the sampler is a kind of computer, it
records the sound of real musical instruments like a tape recorder, uses
the waves of it and makes other notes. On the other hand, a present
synthesizer (rather leans toward the computer) uses the waves that was
sampled in advance but it can imitate every musical instruments and also
has the program data for playing. I'll quit now because this story is
going to be difficult. In short, you can easily produce the musical
sounds what is existing, when you make the most of the present
technology.
Nevertheless. Is it necessary to use the latest technology
which was made by much efforts for only producing musics ? If you need
only to play back the sound, the digital tape recorder will satisfy your
demand. So how should we employ the latest technology ? The one of the
answer led by Todd Rundgren is as follows:
Interactive Music which was produced in close connection of the
computer and the music
It was November, 1992 when I was explained about the interactive
music by Todd Rundgren who came to Japan. Let me flatter myself, I have
been a enthusiastic Todd researcher for more than 20 years and in
contact with his works. So I believed that I could understand
everything about him and correspond to him because I had been doing the
music producing myself by making the most of the tools as much as Todd's
then. But even I was astonished by the concept. I was stunned by the
idea of ultimate contact of computer and music. This new music system
is not able to exist without computers. There is no method except
above-mentioned simulation. This is the most important point. This may
be the easy explanation, the interactive music makes it possible for the
listeners to use Todd's musics and to enjoy them in various ways at any
time. In short, you can create Todd's music into what you want and that
is the only music that you know.
Todd said that most difficult part in writing songs by this
concept was making lyrics. One tune has so many possibilities to be
reprodu ced in many ways that he couldn't put a long sentence in his
lyrics to express himself and he must employ short ones. After being
composed normally, the tune itself was divided into small pieces and
inputted into the computer program . In addition to the divided pieces,
a lot of other pieces for connecting them (they are mainly the rhythm
tracks like drumming) were prepared. In the end, they were stored in
the hard disk of the Apple Macintosh computer (Todd's favorite
computer). Although one piece is consisted of 4 bars at most in the
present, it will be able to be subdivided into more smaller parts in the
near future. On the former album "No World Order", it is said that the
divided pieces stored had been amounted to 1300 parts. There might be
more than that number of pieces on this album. I'm sorry about
declining of the PHILIP's CD-I players on which "No World Order" was
emerged at first time in this country, but many people experienced the
interactive music by their home computer because the CD-ROM for Mac and
windows had been released already. And it is decided that CD-ROM of
this album (INDIVIDUALIST) will be released from EA company.
I think that further explanation is not necessary anymore. If
you have Mac or windows computer, I recommend you to experience yourself
and you should answer to the interactive music. You can play in the
Todd Rundgren's world freely of your own will. Every true Todd fan for
long yeas must enjoy pleasant feeling as if they have Disneyland all to
themselves.
Concerning this Album titled THE INDIVIDUALIST
This album that you have in your hand right now is the second
released from PONY CANYON which he was contract with. The former album
"New World Order" were chased two additional album, but this is an
entirely original work. This is of course produced by himself and
recorded at UTOPIA SOUNDS. The tape I have now is so called
non-interactive and may be like the "Lite" version of the former album.
(I'm not sure it is "Lite" or not because I have no data here. But I
will meet him and ask about the details in the near future. Please look
forward to it.) The first impression of this album was, to be honest,
that this is more Todd-like album than the former one. This means that
decreasing of rap music that was employed largely on the former album,
so we can hear it peacefully. And it is no use saying, on the former
one, he must have roused himself too much for another field and it
effected his composing part. However this time I'm so glad that he
showed us that Todd Rundgren is a great composer now undoubtedly. But
something bothers me. It's decreasing of his guitar 's turn. I think
that some of his fans want him to play the guitar more often. why don't
he ? I'm going to ask him about this, too.
In the End
As I wrote in the "No World Order" album's review, Todd
Rundgren's live performance of interactive music given in the autumn of
'93 was got into many troubles and brought to an end with a great
disturbance. But he taught me an important thing then. We cannot
escape from risks when we are proceeding, and after we overcome them, a
new creation will be brought to life. Various difficulties lie in the
future of the interactive music. But without someone's effort, there
will be no proceeding. I want to support TR-i from now on. And I wish
all of you, after hearing this album, will agree with me.
Feb.6th.1995
Takaaki Yonemochi