Jacob Hammonds

Contemporary Music
November 9, 2014

Morton Subotnick Silver Apples of the Moon

Morton Subotnick was born on April 14, 1933 in Los Angeles California. He was important to
the development of computer and electronic music. His work, Silver Apples of the Moon was the
first electronic work commissioned by a recording company. Although Subotnick is most famous his
electronic music, he has also written music for acoustic instruments. Subotnick has been awarded
numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship, three Rockefeller Grants, an American
Academy of Arts and Letters Composer Award, an ASCAP: John Cage awards and others.

When he was a child, Subotnick had a respiratory issue and it was recommended that he learn a
wind instrument to strengthen his lungs. Subotnick wanted to learn trombone after seeing Tommy
Dorsey, but his mother, not knowing much about musical instruments bought him a clarinet. Within
three years Subotnick was playing concertos and after high school, was offered a job with the Denver
Symphony Orchestra.

Although he achieved success with the clarinet, he did not enjoy the instrument. In fact, upon
being drafted, Subotnick claims to have had a nightmare in which he was shot in the arm, but was
relieved to not have to play clarinet anymore. In the army, Subotnick was asked to play in the band
after an incident where he failed to salute an officer, was court marshaled, and was asked to play
clarinet for the guards. After leaving the army, Subotnick attended college at University of Denver.

Subotnick studied composition for the first time in college. His principal teacher was the french
composer Darius Milhaud. Subotnick claims that Milhaud didn't like his music but liked him as a
person, and noted that he reminded Milhaud of him self. At this time, Subotnick describes the music he
was writing as post Werbernian, and began to experiment with some electronics. Upon graduating,
Subotnick was working as a clarinetist as well as a conductor. Milhaud gave Subotnick a fellowship at
Mills college, which gave him the opportunity to focus on composition for a summer. Subotnick
composed a quintet in the style of Darius Milhaud which, with the approval of Milhaud , was to be
premiered at a festival in Aspen. Subotnick later changed the concert to feature a four hand piano piece
which Subotnick felt was more progressive. Milhaud was upset about the change but approved. The
audience was outraged and some people even walked out of the theater. After the performance Milhaud
said to Subotnick Thank you my dear, that reminded me of the old days.

In 1962 Subotnick and Ramon Sender founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Terry Riley
and Steve Reich were also involved. Subotnick and Sender were given an old victorian house to work
on tape music, and started with a borrowed professional tape recorder. At this time Subotnick claims
that Europe was divided between music concrete and electronic music and that they were two seperae

schools of thought that didn't overlap. Subotnick jokes that Stockhausen claimed he had to put a
microphone in his pocket to sneak it into the electronic music studio because they didn't want
microphones in the studio. Subotnick didn't want his center to cater to one school over the other, so
the name San Francisco Tape Center was chosen. Subotnick thought this name wouldn't discriminate
between music concrete and electronic music, accepting any recorded work.

Like many composers throughout history Subotnick worked along side an instrument maker to
further develop instruments. In Subotnick's case, he worked with Don Buchla to develop the Buchla
100 modular synthesizer. In 1961 Subotnick took out an add in the paper looking for an engineer to
help design an new instrument for the Tape Center. Subotnick imagined what he calls an electronic
music easel to paint sound. There were three engineers that interviewed for the job. Subotnick
described the first two prospects as incoherent, but the third was Don Buchla. Don Buchla agreed to
build Subotnick's electronic music easel for twenty-five dollars a week. Subotnick wanted an interface
that wasn't a traditional black and white keyboard. This was an attempt to start without anything that
resembles tradition. In an interview Subotnick says that he prefers the Buchla synthesizer to the more
popular Moog sythesizer because he needed a new instrument to make new music, not to make new,
old music. Subotnick references Switched on Bach by Walter Carlos, as an example of new old
music.

Subotnick believed that the introduction of electronic instruments signaled a new paradigm in
music. He claims that western art music is dominated by the upper class, and that musical instruments
as well as musical education were provided only to the elite die to economic reasons. Subotnick
reasons that access to cheap electronics would allow music to evolve and allow people, without
traditional music backgrounds to create music. Subotnick saw the record player replacing the piano in

the home as the primary source of chamber music, and imagined a new music being created with
electronic music easels. Subotnick compares access to cheap electronics to the invention of the
printing press. The printing press allowed ideas to spread in a way never before seen. He predicted
electronics would have a similar effect on music, allowing individuals to create and share musical ideas
in a new format. He also saw recording as a new medium for composition where music is created as a
recording. This would create a separation between recordings as the art objects and recordings a
documentation of performance pieces.

Silver Apples of the Moon was created between 1967 and 1968 in Subotnick's recording studio
in New York. The work was commissioned by Nonsuch, a budget record label. Subotnick claims he
was working on developing his electronic music in New York, and would often receive visits from
touring musicians who were interested in the new sounds and instruments in his studio. One night he is
paid a visit by a man in a suit claiming to work for Nonesuch Records. The man explained he was sent
to convince Subotnick to create a work for their company and offered him five hundred dollars.
Subotnick, having never heard of the company, thought the man was insulting him and kicked him out
of the studio. The next day Subotnick noticed a record of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto baring the
Nonesuch name and tried to contact the record label with no success. Fortunately he was approached
by the company again and was offered one thousand dollars to create the work, which he accepted.

Subotnick makes the distinction the the work was created and not recorded. Silver Apples of the Moon
is highly gestural, and the focus is on sound events rather than pitch material. Subotnick claims that he
was trying to make a music that was visceral and not heady. The form of the piece is in two sections.
This was to cater the work to a two sided LP. The piece also broke away from art music of its day with
its use of repetitive, quasi percussive rhythms. Subotnick claims that in electronic music or music
concrete of the day rhythm was forbidden and that his use of rhythm devastated the fine art world.
The following excerpt is taken from the sleeve of the record, written by Subotnick himself.

"The title Silver Apples Of The Moon, a line from a poem by Yeats, was chosen because it aptly
reflects the unifying idea of the composition, heard in its pure form at the end of Part II. The work is
entirely electronic and was composed and realized at my School of the Arts at New York University.
The piece, which was composed especially for a Nonesuch release in 1967, is in two major sections.
The idea of writing a work especially for a recording presents the composer with a rather special frame
of reference ... it is not the reproduction of a work originally intended for the concert hall ... rather it is
intended to be experienced by individuals or small groups of people listening in intimate
surroundings ... a kind of chamber music 20th-century style. The modular electronic music system
(which is the core of my NYU studio) was built by Donald Buchla for Ramon Sender and myself at the
San Francisco Tape Music Center. The three of us worked together for more than a year to develop an
electronic music "machine" that would satisfy our needs as composers. The system generates sound and
time configurations, which are predetermined by the composer through a series of "patches" consisting
of interconnecting various voltage-control devices. It is possible to produce a specific predetermined
sound event ... and it is also possible to generate sound events that are predetermined only in
generalities ... this means that one can "tell" the machine what kind of event you want without deciding
on the specific details of the event ... and listen ... and then make final decisions as to the details of the
musical gesture. This gives the flexibility to score sections of the piece in the traditional sense ... and to
mold other sections (from graphic and verbal notes) like a piece of sculpture.

Silver Apples of the Moon was well received by critics as well as record buying audiences.
Subotnick, himself was surprised at the success of the recording, and saw this as the first step toward
his vision of a new music. The album sold very well in classical record stores, around ten thousand
records. This, compared to the sales of other classical music records was impressive. The Boston Pops
sold around four thousand records that year.

It is easy to hear Subotnick's influence across a wide array of current electronic music, wether it
be art music or popular music. He has influenced the recording medium well as the performance art
medium. Subotnick is largely to thank for the development of the modern analog synthesizer, which
has been used across almost every genre of music since Silver Apples of the Moon. Subotnick exists
on the thin line between western art music, and popular music. With Silver Apples he rejects the
academics with his use of danceable rhythms, and visceral approach. He also goes against early synth
music trends, and even rejects the classical keyboard interface. Subotnick saw electronics as a way to
empower the individual to create music. His electronic music easel is largely realized if not surpassed
by the modern laptop computer. His dream of persons lacking in musical training creating intuitive
electronic music in their homes is now commonplace.

What I believe to be one of the benefits of electronics in music is the type of individualism that
one finds when they have limitless options. Electronics provide the modern musician the tools to create
any sound and layer those sounds in infinite ways. Morton Subotnick is to me, more importantly one
of the first examples of a composer who can navigate the black abyss of limitless musical choices, and
create unique sonic objects. I respect Subotnick for his lack of fear. Subotnick is one of the few
musicians that didn't just want to be involved with musical progress, he wanted to break completely
from the tradition and create something entirely new. Subotnick mentions that Silver Apples of the
Moon still stems from the tradition, but he believes he achieved a clean break in his later works. The

use of a record as the medium for composition allows the composer to create an incredibly unique
sound object. I sometimes like to believe in some form human spirit, and that creating a recording, or
sonic artifact can preserve that spirit in a new way. The process of creating an electronic music
recording forces the composer to be involved in every aspect of the sound object. The sheer amount of
choices the composer makes causes the composers fingerprints to be more deeply woven into the DNA
of the work. This practice removes the middleman and also shows the composer as a performer. This
allows for control over performance details that can be lost between the composer, the performer and
audience. Some dislike the electronic medium because they feel it is impersonal or lifeless. I argue that
it is more personal and revealing because for the first the composer is involved in the entire proceeds of
creating a musical moment.

Silver Apples of the Moon was chosen to for the National Registry of Recorded Works at the
Library of Congress. Subotnick is still performing music live using a combination of a Buchla
syntheseizer and a computer. His live performance rig allows for stereo panning. He not only tours as a
musician but also as an educator or lecturer. Subotnick is currently developing a a progran to teach
children not only music but how to create music. Subotnick has also developed computer programs and
Ipad apps geared toward teaching children music.

Sources
http://www.mortonsubotnick.com/bio.html
http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/morton-subotnick
interviews on youtube