All language subtitles for Sisters.With.Transistors.2020.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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[Indistinct talking]

[Car engines running]

[Subtle beeping]

- [Man Off Camera]: Are you
guys going to stop ever,

or are you gonna
keep dancing forever?

- I'm gonna keep dancing
forever, I mean.

Well, at least 'til
I remember

where I put my car.

[Rhythmic electronic beeping]

- [Female Narrator]: This
is the story of women

who hear music
in their heads,

of radical sounds

where there was once silence,

of dreams enabled
by technology.

- Technology is a
tremendous liberator.

It blows up power structures.

[Rhythmic electronic beeping
becoming more complex]

Women are naturally drawn
to electronic music.

You didn't have
to be accepted

by any of the
male-dominated resources:

the radio stations,

the record companies,

the concert hall venues,

the funding organisations.

You could make something
with electronics

and you can present music
directly to your audience

and that gives you
tremendous freedom.

But somehow women get
forgotten from that history.

[Electronic beeping darkens
and fades away]

- [Female Narrator]: The
history of women

has been a
story of silence,

of breaking through
the silence.

- We shall not be
robbed any longer.

- [Female Narrator]:
With beautiful noise

[Rhythmic electronic beeping]

[Beeping merges into
a stagnant tone]

- This is April 30th, 1974.

And we're all here at
the Bonino Gallery.

- [Woman Off Camera]:
What's your name?

- Suzanne Ciani,
C-I-A-N-I.

[Giggles]

[Subdued electronic music]

And I'm going to give...

I'm going to play a concert
on the Buchla synthesizer.

These instruments are
designed by a manufacturer

in Berkeley, California.

They're probably the most
sophisticated system

that's available.

And I think they're sensual.

May I have a cigarette?

- [Woman Off Camera]:
They're what?

- Sensual.

Thank you.

With this new technology,
you could do it all yourself.

So you were the composer.

you were the performer,
you were the sole arbiter

of your creation.

[Haunting synthesizer music]

[Repetitive melodic tones layer
over prolonged swelling tones]

And the machine was alive.

It was warm.

It communicated.

It was sensitive.

You know, you could
move something

just the littlest bit

and then a whole new
expression would open up.

[Synthesizer music deepens
and intensifies]

[Deep, full tones move quickly
as swelling tones continue]

One of the most amazing
experiences you can have

is to be in the middle of
this sound that's moving.

The thing that I've always
loved about electronic music

is that it's in motion.

It's malleable.

It's a much more open
set of dynamics.

[A new melody emerges
as lower tones steady]

In electronics, you're not
dealing so literally with

the architecture of
nodes or harmonies,

those building blocks
in classical music.

You're dealing in energy.

[Air whooshing]

[Synthesizer music
becomes more hurried]

- [Female Narrator]: At the
dawn of the 20th century,

the world was
no longer silent.

The spirit of modern
life was a banshee

screeching into
the future.

Futurists wanted to
make art out of

the new energy,
speed, and noise.

How would we begin
to do such a thing,

to capture the sound of
this electrified world?

[Humming pitch mirrors
Clara's hand movements]

- I do very much what
a diver would do.

I just have to take a chance.

And here I am.

[Hum jumps from a lower
octave to a higher octave]

See?

A hair breadth off and I'm
already on a different note.

Dr. Ray, now
we'll have fun.

[Dr. Ray laughs]

Now we'll have fun.

Now, here, hold
your hand over this.

[Electronic tones whining in
tandem with hand movements]

It is a fallacy to think
that the instrument

is easy to play.

It is much more difficult
than the violin.

I was a concert violinist
before I played this.

[Passionate classical music
on piano and Theremin]

As young girls, both my sister
and I gave joint concerts

playing the violin and the
piano all over Russia

then all over Europe.

We played our way to America.

I met Professor Theremin
when he came to America

to demonstrate the instrument.

I was fascinated by

the aesthetic part
of the instrument,

the beauty,

and the idea of
playing completely

without touching anything.

I also loved the sound of it.

[Classical music continues]

Professor Theremin became
a great friend and admirer,

and we really worked on

this particular
instrument together.

I making my musical
pushes known to him,

and he being the
genius that he was

made it work.

[Emotional
piano music]

And we played the
Nardini Concerto.

We played the whole
César Franck Sonata,

which was at that time
a rather great surprise

because the Theremin
was associated with

just little melodies.

[Theremin plays a deep,
passionate melody]

- [Aura Satz]: Suddenly
you get someone

who's a total virtuoso

and able to make
it sound in a way

that it had never
sounded before.

[Mournful classical music
with piano accompaniment]

- [Female Narrator]: You cannot
play air with hammers,

Clara would say.

You have to play with
butterfly wings.

[Mournful classical
music continues]

- [Clara Rockmore]: I was a
freak at the time.

The public had to be won
over into thinking of it

as a real artistic medium
played by an artist,

and I won them over.

[Birds chirping]

A young composer
said to me,

"It's listening to this
singing of a soul."

Now isn't that
a lovely thought,

singing of a soul?

[Harsh, irregular tones]

- The first stage in the
realisation of a piece of music

is to construct the
individual sounds

that we're going to use.

To do this,
we go to these

sound generators here,
electronic generators,

and we listen to three of the
basic electronic sounds.

First, is the simplest
sound of all,

which is a sine wave.

[Stagnant tone]

You can see on
the oscilloscope,

it has a very simple form and
has a very pure sound.

Now listen to the same note
but with a different quality.

This is a square wave.

[Piercing stagnant tone]

It's very square
on the picture

and perhaps rather
harsh to listen to.

This is because it has a lot
of high harmonics

and that's what gives the
corners on the picture.

Now a more complex
sound still is white noise.

[Staticky, rain-like sound
with no distinguishable pitch]

We don't always go to
electronic sound generators

for our basic
sources of sound.

If the sound we want exists
already in real life, say,

we can go and record it.

[Medium-pitched pop]

[High-pitched, sharp tone]

But those basic sounds
aren't really interesting

in their raw
state like this.

To make them of value
for a musical piece,

we have to shape them
and mold them.

We can get the lower sounds
we need from the rhythm

by slowing down the tape.

[Low-pitched pop]

And the higher sounds by
speeding up the tape.

[Pops get progressively
higher in pitch]

And then all we have
to do is cut the notes

to the right length.

We can join them together on
a loop and listen to them.

[Low pops become
rhythmic bass tones]

And then with the higher
notes of the rhythm, again,

we join them
together in a loop

and play it in
synchronisation

with the first tape.

[Rapid rhythm of high "pop"
tones overlays bass tones]

And over this we can play.

[Rapid rhythm of higher
tones layers on top]

[Mysterious melody begins]

[Haunting ringing tones]

Using all of these we can
build up any sound

we can possibly
imagine.

We spend quite a lot of time
trying to invent new sound,

sounds that don't
exist already,

sounds that can't be produced
by musical instruments.

[Scratching]

[High-pitched squeaking]

The radio, the radio,
the radio was

the most important
thing in my life.

You know, there
weren't books.

The radio was my education.

[Haunting tones and
subdued beeping]

I was accepted by the Oxford
and the Cambridge

to read mathematics,
which is quite something

for a working-class
girl in the '50s,

where only one in 10
were female.

- Delia was a
brilliant mathematician.

She was fascinated by the
inner composition of a sound.

Then she could reach
into it and decide

what part of that sound
she wanted to use.

[Distant sirens]

[Menacing pulses]

- [Delia Derbyshire]: I was in
Coventry during the Blitz.

That was such an
influence on me.

It's come to me that my love
for abstract sounds were

sounds of the air raid siren.

[Sirens continue]

Because that's the sound you
hear and you don't know

the source of it
as a young child.

It's an abstract sound
and it's meaningful

and then the all clear.

[Sirens merge into electronic
music sounds]

[Haunting hum]

[Bombs exploding]

- [Female Narrator]: World War II
emptied cities of men.

[Time clock clicking]

And in the absence of
men, women worked.

[Machine rattling]

Freedom was more
than a feeling.

- [Man]: There isn't
much glamour

about this
independence.

Women at work are
getting to look and behave

more like men.

It's not very attractive.

[Haunting squeaking sounds]

- Welcome to Tower Folly,
this lonely host house

on the North Downs of Kent.

Well, as far
as I know

this house isn't haunted
and there isn't

a mad scientist in sight.

This is in fact a music factory
where they can literally

make music out of
electronic sounds,

and the woman who makes it
has just been awarded a grant

by the Gulbenkian Foundation
to help her research.

She's here at
her control box,

Miss Daphne Oram.

How did you get involved
in this kind of work?

- It dates back really
to 1944, I think,

when I read a book

which prophesied that
composers in the future

would compose directly
into sound instead of

using orchestral
instruments, you see.

And well, since then
I've been working

in BBC Studios,

and so I've got
some little grasp

of this sort of
equipment.

[Upbeat orchestral
music starts]

I was trained as a musician,

and the two sort of
click together, you see.

- Daphne was a
very gifted pianist

and she had secured
a place for herself

at the Royal Academy of Music,
which she turned down

because she was also very
interested in technology

and wanted to
work at the BBC.

[Haunting electronic sounds]

I was asked to do some
incidental music

for a television play,

and I did this by
getting together,

in the middle of the night,

all the tape recorders that
I could find in studios,

collecting them together
in one studio,

and working until they had to
be put back the next morning,

sleeping a little bit and
then coming back in

to do my normal
chamber music work.

[Upbeat flute and piano
chamber music]

Then it grew from that.

I was asked to help start
the radiophonic workshop.

- [Man Whispering]:
Listen.

- Without Daphne,

it would never have started
because BBC did not want

an electronic music studio.

We were just using anything
we could grab hold of.

We had basic
laboratory equipment

and a pair of tape machines
that had been liberated

at the end of the war.

[Banging and oscillating
electronic sounds]

- Playwrights were
writing in a surreal

kind of style,

which was a
legacy of the war.

The style required a
different kind of sound.

- [echoing, haunting male voice]:
Bird or angel?

- [Male Radio Announcer]: This
program is an experiment.

We think it's
worth broadcasting

as a perfectly serious
first attempt

to find out whether
we can convey a new kind of

emotional and
intellectual experience

by means of what we call
radiophonic effects.

[Trudging,
heavy beat]

- [Echoing, rhythmic chanting]:
Round and round

like a wind
from the ground.

[Unintelligible]

- [Male Radio Announcer]: It's
a sort of modern magic.

Some musicians believe that
it can become an art form

complete in itself.

Others are skeptical.

In fact, we've decided
not to use

the word "music" at all.

[Whispering and
howling sounds]

- [Female Narrator]: What
began as a research trip

to the Brussels World Fair
became a fateful pilgrimage.

There, Daphne hears
an electronic composition

fed through 350 speakers

with synchronised
projections.

[Low rumbling]

Electronic music was more
than just incidental.

It was the sound
of the future.

- [Daphne Oram]: The radiophonic
workshop was concentrating

somewhat on the drama side,

and I wanted to concentrate
on the music side.

So I set up my own studio.

- She was a woman,

in the 1950s,
set up her own

independent electronic
music studio.

It's extraordinarily brave.

[Fluttering,
whistle-like sounds]

- [Male Interiewer]:
Now Miss Oram,

how do you go about
manufacturing

this sort of sound?

- Well, let me introduce

this little electronic
generator here,

which produces
a sound like this.

[Resonant tone getting
progressively lower]

Now I made a little
loop of tape here

with varying pure
tones on it.

[Rapidly ascending tones]

Now if I then put a little
artificial reverberation

on that,
I think you'll see

we're just beginning
to get somewhere

with the music.

[Reverberating, ethereal
ascending tone patterns]

[Simple melody playing]

[Joyful melody plays over
percussive tapping]

- [Male Interviewer]: What are
you going with this

three-and-a-half thousand
pounds that you've got?

- Well, this is very
exciting to me

because I have ideas for a
piece of electronic equipment,

not quite like this.

In this case,
the composer,

we're going to be able to
feed in drawn symbols

straight into the equipment
and out will come the sounds.

[Rumbling]

I have a new
technique completely,

one that I've evolved
over the years,

which I call oramics.

Now that is using graphic
representation of sound.

[Reverberating tones]

There seems to be
no real notation system

in electronic music.

I wanted a system where I
could graphically represent

what I wanted and
give that representation,

that musical score,
in fact, to a machine

and have from it
the sound.

[Reverberating tones
continue]

[playful waltz of
electronic tones]

- This idea of drawn sound

is a sound that
comes from nowhere.

It's a sound that is
synthesised from nothing,

but she's not the
ghost in the machine

her hands are
all over it.

[playful waltz continues]

- The composer wants to
project something of himself.

The great works of art are a
projection of a human mind.

And unless this machine can
accept and produce exactly

this projection of the
composer's thought,

then I think it's just a
machine and I can quite see

why people can get
frightened at the thought.

[Percussive beat resembling
a train on tracks]

[Eliane Radigue speaking French]

[Percussive beat continues]

[Ocean-like waves of sound]

[Airplane engine roaring]

[Prolonged metallic tones]

Pierre Schaeffer said, "In
between noise and music,

"there is the hand
of the musician."

[Man speaking French]

[French voice recording
repeats on a loop]

- Stop.

[Eliane speaking French]

[light chiming tones overlay
deep airy sounds]

- [Female Narrator]: Eliane
dreamt of an unreal,

impalpable music appearing
and fading away like clouds

in the blue summer sky.

[Slow pulses of pleasant
tones and chimes]

[Eliane speaking French]

[Mix of mysterious
electronic sounds]

[Pierre Henry speaking French]

[Eliane speaking French]

[Single tone splits into
multiple dissonant tones]

[A complex chorus
of tones emerges]

- [Man]: Greenwich Village is
mostly a state of mind.

[Blues music]

- [Bebe Barron]: The Village
in the 50s had to be

the most exciting, wonderful
place in the world.

It was unbelievable,
like Paris in the 20s.

We were married in '48 and
Louis's cousin brought us

a tape recorder for
a wedding present.

I think we were the
only ones in the country

with that machine.

We had all the artists in
The Village coming to us

for recording work.

[Reverberating high
and low tones]

- [Female Performer]:
I remember my first

birth in water.

I sway and float,
stand on boneless toes,

listening for
distant sounds,

sounds beyond the
reach of human ears.

[Whistling tones join the
reverberating tones]

- [Bebe]: We started
a recording studio.

We built almost all the
equipment ourselves

because there
wasn't any to buy.

[Upbeat orchestral music]

- [Male Announcer]: The great
American boy is hard at work

inventing, creating,
building something.

And the desire to build
and create new things

is the energy that develops

industrious, dependable
citizens of tomorrow.

- [Louis Barron]: It was
exciting because you were

building these things and
you're experimenting with

the electronic media.

[Bubbling sounds dance
atop an asymmetrical beat]

- [Female Narrator]:
Louis made sounds

by overloading circuit boards,

which Bebe then processed and
manipulated to create music.

To the writer,
Anaïs Nin,

it sounded like a molecule
had stubbed its toe.

- [Bebe]: And we started
working on avant-garde films.

That's what this
was all about,

was the avant-garde.

[Mysterious,
space-like music]

The sense of wonder and awe,

the beauty coming
from the circuits.

I mean we would just sit back
and let them take over.

[Deep roars and descending,
spinning tones]

- [Louis]: These circuits
are not instruments.

They are performance.

- [Bebe]: We would record

everything that
came out of the circuits.

I spent hours and
hours and hours

listening to all that stuff.

- [Louis]: Oh yeah.

Well, later you
went through-

- [Bebe]: Days!

- [Louis]: Miles of tape.
- [Bebe]: Yeah.

- [Louis]: Incredible, and she could
hold it in her memory.

She could remember where to
go for a certain feeling

in the sound.

[Sounds resembling sirens]

- Bebe had a formal
musical education.

She made most of the
compositional decisions

while Louis dealt more with
the technical side of things.

The Barrons'
greatest achievement

was with the music for
Forbidden Planet.

[Spinning high-pitched tones]

It was the first movie with
an all-electronic score.

[Whale-like moaning]

- The pride and joy of
that period was in coming up

with the music
for the monster.

[Descending, spinning tone
meets an ascending moan]

We were just
beside ourselves.

Suddenly, this circuit
started generating

the most complex sounds.

The dying of Morbius was the
actual dying of the circuit.

[Deep moaning]

[Harsh, distressed
screeching]

[Screeching getting
higher and higher]

[Tones descend into silence]

[Bubbling sounds]

- [Louis]: We would
have a credit that said,

"Electronic music by
Louis and Bebe Barron."

But a memo was circulated
among the executives.

How would the American
Federation of Musicians

respond to a credit that
says electronic music?

- The Musicians' Union would not

allow the soundtrack
to be considered music.

[Haunting, spinning tones
sprinkled with bubbling sounds]

They were afraid that someday
their jobs would be replaced

by machines and so they
would have none of it.

That's why it's credited
as "electronic tonalities."

[Deep, haunting sounds]

- [Bebe]: It was so awful.

We were barely
acknowledged as composers.

[Harsh, metallic
swell of sound]

[Rhythmic,
determined melody]

[Sweeping whoosh of air]

[Mysterious space-like
melody]

- Prior to Dr. Who,

there's a lot of distaste
of electronic music.

Delia's music is
absolutely crucial

in changing
that perception.

[Mysterious,
reverberating tones]

- [Woman]: It's like a
lighthouse, isn't it?

I wonder what it's like up
there in a thunderstorm.

Think of being up there
on a starry night,

with all the world
at your feet.

- You get people
who are writing in

saying, "What is this?"

"How is it made?"

- Imagine what life must
have been like

before samplers,
before synthesizers,

before sequencers?

It took her 40 days to make
the Doctor Who theme.

40 days.

- She would sample
a green lamp shade,

speed it up,
reverse it,

and just completely changed
the nature of the sound.

[Bell chiming]

[Sustained,
warm bell tones]

[Birds chirping]

- This was a
documentary program

about the Tuareg tribe,

the Tuareg tribe of nomads
in the Sahara desert.

In the piece,
I tried to convey

the distance of the horizon
and the heat haze,

the strand of camels
wandering across the desert.

That, in fact, was made
from square waves

put through every filter
I could possibly find.

[Harsh sustained tones over
warm, swelling bell tones]

- [Barry performing]:
There must be a god.

Oh, yes.

[Ethereal, layered
choral chanting]

Delia Derbyshire created

some very, very
beautiful things

and some things that had

a very strange and
unearthly quality

that couldn't quite be got, I think,
by normal musical means

and yet didn't
sound as if

they were electronically
manufactured.

[Ethereal choral
chanting continues]

- Some of it was
worked out mathematically.

[Repeated beeping tones]

I've tried to get into it

a feeling of simplicity
and loneliness,

of a man on a moon.

[Ethereal,
sliding melody]

- [Neil Armstrong]: That's
one small step for man,

one giant leap
for mankind.

- [Mandy]: She created
a kind of pathway

for electronic music.

- [Delia]: I did all
sorts of things

I was told I couldn't do.

I think I've always been a
very independent thinker.

[Ethereal, sliding
melody ends]

[Bomb exploding]

[Rumbling sound
expands, then fades]

- [Female Narrator]: While
the work of women

like Delia and Daphne

came from the deafening
sounds of wartime,

it was the chilling silence
of the Cold War

that took others to
the limits of listening.

- The bomb scare psychology

that was inculcated,

that had a big
effect on the artists

that were emerging
at that time.

[Upbeat guitar music]

Everybody was pushing
for opening things up,

a kind of way through
all the terrible stuff

that was going on in
the world at the time.

So there was a lot of
political motivation behind

what we were doing.

- [Protestors] Peace now!

Peace now!
Peace now!

[Crowd cheering]

- [David Rosenboom]: The
effect was to say,

okay, we've got
to break through

anything that was rigid,
anything that was limiting,

and try to move
things forward.

[Space-like, harsh,
high-pitched tones]

- The music scene

was evolving into
an area that was

very fresh and exciting.

[Screaming,
elongated tones]

First time I heard
live electronic music

was early '60s.

Pauline was on stage
with an accordion.

The room was exploding with a
sound that was ear-splitting.

I had never experienced
that kind of volume before.

[Piercing, screaming tones
ascending and descending]

- [Pauline Oliveros]:
I can't remember

when I wasn't
interested in sounds.

I remember particularly
things like riding in the car

with my parents for instance,
maybe in the backseat,

listening to the sound
of the motor

and listening to the sound
of my parents' voices

being modulated by the motor.

[Muffled conversation]

Listening to my father
turn his shortwave radio,

listening to the whistles
and pops and static.

I mean, I was
always fascinated with

the in-between sounds
in the stations,

just tuning in between.

I loved that.

[Radio tuning]

I credit my mother.

For my birthday, she
sent me a tape recorder,

and that was a very
significant event

because nobody had
tape recorders, you know.

It was in the 50s.

[Relaxed, marching
dance music]

I began to do field recording
from my apartment window.

[High-pitched screeching tones
Trolley bell ringing]

And then in 1959
got started making

a tape piece called
Time Perspectives.

[Wind chimes ringing]

[Hollow object sliding
on a surface]

The tape recorder that I had,
it was possible to record

by hand winding the
tape in record mode.

That gave me a variable
speed so I could do

some interesting
things with that.

[Bells continue ringing]

[Sounds resembling
birds cawing]

And I used the bathtub for
reverberation [chuckles]

and cardboard tubes as filters.

I'd put microphones in the
tube and then record sounds

through the tube.

[Hollow sound of
water gurgling]

[Airy wash of sound]

[Sustained accordion chord]

[Object dropping]

Eventually, I met up
with a group of people

who were interested
in new music,

[Haunting,
avant-garde music]

which led to
the founding of

the San Francisco
Tape Music Center.

- The San Francisco
Tape Music Center

was not associated
with an institution.

So it was friends brought
together what equipment

they had to share.

- Our sense of what
we were doing

at that point was opening
a place where poets,

painters, film, and
electronic or tape music,

where all this stuff
could be done.

[Echoing,
haunting sounds]

It was a sense
of individuality.

Nobody wanted to
be like anyone else

and everybody was
very supportive

of what everybody
else was doing.

- My interest was always
in live performance

and I started to find out
ways to use tape recorders

and perform live with them,
and that was making

a tape delay system,
which allows me

to maintain that physical
contact with the sound.

[Screeching,
high-pitched tone]

[Classical choral music
begins as tone continues]

- [Female Narrator]: How do
you exercise the canon of

classical music of misogyny

with two oscillators,
a turntable, and tape delay?

- Feminism was at the center

of what she was doing,

and it's strange because it
seems like if the boys' club

is going to pick a token
woman, you would not pick

a woman who is
that outspoken.

[Drone-like tone]

- Pauline was conscious
of the fact that

she was different.

She had a streak of
a revolutionary in her.

- Pauline, it was hard,
you know,

she had come
out in the 50s

and here she was
a woman, gay,

avant-garde music,

each thing by itself
would be hard,

but she had three
things that were hard

and women composers

were not being
performed, you know.

[Choral voices emerge
over the drone-like tone]

- [Male Interviewer]: You
wrote an editorial

to the New York Times
once called

"Don't Call Them
'Lady' Composers"

- [Pauline]: That's right.
- Tell us about

when you wrote
that and why.

- [Pauline]: I just want to be
introduced as a composer.

That has caused me
to use that title

and to start
to point out

how hard it was for women
to be taken seriously

as creators of music.

[Drone-like and choral
tones continue]

- [Female Narrator]: Go
out walking at night.

Tread so quietly the bottoms
of your feet become ears.

Working with an
all-women ensemble,

instructions like these were
intended to encourage

deep listening.

[Drone-like tone continues]

[Long tones
resembling brass]

- [Pauline]: I was alarmed

as many were,
of course,

with the Vietnam War,

and I began to seek some ways
of working with sound

that I could discover more
of a kind of inner peace.

[Drone-like and brass
tones continue]

I found myself listening
to long sounds

and becoming more
interested in

what the sounds
did themselves

than what I would
do with them.

And as this work proceeded,

I began to become interested
in what the kind of listening

I was doing did to me and my
own internal processes.

[Drone-like tones continue]

[Brass tones
sing gently]

- [Female Interviewer]:
Does it have

social and political
implications to you,

the kind of music
that you write?

- Oh, yes.

Well, I feel that
one's interactions,

the way one relates in an
organization of any kind,

is political and social
and very important.

The path that I hope to be on
is one where the energy

that comes out of the work
that I do is beneficial

to others as
well as myself.

I want my work to be
mutually beneficial.

I'm not interested in

making an object of
art and entertainment.

I'm interested in making
something that helps me

to grow and expand and
change as an individual

and in relation
to others.

[Warm, layered
brass tones]

- [Female Narrator]: Pauline's
preoccupation with

how we hear and feel

the sounds within
and around us

were shared by
Maryanne Amacher at MIT,

who was sounding
out the city.

[Fluttering
high-pitched sounds]

[Seagulls cawing]

- I had installed a
microphone

in eight locations at
the Boston Harbour

in the New England
Fish Exchange

connected to
telephone links.

It was very nice to
come in late at night

at 1:00 in the morning

and just turn on the
mixer and have the sound

coming from the distant
night when I liked it best

because I could hear
patterns in various shapes.

[Seagulls cawing]

[Fluttering high-pitched
sounds continue]

I realized, my, there's
a tone of this place.

There's a whole undercurrent
that exists here

that makes this
recognisable in some way.

It wasn't hard to
analyse it in Boston.

It was like a low F sharp.

Then other places,
for example, New York,

it was like a low E.

[Subway train clattering]

It wasn't that I wanted
the sounds of the birds

or the sounds of the harbour
or any of these sounds,

I really wanted to experience
and learn about hearing.

[Pleasant harmony of tones]

- [Male Interviewer]:
When people say to you,

"Yeah, but is it music?"

After you say,
"Yes it is,"

how do you
expand on that?

- [Maryanne]: Well,
I think that's sort of

an old question
[chuckles].

Much of our music, classical
pop, has this beat,

has this gallop,
has this trot.

I'm interested in music that
communicates some ideas,

finding places where there is
space and dimension

to the sound,

sounds very very far away
and very close up.

[Deep, airy sounds]

- Maryanne was really
interested in

contemporary science.

She had been very interested
in muon research,

these particles that speed
through the universe.

- She was constantly
thinking about

intersections of science,
life, and sound.

[Airy and metallic,
droning sounds]

- Her house
was incredible.

It was in breathtakingly
bad condition.

There was this
whole rack

full of these sine
wave oscillators

straight out of
a physics lab.

And there's this
woman sitting there

with this really intense,
buzzy energy.

[Quivering metallic sounds]

- She'd have a
rock-and-roll attitude

towards, "I'm going to
make this whole house

"vibrate and come alive."

[Metallic sounds intensify
and rumble]

- She wanted to
develop an extremely

rigorous approach
to listening,

[Low, constant tone
subtly shifting in quality]

to activating sights,

to thinking outside of
composition as it's known.

She didn't want
to push around

dead white men's notes.

- I wanted to
create music where

the listener actually had

vivid experiences
of contributing.

In composing, I am
conscious of the tones

that you make in
response to the tones

that a musician plays.

[Subtle, harsh violin
string sounds]

- One of the phenomenon
she was

most interested in was
otoacoustic emission.

She referred to
them as ear tones.

If you have two frequencies
and they sound together,

the ear and the mind try
to sort of resolve them.

There is an emergent
third pitch.

She can compose these outer
things that will produce

this inner thing.

[low, constant tone
subtly shifting in quality]

She would refer to it as

ghost writing the
listener's music.

- The first time one
encounters her music

and the way that it
dances inside your ear

is this light bulb moment.

You can actually play with

the physicality
of the listener.

[Soft, harsh violin
string sounds]

[Low tone continues]

[Tones are replaced by a
constant high-pitched tone]

- Merce Cunningham commissioned

a piece from her.

[Sustained, chant-like tones]

You'd hear this
very high pitch.

[High pitch and
low tones continue]

And then there
would be thunder,

[Thunder rumbling softly]

beautiful thunder recorded
in stereoscopic sound

that would shift across
the room.

[Thunder rumbles swell]

And when it hit, there
would be this array

of other frequencies
that would happen.

It was very very beautiful.

[High pitch continues as
thunder waxes and wanes]

- [Female Narrator]:
The idea of

a slowly-evolving composition

that alters the listener

also fired the imagination
of Eliane Radigue.

[Grunt-like prolonged tone]

[Eliane speaking French]

[Varied electronic beeps]

[Man singing to
an upbeat rhythm]

- When I met Eliane,

she had been working with
the Buchla synthesizer,

yet this piece that
she wrote, Chry-ptus,

sounded nothing
like a Buchla.

[Spinning low tone]

[High, piercing
pitch emerges]

[Phone ringing sound]

[Eliane speaking French]

[Medium-pitched,
spinning tone]

- We're talking
with Eliane Radigue

who's here from Paris.

Are you working with
both synthesisers

and tape recording
processes?

- [Eliane]: Yes,
the ARP synthesiser

and the tape recorder.

My main involvement with
music is to work on

slow changing
of the sounds.

- [Charles]: So in a way,

you're working with time?

- [Eliane]: Yes,
my last work, Adnos II,

is 75 minutes long,
and it couldn't be shorter.

It just goes like a stream.

[Constant tone slightly
pulsates rhythmically]

[A dissonant tone emerges]

I should say that
this music I make

is not so much welcome,

except by a few
people, of course.

There is nothing in between.

People likes it,
or not at all.

For the music establishment,

they think that I
don't make music.

That's not music.

- [Charles] Oh, still arguing
about that, are we?

[Eliane laughs]

- Our music was meant
to be listened to

in a different way than
how you'd listen to, like,

a pop song.

In a pop song
you're listening for

melodies, harmonies, lyrics.

In her music, you're
listening not just

for the things that are
changing in the sound,

but for the way
that the experience

is changing your disposition.

[Two main spinning tones]

[Spinning gets more rapid]

[Spinning slows, causing
the two tones to alternate]

[Speaking French]

[Man speaking French]

[Dramatic whoosh of sound]

[Baroque-like
electronic melody]

[Man speaking French]

[Piano notes playing]

- [Wendy Carlos]: I'll
make it start very dull

and then get very
bright like that.

It sounds more like
a trumpet sound.

[Brass-like synthesizer
notes playing]

[Man speaking French]

[Experimenting with
brass-like notes]

And I'll add a little echo.

[Brass-like notes become
more sustained]

[Rapid baroque music]

- The transgressive act of

recontextualizing these classic
Western art music tropes,

that takes a lot of strength,
humour, and vision.

- [Suzanne]: Up until
that moment,

electronic music
had this promise

of a different vocabulary,
a different language,

a new paradigm,
a new way of working.

Switched-On Bach,
the way it impacted

the public's consciousness
of what a synthesiser was,

was completely retroactive.

[Bach piece playing
on synthesizer]

Everybody thought that
these things were about

replicating sounds.

To me, electronic music wasn't
about making baroque music

with new timbres.

It was a different
kind of music.

You just had the
Summer of Love.

Everything we knew
was being thrown out,

and it was a whole new world.

Electronics were
part of that world.

[Ascending and descending
scales of electronic tones]

- What are they?

- Oh, these are
patch cords.

These are the things
that route the signal

from one little module to
another to get the sound.

You can patch it a lot of
different ways and the way

you patch it will
determine what you get.

It's like creating
an instrument.

- [Woman Off-Camera]: Do you
know before you put them in

what it's going
to sound like?

- Well, you're always
going towards an idea.

That's what makes you put the
patch cords in certain places.

- [Suzanne]: Part of an
instrument is what it can do

and part of it is
what you do to it.

The other part of music of
course is the motion

and the personal involvement
that a musician gives

to his instrument,

and that's something
that I happen to feel

and have with
synthesisers.

So I play the synthesiser
the same way

somebody else would
play cello or violin.

[Majestic melody begins
over the scales]

- For a classically
trained pianist

to turn her back
on a keyboard,

she's crazy.

It was like learning
a new language

via the means of cutting
out your own tongue.

- [Suzanne speaking as
harmonies mimic her voice]:

Yeah, I can sing
out of tune

and it'll still be in tune

because it depends on
what I'm playing.

This is all the pitch so you
don't have to really be able

to sing to do this.

So, it's great.
it's great.

Hello, hello, hello.

[Suzanne Narrating]:
I couldn't get a record deal

because the record companies

were not interested in a
woman who did not sing.

Advertising wanted
to be on the edge.

They were looking for
something different.

I had total freedom.

Nobody could tell
me what to do.

They didn't know what I did.

[Mysterious chiming music]

[Electronic squeaky melody]

- [Male Announcer]: The new
Clairol custom care

coon brush.

[Upbeat rock-like music]

- [Male Announcer]:
Atari is going to

turn your head around.

[Exploding sound]

- [Male Announcer]: Big
news from Covergirl.

- There's a whole new
thick lash mascara.

[Liquid pouring with
electronic bubbling sound]

- The landscape that
she must have walked into

must have been like
something from Mad Men.

I remember Suzanne
telling me stories like

she'd turn up
early to set up

all the modular
gear in studios

and a young engineer
would come in and go,

"Which mic are you
going to sing on?"

or, "What are you
going to sing for us?"

Because those
stereotypes were

so commonplace in
studios in those days.

[Upbeat rock music]

- [Suzanne speaking as
chords mirror her voice]:

Welcome to Xenon.

- More than anybody else,

she built a career out of
making weird music,

which is something I think
everybody aspires to.

She had her own company.

She was able to turn
her art into something

she can live on.

[Suzanne's sigh is mirrored
by a low electronic echo]

- [Suzanne with a low and
echoey voice]: Don't be afraid.

This is my almost male voice.

[Audience laughs and applauds]

- Make the thing
make noises for us.

- Okay, let's-

- Now first of all, why
do you have this stuff?

What do you do with this?

- Well, this is how
I make a living.

- But I mean, you don't
go door-to-door saying,

I'll make you sound goofy.

- Yeah, they call me.
they call me.

- They call you.

[Complex wash of
sound slowly ascends]

- [Suzanne] Should I stop?

- No, let it go for
about half an hour.

[Sound stops]

That's wonderful.

[Audience applauds]

- [Suzanne]: It was 1980.

I was hired to do a
Hollywood feature.

[Hollow, spinning sound
gets progressively higher]

It was a Lily Tomlin movie.

Lily was a woman, the
head of the production

at Universal was a woman.

So I had two women
in positions of power.

And guess what?
I got hired.

- Is that package for me?

- Mike, it's for me.

I didn't know I was
the first woman

to be hired to score a
major Hollywood feature,

and I didn't know that
it would be 14 years

until another
woman was hired.

[Hollow, spinning sound
gets progressively higher]

We are casualties of
a day-to-day system

that operates
without awareness

that we're even there.

♪ Galaxy glue ♪

♪ Life would go to pieces
without galaxy glue ♪

- [Laurie]: There weren't
any women composers

that I knew of.

I had never heard of one.

[Rapid percussive tones]

Composers were old
white dead men.

It was just not something
I ever thought of

as something I could do.

When they asked
me in high school,

"What would you like to
do with your life?"

I said, "I would
love to do music."

They said, "Totally
out of the question.

"You would have needed
to have music lessons

"all during your childhood."

So I did a degree
in social sciences,

but secretly I really always
wanted to do music.

After I got my bachelor's and
moved to New York,

I thought, I'm
going to regret it

for the rest of my life if
I don't give it a real try.

[Man singing a vocal warm-up]

I was taking ear training
and music at Juilliard

and happened to be in
Mike Czajkowski's class.

And he was working
with Mort Subotnick.

Mike dragged me down to
Mort's studio and it was like

music went from black
and white to color.

[Complex, drone-like
sound expands]

I fell in love with
electronic music.

It completely changed the
way I heard everything.

The sounds of the
traffic in the street

no longer sounded the same.

I always wanted to do
something in the arts

that had to do with the real,
authentic experience

of being alive,
in contrast to

the 1950s hypocritical
reality in which I lived,

in which everything
was glossed over

with cotton candy.

[Spoon banging]

[Upbeat, sweeping
classical music]

- A perfect dinner Judy.

And you said she
couldn't boil water

without burning it.

- [Laurie]: I got involved in
the downtown art scene,

which is like "try
anything," you know?

[Low drone]

[Mechanical sounds]

I tackled learning the Buchla
modular analogue system.

While I could do all kinds of
wonderful things with sounds,

what I really wanted was the
precision of the computer.

I got involved with computers
in music out of frustration

at other ways of
doing music, in part,

and also because of
the incredible potential

that they had for combining
the best of all other worlds,

let's say.

The memory, the logic,

the ability to actually
interact with sound

in real time began
to be possible.

The complete freedom
to define

any kind of world you wanted.

[Warm, fluttering tones]

[Organ-like notes begin]

[Fluttering tones fade]

[A single, spinning
pitch emerges]

[Organ-like notes flutter]

[A low, moving
bass tone emerges]

[It widens into a
splash of sound]

[Bass tone fades]

[Penetrating electric tones
sustain and overlap]

[Bass tone reemerges briefly]

[Organ-like
fluttering continues]

[Dissonant splash of tones]

[Overlapping electric tones
form a friendly melody]

Computers back then were the
enemy of the counterculture.

Computers belonged to the
banks and the military

and the insurance companies.

Computer music was the utter
dehumanisation of music

rather than,
to some few of us,

the liberation of it.

- Do you mean to tell me
that you haven't heard it?

- No, I haven't heard it.
I haven't heard it.

Here, play it.

- [Woman]: It's really
terrific, Suzie.

Wait 'til you hear it.

- [Man]: Excuse me, ladies.

I have a special request.

[Upbeat, alternating electronic
beeping tones]

[Upbeat, alternating electronic
beeping tones]

- Laurie Spiegel
was a ukulele player

among other things.

She had a sense of music
that is based in folk idioms,

and Appalachian Grove

is one of the earliest
computer music pieces

that anyone would want
to listen to [laughs]

more than once.

But to think that
it was all done

by punching holes in cards
and running them

through the Bell Labs computer
is quite astonishing.

[Upbeat, alternating electronic
beeping tones continue]

- [Laurie]: Technology
is just,

it's a natural
extension of man.

Man has always
played with tools.

Man has always
developed tools,

and it is a tool.

The machine doesn't
write the music.

You tell the machine
what to do,

and the machine is an
extension of you.

[Phone dialing sounds]

Bell Labs was a great,
great institution.

Everything changed after the
AT&T divestiture happened.

Bell Labs became
product-oriented

instead of pure research.

[Faint phone conversations
and dialing]

After I left there,
I was absolutely desolate.

I had lost my main
creative medium.

- [Male Interviewer]:
Laurie Spiegel,

you have a very
fascinating new product,

a software program,
which you created...

- Yeah.
- ...called Music Mouse.

Can you tell us a little
bit about that?

- This is actually a program
which turns the Macintosh

into an instrument
which you play,

and unlike traditional
instruments,

on the other hand,
it uses the logic

of the computer supportively
to musical expression.

[Uplifting piano music]

[Melody rises and falls
with the horizontal line]

[Piano chords follow
the vertical lines]

I needed an instrument.

I wanted something which was
entirely under my own control

that didn't have
to be marketable

or it didn't involve funding.

It was just something
entirely mine.

[Melody and chords ascend]

It's the first time
I've done something

essentially for myself

that I'm just really
making available

to anybody who wants it,

and I hope a lot
of people really get

a lot of good
music out of it.

Everybody who's using it
seems to be doing

something slightly different.

So I'll be interested,
you know,

keeping my ears open
for whatever you do.

Mouse ears.

[Chords ascend then
rapidly descend]

[Sustained notes form a
warm blanket of sound]

[A new piece begins with
dissonant, moving notes]

- She wasn't satisfied with

the given constraints of
what she was working with.

So she decided to make
her own software.

She just embodies
this idea of agency.

[The piece continues]

[Each note has both lower tone
and a higher, harsh tone]

- Her work was very
much in the lineage

with the work of Daphne Oram

because of her engineering

of a new language
for producing sounds,

and the support system
for other people

to invent new soundscapes.

[Irregular melody]

- [Female Interviewer]: What's
the most exciting thing

about the field for you?

- Well, this is a time at
which many people feel

that there are a lot of
dead ends in music,

that there isn't
a lot more to do.

This is actually...

I see this and through
the technology,

I experience this as
quite the opposite.

This is a period in which we
realise we've only just begun

to scratch the surface of
what's possible musically.

[Energetic, alternating,
percussive tones]

- [Female Narrator]:
Through technology,

voices are amplified,
silence is broken,

spaces are shared.

The music in our head

can finally be
heard by others.

[Pigeons cooing]

[Sparrows chirping]

[Wings flapping]

- [Laurie]: We
were, in a way,

trying to make a
bit of a revolution,

but I don't think we
would have put it

in such grandiose terms.

We were trying to put music
back in touch with itself.

[Relaxed, low-pitched
electronic groove]

[Buttons clicking]

- [Suzanne whispering]: Okay,
and this has to go here.

This is here.

This is...

[Buttons clicking rapidly]

[Robotic beeping]

There were really no role
models for female composers

when I studied music.

Overall, we are incrementally
getting more visibility,

but it's two steps forward
and one step back.

And to this day
it kind of irks me

that when I turn on my
favorite radio station,

it's just the male parade.

[Low tones move over an
orchestra of electronic sounds]

[Sounds get choppier,
resembling radio tuning]

[Low drone with
a sustained pitch]

- [Laurie]: It is odd that
electronic music,

it's generally considered
a man's field.

Women have been
so formative in it.

[Low drone continues]

- [Pauline]: There has to be

a complete change of
consciousness

throughout the
musical field,

where they could begin to
teach music that's written

by women, as well as men,
as well as of all colours,

and it would effect
a great change.

Listening is the basis of
creativity and culture.

How you're listening is and
how you develop a culture.

And how a community
of people listen

is what creates
their culture.

[Overtones layer over
the low drone]

[Eliane speaking French]

[Overtones swell over
the low drone]

[Drone continues]

- It's quite reassuring
to realise that

I wasn't the only woman making
strange electronic music.

- What relates
all of these women

is this DIY thing.

And DIY is interesting
because it doesn't mean that

you've explicitly, voluntarily
chosen to do it yourself.

It's that there are
certain barriers in place

that don't allow
you to do anything.

If you don't have the visual
or the knowledge

of there being any people
in the area of work

that you're interested in
that are similar to you,

then you don't think
that it's possible for you.

[Low drone swells slightly]

- There is something
psychological

that happens when you can
see yourself in the people

who are being celebrated.

[Drone gets softer]

[Air whooshing subtly]

[Drone softens]

[Drone fades away]

[Air blowing]

[Pleasant electronic chords]

[Echoey, ethereal singing]
♪ Your eyes are set on stun ♪

♪ You are hotter than the sun ♪

♪ I love to see you shine ♪

♪ Because you really
blow my mind ♪

♪ Your heart beats like a drum ♪

♪ It hammers when you're gone ♪

♪ The terms with you
and me are up ♪

♪ Set us free ♪

[Relaxed drum beat]

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

[Uplifting flute-like
melody begins]

♪ Your eyes are set on stun ♪

♪ You are hotter than the sun ♪

♪ I love to see you shine ♪

♪ Because you really
blow my mind ♪

♪ Your heart beats like a drum ♪

♪ It hammers when you're gone ♪

♪ The terms with you
and me are up ♪

♪ Set us free ♪

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

[Uplifting flute-like
melody repeats]

♪ I've seen the rings of Saturn ♪

♪ And the craters on the moon ♪

♪ Oceans of Venus in
the middle of June ♪

♪ Mirrors of Mercury and
Mars' electric skies ♪

♪ Pearls of Neptune
in Jupiter's eyes ♪

♪ I heard the old man
who plays the lake ♪

♪ Amazing things will make
you want to shake ♪

[Sound spins rapidly then
slows and becomes deeper]

♪ A strange planet a
zillion lightyears away ♪

♪ Through a black hole
across the Milky Way ♪

[Upbeat synthesiser and
percussion music]

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

♪ Synthesise me ♪

♪ Hypnotise me ♪

♪ Humanise me ♪

♪ Energise me ♪

♪ Don't patronise me ♪

♪ Don't glamorise me ♪

♪ Don't paralyse me ♪

♪ You can't surprise me ♪

♪ Harmonise me ♪

♪ Mesmerise me ♪

♪ Solarise me ♪

♪ Synchronise me ♪

♪ Synthesise me ♪

[Ethereal spinning
sound ascends]

[Spinning sound
descends and fades]