Morton Subotnick at CTM-Festival 2011 - Live Excerpt

[@rjwh67220]

I really dig Subotnick, I have since I accidentally bought a copy of The Wild Bull back in the late sixties. Such an innovator, he took a new instrument and invented a new tonal language for it. I saw him live once, he just blew me away. I heard the word “charlatan” bandied about during the intermission, including by my date, but I knew better. We were heating something completely new. What a wonderfully creative mind.

[@al.cavalu]

Charlatan? Were they thinking it's all pre-recorded or what? 😅

[@auztin101]

Without Morton Subotnick, electronic music wouldnt be where it is today! He's been doing this since the bloody sixties!

[@ronnieperez7650]

I love that this legendary guy is using Ableton.

[@realself1]

amazing to watch him work... pure intuition, it's like a dance. the music is a reflection of our experience, thoughts, anxiety; the rhythm of our organisms. If you can't hear the somnolence, the elegy...

[@yorkie2k]

Mark Motherbaugh said in an interview that he was really into Morton back in the late 60's. I can really hear the influence in early Devo recordings.

[@michaelwilliams8781]

That’s beautiful, it feels surprisingly “free” with some great textures. Blew my expectations!

[@eurscher1]

10-05-2011 : Some of the craftiest electronics=based tempos,inference ,and concatenations I feel I've been exposed to throughout my limited tenure .Bravo Unkle Morton. I anxiously await your next anticipated studio-time marketing initiatives' deployment . I'l be tuned in on KZbin .-Seclusionos.

[@IMResearch]

The "father of electronica" in action. Fantastic Mort!

[@eurscher1]

03-23-2012; I can remember back in the days of 1970 ,When this masters' "Touch" LP became deployed,trust ! Unquestionably entertaining ,given his capacity to extract appearent "scanned" & "hacked" code periphery for his' compositions' sake .Bravo unkle Morton ,further trust!! We'll be anxiously awaiting your concatenations here on KZbin ,further trust!-Seclusionos.

[@cray56]

Brilliant stuff.

[@jonmattox]

Fantastic. Thanks for posting this

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

still love it!!

[@bonneman66]

excellent work

[@immersiveworlds]

Amazing!

[@abscrete]

If you guys dont understand this kind of avant garde electronic music go listen to britney spears and stop complaining thanks

[@toborexperiment]

thanks for posting!

[@MrSilvioRosado]

I think this is very good, and exploration and mixing different formulas and instruments is a way of finding new ideas. I don't like antagonist music, music should be free... this kind of music is very important and more real. music in not just a reflex of the feelings that we feel in common life, it can show us, new ideas and feelings that are not wet discovered.

[@Minimoog7]

I play synths and I frequently listen to electronic music but, frankly, I don't know what to think this time.

[@Sopherion]

@sbsrocks That's like saying Beethoven was "hiding behind" his piano. An instrument is an instrument regardless of whether it's traditional or otherwise. Especially considering that you're a supposedly musician yourself that you would be more open to these sorts of things.

[@georgecisneros8723]

If any of you are in Texas, Morton Subotnick will be at URBAN-15 in San Antonio, Texas on February 21-23. 2013. This is our way of celebrating his upcoming 80th Birthday. Subotnick will be performing an extend live version of his 1967 work "Silver APples of the Moon" on the Buchla 200e Synthesizer.

[@SharedVision333]

i love how some people don't get this…

[@geraldgoodiii6993]

Pocketful Of Fog could hear this for days straight. He probably did play his old Buchla 100 back in the 60s for days straight.. LSD

[@plasmaforce11]

There is a ton going on on those machines :P awesome!

[@SpaceVoyageur]

superbe!

[@jeremythornton433]

Sorry to say, but I do get it! I love it. True innovation.

[@rollerskater]

complete Buchla mastery. it's nice to see some more complex work for it.

[@flannsixtyseven7489]

I love it and still hard to get this in its place. I know the guy is a legend and a pioneer and the buchla is too and costs a fortune, and even though i love the sounds it still seems like random chaos, and even though he has decades of experience and may have concepts and scripts it still sounds very similar to someone with some knowledge about synths rather randomly twiddling dials and watching what happens. Like me after two hours with the volca modular or the 0-Coast, i thought its random noise, i enjoy it and its only a couple of hundred $ so i dont have to feel ashamed to just make noise.

[@ImpressionismFTW]

I think that it's not difficult to explore on modular synthesizers no matter your skill level (to an extent), but it is possible to explore with different levels of understanding and thus actually harness the different textures you can explore to create something more than your exploration.

[@shemusmcquillaide]

Maybe smoke a bit of pot? I find that helps me appreciate just about any type of music and when I'm not stoned, I still seem to retain that appreciation.

[@radiokoala]

@sbsrocks Now I see what you're getting at. I don't see Ableton Live to have affected his performance much either. I just regarded your comment as disdainful towards Subotnick in general, but now your position makes more sense after you clarified a question. Here I can agree, I have definitely seen more impressive use of a cutting-edge technology. Nothing to argue about now.

[@JayHeartwing]

The "Abstract" of Electronic Music

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

wow like it more everyday a little bit more!!

[@stephono-zipstefanotopix4024]

Maestro.

[@gregorylightcatcher1058]

Yes, indeed. First heard The Wild Bull in 1970. Whew, nothing like it and onward and upward/outward he went.

[@jacksonm8928]

listening to this is the only way to activate the hyper dimensional tachyon pulse drive located at the galactic core.

[@MegaPippopluto]

La noia

[@dojeedave]

Now THAT is some next level shit. Talk about a slow burner.

[@PeterGrenader]

Mort is, as always wonderful. That keyboard player....why?

[@geraldgoodiii6993]

Peter Grenader i think it adds an interesting different timbre to the pallet of sounds. I imagine it was made to be a an avant-garde piece with electronic, acoustic and visual all improvising and playing off of each other

[@TLP07]

What's the software using for Vjing here? Cant really give a guess...

[@timjmoran]

anyone have an idea what the other guy is doing?? I assume MS is doing most of the synthesis/sound generating, right ??

[@addjunk]

Forque YU Gugle the other guy is working on the video ;-)

[@Blankpagestl]

Morton Subotnick

[@mnml2k8]

Great Stuff, thanks for sharing !

[@realself1]

amazing live improvised performance.

[@synthmandan]

At 3:01 to 3:05 sounds like someone is Vomiting or took a Dump .... I know, I know... Morton Subotnick is a "pioneer"... but I gotta tell ya... I could find MILLIONS of better sounds and uses for that Buchla than what I just heard! What a waste of a sweet modular.

[@m5st5gr5s]

Bravo and well seen "synthmandan" and that say that all these snob who write in trendy magazines and fall in the panel of this musical snobbery and who swoon in front of Boulez or Xenakis Myself I will have the means to offer me a " Buchla "I would not dare to produce such shit Regards

[@ЩёщщЩнек]

...wonder what kind of crap you're listening.

[@jamesmcn0000]

47 people have the patience of a gnat.

[@TheTrancemaster90]

A cerebral massage

[@deltAdataTV]

👍 ! Subbed !

[@dogmancar]

What a lot of people aren't getting is all the stuff going on underneath yeah sure on the out side it sounds like some old guy screwing around with a few musical gezmos but if you look at the big picture that is the entire song it is very musical and complex. Its just not music that the typical person is used to hearing

[@TheConcepthouse]

Ma dove va?!

[@qishmish]

>> his traditional approach to electronic music

[@summerstephanos5811]

what makes you think subotnick can't play traditional instruments?

[@FabledFrame]

thx for the upload. that's a very interesting piece of equipment. lol at ppl trying to put music in a box...music ain't my competition :D

[@Deckardrick007]

i just dont get it?

[@MrCamelneck]

Morton is to the Buchla like Mohammed is to the Quran!

[@raipramana843]

I think of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew when i hear this

[@masterthale]

Klangforschung

[@paradigm31572]

hey is this guy using some shit with black & white keys that looks like an OLD INSTRUMENT? Whatever- pfft....

[@cbponcho]

Would've loved to have been sitting there....with some shrooms!!

[@TrumpeterJohn99]

What I don't get, is that Morton thinks it's "old" music if you need a "black-and-white" keyboard to do it, and then engages a 21st Century Klaviercontinuo player with black and white keys (figured bass anyone?) to make it into "real" twelvetone music

[@AuralOdyssey]

Subotnick's black and white keyboard comment was in regard to how people would approach a new instrument with a familiar interface. It made the synth accessible, but it also led to a great deal of people utilizing it like a piano with neat sounds. His prediction was spot on and has been proven over the last half century. Being accompanied by a piano, writing for piano, or using a keyboard himself doesn't contradict his statement about a synth with a black and white keyboard.

[@evetsnitram8866]

Synth keyboards have pitch and mod wheels and arpeggiators that can be latched with odd chords to make interesting sequences that allow you to tweek away on your synth. Then there are the new MPE "keyboards" that allow for some microtonal fun much like Buchla controllers.

[@RingOfRae]

Quelle bande de petit bourgeois !.... Mais quand même je respecte Morton...

[@vmaysov]

what is it? usual noise..

[@ЩёщщЩнек]

О да-а. Эксперты, для которых Radiohead - вышка, всегда знают, что такое настоящая музыка.

[@vmaysov]

@@ЩёщщЩнек Эксперт по экспертам?:)

[@rg7120]

You're right, if he didn't have an instrument, he would not have a career...what's your point?

[@cavemantero]

wtf is that @ 3:00? Sounds like a zombie getting their lungs punched thru with a pipe or something.

[@jackbrightside]

not feelin it

[@BulawaRuss]

ну и Музыка ! :)

[@sbsrocks]

@radiokoala Its very 1970s. Using modern technologies (Ableton) should encourage him to break from his traditional approach to electronic music. It has been done 1 million times too many. Gets very boring a extremely repetitious. Im sure he did great things for the world in technology terms but to still be doing it 30/40 years (or more) on, it gets a bit boring. Just Ableton has alot more to offer than '70s sounds. And i dont understand why you put everything inside ' '..... makes no sense.

[@WuhSuhDood]

wtf

[@wolfgangfahr5419]

Dämlicher Krach. Nervt. Sonst nix. Zum Davonlaufen.

[@luckystrke]

Too mainstream...

[@skiing54]

Best part of this video is 7:33

[@k3rkis]

i still cannot get why noise pretends to be music nowadays

[@dzod]

Hmmmm this is a bit too "art school" for me. Its ok though.

[@davidgtr]

This is post to be a piece of music? even the most hardcore fan of his would say this is painful noise

[@sbsrocks]

How can this be compared to beethoven! Im not a 'classical' fan really at all. But when it comes to creating structure and some sort of musicality into composition, this guy really does not do any. I have heard my learning disability students create the same or better textures than this so called composer. Sounds and looks like he is a tech guy not a musician. No time for this textured noise at all.

[@AuralOdyssey]

Use of traditional harmonic motion with variations, mastering of traditional composition techniques, forging into new territory of technology and live experience, a coherent musical statement, a feeling of going somewhere, of reaching a destination, these are all there in this piece, just like Beethoven. He doesn't compare to Beethoven in that Beethoven didn't help create and commission a new instrument. Please don't trash talk people.

[@sbsrocks]

Tis a shame that people like this are becoming recognised composers. If this guy did not have access to the synth processors, he would not have this 'career'. Its a bad sign when a composer has to hide behind all the equipment they have. Im an electro acoustic composer and have written for many tv seris and films but the only thing is, I actually use both electronics and traditional music styles (piano playing) aswel as electronics. Pity people like this are now being recognised.