Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Generalized Carlos Scales (arxiv.org)
66 points by belter 15 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



For those that don't know, Wendy Carlos (the "Carlos" in the above title) did the musical score for "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining" and "Tron" [0].

My bet is many people, especially of a certain generation, will be familiar with the opening title sequence music for "A Clockwork Orange" [1], the Tron "Scherzo" [2], or the opening musical sequence to "The Shining" [3].

She was an early pioneer in the late 1960s and early 1970s or synthesizers and synthesizer music.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Carlos#Discography

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPCScFIPlUg

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWEU5apbY0E

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLip2FZLuA


Just checked out the shining. Opening sounds like symphonie fantastique. Of course the synth texture is cool.


Carlos made the first big hit in electronic music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-On_Bach

which of course led to Disco, YMO, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Insoc and the rest is history.


I love Beauty in the Beast but whenever I have tried playing Wendy's scales to make my own stuff it just sounds terrible.

That is the main problem with all non-12 TET IMO. Making music that doesn't suck is hard enough in 12 TET. Starting from scratch with a scale by Carlos or Harry Partch takes a real musical genius and that is certainly not me. Worst though is there is no road map to follow in order to get better for us mere mortals.

BTW FM7/FM8 VST is the easiest way to play a few Carlos scales.


John Chowning's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chowning) work Stria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=988jPjs1gao) unifies timbre and scale structure about the Golden Mean as a musical interval. It's completion predates this work by Carlos by nearly a decade (1977) and the composition process apparently began as early as 1972 (https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/works/work/7459/). There are many academic papers available which analyze this work: https://laurazattra.com/2016/09/23/stria-by-john-chowning-th...


Wendy Carlos' album "Beauty in the Beast" is an exploration of these types of alternative tuning schemes.

https://www.wendycarlos.com/+bitb.html


"The Broken Scales Of Wendy Carlos" - https://youtu.be/RuT6Y53LYH4


Without a sound sample and music I can’t appreciate it. Is there a link to an actual melody using it?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: