Definitions
There's a question that's almost as tough
as "what is music?". Quite literally it means "One that
synthesizes." Synthesize means to combine so as to form a new,
complex product. [I guess that would destroy the concept of
subtractive synthesis which is actually 'refinement'] Don't mean
to get to deep on ya but we are talking about music here. This
all may lead you to think of the word synthetic or the term
'synthetic music' which people often associate with music made
with synthesizers. Now synthetic means false or unnatural to some
people and thus the term 'synthetic music' is to discredit,
disgrace and disallow music made with synthesizers. So of course
'real music' is made with acoustic instruments{or possibly
electric, but not electronic}. Acoustic means 'Of or relating to
sound, the sense of hearing, or the science of sound.' Hmm, kinda
vague huh? Well synthetic really means man-made, everything is
natural(unless it's super natural) cause all we have to make
stuff out of is what we find in nature. So what music is not
synthetic? All music is man-made, some is God-inspired, but all
is made by man {man being mankind, Adam, Eve and all their
descendants}. That is unless you consider the sound of wind,
water, animals, and rocks music. I do, when I feel like
it.
My tentative definition: A device that is made to imitate sounds and/or have multiple sound (tonal) possibilities.
Imitate or Innovate?
Well what do you want to do with your synthesizer? imitate or
innovate? Some would say the purpose of a synthesizer is to
imitate the sound of 'real' instruments and put musicians out of
work. One might say that synthesizers are a new class of
instruments whose purpose is to make new sounds that have never
been heard before. Synths still don't sound like 'the real thing'
but they have replaced real players in a way. People use synths
because they find they like the synth sound better. I don't think
perfectly recorded acoustic instrument always mix well with
certain modern types of music and when they are used they're
processed up the wahzoo. And yes some people do use synth because
they can't afford to pay someone else to play on their project,
but those projects would have never happened otherwise. Like I
always say "It's better to make do than to do nothing". I still
believe that nothing can replace the sound of a real violin
played by a master when that is what is needed. If you can't
afford the master then play it yourself barrow a violin and learn
to play. It may sound horrible but at least it's a real violin.
That all aside, If you spend enough time with a synthesizer
trying to imitate sound from nature and acoustic instruments I
would imagine you would become very familiar with the synth and
acquire significant knowledge about the structure of sounds. (of
course I couldn't bring myself to do that for very
long)
I think the real magic of synths is new sounds that nobody has heard before. Let's start with a sin (or sine) wave, the purist of tones. no one had ever heard that before the electronic age. The closest thing is probably a flute, but still everything has harmonics.(even the sin wave through a loudspeaker has some.) Or any of the standard wave forms, with the digital age we can get mathematically perfect Sawtooth, Triangle, and Square waves. Square waves with practically instantaneous rises and falls not possible with analog OSCs (Still not possible to hear because of, you guessed it, the loud speaker and of course the air, natures lo-pass filter). How about tones that go on forever without perceivable variation. This is very strange for humans [and very annoying to some]. Acoustic instruments have finite note durations mostly due to human limitations for horns and the laws of physics for strings and percussion. But you switch on a well made OSC and it we keep going for years unless the power goes out, without noticeable variation in pitch or volume. I fact there are compositions that depend on this [again, very annoying to some]. The next thing is the hi pass filter. another very strange thing for humans. Losing hi end is a very natural thing, this happens to sound in the air, the longer it travels through the air the more hi end it loses. There is very little in nature that would cause the opposite so when you hear something lose bass and the treble stays in tact it sounds kinda wrong. Filter Sweeping is another definitive 'synthy' thing to hear but it is so over done so let's not talk about it.
Instrumental Bigotry and Such
A History Lesson
Some people say synthesizers were born in
1957 with RCA's Mark II, but it was actually much earlier than that. Before
Electronic Synthesizers many other instruments where made to imitate other
"acoustic" instruments. The most notable is the Organ. The Pipe Organ Is
probably the earliest musical instrument to have multiple tones choices that
are an attempt to imitate other orchestral instruments. The Electric Organ
predates the Mark II by about 3 decades.
c4000 BC - God creates the heavens and the earth. This includes the creation of human beings and the human voice. The human voice is an amazing instrument each example having it's own unique characteristics, it is also capable of imitating others of it's kind as well as the sound of many animals and man made instruments. Many animals, especially birds, are equipped with equally impressive instruments that can imitate sounds made by other animals and even machinery.
270 BC water organ Hydralis, chirping birds
2nd century AD Bellows organ invented
5th century Knowledge of the organ lost in the west with the fall of the Roman Empire
8th century Return of the organ to the west
950 - 1294 "Speaking Heads"
1779 Christian Kratzenstein of St. Petersburg built models of the human vocal tract that could produce the five long vowel sounds
1791 'Acoustic-Mechanical Speech Machine' by Wolfgang von Kempelen of Vienna
1837 Charles Wheatstone produced a 'speaking machine'
1846 Joseph Faber's Speech Organ performed in London.
1857 M. Faber built the 'Euphonia'
1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented what was to become the Telharmonium
1906 "Telharmonium" built
1923 Lloyd Loar developed an electrostatic pickup
1928 Frank Morse Robb of Belleville, Ontario, patented the world's first electric organ.
1930s Bell Labs developed the VOCODER
1931 Rickenbacker Fring Pan
1934 First Hammond Organ
1939 Homer Dudley refined the VOCODER into the VODER, which he exhibited at the New York World's Fair
1941 Les Paul Log
1948 Leo Fender Broadcaster
late 1950s The first computer-based speech synthesis systems were created in the
1957 RCA's Mark II
1968 the first complete text-to-speech system was completed
Synthesizers and Science Fiction
Reform-Christianity and the Art of Web Site Design