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| Interview with Klaus Schulze |  |
KS: I have to explain first what a synthesizer actually is, and what
possibilities a synthesizer has.
Q: With this terrible variety of possible sounds, noises, effects
that the Big Moog alone offers, and when I think of all the other offered
possibilities from the rest of the instruments, can you - or can any
human brain - imagine by intellect a complete structured piece of music
out of this technical universe? I mean, is it still possible to comprehend
the variety and "write" music without experimenting at the same time?
KS: This isn't an easily answered question. A synthesizer player is in
different phases. The first phase is when you get to know the
synthesizer. You can easily like everything the instrument offers you.
For instance, you have a certain setting, and you love it and you play it
repeatedly. You must get over this state, otherwise you find yourself in
the permanent situation that you always let the synthi play some
beautiful things, mostly the same. As a result the synthi controls you!
Q: I don't think that a synthesizer player can generate a sound
of a guitar or a drumset with the same intensity and shades as a guitar
player or a drummer is capable to do. Since a while you play with
Harald Grosskopf at the drums. Isn't that a sign you need other
musicians for certain sounds?
KS: That's right and that's not right. If I want a guitar or a flute or
whatever, I set the wanted sound at the synthesizer and play the
melody on the keyboard. Every demanded sound can be made. The
borders are somewhere else and of a different kind.
Q: This statement could help the people who say that
synthesizers are no musical instruments. I often hear, also from other
musicians, that what Schulze or others are doing is just "after 2 minutes
they push this button, after 3:27 they move this trimmer" and so on. I
believe because of the high price and the technical complexity of these
instruments these prejudices will be not wiped out easily and quick.
Which arguments do you have?
KS: For me, this "synthesizers are machines but no instruments" is pure
nonsense. Silliness. First, there are no differences in material and
workmanship. Synthesizers as well as violins are made from material
found on this earth. Crystals and copper are as normal as wood or
horse's tails. Already Stradivarius used many devices and tricks to give
his instruments a specific good sound. In his days they modified their
work with the help of acid, temperature, and lacquer... and if I look at
today's rock guitar scene, I just see a lot of effect devices and different
amplifiers that all have nothing much to do with a "natural" guitar sound.
These arguments just against the synthesizers are idiotic. I mean, a
guitar or a violin does not grow on trees, or? As all these instruments
make music not by themselves, the same is true about a synthesizer.
Both instruments, the violin as well as the synthi, need the musician. It
is secondary if I scrape with a bow on the fiddle, or if I touch a key and
give the impulse for the sound this way. In both cases I must do it
carefully so that the music sounds as I wanted it to sound. There are no
differences in the systematic representation. The only differences are
the way of handling the tool and of the technique. While the guitar
gently weeps because of plucking or bending of the strings, the violin
sings because of the pressure of the bow's horse's tail hair... the synthi
creates the sound because of the pressing of a key. [and KS didn't
even mention the complicated mechanics of a Grand Piano!]
Q: But there are more differences. If I play a guitar, I always
know which tone I create at the moment. With the synthi this is different.
You didn't arrive to where you wanted to go, and the synthi itself
includes the things that can alter the sound. A wah wah from the synthi
isn't as obvious just an effect device as it is with the guitar, I mean just
visually. The synthesizer is more complex and non-transparent, and
because of the results that you get already on the way to the final
sound, the primary idea is easily lost. The guitar player who plays wild
and aggressively on stage can do this without restrictions by his
instrument. Besides, his whole doing can be watched by the audience.
If the synth player will do the same, if he even knows how to do it... but
on the way the instrument gives him impulses that could change the
player's intention. This is an intimate thing just between the player and
his instrument, and the listener cannot follow visually or audibly. Maybe
this is a reason that people see the synthesizer as a machinery of lies?
KS: Of course a synthi can tempt to "lie" to take your expression. But
these results would be very frustrating for the player and also for the
listener. I mean, if I want to play music I have my own mental image
before I start to play. To fulfill this image, the composition, is - of course
- not easy, it is very difficult to play the synthesizer this chosen way.
(Translation from German by kdm, 1997)
"What is a Synthesizer?"
Q: Klaus, for those who look with astonished eyes at your
equipment, one question arises very easily: Is all this really necessary,
wouldn't be less more? And isn't your music just recalling stored
sounds or does the musician still decide and provide his own
musicality?
A synthi is all and nothing. You can either use it for testing the
electricity or to make music. One synthi would be enough in the studio,
because of multitrack recording. You are able to combine always new
tracks and sounds, and a large synthi gives you a limitless amount of all
kinds of sounds. With the Big Moog one can do everything in a studio,
there are no possibilities that can't be done. But because I play live I
cannot do five different things simultaneously. Therefore, I use different
synthesizers depending on the needs and intentions. For instance I
have the little ARP Odyssey on which I normally play the solo voices. I
mean, on the Odyssey I play solo guitar, solo trumpet etc. I use it
because it is relatively easy to handle. It is quickly to transpose, the
filters are easily to blend in or off without fumbling around too long.
Then I have the ARP 2600, which is connected to a sequencer. A
sequencer is something like a mini computer that stores a melody or a
rhythm. In that way it is possible to store whole bass lines and recall
them. In this regard there are no limits for a sequencer. It works like this:
[follows a technical essay that I dropped here...]
Actually a synthesizer is nothing else than a voltage controlled tool.
If you play alone, as I do, the sequencer has enormous advantages,
indeed I can't think to play without it. For instance I programmed a bass
line, which I can recall and at the same time put it on the keyboards.
Which does not mean if I programmed this bass line in C I must play
the whole time in C. No. I can press any key on the keyboard, and the
bass line from the sequencer will follow always the basis key that I play.
Because of this I have something like a bass player behind me, who's
absolutely reliable and whose playing I can control and change
[followed by even more technical explanations...
Because of this constellation I have a background in which
something is happening, a musical movement is present, from where
I can go on. Besides, I use the ARP 2600 for specific sound effects.
Some things are possible because of its excellent ring-modulation. If I
stop the sequencer it stays on one tone and I can go on play with the
keyboard. I prefer then to use a setting that gives me a bell sound. I
rarely play tonally on the 2600.
The EMS Synthi A I only use for typical effects like water, wind,
twittering and thunder, everything I need for the musical theme. I can
recall certain situations and impressions, I can do bridges and with the
help of the ring modulation I can play strange things that sound like
women's voices etc. By the way, I once started with the EMS.
Before we come to the Big Moog I should mention some preset
keyboards, like the Farfisa Syntorchestra. With that I play the
background harmonies that support the sequencer runs. With these
preset keyboards one cannot do too many things. You have some
tumbler switches to change the pitch, for instance from flute to trumpet,
there are also some limited filter possibilities, but that is it. With a real
synthi you can do everything or nothing, with a preset keyboard you
can only play harmonies and change the pitch a bit. On Timewind you
can find very good examples how I combine the two. To sum up: To
fulfil my harmonic ambitions I use two "Syntorchestras" and the
"Professional Duo" organ (which is, by the way, still a very profound
instrument, even if I use it less than before). For the brass sounds I
have the Crumar "Brassman". It all goes into a specially built mixer that
I have on stage with me. I can adjust, recall and mix everything by
myself. I see the mixer as part of my instrumentation, and therefore I
had very good filters built in to it. To every instrument I can add very
precisely the treble or the bass. In addition I have three sent/return
ways and special monitoring outputs. With all this I can very carefully
insert echo, reverb and phasing, and get exactly accentuated changes
in sound. As echo machine I use a Dolby Revox taperecorder with
remote speed control and digital display. Because of this I can find and
control the required tape speed accurately. With other echo machines,
be it Binson, Copycat, Dynacord, Roland or H&H, I had to accept
always too much noise. And these instruments work with plates that
wear out soon, or with tapes that jump at the splicing seam. Their pre or
after tape delays are limited to just a few settings, and generally all
these machines add a more or less muddy sound. The solution with the
Revox is of course very personal, and nothing for rock people. For my
kind of music this system is nearly perfect. I take the echo "after tape"
and the original sound "pre tape". Other machines give only one sum:
the original already mixed with the echo. With my system of using two
sounds, the original and the echo, I can create a ping-pong effect. If the
tape goes slower, the duration between the two signals is longer. As
said above, this effect I can control very precisely. Normally I use on
stage a tape speed of about 8 cm per second, and I have the possibility
to go down to 1 cm per second.
The phaser that I use was also specially made for me. Schulte from
Berlin [no relation to Schulze] made it for me with a phase lag of twice
as long as normally. This can be done easily by others, you only have
to adjust the trimmer a bit.
For the reverberation I use in the studio the BX 20 from AKG, and
on stage I use the smaller and movable BX 15 [soon later we took the
BX 20 with us on tour].
I rarely use the mixer's filters because the oscillators from the Moog
are so powerful that I can leave the mixer's at "linear". Only for the
Syntorchestra or for the ARPs I have to add some bass from the mixer
so that I get the necessary punch. Which is understandable if you look
at the instrument's prices. One Moog oscillator has the price of two
complete Farfisa Syntorchestras.
All these instruments have their good and not so good parts. For
me the Minimoog has just two things that are good, the oscillators and
the filters, better forget the rest. The ARP has at least sample & hold (a
random generator) and trigger switching. A Moog can hardly be
triggered by itself, because it has only one output, the third oscillator.
With that you can only trigger the filter and the pitch, that's it. With the
ARP you can trigger the sample & hold, you can switch off the
oscillators from the keyboard and let them control themselves. By that,
pure sounds are possible, feedback can be made, the filter resonance
can be opened so that it just whistles. The Odyssey has many
possibilities that are not possible with the Minimoog. I think that the
Minimoog is so popular with many bands just because it's so easy to
handle. I mean, the spectrum of sounds isn't overwhelming, I hear at
once if someone plays on a Minimoog. Yes, it has the possibilities of the
flywheel and vibrato and you can do some wailing and howling as Rick
Wakeman does. The English in general like to wail, the portamento
seems to be their pet sound these days. Besides, you don't need to
have technical understanding to use the Minimoog.
The Big Moog is of a different class. I have it now for about half a
year, and I think I need further ten years until I really know it and until I
can use its possibilities systematically and purposefully. At the moment
I'm just able to get a few of this universe's potentialities. It has ten
oscillators, three envelope generators, three voltage controlled
amplifiers, various twelve-step filters, so that I'm able to generate out of
a white noise a man's voice. These filters are incredibly good. For
certain sounds that I imagine, it needs a particle of a millimetre at the
potentiometer... With these fixed filter banks I'm able to adjust exactly
the wanted sounds... And to change them, the Big Moog has its own
filter coupler. Three things are combined, highpass, lowpass and a
coupler that brings the two together. These highpass and lowpass filters
are voltage controlled, and this is very interesting, because it is possible
to change the filters by the oscillators and by keyboards. With a
pressed key the filter changes, can be opened or closed, like a wah-wah
effect, just more precisely and clean.
The many mixing possibilities are most important. Each of the ten
oscillators has four outputs. I can connect what I want, I can put one
oscillator on each other, can use a filter on the way... Here are the
difficulties to understand this synthesizer and to speak about it. With
every connection of one osci with another or with the filters, however
these connections are, every time a new sound is generated, the
possibilities are not limited. While working with the Big Moog, even
trained and established users are surprised of always new sounds that
nobody ever imagined before. These things happen each day.
To play with the Moog you don't have to be a musician, it is enough to
be a technician or a person with enough technical understanding. Only
if you want to do music with the Moog you have to be both, a musician
and a technician.
Here we have the largest problem with synthesizers. I had quite
some experiences and played many concerts, but it's still the same kind
of problems that make the music playing with the Moog so difficult.
What is so beautiful with doing music, with or without synthesizers, is
the "let go", the "take off". The use of synthesizers don't allow this. If
you work with these tools, you must have always one ear for them, you
must listen carefully. All sound changes, all effects, all possibilities that
you use or want to use you must do very consciously and rationally.
You have to turn knobs of filters and oscillators just an iota of a
millimetre, and it is impossible to do this out of a "high" feeling. If you
do, then suddenly some kind of unwanted sound grossly insults your
ears, and the "high" is completely gone at once.
Therefore, you must be both simultaneously, rational and emotional.
Out of this reason I prepare certain things for a concert, programme it
before. These settings are run during the concert and with this
background I am able to fly high with my keyboards. In addition I use
certain sound collages that show the discrepancy between
harmony and disharmony, or just simply between harmony and sound.
I mean, beauty is only possible as counterpart of ugliness, as black is
only black because of white. I could not play again and again
harmonically to show how beautiful harmonies are. Sometimes I must
play aggressive sounds, for just to go back to a normal triad in a minor
mood, which sounds then like the glory of paradise. This is only
possible because it was audible before, where else the journey could
have gone.
If you work consistently, if you try rationally to explore the synthi,
then you overcome the fascination of the pure sound's beauty, but the
danger is still there.
Because of this rational exploring of the possibilities your
experience and your knowledge about these possibilities get larger and
you change into the phase where you slowly become able to imagine
soundscapes, yes, whole compositions.
The basic condition is, as it should be with every music and
musician, that you realize what you want. These days there are about
ten people worldwide who work with large synthesizer units, and all go
in different directions. They fly apart in directions that will maybe lead to
musical areas that are yet unthinkable.
There is the danger that an artist who uses such technical tools
goes into a direction where nobody can follow him. The audience may
know the Minimoog; I mean, if something is chirping they know where
it comes from, but if someone sits on stage hitting a pair of drums and
you hear from the loudspeakers complete melodies or the sound of
bells or whatever, this isn't so easily to understand. There is a freedom
where it is possible either to do what you dream or to try using the tools
in a way that the audience can still follow you. This freedom must be
explored.
I work today as following: I have certain ideas how a finished piece
of music should be. Say, I want to build the sound of a bell. My
experience tells me that ring-modulated sine tones give the purest bell
sounds, and with the filters I can adjust additional soft or hard shades.
On the way to this sound it can happen - and this happens permanently
- that something completely different emerges. Yes, finally you get your
bell sounds, but on the way you get sounds that grasp you by their
beauty. Therefore you go into this new direction and suddenly you are
in areas that you never dreamed of. Suddenly you get a male choir
singing in the background of your bell sound. Now you must decide if
the result corresponds to your primary idea, supports it, or is it in
contrast to your idea.
In this regard synthesizer music is experimental music. You cannot
rehearse. Everything is available, but where it is, how and in which form
and soundshape it will come out, that must be controlled. Because of
the conditions that a synthi asks for, it is a dialogue partner for the
musician. It's like a circle. You put in your ideas, get back a result, and
then you have to think how much you can use it to control the
instrument, because this new regulation gets new results, and all the
time you must think critically if it's still the piece of music that you
wanted at first. And so on...
Many attempts are in vain, because not every way you try leads to
satisfying results. The synthesizer is a very personal instrument. Your
personal sound aesthetics is the dominating factor. For instance, I
would never search for the sound of a trumpet because I don't like
brass instruments so much. Another person would perhaps never
search for the sound of bells, because he doesn't like bells. This way
your own sound conception is part of the way to work with synthesizers.
Because of the countless sound variations this is no handicap.
There are no real barriers for your own creativity. Even if you don't like
a certain sound you are able to form it in a way which you prefer a bit
more. A synthi player is not dependent on others who should reproduce
his work.
Because the synth player is a multi instrumentalist, he is able to
play everything like he wants with the help of overdubbing. In concerts,
where all instruments, all sounds, must be played simultaneously, this
is impossible if you don't want to use an almost entirely preprogrammed
piece. I can do already many things at once, but it is just not possible to
play a keyboard solo and at the same time search for a rhythm on the
Moog drum. You need to have this preprogrammed, but it should be
changeable. Some liveliness is necessary, you can change the rhythm
very quickly, fitting to your momentary feeling. But there is still the
stiffness of the mechanical rhythm. You can make these rhythms
slower, faster, but they stay mechanical. A good drummer can vary his
rhythm instinctively, intuitively, make it lively, which isn't possible with a
synthesizer. That's the reason I play with Harald.
There is a second reason, which is maybe the more important one.
It is possible for me to create with my whole instrumentation limitless
sounds and play various instruments, but one thing is impossible: the
dialogue with other musicians, who are together on stage in "normal"
bands. The only possible talk on stage I can do with just the synthis,
whereby I'm always the questioner as well as the one who replies. This
is of course different with Harald. He's corresponding very well with the
synthis and his understanding harmonizes very well with mine. Through
him the music is more lively and more transparent for the listener and
the observer. A musical conversation takes place.
On the other hand it is quite easy to create sounds with a synthi.
The motivation and the imagination of the composer make the
difference. In "musique concrete" or the so-called "avantgarde",
Stockhausen, Xanakis, Pierre Schäffer, they do true sound orgies
sometimes, and it is never clear if it's a consciously chosen sound or
did they just find it accidentally? This kind of music is easily done.
More difficult is of course to explore the universe of the
synthesizer's musical possibilities, and to work intentionally with the
discoveries. To search for new possibilities beyond the known organ
and keyboard sounds, not forgetting that harmony and melody are
important parts of music. Sadly, these rules were partly dropped by
avantgarde composers.
I don't say that the synthesizer is made to play only harmonies and
melodies. Just the contrary, it was conceived to create tones and
sounds that are far beyond the already known. However, these
generous possibilities should not induce a search and the use just for
the extreme. One should, and that's the way I work, use this unlimited
freedom to support musical principles and rules. Yes, each single
sound or noise can be called music, but to use just randomly chosen
tones is in contradiction to my sound aesthetics.
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