Switched-On Bach

Description

So much, popular and scholarly, has been written about the synthesizer, Bob Moog and his brand-name instrument, and even Wendy Carlos, the musician who made this instrument famous. No one, however, has examined the importance of spy technology, the Cold War and Carlos's gender to this critically important innovation. Through a postcolonial lens of feminist science and technology studies, Roshanak Kheshti engages in a reading of Carlos's music within this gendered context. By focusing on Switched-On Bach (the highest selling classical music recording of all time), this book explores the significance of gender to the album's�and, as a result, the Moog synthesizer's�phenomenal success Title Page Copyright Page Contents Track Listing Side one Side two Switched-on Prologue Like a girl From resonation to oscillation The Original Synth Natureculture Synthgender Switching-on On (modular/phase/pitch/paradigm shifting and) the will to shift shape From the piano to the synthesizer From spy technology to synthesizer Phenomenology of Moog perception Switched-on Studio Birth of the home studio Studiolab Magic carpet ride: The “Persian Rug” at the center of Carlos’s studiocraft Magic carpet ride Switched-on World Epilogue: Cats on Keys and Total Eclipses Cats on keyboards Acknowledgments Notes Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Epilogue Also available in the series