Raymond Scott
I have chosen Raymond Scott for my artist presentation.
Raymond Scott was a multifaceted sonic innovator and contributor. He was a big band leader and composer. His songs have been featured as the soundtracks to many of the original Looney Tunes cartoons, although he never wrote music with this intention, but was the case after selling a large chunk of his publishing to Warner Brothers in the early 1940's.
My interest in Raymond Scott falls more into his pioneering work with electronics.
"It is not widely known who invented the circuitry concept for the automatic sequential performance of musical pitches-now well known as a "sequencer." I, however, do know who the inventor was, for it was I who first conceived and built the electronic sequencer." - Raymond Scott (from an unaddressed letter, mid-1970's)
WORK
I feel informed by this work in that Raymond Scott built these instruments and used them for his own compositions. In other words, he was not creating with the intention of selling a mass quantity of his inventions, but created individual pieces of equipment he would then use directly in his compositions. He was actually worried about the technology being stolen by others, because it was this technology which he felt gave him an edge in commercial music compositions.
Raymond Scott also developed two of the world's first multitrack tape machines. These could record seven and fourteen parallel tracks on a single reel. This idea of do it yourself from literally the ground up is inspiring, from building sound generating electronics all the way to the recording devices they are captured on.
Some people might want to check out his work entitled Soothing Sounds for Baby Vol. 1-3 who are interested in electronic minimalism and baby development. These three volumes were made for infants to fall asleep to and were released in collaboration with Gesell Institute of Child Development, Inc. Each long play record was intended for a different ages; disc one for 1-6 month olds, disc two for 6-12 month olds, and disc three for 12-18 month olds.
Raymond Scott holds a rather unprecedented place in music history. As a band leader he might be related to Duke Ellington, and it was said that his compositions attracted attention from Igor Stravinsky. As an sound engineer he pioneered mic placement that we had not seen before, and as we know the magnetic tape machine played a huge roll in the recording industry over the years and may still in the future. In his electronic musical instrument innovation he created the first prototypes of what musicians of today use to create electronic music. Raymond Scott may be a good place to start when looking at lines of musical innovations.