KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Speech Songs by Charles Dodge
Analog Audio
Event Type
MusicOrigin
KPFAIdentifier
P.DOD.CHA.03Program Length
8 minDates
| broadcast| 402 | created
Description
“Speech Songs” a collection of compositions for synthesized speech by Charles Dodge. Long before Laurie Anderson and others, made the vocoder a staple of avant-garde performance art, Charles Dodge was experimenting with the first generation of voice synthesis software being developed at such places as the Bell Laboratories and Columbia University. Starting in the early 1970s, with the assistance of Max Matthews and Joseph Olive, both pioneers in computer music, Dodge gained access to Bell Labs computers after hours, and began composing, often using poems by Mark Strand as his jumping off point. Limited to such basic parameters as changing the speed and pitch of the computerized voices, Dodge managed to create a series of playful and surreal pieces, that still engage the active listener even in an age where synthesized speech has become an commonplace part of voice mail systems, mass transit announcements, and much more. In doing so Dodge not only made music with words, he actually explored the very nature of speech itself, while at the same time entertaining, educating, and inspiring a generation of electronic music composers and performers.Dodge, studied music with Darius Milhaud and Gunther Schuller, receiving his Masters and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University where he also taught in the 1970s. Later he went on to found the Center for Computer Music in New York, and and has taught at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York , and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. These songs were realized at the Bell Telephone Laboratories using a computer speech synthesis system created by Joseph Olive.
Genres
Electro-Acoustic / ElectronicSound poetry
Musical Selections
Speech Songs: When I Am With You (1:38) ; He Destroyed Her Image (2:00) ; A Man Sitting In The Cafeteria (1:23) ; The Days Are Ahead (2:05) [texts by Mark Sands] (1972) / Charles DodgeSubjects
Computer musicElectro-acoustic
Electronic music
Sound poetry
Text-sound compositions
Synthesized speech music