In
terms of cultural innovation Tomita was there at the beginning in the US and
Europe as far as electronic music produced on synthesizers is concerned, with
Snowflakes are Dancing. This opened the doors for the likes of Jarre and
Vangelis. It took more time for this new style of music to break in his home
country of Japan.
“My record came out in the mid-70s, but I brought it
over much earlier than that. It was closer to 1970. So perhaps the reason why
they took interest in me was because I was this guy who brought music made with
a Moog synthesizer from some place they thought was way behind them in terms of
culture.” (Tomita)[1]
Throughout
the 1970’s Tomita acquired a number of instruments from the Moog III to the
Poly-Moog to Roland and Yamaha. As things evolved with the release of
polyphonic instruments, being able to play numerous notes simultaneously to
instruments with MIDI capability, Tomita’s composition technique also evolved.
“MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital
Interface. Previous to its introduction in 1983, electronic musicians had to
contend with a number of arcane methods of synchronisation when trying to get
two instruments from two different manufactures to communicate with one
another. Synchronisation was required in order to produce more than one sound
at once, or to be able to automatically and remotely control electronic
instruments.”[2]
As
Tomita’s music evolved so did the technology.
“Tomita was famed for using truckloads of technology,
proudly listed on the back of the recordings from the start. As one of the few
musicians capable of operating (let alone affording) the large modular
synthesisers, manufactured by the American 'Moog' and Japanese 'Roland'
companies, his productions represent a mastery of the technology that only a
handful of others can equal. Part of that skill was down to necessity, as
electronic music systems in the early '70's were in general almost entirely open-ended,
with no facility for storage of sound programs, or a universal system of
synchronisation. This meant that every setting and switch on the instruments
had to be manually adjusted for each new sound, and the best memory system for
recalling those settings was by using paper and pencil. Original Moog modulars
made no sound at all unless the different modules were connected to one another
with patch leads. This made music making a very time-consuming and tedious
process, a situation made worse by the limited number of tracks able to be
recorded on the tape recorders of the day. His
other main tool at this time was the Mellotron 400, a keyboard instrument for
playing back recordings of real sounds. Each key was attached to a length of
magnetic tape, which was run over a tape playback head when a key was struck.
It was a unique instrument, now superseded by its digital antecedent, the
sampler. “[3]
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