16 ms·

Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

360 points by lentil_soup 4y ago

sassyonsunday 4y ago
I visited the Moog museum this summer with a friend while visiting Asheville, NC. I asked if they had any Wendy Carlos related memorabilia and they didn't seem to. I think may be there was a Switched on Bach vinyl up on a wall in the back.... It made me feel a little sad. I think living with gender dysphoria hurts people's self-esteem tremendously. She also lived in a time when April Ashley, who was the image of feminine beauty and grace, was accosted by old ladies in parks to shame her for "pretending" to be a woman once she was outed by UK tabloids just as her career began to take off. It's understandable why she'd want to avoid embracing fame. Even today trans people, and especially women, are an acceptable punching bag for both the public at large and public figures to take out their frustrations on.... She didn't become world famous like she may have if she'd been lucky enough to be born cisgender, but the thing that matters most is whether she found happiness in her private life. I hope she did.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  The final paragraph of the article is interesting though: > Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today, something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. “The public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent,” she said. “There had never been any need of this charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life.” While that kind of tolerance/indifference wasn't available to everyone -- it probably helped to be wealthy enough to do what you want, and to be already established as a respected musician (Carlos actually was and still is world-famous!), and I'm sure it wasn't even as universal for Carlos as she was feeling it to be when she gave that quote in 1979 -- the quote makes me wonder if things have gotten worse over the past few years. While there's more public acceptance in some quarters, it's also become a much bigger controversy in fact. It's hard to imagine a public figure feeling the kind of "indifference" Carlos described, where it didn't actually effect her career much, it wasn't a big deal to it. It was seen as an oddity, yes, but trans was perhaps not the cultural flashpoint like it is now. Rather than "even today", I wonder and suspect that some things may actually have gotten much worse than they were in 1979 -- for all kinds of things, actually.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
    As that one quote says, paraphrasing: when you get old you realize that nobody was thinking about you this whole time anyway.
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    I have to imagine living in New York in the late 60s through 70s also contributed to the acceptance/indifference that might not be afforded to others at that time (or even today).
  - runjake 4y ago
    This reminds me of Henry Rollins' song, "Icon" from his Weight album. It's about the trappings of fame/being a rock star. I feel like he wrote it as a reminder to himself, just as much as he wrote it for others. The lyrics[1] to the song are great, but one line in particular: There'll be another messiah right here next week 1. https://genius.com/Rollins-band-icon-lyrics https://genius.com/Rollins-band-icon-lyrics
  - sassyonsunday 4y ago
    > I actually wonder if things have gotten worse over the past few years. They've gotten consistently worse since about 2015. I started transitioning in 2009 when I was 18. I come from a very conservative environment and growing up I'd even tried to come out as gay a few times only to be "shot down" more or less but in college I used my own money and I found doctors to help me look how I wanted and I started dating men openly and as awful as it is to say, because I looked and acted the part people got over it pretty fast and begrudgingly accepted that I - at least - wasn't a man. My parents even got upset with me a long while ago when I insinuated that I was a part of the gay community because they said it was disrespectful to my then boyfriend who is now my husband (he had only dated cis girls before me and is straight to anyone who hasn't run a DNA test on me ha). These days I can feel a change even from people who were kind to me before. All the coverage on conservative media outlets, the JK Rowling "trans women are a threat to women" and the Matt Walsh "trans women are mentally ill perverts" talking points have eroded goodwill so much that more religious and conservative members of my own family avoid me now as where they didn't before and I feel that I'm only able to have a good life because I'm in the fortunate position of being "passable" and attracted to men. In 2012 when I came out to someone they'd usually just be curious about my experiences. Even conservative Christians and Republicans. In 2022 almost nobody is curious except about which surgeries you've had because they've already made their mind up about how they feel about you. For about 50% of the population that means you're a piece of scum who deserves ridicule and punishment (if it looks like you could still pass as male physically) or excommunication (if it looks like you're so feminine and far gone that you couldn't fit in as a man), for about 40% of the population that means indifference akin to what you'd get back in the good old days and for about 10% it means an outpouring of support and love in an attempt to make up for the 50% who are openly hostile. I think more and more trans people are taking the Wendy Carlos approach these days because of this. Much of the community wants to avoid attention and get along with their lives. There's a growing trend of people "boy moding" or "man moding" which is where they take hormone replacement therapies but dress in drag to try to fit in as their gender assigned at birth in public the same way that Wendy did. As an amusing sidenote, many of these people begin "male failing" which is where the hormone replacement therapies make it impossible for them to pass as their gender assigned at birth and so they are read as being trans still but coming from the other direction.... It's so sad that it has to be this way.
- gertrui 4y ago
  - sassyonsunday 4y ago
    edit In retrospect this was sort of mean of you to say: > It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty standard Do you go around telling girls they have to try to look less pleasing to men and more pleasing to your own sensibilities? Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own demands to be satisfied? I like looking a certain way. I also like when it gets me attention from men. I have the same motivations as the majority of heterosexual women and I'm trying to live a fulfilling life. You don't need to make it all about you. end of edit I only felt the need to point it out to drive home the point that there is/was no winning move as a trans person. I feel the need to do this because I've met many people in my life who've tried to tell me things like that it 's obvious that I was "born to be a woman" so I shouldn't worry about transphobia because they think transphobia is only directed at people who look masculine but wear feminine clothes or sex pests who change their pronouns to try to seem less creepy. It's led me to believe that this might be a common position among people who are anti-trans. They think: "these bathroom policies will only hurt the bad ones who don't pass, the passable ones will be fine" as a way of soothing their conscience.
    - 8zah6q7 4y ago
      Transphobes don't want trans women to be masculine, androgynous, or feminine. When they're honest, they just don't want trans women to be.
    - gertrui 4y ago
      > Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own demands to be satisfied? No, women should be free to present however they please, that's my point. We shouldn't feel pressure to conform to imposed ideals of femininity, to be praised for it or knocked for not complying.
      - 4y ago
at_a_remove 4y ago
I have this two CD compilation of Carlos' work on The Shining, probably a bootleg but how else could I get it? It's quite interesting and I think Kubrick ought to have used more of it.
- racl101 4y ago
  Every time I hear the Shining theme I feel the room get cold. So powerful. Same with A Clockwork Orange (Queen Mary's funeral theme).
- glhaynes 4y ago
  Didn’t know this existed! Thanks, off to look for it.
- trynewideas 4y ago
  There was Rediscovering Lost Scores, a two-volume CD set, as mentioned in the article. https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls1.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls1.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls2.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls2.html
labrador 4y ago
I lived in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where Wendy was from in 1982 when Wendy did this and never heard of her. Pawtucket was a tough multi-ethnic working class town, so I can't imagine how difficult it was for her to be public at that time. I was really into synthesizers then too. Amazing stuff. Tron Suite - Wendy Carlos (1982) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 Clockwork Orange [1971] - Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGqVkk3Uss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGqVkk3Uss
racl101 4y ago
Still love the original theme from Tron. As much as the Tron (2010) movie's score had a "cool" factor it lacked the heart and soul of the original. If they ever do another one I'd like to see the original Carlos' Tron's leitmotif woven back into it.
- lordfrito 4y ago
  Tron 2 soundtrack was such a huge disappointment from me, and I'm a die hard Daft Punk fan. Listened to it once, never went back to it. The original Tron soundtrack is such a joy, totally underrated... Amazing how she blended electronics with orchestration... in my memory it feels like a purely electronic soundtrack but it's not at all. The artistic impulse would be to go full electronic with something like this, she went in the opposite direction, and gave the score a sense of humanity (humans in the computer world). Carlos kept pushing the envelope on everything she did. Up there with Delia Derbyshire to me... total pioneer.
  - drannex 4y ago
    Marginally off topic here, but Occams Laser created a 'sequel' album to the Daft Punk score, and I feel it more closely feels like an updated original Tron soundtrack. There are two complete albums they've released: The Grid[1], which is a concept album based on the 1982 original, and Return to the Grid[2] which is a reimagined concept album for Tron Legacy, both that I absolutely love listening to. 1. https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid 2. https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-grid https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-grid
    - lordfrito 4y ago
      Listened to a few tracks, this is right up my alley, thanks! It's a little less Tron and a little more 80's film soundtrack vibe (which is also awesome).. The style seems to have come back in vogue a bit (Stranger Things etc.). This reminds me a lot of the Le Matos soundtrack for Turbo Kid. [1] Their soundtrack to Summer of '84 has the same synth vibe but adds the horror soundtrack vibe, also recommended. [1] https://lematos.bandcamp.com/album/chronicles-of-the-wasteland-turbo-kid-original-motion-picture-soundtrack https://lematos.bandcamp.com/album/chronicles-of-the-wastela...
daneel_w 4y ago
Owed to my father's long interest in electronic music, I'm the thankful owner of several of the 1960s/1970s original print Walter Carlos-attributed vinyl records and a few of the 1980s Wendy Carlos-attributed ones. Switched-On Bach/Brandenburgs, Sonic Seasonings, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer etc. all played a large part in my discovery of electronic music as a child.
- wslh 4y ago
  The first Bach I heard as a kid were those vinyl records. Never thought about them as electronic music, just after getting a little bit older I realized this was connected with computers. I was always impressed by the covers [1]. The interesting thing is that these vinyl records were at home and at my grandparents home who love classical music. The impact of Wendy Carlos evidently goes beyond electronics. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=wendy+carlos+electronic+bach+cover&sxsrf=ALiCzsb71ztTukphaHXBylEVfzGSx3N3tw:1671125088733&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK4qeKkvz7AhV8vJUCHSeTCLgQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1920&bih=901&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=wendy+carlos+electronic+bach...
- Blackthorn 4y ago
  Would you be willing to work with an archivist to make these public? (I'm not one, to be clear.) Carlos recordings seem impossible to find!
  - anamexis 4y ago
    The Discogs marketplace seems to have plenty of them. https://www.discogs.com/artist/16261-Wendy-Carlos https://www.discogs.com/artist/16261-Wendy-Carlos
    - Blackthorn 4y ago
      Maybe I'm just today's lucky ten thousand then.
    - TchoBeer 4y ago
      You have no idea how long I've looked for this, thank you so much lol. edit: wait, is this just a place that sells physical copies?
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
The Clockwork Orange score still goes hard today. Love it.
vr46 4y ago
Poor Wendy. I was literally thinking of her yesterday when I pulled out my original Clockwork Orange record. I would love her to do a masterclass and be able to extract some of her knowledge for my own experiments in electronic music. The whole world has lost out here. It's not too late though, I hope we see something from her.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  Wendy released an album where she explains her technique and gives examples. Really worth the listen: https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Synthesis-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B0000026FV https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Synthesis-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B00...
bane 4y ago
I grew up in a very religiously conservative household and was raised to not think "well" of trans people. Simultaneously one of my favorite soundtracks of all time was the music to the original 1982 Tron. I had never heard anything quite like it compositionally, or sonically. Sweeping orchestras blended in with synthetic beeps, and bold vistas. It fit the aesthetic of the movie perfectly and was such a daring film production I can't believe it was even made. One day I looked up the soundtrack at the local record store and bought it..."Composer Wendy Carlos" huh, never heard of her and couldn't find anything really other than contributions to Clockwork Orange and Hooked on Bach and not much else. I moved on. Later, when there was more Internet to be had, I decided to look up Wendy and was shocked to learn she was trans. It started me down a journey of reflection, challenging my upbringing, and reexamining many "truths" that I had been taught. Along that journey I learned about the tragedy of Alan Turing and other stories. Wendy's music planted a seed that significantly transformed my inner life, much for the better. It helped me develop significantly in my thoughts on freedom, empathy, justice and the kind of future world I'd like to live in and leave behind. In 1982 it took a lot of daring for a Disney exec to green light bringing her music to their audience. This was during an age of great an unjust moral panic on a variety of topics. for reference: I remember my mother receiving a letter from her pastor outlining why "Back to the Future Part II" was the work of Satan and they should never allow it in their household. The central argument was a table that counted the number of time the seven dirty swear words were mentioned in the movie, challenged its rating, and attributed the low rating (PG I think) to a conspiracy by Satan worshipers to corrupt God's youth. This was 1989.
- thefounder 4y ago
  - rideontime 4y ago
    You should get out a little, then.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    In Amsterdam drag and trans people always were part of the background and not considered anything special, they sometimes looked extravagant but they were simply also people. We're talking 1970's or so here, my earliest memories of that.
danidiaz 4y ago
Adult Swim's "Lords of Synth" comedy short contains a homage to Wendy Carlos in the form of a certain "Carla Wendos" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino There's also the documentary "Sisters with transistors" about women pioneers of electronic music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7M
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  I did actually come looking for a reference to Lords of Synth, and I wish I could upvote this twice.
- shadytrees 4y ago
  +1 Sisters with Transistors. I watched this in the dark at the Metrograph, a theater in the outskirts of Manhattan, with maybe six other people, and the experience was transcendental.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    It's a very good documentary.
- Blackthorn 4y ago
  I love that Adult Swim short for many reasons, but especially that blink-and-you'll-miss-it statement that trans women are, in fact, women.
- plasticeagle 4y ago
  "Sisters with Transistors" is a superb film. Before I watched it, the only one of the many extraordinary women presented therein that I knew of was Delia Derbyshire. I had no idea that the soundtrack to The Forbidden Planet (which may very well be the greatest Science Fiction film ever made), was by Louis and Bebe Barron on equipment they pretty much entirely built themselves. Today, we plug in a laptop, back then you were a true pioneer.
- awsation 4y ago
  Anyone knows if this is a available for streaming? BTW, the catchy synth in the trailer is here: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=52f1ElmTy4o&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=52f1ElmTy4o&feature=share Laurie Spiegel - Appalachian Grove I
Gordonjcp 4y ago
I have an early copy of Switched-On Bach, and I sometimes wonder if I should put a bit of tape on the front. It's probably sufficient to remember, and call her Wendy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lostgame 4y ago
As a trans woman; semi-professional musician, producer; audio engineer, and for whom Stanley Kubrick is my favourite artist of any medium, Wendy Carlos is one of the single greatest inspirations of my life. I can’t personally imagine the struggle she went through all that time ago; having the courage to be herself when even today it’s been a personal struggle. Gems like her really only come around every once in a while.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  Lynn Conway is another woman I look up to. The trans women who lived between 1950 and 1980 and still managed to advance their careers impress me, and I do my best to emulate them.
  - renewedrebecca 4y ago
    Indeed. Sophie Wilson (of ARM fame), too!
  - yunch 4y ago
    - golemiprague 4y ago
    - DelaneyM 4y ago
      It's much more impressive than that: > Upon completing her transition in 1968, Conway took a new name and identity, and restarted her career in what she called "stealth-mode". (From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway) She managed to have groundbreaking impact in two disconnected careers after restarting from scratch!
      - yunch 4y ago
        I stand corrected, that is much more impressive than I'd assumed!
jacquesm 4y ago
I still have the vinyl of switched on Bach and one day I'll get a record player hooked up and play it from there instead of the mp3s. Fantastic record and given the time when it was made absolutely incredible, keep in mind that this was before MIDI and most music related software that we take for granted today.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
I was working behind the counter at a booth at Macworld, Boston — maybe 1991 or so? A woman behind the booth with me suddenly said, "That was Wendy Carlos!", about someone who had just walked away from the booth. Dumb me was busy doing something and hadn't been paying attention. Ha ha, those little moments in life when you're asleep at the wheel.
ProAm 4y ago
This was a good podcast about birth of the synth built by Bob Moog and Don Buchla on each coast of the US. part 1: https://www.20k.org/episodes/synthwar https://www.20k.org/episodes/synthwar part 2: https://www.20k.org/episodes/digitaldoom https://www.20k.org/episodes/digitaldoom
Karawebnetwork 4y ago
We can't discuss Wendy Carlos without mentioning the still online old school "Wendy Carlos Homepage" that is straight out of 1996. https://www.wendycarlos.com/ https://www.wendycarlos.com/
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Thanks for that link, it prompted me to send her a thank you note, which was really long overdue.
  - bane 4y ago
    Ha! Me too! I realized I'd known about her site for a long while but had never taken the time to reach out and thank her.
ideonexus 4y ago
Love the Tron soundtrack and am happy to learn about Wendy Carlos. Unfortunately, she has fought tirelessly to keep her music from being digitized and available online or streaming. I did however find this delightful collaboration she did with Weird Al Yankovic remaking Peter and the Wolf: https://archive.org/details/peter-and-the-wolf-wierd-al/ https://archive.org/details/peter-and-the-wolf-wierd-al/
- fulltimeloser 4y ago
  There must be a balance point between greed and control vs letting people enjoy your work. I understand the need for artists to earn a living, but being to restrictive will paint you in to a corner. In a way she is doing the same to her music as she did to her self; hiding it away from public view
- steve1977 4y ago
  Most of her works are available on CD, so they are digitized.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
Here's a great podcast about Wendy Carlos https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MZsp6Bfxf8PnOd7ODRmc4?si=8G68OIJbShal7x84wJDhSA https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MZsp6Bfxf8PnOd7ODRmc4?si=8...
DoreenMichele 4y ago
Now 83, she supposedly remains active in music, but is still an elusive figure who fiercely protects her work... Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today, something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. “The public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent,” she said. “There had never been any need of this charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life.” It's really hard to say how things might have gone had we taken some other path and she remains a reclusive figure. Some things are intractable problems, like it or not. (And I definitely don't like how hard the world makes it for trans individuals.)
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  I've always suspected she's very introverted, private, and a perfectionist.
tolloid 4y ago
No mention of the Momus $22 million lawsuit
- imperfect_light 4y ago
  Which lead to an album to pay off the judgement... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Forever
- dri_ft 4y ago
  Settled for 30,000, mind.
gwbas1c 4y ago
One of the most frustrating things as a Carlos fan is that she is a huge fan of surround sound, records for surround sound, yet hasn't released any of her catalogue in true multichannel surround.
m0llusk 4y ago
Kind of interesting how electronic music then got taken up by the [ware]house scene which made the form into a kind of social public sharing experience yet was also strongly influenced by gay and trans communities.
dang 4y ago
Related: The Wendy Carlos Total Eclipse Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30096161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30096161 - Jan 2022 (1 comment) Wendy Carlos on Bob Moog (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26553486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26553486 - March 2021 (57 comments) Wendy Carlos, the reclusive synth genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061260 - Nov 2020 (2 comments) Where is Wendy Carlos? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394457 - June 2020 (2 comments) Wendy Carlos – Electronic Music Pioneer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662642 - Dec 2018 (1 comment) How Wendy Carlos Changed Music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16077589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16077589 - Jan 2018 (43 comments)
iamgoat 4y ago
`Wendy Carlos demonstrates her Moog Synthesizer in 1970` https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDH5uhs4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDH5uhs4Q I'm going to have to dig into Wendy Carlos more and will thanks to this thread and comments. When I came across the above I must have gotten sidetracked with Laurie Spiegel.
121110987654321 4y ago
great read and history thanks for sharing OP
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
leoc 4y ago
Slightly related: there's someone (Robert Bancarli, project name "Baroquenoise" https://www.baroquenoise.com/ https://www.baroquenoise.com/ ) putting out Moogish classical covers in the style of Carlos. He just released a Bieber (no, the other Bieber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ignaz_Franz_Biber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ignaz_Franz_Biber ) album https://open.spotify.com/album/01wxyAfeU3auxstFgmL3l2?si=jX_UaR_tSpCS4qwfguHJjQ https://open.spotify.com/album/01wxyAfeU3auxstFgmL3l2?si=jX_... , and the Passacaglia is pretty good: https://open.spotify.com/track/468ncKcCdFzsVAWyqqEJLE?si=d5af5a77915e495a https://open.spotify.com/track/468ncKcCdFzsVAWyqqEJLE?si=d5a... . Maybe there's a whole scene of people releasing this kind of thing? If so I'm not aware of it.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  One of my faves in the genre is Marco Rosano "Analog Bach" (he released twomalnums in that series). Great use of synths!
siddboots 4y ago
When I was quite a bit younger I went through a Wendy Carlos obsession, and spent a lot of time with Switched On Bach, Clockwork Orange, and some of Wendy’s other synth works. Much later on, after my interests had wandered a long way from analog synth stuff, I went through a Bossa Nova phase, and at some point discovered Joao Gilberto’s 1973 self titled album which shortly became one of my favourite albums of all time. It’s an absolutely hypnotic, beautifully stripped back yet harmonically complex distillation of the bossa sound. Only after having listened to it surely hundreds of times I read up on the recording and discovered that Carlos was the sound engineer!
Doorstep2077 4y ago
The lengths humans will go through for success will always amaze me
tniemi 4y ago
My absolute favourite is the "Beauty in the Beast" album. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_in_the_Beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_in_the_Beast Even if you do not know anything about music theory you will still feel the power of those strange and alien alternate tunings. Titular track: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j1gy2 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j1gy2

360 points by lentil_soup 4y ago

I visited the Moog museum this summer with a friend while visiting Asheville, NC. I asked if they had any Wendy Carlos related memorabilia and they didn't seem to. I think may be there was a Switched on Bach vinyl up on a wall in the back.... It made me feel a little sad. I think living with gender dysphoria hurts people's self-esteem tremendously. She also lived in a time when April Ashley, who was the image of feminine beauty and grace, was accosted by old ladies in parks to shame her for "pretending" to be a woman once she was outed by UK tabloids just as her career began to take off. It's understandable why she'd want to avoid embracing fame. Even today trans people, and especially women, are an acceptable punching bag for both the public at large and public figures to take out their frustrations on.... She didn't become world famous like she may have if she'd been lucky enough to be born cisgender, but the thing that matters most is whether she found happiness in her private life. I hope she did.

jrochkind1 4y ago
The final paragraph of the article is interesting though: > Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today, something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. “The public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent,” she said. “There had never been any need of this charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life.” While that kind of tolerance/indifference wasn't available to everyone -- it probably helped to be wealthy enough to do what you want, and to be already established as a respected musician (Carlos actually was and still is world-famous!), and I'm sure it wasn't even as universal for Carlos as she was feeling it to be when she gave that quote in 1979 -- the quote makes me wonder if things have gotten worse over the past few years. While there's more public acceptance in some quarters, it's also become a much bigger controversy in fact. It's hard to imagine a public figure feeling the kind of "indifference" Carlos described, where it didn't actually effect her career much, it wasn't a big deal to it. It was seen as an oddity, yes, but trans was perhaps not the cultural flashpoint like it is now. Rather than "even today", I wonder and suspect that some things may actually have gotten much worse than they were in 1979 -- for all kinds of things, actually.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
  As that one quote says, paraphrasing: when you get old you realize that nobody was thinking about you this whole time anyway.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  I have to imagine living in New York in the late 60s through 70s also contributed to the acceptance/indifference that might not be afforded to others at that time (or even today).
- runjake 4y ago
  This reminds me of Henry Rollins' song, "Icon" from his Weight album. It's about the trappings of fame/being a rock star. I feel like he wrote it as a reminder to himself, just as much as he wrote it for others. The lyrics[1] to the song are great, but one line in particular: There'll be another messiah right here next week 1. https://genius.com/Rollins-band-icon-lyrics https://genius.com/Rollins-band-icon-lyrics
- sassyonsunday 4y ago
  > I actually wonder if things have gotten worse over the past few years. They've gotten consistently worse since about 2015. I started transitioning in 2009 when I was 18. I come from a very conservative environment and growing up I'd even tried to come out as gay a few times only to be "shot down" more or less but in college I used my own money and I found doctors to help me look how I wanted and I started dating men openly and as awful as it is to say, because I looked and acted the part people got over it pretty fast and begrudgingly accepted that I - at least - wasn't a man. My parents even got upset with me a long while ago when I insinuated that I was a part of the gay community because they said it was disrespectful to my then boyfriend who is now my husband (he had only dated cis girls before me and is straight to anyone who hasn't run a DNA test on me ha). These days I can feel a change even from people who were kind to me before. All the coverage on conservative media outlets, the JK Rowling "trans women are a threat to women" and the Matt Walsh "trans women are mentally ill perverts" talking points have eroded goodwill so much that more religious and conservative members of my own family avoid me now as where they didn't before and I feel that I'm only able to have a good life because I'm in the fortunate position of being "passable" and attracted to men. In 2012 when I came out to someone they'd usually just be curious about my experiences. Even conservative Christians and Republicans. In 2022 almost nobody is curious except about which surgeries you've had because they've already made their mind up about how they feel about you. For about 50% of the population that means you're a piece of scum who deserves ridicule and punishment (if it looks like you could still pass as male physically) or excommunication (if it looks like you're so feminine and far gone that you couldn't fit in as a man), for about 40% of the population that means indifference akin to what you'd get back in the good old days and for about 10% it means an outpouring of support and love in an attempt to make up for the 50% who are openly hostile. I think more and more trans people are taking the Wendy Carlos approach these days because of this. Much of the community wants to avoid attention and get along with their lives. There's a growing trend of people "boy moding" or "man moding" which is where they take hormone replacement therapies but dress in drag to try to fit in as their gender assigned at birth in public the same way that Wendy did. As an amusing sidenote, many of these people begin "male failing" which is where the hormone replacement therapies make it impossible for them to pass as their gender assigned at birth and so they are read as being trans still but coming from the other direction.... It's so sad that it has to be this way.
gertrui 4y ago
- sassyonsunday 4y ago
  edit In retrospect this was sort of mean of you to say: > It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty standard Do you go around telling girls they have to try to look less pleasing to men and more pleasing to your own sensibilities? Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own demands to be satisfied? I like looking a certain way. I also like when it gets me attention from men. I have the same motivations as the majority of heterosexual women and I'm trying to live a fulfilling life. You don't need to make it all about you. end of edit I only felt the need to point it out to drive home the point that there is/was no winning move as a trans person. I feel the need to do this because I've met many people in my life who've tried to tell me things like that it 's obvious that I was "born to be a woman" so I shouldn't worry about transphobia because they think transphobia is only directed at people who look masculine but wear feminine clothes or sex pests who change their pronouns to try to seem less creepy. It's led me to believe that this might be a common position among people who are anti-trans. They think: "these bathroom policies will only hurt the bad ones who don't pass, the passable ones will be fine" as a way of soothing their conscience.
  - 8zah6q7 4y ago
    Transphobes don't want trans women to be masculine, androgynous, or feminine. When they're honest, they just don't want trans women to be.
  - gertrui 4y ago
    > Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own demands to be satisfied? No, women should be free to present however they please, that's my point. We shouldn't feel pressure to conform to imposed ideals of femininity, to be praised for it or knocked for not complying.
    - 4y ago

at_a_remove 4y ago

I have this two CD compilation of Carlos' work on The Shining, probably a bootleg but how else could I get it? It's quite interesting and I think Kubrick ought to have used more of it.

racl101 4y ago
Every time I hear the Shining theme I feel the room get cold. So powerful. Same with A Clockwork Orange (Queen Mary's funeral theme).
glhaynes 4y ago
Didn’t know this existed! Thanks, off to look for it.
trynewideas 4y ago
There was Rediscovering Lost Scores, a two-volume CD set, as mentioned in the article. https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls1.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls1.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls2.html https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls2.html

labrador 4y ago

I lived in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where Wendy was from in 1982 when Wendy did this and never heard of her. Pawtucket was a tough multi-ethnic working class town, so I can't imagine how difficult it was for her to be public at that time. I was really into synthesizers then too. Amazing stuff. Tron Suite - Wendy Carlos (1982) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4 Clockwork Orange [1971] - Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGqVkk3Uss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGqVkk3Uss

racl101 4y ago

Still love the original theme from Tron. As much as the Tron (2010) movie's score had a "cool" factor it lacked the heart and soul of the original. If they ever do another one I'd like to see the original Carlos' Tron's leitmotif woven back into it.

lordfrito 4y ago
Tron 2 soundtrack was such a huge disappointment from me, and I'm a die hard Daft Punk fan. Listened to it once, never went back to it. The original Tron soundtrack is such a joy, totally underrated... Amazing how she blended electronics with orchestration... in my memory it feels like a purely electronic soundtrack but it's not at all. The artistic impulse would be to go full electronic with something like this, she went in the opposite direction, and gave the score a sense of humanity (humans in the computer world). Carlos kept pushing the envelope on everything she did. Up there with Delia Derbyshire to me... total pioneer.
- drannex 4y ago
  Marginally off topic here, but Occams Laser created a 'sequel' album to the Daft Punk score, and I feel it more closely feels like an updated original Tron soundtrack. There are two complete albums they've released: The Grid[1], which is a concept album based on the 1982 original, and Return to the Grid[2] which is a reimagined concept album for Tron Legacy, both that I absolutely love listening to. 1. https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid 2. https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-grid https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-grid
  - lordfrito 4y ago
    Listened to a few tracks, this is right up my alley, thanks! It's a little less Tron and a little more 80's film soundtrack vibe (which is also awesome).. The style seems to have come back in vogue a bit (Stranger Things etc.). This reminds me a lot of the Le Matos soundtrack for Turbo Kid. [1] Their soundtrack to Summer of '84 has the same synth vibe but adds the horror soundtrack vibe, also recommended. [1] https://lematos.bandcamp.com/album/chronicles-of-the-wasteland-turbo-kid-original-motion-picture-soundtrack https://lematos.bandcamp.com/album/chronicles-of-the-wastela...

daneel_w 4y ago

Owed to my father's long interest in electronic music, I'm the thankful owner of several of the 1960s/1970s original print Walter Carlos-attributed vinyl records and a few of the 1980s Wendy Carlos-attributed ones. Switched-On Bach/Brandenburgs, Sonic Seasonings, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer etc. all played a large part in my discovery of electronic music as a child.

wslh 4y ago
The first Bach I heard as a kid were those vinyl records. Never thought about them as electronic music, just after getting a little bit older I realized this was connected with computers. I was always impressed by the covers [1]. The interesting thing is that these vinyl records were at home and at my grandparents home who love classical music. The impact of Wendy Carlos evidently goes beyond electronics. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=wendy+carlos+electronic+bach+cover&sxsrf=ALiCzsb71ztTukphaHXBylEVfzGSx3N3tw:1671125088733&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK4qeKkvz7AhV8vJUCHSeTCLgQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1920&bih=901&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=wendy+carlos+electronic+bach...
Blackthorn 4y ago
Would you be willing to work with an archivist to make these public? (I'm not one, to be clear.) Carlos recordings seem impossible to find!
- anamexis 4y ago
  The Discogs marketplace seems to have plenty of them. https://www.discogs.com/artist/16261-Wendy-Carlos https://www.discogs.com/artist/16261-Wendy-Carlos
  - Blackthorn 4y ago
    Maybe I'm just today's lucky ten thousand then.
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    You have no idea how long I've looked for this, thank you so much lol. edit: wait, is this just a place that sells physical copies?

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

The Clockwork Orange score still goes hard today. Love it.

vr46 4y ago

Poor Wendy. I was literally thinking of her yesterday when I pulled out my original Clockwork Orange record. I would love her to do a masterclass and be able to extract some of her knowledge for my own experiments in electronic music. The whole world has lost out here. It's not too late though, I hope we see something from her.

gwbas1c 4y ago
Wendy released an album where she explains her technique and gives examples. Really worth the listen: https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Synthesis-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B0000026FV https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Synthesis-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B00...

bane 4y ago

I grew up in a very religiously conservative household and was raised to not think "well" of trans people. Simultaneously one of my favorite soundtracks of all time was the music to the original 1982 Tron. I had never heard anything quite like it compositionally, or sonically. Sweeping orchestras blended in with synthetic beeps, and bold vistas. It fit the aesthetic of the movie perfectly and was such a daring film production I can't believe it was even made. One day I looked up the soundtrack at the local record store and bought it..."Composer Wendy Carlos" huh, never heard of her and couldn't find anything really other than contributions to Clockwork Orange and Hooked on Bach and not much else. I moved on. Later, when there was more Internet to be had, I decided to look up Wendy and was shocked to learn she was trans. It started me down a journey of reflection, challenging my upbringing, and reexamining many "truths" that I had been taught. Along that journey I learned about the tragedy of Alan Turing and other stories. Wendy's music planted a seed that significantly transformed my inner life, much for the better. It helped me develop significantly in my thoughts on freedom, empathy, justice and the kind of future world I'd like to live in and leave behind. In 1982 it took a lot of daring for a Disney exec to green light bringing her music to their audience. This was during an age of great an unjust moral panic on a variety of topics. for reference: I remember my mother receiving a letter from her pastor outlining why "Back to the Future Part II" was the work of Satan and they should never allow it in their household. The central argument was a table that counted the number of time the seven dirty swear words were mentioned in the movie, challenged its rating, and attributed the low rating (PG I think) to a conspiracy by Satan worshipers to corrupt God's youth. This was 1989.

thefounder 4y ago
- rideontime 4y ago
  You should get out a little, then.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  In Amsterdam drag and trans people always were part of the background and not considered anything special, they sometimes looked extravagant but they were simply also people. We're talking 1970's or so here, my earliest memories of that.

danidiaz 4y ago

Adult Swim's "Lords of Synth" comedy short contains a homage to Wendy Carlos in the form of a certain "Carla Wendos" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino There's also the documentary "Sisters with transistors" about women pioneers of electronic music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7M

Gordonjcp 4y ago
I did actually come looking for a reference to Lords of Synth, and I wish I could upvote this twice.
shadytrees 4y ago
+1 Sisters with Transistors. I watched this in the dark at the Metrograph, a theater in the outskirts of Manhattan, with maybe six other people, and the experience was transcendental.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  It's a very good documentary.
Blackthorn 4y ago
I love that Adult Swim short for many reasons, but especially that blink-and-you'll-miss-it statement that trans women are, in fact, women.
plasticeagle 4y ago
"Sisters with Transistors" is a superb film. Before I watched it, the only one of the many extraordinary women presented therein that I knew of was Delia Derbyshire. I had no idea that the soundtrack to The Forbidden Planet (which may very well be the greatest Science Fiction film ever made), was by Louis and Bebe Barron on equipment they pretty much entirely built themselves. Today, we plug in a laptop, back then you were a true pioneer.
awsation 4y ago
Anyone knows if this is a available for streaming? BTW, the catchy synth in the trailer is here: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=52f1ElmTy4o&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=52f1ElmTy4o&feature=share Laurie Spiegel - Appalachian Grove I

Gordonjcp 4y ago

I have an early copy of Switched-On Bach, and I sometimes wonder if I should put a bit of tape on the front. It's probably sufficient to remember, and call her Wendy.

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lostgame 4y ago

As a trans woman; semi-professional musician, producer; audio engineer, and for whom Stanley Kubrick is my favourite artist of any medium, Wendy Carlos is one of the single greatest inspirations of my life. I can’t personally imagine the struggle she went through all that time ago; having the courage to be herself when even today it’s been a personal struggle. Gems like her really only come around every once in a while.

Karawebnetwork 4y ago
Lynn Conway is another woman I look up to. The trans women who lived between 1950 and 1980 and still managed to advance their careers impress me, and I do my best to emulate them.
- renewedrebecca 4y ago
  Indeed. Sophie Wilson (of ARM fame), too!
- yunch 4y ago
  - golemiprague 4y ago
  - DelaneyM 4y ago
    It's much more impressive than that: > Upon completing her transition in 1968, Conway took a new name and identity, and restarted her career in what she called "stealth-mode". (From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway) She managed to have groundbreaking impact in two disconnected careers after restarting from scratch!
    - yunch 4y ago
      I stand corrected, that is much more impressive than I'd assumed!

jacquesm 4y ago

I still have the vinyl of switched on Bach and one day I'll get a record player hooked up and play it from there instead of the mp3s. Fantastic record and given the time when it was made absolutely incredible, keep in mind that this was before MIDI and most music related software that we take for granted today.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

I was working behind the counter at a booth at Macworld, Boston — maybe 1991 or so? A woman behind the booth with me suddenly said, "That was Wendy Carlos!", about someone who had just walked away from the booth. Dumb me was busy doing something and hadn't been paying attention. Ha ha, those little moments in life when you're asleep at the wheel.

ProAm 4y ago

This was a good podcast about birth of the synth built by Bob Moog and Don Buchla on each coast of the US. part 1: https://www.20k.org/episodes/synthwar https://www.20k.org/episodes/synthwar part 2: https://www.20k.org/episodes/digitaldoom https://www.20k.org/episodes/digitaldoom

Karawebnetwork 4y ago

We can't discuss Wendy Carlos without mentioning the still online old school "Wendy Carlos Homepage" that is straight out of 1996. https://www.wendycarlos.com/ https://www.wendycarlos.com/

jacquesm 4y ago
Thanks for that link, it prompted me to send her a thank you note, which was really long overdue.
- bane 4y ago
  Ha! Me too! I realized I'd known about her site for a long while but had never taken the time to reach out and thank her.

ideonexus 4y ago

Love the Tron soundtrack and am happy to learn about Wendy Carlos. Unfortunately, she has fought tirelessly to keep her music from being digitized and available online or streaming. I did however find this delightful collaboration she did with Weird Al Yankovic remaking Peter and the Wolf: https://archive.org/details/peter-and-the-wolf-wierd-al/ https://archive.org/details/peter-and-the-wolf-wierd-al/

fulltimeloser 4y ago
There must be a balance point between greed and control vs letting people enjoy your work. I understand the need for artists to earn a living, but being to restrictive will paint you in to a corner. In a way she is doing the same to her music as she did to her self; hiding it away from public view
steve1977 4y ago
Most of her works are available on CD, so they are digitized.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

Here's a great podcast about Wendy Carlos https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MZsp6Bfxf8PnOd7ODRmc4?si=8G68OIJbShal7x84wJDhSA https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MZsp6Bfxf8PnOd7ODRmc4?si=8...

DoreenMichele 4y ago

Now 83, she supposedly remains active in music, but is still an elusive figure who fiercely protects her work... Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today, something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. “The public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent,” she said. “There had never been any need of this charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life.” It's really hard to say how things might have gone had we taken some other path and she remains a reclusive figure. Some things are intractable problems, like it or not. (And I definitely don't like how hard the world makes it for trans individuals.)

gwbas1c 4y ago
I've always suspected she's very introverted, private, and a perfectionist.

tolloid 4y ago

No mention of the Momus $22 million lawsuit

imperfect_light 4y ago
Which lead to an album to pay off the judgement... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Forever
dri_ft 4y ago
Settled for 30,000, mind.

gwbas1c 4y ago

One of the most frustrating things as a Carlos fan is that she is a huge fan of surround sound, records for surround sound, yet hasn't released any of her catalogue in true multichannel surround.

m0llusk 4y ago

Kind of interesting how electronic music then got taken up by the [ware]house scene which made the form into a kind of social public sharing experience yet was also strongly influenced by gay and trans communities.

dang 4y ago

Related: The Wendy Carlos Total Eclipse Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30096161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30096161 - Jan 2022 (1 comment) Wendy Carlos on Bob Moog (2005) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26553486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26553486 - March 2021 (57 comments) Wendy Carlos, the reclusive synth genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061260 - Nov 2020 (2 comments) Where is Wendy Carlos? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394457 - June 2020 (2 comments) Wendy Carlos – Electronic Music Pioneer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662642 - Dec 2018 (1 comment) How Wendy Carlos Changed Music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16077589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16077589 - Jan 2018 (43 comments)

iamgoat 4y ago

`Wendy Carlos demonstrates her Moog Synthesizer in 1970` https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDH5uhs4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDH5uhs4Q I'm going to have to dig into Wendy Carlos more and will thanks to this thread and comments. When I came across the above I must have gotten sidetracked with Laurie Spiegel.

121110987654321 4y ago

great read and history thanks for sharing OP

deleted 4y ago

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leoc 4y ago

Slightly related: there's someone (Robert Bancarli, project name "Baroquenoise" https://www.baroquenoise.com/ https://www.baroquenoise.com/ ) putting out Moogish classical covers in the style of Carlos. He just released a Bieber (no, the other Bieber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ignaz_Franz_Biber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ignaz_Franz_Biber ) album https://open.spotify.com/album/01wxyAfeU3auxstFgmL3l2?si=jX_UaR_tSpCS4qwfguHJjQ https://open.spotify.com/album/01wxyAfeU3auxstFgmL3l2?si=jX_... , and the Passacaglia is pretty good: https://open.spotify.com/track/468ncKcCdFzsVAWyqqEJLE?si=d5af5a77915e495a https://open.spotify.com/track/468ncKcCdFzsVAWyqqEJLE?si=d5a... . Maybe there's a whole scene of people releasing this kind of thing? If so I'm not aware of it.

Synaesthesia 4y ago
One of my faves in the genre is Marco Rosano "Analog Bach" (he released twomalnums in that series). Great use of synths!

siddboots 4y ago

When I was quite a bit younger I went through a Wendy Carlos obsession, and spent a lot of time with Switched On Bach, Clockwork Orange, and some of Wendy’s other synth works. Much later on, after my interests had wandered a long way from analog synth stuff, I went through a Bossa Nova phase, and at some point discovered Joao Gilberto’s 1973 self titled album which shortly became one of my favourite albums of all time. It’s an absolutely hypnotic, beautifully stripped back yet harmonically complex distillation of the bossa sound. Only after having listened to it surely hundreds of times I read up on the recording and discovered that Carlos was the sound engineer!

Doorstep2077 4y ago

The lengths humans will go through for success will always amaze me

tniemi 4y ago

My absolute favourite is the "Beauty in the Beast" album. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_in_the_Beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_in_the_Beast Even if you do not know anything about music theory you will still feel the power of those strange and alien alternate tunings. Titular track: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j1gy2 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j1gy2