The Buchla’s Box is probably one of the most important innovation in the electronic music scene in the 1960’s. The musical instrument named after its creator, Don Buchla, is no doubt one of the greatest addition to the achievements of the music composer and instruments creator. Buchla, born to a test pilot for the air force and a teacher, always had a passion for music but put it aside to pursue a career in physics as an electronics engineer (Pinch and Trocco 33). Buchla later dropped out of UC Berkeley at the height of the Cold War and decided to pursue his true passion, music. He incorporated his knowledge in electronics with music to developed new musical instruments and composition never heard before. He worked closely with Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, and they were soon setting electronic music concerts together. It was during late 1965 when Buchla brought the prototype of the Buchla Box into the Tape Center. Accompanied by one Bill Maginnis, another friend of Buchla who worked at the Tape Center, Subotnick and Render were marveled by the instrument and experimented on it all day and night (Pinch and Trocco 37).
The article is clearly written in a simple and comprehensible language. It has a nice flow from one paragraph to the next, and the ideas and thoughts of the author are presented in a logical manner. However, the author strays further away from the topic of his article-Buchla’s Box. The article subtly talks about the Box but in a deep and broad sense talks about Don Buchla and his journey in electronic music and comparing it to that taken by Bob Moog.
In spite of its diversion away from the topic, the article is excellent and relevant to studies in class. As much as we would like to understand and enjoy electronic music, it is paramount to understand the roots of the genre, the challenges it has faced and milestones it has achieved over the years. It is also important to know and appreciate the analog electronic music instruments that were there before the digital era and establish how the differences of the instruments in these two eras can be reconciled (Miranda and Wanderley, 86).
Works Cited
Bernstein, David W. The San Francisco Tape Music Center. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Print.
Miranda, Eduardo Reck, and Marcelo Wanderley. New Digital Musical Instruments. Middleton: A-R Editions, 2006. Print.
Pinch, T. J, and Frank Trocco. Analog Days. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Print.