2 min listen
That Magic Touch
ratings:
Length:
38 minutes
Released:
Mar 25, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Stanley Jordan was about to play The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and with seconds go before cameras rolled, the sound wasn’t coming out of his guitar. His guitar tech was sweating bullets. Was he able to hit his mark? And what lesson did he learn from the experience?
In this second episode of Season 2 of "Composers & Computers," Jordan talks about his time at Princeton, including his work with two of his mentors, who were big names in the field of electronic music: Milton Babbitt and Paul Lansky. He discusses the time Dizzy Gillespie’s jaw dropped when Jordan took the stage during a concert at Richardson Hall with Benny Carter.
And he talks about why he went through the tedious process of composing music on a computer at a time that computers didn't easily generate sound.
“The idea was so thrilling for me, because I had this sound in my head, and I knew that if I could just get the right numbers, create the right code, I knew there was a way to realize that sound," Jordan said. "So I didn’t mind trudging through the snow at midnight. I think sometimes when something is challenging, I think it’s more meaningful.”
In this second episode of Season 2 of "Composers & Computers," Jordan talks about his time at Princeton, including his work with two of his mentors, who were big names in the field of electronic music: Milton Babbitt and Paul Lansky. He discusses the time Dizzy Gillespie’s jaw dropped when Jordan took the stage during a concert at Richardson Hall with Benny Carter.
And he talks about why he went through the tedious process of composing music on a computer at a time that computers didn't easily generate sound.
“The idea was so thrilling for me, because I had this sound in my head, and I knew that if I could just get the right numbers, create the right code, I knew there was a way to realize that sound," Jordan said. "So I didn’t mind trudging through the snow at midnight. I think sometimes when something is challenging, I think it’s more meaningful.”
Released:
Mar 25, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (10)
Welcome to "Composers & Computers!": A revolution in music happened in the Princeton Engineering Quadrangle, but chances are, you don’t know the story. Sixty years ago, some music-loving computer engineers happened upon some musicians who were enamored with a new computer installed on the third floor. The work they did together helped turn computers – at the time, a hulking, silent machine – into a tool to produce music. Their innovations made it easier to hear that music. That was no mean feat back then. Then they made it possible for a computer to make that music better, more nuanced. And they helped make it possible for computers to synthesize speech. What computers are able to do today to help musicians realize their vision owes a lot to the work done at Princeton. Much of this history has been effectively lost, gathering dust in far-off libraries. And the music they made has been largely forgotten as well. Over the five episodes of this series, we will tell that story. You’ll get by Composers & Computers