2. Wendy Carlos

Shahid: Hello! Welcome to our second episode of Classical Queeros! This is a podcast where two gay people of color de-straighten the history of classical music by highlighting queer composers and more. I'm Shahid Osuna, and I cannot ride a bike to save my life.

Alice: And I'm Alice Park, and I........can.

S: Ride a bike?

A: Ride a bike. Yeah. I have a bike. I bought a bike at the beginning of quarantine, and I have used it perhaps...three times.

S: Oh my gosh.

A: Yeah. That's on me. I should use it more.

S: I did not know you have a bike. That is really cute!

A: Yeah! It's purple. It's my favorite.

S: I have always wanted, like, a mint-colored, like, teal-colored, uh--what are they called--beach cruisers! Is that what they're called? Yeah I've always wanted one of those.

A: Oh my gosh, those are nice! I think that would be nice for you, too, because you can't ride a bike, so I think it's like, more steady! So it'd be easier. I mean, just a little bit, you know?

S: Oh my god!

A: Because they're like, wider? So it's not like, super narrow. You're not just going to fall over.

S: Huh. Wow. I had no idea. Okay, wow! Yeah I really can't ride. Like, people have tried to teach me, like, several times, like, "Oh, you can't ride a bike? I'll teach you." And then they like, fail. So I think I'm just like. Unteachable.

A: No! You just need the right teacher! I'll do it. I'll be your dad, and I'll teach you how to ride.

S: Dad! Okay. Okay perfect.

A: And then Sam is your mom.

S: Yes! It's true, I'm your gayby. Well, I'm so excited to start today. Today, we're going to be talking about Wendy Carlos, who is a photographer, artist, trans woman, cat mom and dog mom, bisexual queen, map maker. 

A: Oh my gosh!!

S: Also, we're just going to be talking mostly about how she is just, like, you know, casually one of the pioneers of electronic music, and so much more. Just Wonder Woman.

A: Wow! What a queen. "Just Wonder Woman." Oh my god. I'm really excited to talk about her, because--like I knew she existed from school and all that, but it was always like, "This is Walter/Wendy Carlos, and this person did Switched On Bach." And that was the full extent of my knowledge. And like, until maybe a few months ago, honestly I was never positive--because I never heard about her like since--I was never positive which one of those names was her dead name and her actual name. Which is just, you know, that just goes to show how bad the education is.

S: Which is sad. I think that they're not putting enough emphasis. But she's like, seriously so involved in the beginnings of electronic music, which is where a lot of new music is today--is involving, you know, electronics. So she kind of foresaw this happening, like from the beginning. She was like, "This is the direction it's gonna head." She was like, "This music that's going on with, like, serialism, is like, so ugly and unmusical and it's just--it's gonna have to go somewhere new. And that's gonna be electronic." So she saw that from the beginning. Amazing.

A: She's psychic!

S: She is psychic.

A: Is there anything she can't do?

S: No! Actually, if you uh you scroll down...so uh, to our listeners, we're looking at our episode document, and I have pasted a picture that she painted on the page. The third page.

A: Oh my god! She made that?

S: She painted that! Isn't that amazing?

A: Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm gonna describe it. Me, the person who's good at words. Um, so, the--so--oh gosh. It's a really nice painting. It's of like, this lady in a pink, like, skirt suit? Um, sitting on a rock, holding a balloon, and she looks happy, and she's at a park. But like, it's just such nice painting! Yeah.

S: Yeah. This is one of her early paintings, and she went back and found it, and she called it like, the "sin of her youth." Like she was like, "It was actually a pretty good effort!" But I'm just like, this is a "good effort?" Because I can't even draw a stick figure. So this is like, really nice to me.

A: This is just like Ethel Smyth in our last episode, being like, "I damaged my left hand forever and then I could only get an octave on the piano."

S: Well, I love it. I mean, you know, good for them. I like, love it. I love it.

A: Overachievers. Overachieving queer musicians.

S: Absolutely. So we're gonna get more in depth with her and her life and her career, but first! We're gonna start with our segment: What Do You Say, Gay? My question today is: If you, Alice Park, could go back in time and pick another instrument, what would it be, and why?

A: Hmm. That's a good question. I like that it was targeted at me, Alice Park.

S: At you, Alice Park!

A: Hmm. I feel like...okay well, I love the flute a lot, but I didn't choose it. I was small. I was in the fourth grade when I started beginning band, and, like, all the instruments seemed super exciting! So I took the form home to, like, choose instruments, and I took it to my parents, and I was like, "I don't know what I want!" So like, the next day, I'm lying on the couch, my mom's like, "You're gonna play the flute because you don't need to buy reeds and you're too small for anything else."

S: Yes!!!!! No reeds!!

A: Yeah! No reeds! Uh, so, yeah. That's why I play the flute: because it's small and there's no reeds. But if I had to pick something else, I think.....I don't know! I feel like--I feel like I have a body that was built for a woodwind. Like, not brass, you know. My lips are not good at that. So I would say...........French horn, because it's so pretty.

S: Oh yeah, it is!

A: But I just don't think I could do that, so I'm gonna say, I think.....bassoon.

S: Bassoon! Oooo!!

A: Yeah! I think bassoon because it's a wind instrument, it's got like a nice, low register--which is like the opposite! You know, that's a fun, that's a whole fun thing. And nobody plays the bassoon, so like, I could graduate from college and then just immediately have a ton of jobs, because nobody knows any bassoon players!

S: *cough cough cough * The Valley. No bassoon players here. Wow. True. Wow, but you're so right. I mean, we have, like, such a portable instrument! We have, like, the cutest--like ,we have Flooter Scooter bags, we have all these accessories, yeah, I love it. It's so portable. Like, I can't believe I found like a Calvin Klein bag that would fit my flute and piccolo, just like a messenger bag. Like, imagine if I played, like, French horn. 

A: Literally my computer right now is on Sam's French horn case.

S: Oh my god!

A: It's a giant!

S: Other uses.

A: Yeah, um, what was I gonna say? Oh! In marching band, I played piccolo for three of my four years, and we had these jackets that we would wear for football games, and there was, like, a pocket that people called the Drug Pocket on the inside. And I would just stick my piccolo there because I was the only person in the band who could do that with my instrument!

S: And keep it warm!

A: I love the portability. Yeah, exactly! You know, just, shove it up your sleeve. Yeah.

S: Oh my gosh I still do that, like, in concerts, like if it's cold. Which it hasn't been literally but anyways.

A: Oh my god. Well, I mean, it's not like we've had concerts lately, either.

S: True, true. Yeah. That's so funny that you say that, because when I picked flute, it was also, like, not really my first choice, and it was also because I didn't have to get reeds! It was also like--it was between flute and clarinet, because there was a hole in our marching band space because I came into my high school late, and then my band director was like, "Do you play woodwind?" I, was like "Yeah." (I didn't.) Um, so, like, I picked that. I was a tuba player so I was like--

A: I can't believe--I'm sorry, keep going, but I just--no I'm gonna stop. I can't believe that you play as many instruments as you do, as well as you do. It is-

S: Oh my god.

A: -horrifying.

S: I do not play tuba anymore.

A: Yeah, but you did!

S: I did, yeah, unfortunately. But if I could go back, I would definitely be like, "No, you need to play oboe." Because I have always loved oboe. One of the first film scores I heard--The Wind and the Lion--had, like, this really beautiful oboe solo in it. And I was like, "Oh my god, I want to play that." My older sister played oboe, and I just, like, on and off have done that--like, I pick up an oboe, and then I learn it, and then I stop. But I wish I could go back and just, like, permanently do oboe.

A: Yeah, that'd be good. That also would be--it's the other double reed! You would also have a ton of jobs--maybe not as much. I feel like there's probably more oboe players than bassoon players, at least in my personal experience.

S: I think I know more oboe players than bassoon players.

A: But yeah, like, it's a rarer instrument and it's a double reed, so, basically, we're twins. Imagine--imagine, if you played oboe and I played bassoon, and we were just this, like, insane duo, just the way that we are now, but on the double reed instruments.

S: Oh yeah! Let's shout out to Double Reed Dish--other podcast. Great podcast. Go listen to it if you play double reeds. Or if you don't. Anyways, I would--yes, we would be double reed sisters.

A: Yes.

S: Okay. Are you ready. To talk. About. Wendy Carlos.

A: No we have to take a break!

S: Oh my god you're right okay let's take a short break!

S: And we're back! Okay we're back. So, Wendy Carlos was born November 14th in 1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to a musical family. Her mom played piano and sang. I think she had another family member who played trombone. She started piano at six, and then composed her first piece at ten, which was a trio for clarinet, accordion, and piano.

A: I'm--I'm sorry. What?

S: Clarinet, accordion, and piano.

A: How do you write for accordion?

S: I don't even know what an accordion is.

A: I feel like like nobody learns how to play the accordion, you just, like...are born a mime, and then, that's it, you know how to play.

S: I know! It's just like. Accordion. Like, I have no idea. I had an ex that was like, "I really want to learn how to play accordion."  I was like "What why. Like, random instrument." I mean, all respect to accordion players. I love the videos on Youtube of like, accordion players playing Vivaldi concerti, like, oh my god. It's so good but I have no idea!

A: But like. What is it even? Like, it's got like keys on one side, and then extra buttons on the other side??

S: Yeah I have no idea what it is. It's just like a machine, like--

A: It's a robot. The person isn't doing anything, they're just miming. *Gasp* They're miming it

S: They're miming! Listen, I just play a silver tube and that's all I do, okay? I don't know anything else. I don't even know what an accordion is, okay? So she wrote that piece. She also had a big interest in technology and design at an early age. When she was 14, she won a science fair, she built a computer. Remember, this is 1953. But also, look at these little icons I put here that she made. They're on her website but they're little cats!

A: Oh my gosh, those are adorable! What are these for, like, um, like, a--like an icon? Like a desktop icon kind of thing?

S: I think it says on her website. But I just got distracted and looked at the cats and then pasted it. I don't know what it is.

A: They're so cute! There's three little cats, and they're all in the kind of.....cat.....position.....where like their butt is on the ground, their head is above, but they, like, are still hunching over, even though their head is up?

S: They're like, yeah they're like in a cat pose.

A: Yeah. A cat pose. This is a gray one--or is it white? Or is it--that's gray. And then a yellow one, and a brown one.

S: They're so cute, wow!

A: Rosie! Rosie is gray and yellow and brown.

S: That is Rosie right there.

A: Literally, Wendy Carlos invented her.

S: Wendy Carlos pioneered the first Rosie. They're so cute, I love them so much! Yeah. She has a bunch of icons on her website that she designed, like which is incredible. It's completely different, like you know, there's very--I feel like there's very few names in the world where people can know them for different things. Like, "Oh yeah, this person did that" and somebody else is like "Oh they did that? I know that person for this." Well Wendy Carlos is one of those people.

A: It's amazing. We love it. Yeah, what a literal icon. Oh my god, an icon!

S: Wow! Yeah okay also--

A: Wait, wait, what was I gonna say? No you go, I'm so sorry!

S: I was gonna say, I forgot to say that, yes, she actually also has photography that was published by NASA, so--

A: Oh my god! What??

S: Yeah, what--yeah! So she has a lot of things. So this this is like one of her early ventures into design. And for the first few, next years, she was, like, experimenting a lot with computers and design and music. She would create work that consisted of tape recorders playing tones. So when she was going through school, she dealt with a lot of bullying, but was bright in sciences and math and her art, and that took her through until she got to Brown University. When she was 23, she was attending Brown, and she was also teaching electronic music lessons--like, informal lessons at her house.

A: What do you think that entails? Like, you show up, and she's like, "This is a tape recorder" and they're like "whoa I've never seen that because this is the 60s"

S: I think there was, like, more like computer stuff than tape recorders. Maybe. I don't know.

A: Okay. Interesting.

S: I'm sure there was other stuff she was working with. I think those are just, like....some of her first works was tape recorders...

A: Well, okay, so--but like, what does the computer look like then? I don't know anything about history.

S: Very different, I'm sure.

A: Can everyone get one? Or did she just build one, so that's why everyone has to take lessons at her house? Because she has the only computer in the entire, like, county?

S: I know. Like, I feel like--yeah, computers weren't very popular back then, so like, I think a lot of people didn't even know what they were. So it was interesting, maybe she was teaching people what they were, and also how to make music with them?

A: Wow!

S: It was very experimental. So yeah. So at the school--well, not yet, actually--so she went to Brown for music and physics and then--

A: Wait. Music AND physics??

S: Music AND physics. She was very good at science and math. Like, amazing. She excelled in both, ended up on the Dean's List, went to Columbia for a Masters in composition. There was a relatively new Computer Music Center. It was the first of its kind in the US. Berio, Davidovsky, and Varese studied or work there at some point, too, which is really amazing. She had worked there with Leonard Bernstein, presenting a concert of electronic music, too, so she studied--

A: Okay!?

S: Yeah, that's a lot of names! She studied under Usachevsky, who was one of the first pioneers of electronic music in the US, along with Otto Luening, who taught Harvey Solberger as well at some point. Little fact. #FluteFact

A: #FluteFact

S: So Otto and Usachevsky co-founded the Electronic Music Center together. So she went in and she was super interested in this. It was perfect for her, and Usachevsky saw a lot of talent in her and allowed her to stay there after hours and work, so she just had, like, special access to work in this. And she took full advantage! She just, like, immersed herself in her art, as you would. Like, imagine walking into, like, Flute Center of New York, and then being like, "Oh, I will play flute forever now" and then just getting to live there. So she composed a bunch of music there: Dialogues for Piano and Two Loudspeakers in '63; in '64, Variations for Electronic Sounds; Episodes for Piano and Tape; in 1965 she wrote Pomposities for Narrator and Tape.

A: "Pomposite"... "pomp"..."pomp"... wait what?

S: I think it's like, a pompous piece...?

A: Papaya. Papaya by Wendy Carlos.

S: I love papaya. And she also wrote an opera called Noah. Casually wrote an opera. You know how it is.

A: I casually write operas every weekend, I don't know about you.

S: I'm casually just writing an opera right now, actually, I'm doing it

A: Oh my god

S: So, after grad school, she worked as an audio engineer at Gotham. I think it was called "something Gotham." Sorry, I did not write that one down! In New York. Okay, she was mastering audio for radio contracts and government shows, including the Department of Defense so--

A: Wow!

S: --her teachers were like, "Hey, you should go work in this field and get some experience." This would definitely come in handy later, *wink wink*. During this time--at this time, she met Robert Moog. It is pronounced "mOHg." I think people get mad if you say "mOOg." So I learned that the hard way on the internet. Yeah, people were very mean. Not to me, but to other people. And I was like, "Okay, okay, it's pronounced 'mOHg,' oh my god." Although, there is a video of him saying that some people say "mOOg" and he's like, "You know, it just depends on where you are"

A: Oh my god. I mean, of course, it would be just like classical music people to be gatekeeper--to be gatekeepery about a guy's name, when he himself is like, "I don't really care"

S: So she met him, and it was actually funny--they met because she woke him up, I guess, from like a nap at, like, a hotel??

A: Like, in the lobby? Or just, she walked into his room like "hey who are you?"

S: So here's the quote I have here:

"Bob and I were friends for about 41 years. That sounds incomprehensible now, but there you are. We met when I accidentally woke him up. He was taking a much-needed nap on a banquette on the mezzanine of the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in New York City."

S: So, I guess, just like, happened upon Robert Moog. Um, wow. Just like, sleeping. They became good friends from there, and of course--

A: Wow, that's cute!

S: Yeah! Yeah, of course, as everyone knows, Robert Moog, his thing was the Moog synthesizer. They became partners and worked on this together, and she helped him develop the synthesizer. Convinced him to add, like, sensitive technology for dynamic contrast, and added other sorts of ideas. She was very much the artistic brain to the first synthesizer that Moog created.

A: That's incredible.

S: Yeah, she was basically, like, co-creator.

A: That's amazing. And why isn't her name on the synthesizer? The Moog-Carlos--

S: The Mooglos

A: Mooglos. Carmoog

S: Mo--mo--wait I said Mooglos already. Yeah. Car--caro--coog

A: Yeah! The Coog Synthesizer. The Coog! That's kind of cool. Coog.

S: That's where the "ca" comes from in the synthesizers that we know today. She worked really well with him, and she says an interview with Chuck Miller:

"Bob Moog and I were both of similar minds. He was the engineering, brilliant behind that, and I had more of the composer's, orchestra's performance skills. But we both spoke each other's languages. We both very much enjoyed the collaboration."

S: So she owned a Moog. I guess it's like, payment for, like--

A: I mean, yeah, I feel like if you spend that much time making it, you get one also!

S: Right! So, she had one, and he delivered it to her apartment himself. And it was huge, and they carried it up to her apartment together. It was this giant machine, and she used this thing to do skits on radio shows and commercials, and like, little like jingles. So around 1967, Wendy met her future roommate, collaborator, and lifelong friend, Rachel Elkind! They were the same age. Elkind was a composer, singer, producer, with a background in musical theater, and was the secretary of the President of Columbia Records. *Wink wink*.

A: Ooo! Ooo!!

S: Foreshadowing!! So, yeah. So they became friends, and Wendy showed Elkind some recordings that she did when she was working at the Computer Music Center, and Rachel took a liking to one of Wendy's recordings of Bach's Two-part Invention in F Major. And she saw a potential of the synthesizer to be used as the piano's next incarnation, to honor Bach. So Wendy was, like, super into this idea of evolving the piano into something else. Like, we had the clavichord, and then we have the piano, and then we have what Wendy is going to create and make and put into the spotlight.

A: Yeah!

S: So with Elkind's connections at Columbia *wink wink* they successfully planned together an album of electronic Bach. They moved in together, signed a recording contract, were given a $2500 advance--

A: Ooh!

S: Yeah! So this album, Switched on Bach, was released in 1968, and was faithful transcriptions of Bach on the synthesizer. It rivaled the Beatles on the charts, and it remained on the Billboard charts for more than 300 weeks.

A: Oh my god.

S: Yeah. 300.

A: Yeah, that's like, a lot of weeks.

S: I don't even know.

A: How many weeks is that? I'm like--

S: Wait, okay, I'm gay, I can't do math. I have no idea.

A: Okay, okay. I can do it. So three--so there's 52 weeks in a year. And--and--so that's one year, and then two years is...uh...104. Okay. So that means four years is 208. So we're still not at 300. So four years plus 52--oh no i'm confused

S: No!!

A: Wait what is it, uh, 208 is four years, so 208 plus 52 is 260--

S: #GayMath

A: --and 260 is five years, and then--and then 260 plus 52 is over 300. So like, almost six years. Okay that was exhausting.

S: I can't believe you did that. Like, I can't even--I didn't even follow. Like you said a number, and then I stopped listening. I was like, I don't even--I'm not following anymore. I don't know I was like uhhhhhh my eyes were just glazed over

A: Honestly it was a miracle that I got through that. Math is not my strong suit anymore!

S: I don't even know what math is, so...

A: Me neither. Okay. So anyway. Six years. Switched on Bach stayed on the charts for six years.

S: Six years!

A: Wow. I haven't done anything for six years.

S: Me neither! It was loved. It was, like, so big, it was loved by rock music fans, it was loved by classical music fans. It made waves--it went Gold in 1969, and was the first classical album to go Platinum in history in 1986. It won three Grammys for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Solo Performance, and Best Classical Engineered Recording.

A: Wow! That's so many things!

S: #Queen!! Yeah, that's amazing. Let's see...so the synthesizer she was working on when she was making that album could only play one note at a time, and you had to release the note before moving on to the next note. So like, imagine playing a bunch of Bach like that, it's like--

A: Oh, no

S: --so stressful. And a lot of time, it was really difficult, and it also had a tendency to play out of tune, so she had to, like, continually fix it.

A: Oh my god, that's exhausting!

S: She was super determined, and she brought it into prominence. And it was like--so synthesizers are mostly like, experimental, but to have a whole solo album of a synthesizer is like, "Whoa. This is like, new. Very new." So you can understand why it's like, "Oh my god, that's so amazing"

A: Yeah

S: So it influenced so many musicians. From the online music magazine, Perfect Sound Forever: "Carlos ratcheted up the ante by daring to embody one of music's most two most hollowed gods: Bach (the other being Ludwig Van) and with such inimitable perspicacity that not a whiff of outrage or academic sniffery was registered by anyone boasting more than two brain cells to rub together."

A: Good lord!

S: What a quote!

A: Wait. Can we break that down, because that was a lot of things.

S: So Wendy--let's do this, like, yeah, okay--so Wendy was bringing the heat by embodying Bach with such, um "inimitable perspicacity." So she was so amazing at playing Bach that, like, if you were mad, it's because you're dumb, basically.

A: Okay. Okay. I love that translation. But I do have to figure it--"perspec--"

S: "Perspicacity"

A: "Perspicacity." Yeah okay...

S: Should we do a google search?

A: Okay yeah. *typing* "Define.....perspicacity........"

S: We are an educational show.

A: Yeah! It says it's a noun. "The quality of having a ready insight into things."

S: ...Okay, so........

A: Okay.....

S: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. She was like, super--she had been studying pianos since age six, and she like, knew Bach very well, so I would say--

A: --Oh my god, I totally--I totally thought you meant, like, in person, she knew the person Bach very well. She grew up, they were neighbors. Anyway I'm so sorry

S: Wendy's actually just, like, an immortal vampire.

A: I believe it.

S: Just like, been here, like, since music began. So she released a second album thereafter of Baroque synthesized music under the title The Well-Tempered Synthesizer. It included Handel, Bach, Scarlotti, Monteverdi. And Glenn Gould himself, who is like, a great Bach interpreter, said: "To put it bluntly: the finest performance of any of the Brandenburgs live, canned or intuited I've ever heard." This album was nominated for two Grammys so, very, very amazing.

A: That's incredible. Isn't Glenn Gould the guy that like, everybody looks to for like the best interpretation?

S: Yes! He's like, yeah, amazing Bach interpreter. He's very, you know, just like that person where they put, like, scholarliness, and then also performativeness...performance, like performance-ness...and like, together, like...

A: *laughter* Yeah!

S: Yeah! Yes, and--

A: So--so, and he was the one who was like, "Wendy Carlos did the best version of this I've ever heard"?

S: Yeah.

A: Why are--why do more people not know that?

S: Because...because #Misogyny

A: You're right.

S: Wendy deserves better.

A: Wendy deserves better.

S: Yeah. So, very, like, high praise. Like, honestly, all of these albums made--they were like really, really good. I really want to go listen to them--and we're going to talk about that later, actually, so I'm going to stop there. I will continue about that later, because I was going to say something.

A: Okay!

S: Around the same time Wendy was dealing with all this excitement, she did not expect Switched on Bach to go so big, and she was also dealing with her transition and appearance, unfortunately. So that kind of had a mental effect on her and her ability to perform in person. But thankfully, her album was so successful, she was able to afford gender reassignment surgery in '72.

A: Yay!

S: So, Classical Queeros: friendly reminder to our listeners to support and buy from your trans artists, everybody!

A: Yeah. It's a lot of stuff they gotta deal with.

S: Yes, yeah, unfortunately, I feel like, yes. Medical procedures need to be more affordable, yeah.

A: The very, very least we could do is just buy things from trans people when they make them.

S: Yes.

A: So that's like, the--that is, I think, the bare minimum.

S: Yes. Right. Support their art.

A: Yeah! Support their art. And then you get some cool art. And you help out a friend!

S: Right, exactly! And do it even if they don't need any, or if they're not looking for any procedures, because we still need to elevate their voices for sure.

A: Yeah. Yeah, having a procedure is not, like--that doesn't make a trans person trans.

S: Right, exactly.

A: Yeah. Yeah. Support all trans folks!

S: Respect trans people! Buy their art!

A: Yeah! Yeah!!

S: So, yeah. She afforded the surgery, but she still wasn't out yet publicly. So she had an interview with People Magazine, where she explained that her success was so big, people like Stevie Wonder and George Harrison were, like, wanting to meet her, visiting her apartment to go meet Wendy.

A: Oh my god!

S: But she was still concerned with meeting people, and she was trying to hide her identity. So she would, like, pretend to be away, or would listen from upstairs, and her best friend Rachel would be like "Oh she's like, out of town. She's like not here." So I love that so much, like, friendship goals.

A: Yeah, like, "Who? Oh I don't know her"

S: Yeah, but honestly, it's so tiring, I'm sure, and it must be...uh, I know that Wendy felt guilty for having her friends have to consistently keep that up. So it must have been tough, for sure. She says in this interview:

"I accepted the sentence, but it was bizarre to have a new life opening up on one hand, and to be locked away on the other."

S: So she also started new hobbies, which included eclipse chasing/photographing. so that's where we said--yes, she was chasing eclipses around the world, and she took photos, and they were published by literally NASA. Like, oh my god, I can't even. Just--

A: Eclipse chasing. That's a really--for lack of a better word--epic title.

S: Yeah.

A: Yeah!

S: I would love to do that. Like, I don't even know. I'm sure there's, like, a community, or like, a Facebook group or something. But that would be so awesome.

A: Yeah, I'm sure there's a community, because like, if you're chasing the eclipse, then the people who are all doing that are going to end up in the same spot!

S: Right, yeah!

A: You know, all the time, they're just like, "Oh my god, I saw you in Brazil last week"

S: They're like, migrating together around the world. Yeah, oh my god, that's so cool!

A: A caravan of eclipse chasers!

S: Eclipse chasing! I mean, that's an awesome hobby. I wanna--yeah. You can also go on her website and look at photographs she's taken. So she has like a whole section on her website dedicated to that, yeah.

A: That's so cool!

S: So during this transitional period, she also received an offer to compose for two films--uh, one of which I forgot what--I think was called, like, Marooned or something. They didn't use the soundtrack at all. The other, though, was Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

A: That's a movie!

S: *laughing* That IS a movie!

A: Yeah, I mean, I'm--you know, I--I mean, a movie that--that we know what it is!

S: Yeah, it's a famous movie. It's a good movie!

A: It's a famous movie. Thank you! Oh, I'm a disaster.

S: Disaster gays!

A: Yeah!

S: So Wendy and Rachel were both huge Kubrick fans, and before, she had read A Clockwork Orange. So Wendy suggested to Kubrick's attorney that he use a synthesizer, and sent them samples of Switched on Bach and the Well-Tempered Synthesizer. Kubrick heard and was intrigued, and very quickly after, was like, "Come to London!" So like it happened really quickly. I think she said, like two days later they had to fly.

A: Oh my gosh, wow.

S: Yeah, so she had to dress in disguise, like, appearing male, when she was meeting Stanley and in this interview from People Magazine, she said:

"I could tell he felt something was strange, but he didn't know what."

A: A typical man!

S: Typical man. Well, I think he also was, like, so focused on his project, that it was just, like--like, you know, it's like--

A: Okay. He's like, "Something's wrong, but if it's getting done" yeah

S: It's like, "I'm not gonna notice." Yeah, it's so funny. I think, like, he tried to say, like, "Oh, I have, like, gay friends," and she's like "I'm not gay." And he was like "oh." He was like, trying to figure it out slowly. But they became good friends!

A: Okay!

S: And he respected her work a lot, for sure. The movie was a success, obviously, for sure. The movie was like, success.

A: Because, as I proved earlier, that is a movie.

S: That is a movie! It's better than being like, "what is that" for sure.

A: Yeah, like the first one!

S: Yeah, I was like, "what?" Yeah, right, right. I was like, what, Marooned? I think it was Marooned.

A: Do you think we would have known what that movie was if they had used her music?

S: Oh yeah. Big regrets. Big regrets.

A: Yeah, yeah. So that's what you get. Yeah! 

S: I know! That's what you get, b***h! So anyways, the soundtrack was like, excerpts of synthesized classical music that Kubrick had gotten permission to use, and it included stuff like Rossini, Purcell, Beethoven, and also original works by Wendy. So Wendy went on to release her own soundtrack of the movie, which included the full works. So it was just excerpts in the movie, but she released an album with all of the music that she wrote for it.

A: Wow!

S: Yeah! In her arrangement of Beethoven 9 in the movie, she used a vocoder, which--she was one of the first people to use a vocoder! Is this pre-Star Wars? This might be pre-Star Wars, right?

A: Star Wars was 1977.

S: Okay. For sure, pre-Star Wars.

A: Okay.

S: Yeah, so before they even got--before they even knew, she was the true queen of pioneering.

A: John Williams, who??

S: John Williams, who??

A: It's all about Wendy Carlos.

S: We love and respect John Williams. But let's make room for Wendy Carlos right now.

A: Yeah!

S: Let's de-center him and center Wendy Carlos, her pioneering of vocoder, you know, so, amazing. She also has a major piece of hers in the film called Time Steps, which is a huge landmark for electronic music, and she had began composing that for a while before she started on the movie, and her friend Elkind also co-wrote some of the music in the film. They've collaborated basically on a lot of stuff together.

A: Oh that's cute!

S: Yeah, so one New York Times critic wrote about the soundtrack, "As sheer music, is it is a giant step past the banalities of most contemporary track films." Oh--"film tracks," sorry! Okay so, what was she doing also? Because obviously, Wendy is Wonder Woman, Superwoman, she cannot do enough. She was also working on another album at this time called Sonic Seasonings. Yeah, just. So much to do. I can't even like practice on one piece for a day, and she's doing like two whole albums. So Sonic Seasonings had a track dedicated to each of the four seasons.

A: Okay!

S: Yeah, this was like, a completely different approach. They wanted to just write music that was deliberately minimal. And it consisted of field recordings, like, animal sounds, sparse melodies, it was just, like, very, um, minimal, and, what's the word I'm looking for? I guess, like, uh, environments? I'm trying to think of a word, but--

A: Like, it uses sounds from the environment? Is that what you're trying to say?

S: Like, it's environment sounds? There's definitely...

A: Nature?

S: Nature, natural..... ATMOSPHERIC! Very atmospheric music. This album was also really, really big. It inspired a lot of new age musicians that would come after, this, like, idea of atmosphere. It didn't sell as much as they hoped, though, so they went back and released Switched on Bach 2. Columbia asked her to produce another synthesizer album of baroque music, so she did! However, with this album, Wendy requested that they send the albums out with postage--like, prepaid postage, so those fans could write letters about what they want from Wendy. Like, "What do you want to hear," you know?

A: Oh, that's cute! And then you can just, like, write it in the envelope and drop it in the mail, right?

S: Yeah!

A: That's cute!

S: For sure! She was like, really, like--what would they want? Let's have them decide.

A: You know what? This is--this is just Twitter, pre-Twitter.

S: Pre-Twitter! I know. She invented Twitter.

A: We been knew.

S: We been knew. This is Twitter. So it was reportedly split between wanting original Wendy music, and also more synthesized interpretations of classics. So naturally, she did both. By Request, the name of the album, was released in 1975, included Wagner, Tchaikovsky, her own works, and also a cover of a Beatles song.

A: Is there singing? Probably not.

S: That's a good question! I have not heard it. Maybe! I think that there must be for the Beatles. Maybe there's, like, vocoder stuff.

A: Mm-hmm. Well I guess I know what I'm listening to after this.

S: Yeah, well, our fans will have to listen and then tell us what they think!

A: Yeah!

S: Be like, "I love that"

A: Yeah! That's the only correct answer, by the way.

S: Yes! The last track on the album was Variations on Themes by Elgar, but there was some drama with Elgar's estate or something like that, where they were like, "We refuse to have this music presented in this style" which is so dumb like #haters

A: Wow.

S: She was devastated. And how dare you devastate the queen. Like, no.

A: Yeah. That's just rude.

S: Rude.

A: Plain and simple.

S: Yeah, so I think in the UK presses of the album, they switched that last track with something else that had already been previously released on Wendy's albums so

A: okay yeah so that's a bummer gatekeeperism in classical music needs to go home and stay there

S: seriously

A: I'm tired i'm tired yeah

S: elgar imagine elgar would be so much bigger and better if it if wendy had a chance to yeah hashtag regrets

A: hashtag regrets

S: so in the time before 1980 she was also commissioned to write uh several short film scores for unicef um she had also been wanting to publicly come out in an interview at this time and she did later that year i think in 19 oh in 1979 she came out publicly as a woman um after the interview said "the public turned out amazingly tolerant or if you wish indifferent she says there had never been any need of this charade to have taken place it had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life" which is both good and bad i mean i'm glad people were tolerant but yeah it's it's sad that she felt oh my gosh that like

A: yeah you know yeah what a bittersweet relief that must have been you know

S: yeah for sure yeah wow

A: wow well she's happy now right

S: yes very happy i'm sure she is so much just like basically made her mark in history for sure

A: yeah

S: i'd be happy for sure um rachel and wendy then began to work with kubrick one more time on the shining so kubrick suggested to them that they read the book first which is by stephen king and the movie was based off of that book they spoke to kubrick about what he wanted musically and so they ended up recording over four hours of synthesized music however since they last worked together wendy and rachel had like gone a different direction musically um towards like rich theatrical textures and was like like far away from what stanley had like envisioned and like wanted from wendy so he wanted to know like is there any themes that you think would go really well with the story and she suggested dies ire from a symphony fantastique like the section um and he wanted so he wanted to use an orchestra so they recorded with orchestral musicians uh over like seven hours of music based on the dies ire but i guess kubrick was like oh this sounds too much like berlioz or something like that i don't know he was like i didn't want to use it so he just ended up using cues that were like practice cues for the film that they had already been using um and only two cues that they recorded uh rachel and wendy recorded were used in the actual movie yeah yeah but i think she released all the other music later on so

A: that's cool yeah it's nice that like you know the music that doesn't get seen at first she keeps releasing

S: yeah as long as she could yeah as like yeah as long as there was no problem she tried to release it which yeah is awesome to be able to hear all of that

A: yeah

S: in 1980 she released an album of all six brandenburg concertos on the synthesizer of course this was her fourth album of classical covers on synthesizers

A: wow

S: and it was also the first album to release under wendy carlos rather than her dead name

A: oh yay that must have felt so good

S: yeah

A: oh my gosh

S: yeah seriously um so by that time rachel had been seeing somebody and married and then left to france heartbreaking

A: *gasp* wait no you said rachel i totally you said rachel and my brain was like wendy got married

S: no rachel got married so her roommate uh rachel elkind had been seeing this guy and then got married and left to france and so that's sad what a great friendship um but yeah of course good for rachel

A: rachel rachel sounds like the real mvp like just always there always supportive like no questions asked like ready to like if wendy killed a man rachel was like all right where's the like i'll get the shovel

S: so basically us yeah because that's what you did when i killed a man

A: shh we can't talk about it

S: oh right right right um anyways um wendy then moved in with her new friend anne-marie franklin um her new studio in anne-marie's house was enclosed in a faraday cage to shield equipment from white noise and i think like her friends would call it like i think the spaceship or something like that it's like all this technology like this cage oh my gosh so futuristic

A: yeah it's wild where's wendy she's in the spaceship again

S: you know go into pluto

A: classic wendy

S: um so in 81 1981 wendy was hired to write the music for disney's tron which is

A: whoa

S: huge sound supervisor michael framer wanted to have the best soundtrack for the film naturally obviously wendy would write this music

A: obviously

S: obviously so they wanted the music to portray like a computer world um and she was intrigued she read the script she was like disappointed in the script she was like she's like this is like very comic book-y like okay yeah she was like i guess but we can make this interesting like i will write music for it it will be good

A: i will save this movie

S: yeah yeah i don't know if she saved it but she like definitely tried to see the good in it um and so together wendy michael and marie worked on this soundtrack um she called this the most like difficult work she ever did in her career because it was such a short deadline and the demands were so tight um

A: yeah

S: so but she liked the challenge she liked being able to do that she was wonder woman of course

A: wonder woman

S: so up to 11 p.m the day before they were like working just like grinding up to 11 p.m the day before london philharmonic was supposed to like record the music looks so exhausting i'm sure

A: oh my gosh

S: so she was expanding um by working slowly electronically adding orchestral color she had like studied orchestration so she was showcasing that part um and incorporated the london philharmonic um it also included the ucla chorus and a smaller orchestra in some la sessions and the royal albert hall organ

A: ooh

S: yeah

A: a global ensemble

S: yeah yeah she replaced portions of the orchestral performance with uh her own performances on synthesizer though um i need to fact check this but the whole score is in seven eight

A: what??

S: yeah i read that on tron like wikitron's wiki that the entire score is in seven eight which is really cool

A: that's bold

S: yeah she wanted like this like uneven feeling sounding uh soundtrack um

A: well that would do it

S: yeah yeah so she worked really hard in the soundtrack and then columbia was not interested in releasing a full album of her music from tron what the heck so

A: rude

S: so she actually decided to use some of that music in her next studio album digital moonscapes um this album was her first album which used a fully digital synthesizer so she talks about how in the beginnings um using computers was like super primitive and like very like old and slow like you know not old it was like just like primitive computer stuff so it wasn't working very quickly so she was analog for a long while before she started using digital and she had to like rework everything like how she had been working uh changed um so this album used like an orchestra that was like fully synthesized um

A: wow

S: yeah so pretty amazing so she had this and she was like but we need to do more hybridization we need to do like we need to do more change we need more more so she released beauty in the beast uh as her next studio album beauty in the beast not and the beast for our listeners there beauty in the beast was her next studio album released in 1986 by audion records her first for a label other than columbia records so she used this album to explore african rhythms indian ragas balinese javanese toothing systems micro tonality folk and jazz so this is

A: those are so many things awesome

S: a massive massive work um yeah the album features a quote by van gogh um and it says i am always doing what i cannot do yet in order to learn how to do it

A: hmm

S: yeah so the album is completely synthesized imagine having to synthesize like all of these world instruments like so much that's it's like never been done before you know so

A: my gosh first you have to learn about the instrument and then you have to synthesize it

S: yeah like create it from like scratch

A: like that's insane yeah

S: what a queen and for our listeners there is videos on youtube of her like showing how she creates sound it's so so interesting i highly recommend you go watch um some of those videos where she like shows i think there's one where she like makes a xylophone sound and she shows how to do it um

A: oh

S: yeah so it's such a cool idea and she like used all these tuning systems on synthesizer one of the first she considers this the most important album of her career and basically it's like this is what i should have been doing the whole time because she said switched on bach was like only introducing a new medium of music right this is like taking all the world and like combining it together so billboard called this album a manifesto for the synthesizer in the global village

A: wow

S: yeah 

A: that's so cool yeah

S: some other album she released uh secrets of synthesis in 1987. peter and the wolf in 1988 with weird all yankovich was narrating uh

A: wow what an album

S: who was reportedly a huge fan of wendy's since like he said like since the embryo which is really funny and um switched on bach 2000 which was released in 92

A: um okay

S: yeah uh it took around 3 000 hours to produce uh switched on box 2000 because she completely recorded all the music with new digital instruments to mark the 25th anniversary

A: wow

S: yeah so so much work she also released tales of heaven and hell 98 um rediscovering lost scores two volumes which included previously unreleased music from the shining clockwork orange unicef films split second wound link so a bunch of music that had not been released yet

A: wow

S: yeah so

A: it's so much

S: so much it's like an immense amount of music that she wrote um yeah and pioneering like oh my god just queen wendy is one of the most influential composers and pioneers of electronic music live today i highly recommend you check out her website wendycarlos.com and look at the wealth of information she has on her website there's tons of articles music writing photos art stories anything wendy carlos is there

A: wow

S: yeah she has so much on there it's just so amazing to see like you know all of this information straight from her too you know

A: yeah that's so cool like there's no chance for it to be like misinterpreted by weird men

S: yeah and i also love that if you are doing research on wendy carlos her website has a link uh i think has a page and has like warnings about um editors who have edited uh articles about her and there's like misinformation so just so you all know that should be your first place to look when you're researching wendy carlos because she has so much information and she also is like this is wrong this is wrong so very very cool uh

A: yeah

S: recommended listening goes into switched on bach if you all haven't listened to that already um clockwork orange soundtrack especially time steps beauty in the beast honestly go listen to all of it just listen to everything um but let's also talk about this her music is super hard to find on streaming services it's like almost i don't think there's anything on uh spotify like under her name really so

A: wow

S: it's super hard to find i think eastside digital just stopped distributing her music so

A: okay

S: yeah go support local stores go to your local record stores and find wendy carlos music and keep those stores alive please

A: yeah oh my gosh imagine switched on bach just like on a little record player

S: yes that'd be so cool or sonic seasonings just like ooh

A: oh my god yeah it's like this is the sounds of autumn and you just hear like a single bird

S: yeah or like uh beauty in the beast and just being transported to like another world completely oh my gosh go do it y'all that is our episode on wendy carlos i hope everybody enjoyed um

A: i sure did

S: i am so glad i loved learning about wendy carlos

A: yeah me too i learned so much i just i'm just thrilled and also i know we didn't mention it but i just have to briefly bring up that one picture that we found of her of her like surrounded by the keyboards holding a cat and looking up into the camera just like so happy with her cat

S: yes

A: i love it so cute

S: yes listeners alice and i are cat people well alice has a dog too but

S: i have always been a dog person and then my girlfriend and i got a cat and now i would do anything for this cat i would die for this cat i would kill for this chance she's perfect where is she

S: the cat has killed for you

A: the cat has killed for me oh my gosh she what is today today is thursday almost a week ago on friday sam and i left to go on a hike at 6 30 in the morning we come back at 8 30. we left the balcony door open for rosie the cat to like look at the hummingbirds outside that she is notoriously bad at trying to hunt like she'll usually just like see the hummingbird freeze and then the hummingbird leaves and she's like "dammit i missed my chance" but we come home on friday morning after a hike and in the bathroom is just a hummingbird carcass

S: oh my god

A: surrounded by tufts of feathers and and we were like rosie what she and she's like what and just starts batting it around like in front of us while i'm screaming

S: oh no

A: i know

S: oh my god she's like this is my new toy

A: look what i did for you

S: oh my gosh

A: yeah so um she also put it in our bed at some point because when i sat down on the bed the bed went and then feathers just like floated back down to the through the mattress

S: it was like a boom or like a like a boom

A: like a phone

S: like a foom

A: yeah yeah so yeah so rosie's a murderer and i would also murder for her if that ever became necessary

S: yeah if that ever became necessary because that has never happened already *cough cough* i think we just need to start like a side plot to this podcast where we're like actually murderers and like

A: we only murder for each other's cats

S: yeah yeah exactly or for each other

A: yeah yeah exactly i mean that hasn't happened um

S: no i mean what i don't even know what murder means

A: what who are you i no i don't know what that is i had a great time

S: yeah thank everybody for listening and catch us on our next spsppstjhthth let me try that again that was so bad noooo oh my god i'm actually having like a heat stroke okay okay thank you everybody for listening and i'll catch you next time at the next episode of classical queeros

A: yeah follow us on instagram at classicalqueerrose and on twitter at classical queero no s because queeros is apparently just one too many characters

S: one too many characters no such thing i portrayed 20 characters okay bye