Generations Apart, Pioneering Together
Synth Music Masters Suzanne Ciani & Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Forging the worlds of electronics and instruments to create progressive new sounds, synth pioneers Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith have pushed the boundaries of music and possibility.
Considered one of the first female synthesists, Ciani began her long and fortuitous career in electronic music in 1967 while still at Wellesley College. Now in her 70’s, she is regarded as a legend in her field.
After watching a physicist make a sound with a computer, a fire was ignited in the teenaged Ciani. Mirroring what was taking place in society, this new type of music was pushing boundaries, and it became Ciani’s creative outlet and way to express the need for change: “a sense of aliveness.”
“Electronic music just kind of took over my life. We were in a counter culture; I was frustrated with the sexism and non-acceptance. Looking at my future as a woman composer, I felt independent when I worked with machines.”
Growing up on an island just off the coast of Washington state, 31-year old musician, synthesist, and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith began interacting with music technology at the age of 13 during an internship with a film composer. This gave Smith the opportunity to learn Pro Tools, and start experimenting with microphones and a Kurzweil sampler. “I did homeschooling, so I’ve always been very autonomous in my learning, and I’ve always been really curious about the process of understanding each element that goes into it. When I first started learning music I thought, ‘well, these are recordings,’ and it sparked my interest in, ‘how do I make these recordings?’”
“Certain synths become an extension of your brain… like a language; it feels fluid.” — Kaitlin Aurelia Smith
Graduating from Berklee College of Music signaled a poignant moment in Smith’s life and one that also led to a progression in her music. “Synths kind of just stumbled into my life without me knowing they even existed. I didn’t know anything about Buchla, or modular synthesizers.”
Ciani had a similar experience after graduating from Wellesley, decades earlier, and moving to the West Coast. There, she rented time at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, to experiment with sounds on machines including the Buchla 100 modular synthesizer.
A Sense Of Aliveness
The discovery of this machine for both women was life changing. Created by Don Buchla in 1963, the analog modular synthesizer was designed for performance with the intent of making new sounds, rather than imitating or recreating already discovered sounds. It allowed Buchla to attain his lifetime goal of ‘unrestrained artistic expression’, and it allowed other musicians and performers to follow similarly liberating paths.
Ciani recalls her obsession with the 100. “The Buchla had a system of feedback. Hundreds of LED lights, little incandescent lights that let you know the intensity of a control voltage, the rhythm of a trigger, the stage of a sequencer, anything you needed for feedback was communicated to you. And that made a huge difference in the experience of interacting with the machine.”
In the subsequent years, Ciani moved to New York and went on to launch one of the first and most successful commercial sound design companies, Ciani/Musica. She pioneered electronic sounds in the commercial domain, and is credited for creating such sounds as the Coca Cola ‘Pop and Pour’ motif and many more sounds that defined the burgeoning synth generation.
(The 2017 documentary film ‘A Life In Waves’ gives a fantastic insight into Suzanne Ciani’s life.)
But where these two stories collide — two female synth pioneers, generations apart — is when Ciani and Smith discovered each other living in a coastal town in California. Both Buchla scholars and amazingly talented composers. Their subsequent synth voyages have been documented in various forms, including in a collaboration album released by New York-based RVNG Intl.
Along with their musical collaborations, both women have been able to reflect on their experiences, which have been filled with impediments that challenged their worth — but never prevented them from reaching their goals.
“I think I’ve been lucky in that I picked an area that wasn’t overwhelmingly masculine,” said Ciani. “But, I was working in the artistic realm. In the general technological realm, it was very male dominated. You picked up any magazine about audio, and the women were modeling the equipment. That’s the way it was.”
Smith recalls similar experiences as a woman in the field. “With recording, I was very much singled out for being a female engineer,” she said. “I felt like I had to work extra hard even to be seen as an equal, and it was just very obvious that there was a gender difference in people’s minds. But with synthesis, it was the complete opposite. It never came up once, until I started doing interviews, and people asked me what it’s like to be a female in the electronic music scene.”
Ciani brings up a broader point. “Women have always been expected to be perfect when they’re being observed through this cultural lens. I think it was Gloria Steinem who said, ‘I can’t wait until the time when women can be as mediocre as men!’”
Through The Wires
In the wake of a music evolution that seems to continually skew more and more into the digital realm, many have thought that the use of hardware — particularly sensitive and unpredictable machines like modular synthesizers — might fall by the wayside.
But as Kaitlin Aurelia Smith points out, hardware tends to resonate more than software with performers. “When I’m playing certain synths that I’m really familiar with, it becomes an extension of the brain and of yourself. So you don’t have to think about playing it any more, you can just create on it. It’s like a language; it feels fluid.”
“With live performance you don’t want to be consulting a tiny screen,” said Ciani. “You want a physical interface, whether it be knobs, sliders, patch cords changing. You don’t want to be putting on your glasses and delving into a menu.”
With portable analogue synths like Novation’s Bass Station II and Peak — designed with Buchla-esque ‘unrestrained’ principals— creators can make any sound they want, instead of relying on pre-programmed sounds. This lends to more explorative and creative live shows— performances with real instruments infused with technology. These tools enhance the creative process, allowing for quicker sound discovery and production without sacrificing customization, functionality, or nuance; giving users the freedom to learn and grow with the tools. In the words of Smith, “synthesizers are like having an orchestra at your fingertips.”
Modern products with multiple functions — like Novation’s Circuit — are a big draw for Smith. Not only do they offer the ease of use for novice users to begin their musical journey, but they offer the capabilities of multiple tools. “One way technology has really empowered musicians is giving them this toolset to communicate in such a broad way,” said Smith. “Because there’s just so many sound palettes now, where previously a musician needed to rely on an orchestra, or other people.”
When talking about innovators like Ciani and Smith, they are often connected to a particular sound or moment. But for both artists, they believe music technology is headed toward a path that’s not tethered to any one point. A space connected to the extra-musical conversation. The creation of organic sounds that evoke emotion from a live audience. Everyone wants to feel something, and producers, product designers, and builders want audiences to be able to do so in real time. Technology is what is paving the way to make that a reality.
Just like the genderless machines and tools used to create the sounds, the musicians behind them have evolved past gender, becoming transformative figures of the left and right brain, programming, building, creating, and pioneering together. As Suzanne Ciani puts it, “Once women get the self-confidence to just be themselves, and not to try out-noise men… they will realize, ‘What’s the point? Make your own music.’”
