Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach

So much, popular and scholarly, has been written about the synthesizer, Bob Moog and his brand-name instrument, and even Wendy Carlos, the musician who made this instrument famous. No one, however, has examined the importance of spy technology, the Cold War and Carlos's gender to this critically important innovation.

Through a postcolonial lens of feminist science and technology studies, Roshanak Kheshti engages in a reading of Carlos's music within this gendered context. By focusing on Switched-On Bach (the highest selling classical music recording of all time), this book explores the significance of gender to the album's—and, as a result, the Moog synthesizer's—phenomenal success.

ISBN-13: 9781501320286

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Publication Date: 10-31-2019

Pages: 118

Product Dimensions: 4.70(w) x 6.40(h) x 0.40(d)

Series: 33 1/3 Series #141

Roshanak Kheshti is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and affiliate faculty in the Critical Gender Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sound Synthesis, Wendy Carlos and the Dawn of Electronic Music

Chapter 1: Touchy(-feely) Moogs: Bringing a Feminine “Touch Sensitivity” to the Synthesizer

Chapter 2: Synthesizing Analogous Sounds

Chapter 3: On Feminine Beginnings and “Feminine Endings”: Rachel Elkind and the Female Producer of Electronic Music

Chapter 4: Magic Carpet Ride: The “Oriental Rug” at the Center of Carlos's Studiocraft

Chapter 5: Performing Synthesist

Chapter 6: The Unexpected Audience