Wendy Carlos

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Wendy Carlos studied music and physics and advised Robert Moog on the development of his synthesizer. Her album Switched-On Bach (1968), Bach's music played on the Moog, was a worldwide success. With the producer Rachel Elkind she wrote the music for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971). It features synthesizer versions of Purcell and Beethoven as well as original pieces. For The Shining (1980) they reworked the old Gregorian Dies irae melody into a menacing title piece. For Tron (1982) Carlos combined synthesizer with symphony orchestra. She showed that the synthesizer could be a serious instrument for film music.

Listening

• 
  Tron Scherzo · Wendy Carlos, 1982
• 
  Main Title (The Shining) · Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind, 1980

Discography

Studio albums

• 1968Switched-On Bach
• 1969The Well‐Tempered Synthesizer
• 1972Sonic Seasonings
• 1972Walter Carlos’ Clockwork Orange (soundtrack)
• 1973Switched-On Bach
• 1975By Request
• 1980Switched‐On Brandenburgs
• 1982TRON (soundtrack)
• 1984Digital Moonscapes
• 1986Beauty in the Beast
• 1987Switched-On Brandenburgs, Vol. I
• 1987Switched‐On Brandenburgs, Vol. II
• 1988Peter & the Wolf / Carnival of the Animals, Part II
• 1992Switched-On Bach
• 1998Sonic Seasonings
• 1998Tales of Heaven and Hell
• 2005Rediscovering Lost Scores, Volume 2 (soundtrack)

Other work

• 1971A Clockwork Orange
• 1980The Shining

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Film Music Map^NL Map
• Mixtape 8: Electronic Music^NL Reader
• Mixtape 9: The Instrument^NL Reader
• Mixtape 10: Women in Pop Music^NL Reader
• The Dream Factory: Film Reel 5^NL Reader

Mentioned in other articles

• Moog and the first synthesizer pop GenreWendy Carlos made the instrument known with Switched-On Bach (1968), and in 1970 the portable Minimoog appeared.
• Early synthesizer scores (Moog, Berlin School, Vangelis) GenreIn 1971, Wendy Carlos used a Moog synthesizer for A Clockwork Orange, with electronic versions of Beethoven and Purcell and pieces of her own.
• Vocoder TechnologyIn the early 1970s, Wendy Carlos used the vocoder in the music of A Clockwork Orange, and Kraftwerk made the sound of the man-machine with it.
• Moog-synthesizer TechnologyIn 1968, with Switched-On Bach, Wendy Carlos showed what the instrument could do, and the album was an enormous success.

See also

• Early synthesizer scores (Moog, Berlin School, Vangelis)
• Modernism, atonality and avant-garde
• Moog and the first synthesizer pop
• Vocoder
• Moog-synthesizer