Algorithm My Rhythm: John Chowning's 'Stria' and The Discovery of FM Synthesis

Potentially the most important discovery for music, in the 21st century, was made by John Chowning. It's a bold claim, but one easily backed up with the commercial success of Korg, Moog, Yamaha, Nord e.t.c He created FM synthesis; the combination of two frequencies, creating an oscillator to which any number of effects and wave mutations can be added. This really destroyed the boundaries of contemporary electronic music and helped give the synthesizer its lease of life. Unfortunately this may have spawned two generations of second rate morons, writing songs on their synth, see 'I love my life as a 'Dickhead', but despite this we have gained an insurmountable number of great and influential artists because of this. 

John Chowning's 'Stria', entirely composed and performed with a computer, uses his frequency modulated synthesizer to great effect. Through a series of recursion and algorithmic sequences Chowning created a piece that resembles much of the music heard today. It's long, feedback heavy, tones create an ambience and space which previously would have been impossible to create without the 'FM'. 'Stria' has the effect of an almost meditative like state on the listener, gliding along your ears as if listening to a glass cabinet sing. 

The piece's main attributes certainly lie with its texture and homogenous sound, rather than any recognizable time scale or rhythm (No Arpeggiators here). Its dissonance is almost pleasing as they constantly evolve to the next 'chord' and mood. It's difficult to hear themes in the piece or particular ideas, as there is never any clear structure to it. However 'Stria's charm is the fact that it evolves constantly, moving linearly towards, what one can only suspect, some sort of climax, in which Spock kills Jim. 

To purely enjoy this piece for musical merit, is perhaps a daunting challenging. But give it a chance. After a few listens the piece becomes relaxing and definitely reminiscent, and therefore comfortable. By today's standards this would be an incredibly easy piece to reproduce, which is where the dilemma comes. Whilst wanting to really enjoy this piece, for its self contained recording, it becomes more evident that it is almost impossible to achieve such a thing. 

New inventions, new conceptions, they all have that wonderful story behind them, that clincher or deal breaker. By inviting us into the small world of conceptual art, the composer gives us a snap shot of his/her mind and that's what we as listeners find endearing. Why do album sleeves exist? Because the artist is driven to give you this as a package, giving the whole story. So John Chowning's piece, when considering the background, suddenly becomes mind-blowing. It goes beyond the music, because of what he created and applied to a work. Contextually this piece is as solid as a rock, no questions asked; it's über-important. But is that enough? Considering the gravitas of the occasion, I think by all means that is enough. I mean where would we be without Gary Numan?