By wpengine October 24, 2002
David Borden was the first guinea-pig for Robert Moog and the synthesizer that would change the face of 20th-century music. He went on to form Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company, one of the first live synthesizer ensembles, and has earned a spot in the ranks of minimalist and electronic music innovators, along with the likes of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley. He is currently the director of Cornell’s Digital Music Program. The Daze recently had the chance to sit down with him and learn . DAZE: What were your first impressions of Robert Moog and his synthesizer? David Borden: Well that was a while ago … 35 years ago. God. (Laughs) It was in Trumansburg; he had his company there. I visited him and no one was using his studio at all. It was a classic analog studio and I had never really seen one. It was all impossibly complicated, so my first impression was that it was a total mystery. DAZE: How did Moog take you through it? DB: He sat me down and gave me a two hour lecture on how it all worked using terms I didn’t really understand. I was still in the dark at the end of it, so he invited me back to mess around with it. I did … and I took a very long time to learn. The first few days I couldn’t even get a sound out of it; I was embarrassed to go. I went to the head engineer and told him I couldn’t get a sound out of it. He came down, looked around, and turned the amplifier on. That’s how bad it was. DAZE: Could you explain how the Moog synthesizer works and what it does in layman’s terms? DB: No. (Laughs) DAZE: So it’s been made less complicated since those early days? DB: Oh yeah. Now I can just push a button and get a new sound. In the old analog days you had to start from scratch with every sound. Making a sound has to do with starting with oscillators and physically taking the sound out of the oscillator with an audio cable and putting it into something else, and ending up with a voltage control amplifier with specific envelopes which you have to know how to open and close. So it took a long time to learn how to make a sound. DAZE: What was the first indication that this machine was something special you wanted to devote yourself to? DB: I think right away, within the first few hours. I knew it could make an infinite number of sounds, I just didn’t know how to do it yet. I thought of it in terms of doing more with less. Here was one instrument that could make more sounds than any other instrument. DAZE: So, for you, what were the advantages of the Moog over other traditional instruments? DB: At the time, I thought of the possibilities of performing live with this. The Moog was not designed for performing live; it was for use in a studio to produce music on tape. I was always thinking toward live performance, if I could only get a few of these that weren’t as huge as the one I started with. And it came true a couple years later when they started making simpler synthesizers. In those days, when the machines were monophonic, I would have a different synthesizer for each person’s hand. We had five synthesizers and one electric piano. So I thought that with just three people we could have access to many more different sounds than you traditionally could with 25 people on regular instruments. DAZE: With synthesizer performances, were you going for rock n’ roll or a “new classical” or just a new genre of music altogether? DB: A whole new genre.%0
By wpengine October 24, 2002
Prof. Stephen J. Ceci, chair of developmental psychology in the College of Human Ecology, was named the co-recipient of the prestigious American Psychological Association’s (APA) Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology. The award, according to Ceci, differs from the numerous awards he has received previously. “The new award … is one of the APA’s most prestigious awards and past winners read like the ‘Who’s Who’ of modern scientific psychology,” Ceci said. “So this award is one that is coveted and one that is often given to persons who have distinguished themselves.” Dean Patsy Brannon, Human Ecology, stated, “Prof. Ceci is a pre-eminent scholar and teacher. We’re very proud of him.” The award, a plaque and $1000, will be presented to Ceci at the APA’s annual meeting in Toronto on Aug. 7, 2003, according to a press release. Ceci researches two main topics: “the bioecology of the intellectual development and the competence of child witnesses.” The bioecology “entails all aspects of the way intelligence develops in children and the role of various contexts.” The competence of child witnesses “involves the issues surrounding the cognitive and social competence of young witnesses,” stated Ceci. “Having a scholar of Prof. Ceci’s caliber increases the quality of the educational experience in the classroom,” Brannon said. Ceci also serves on the White House Task Force on Federal Funding for Research on Children and Adolescents. “He is pre-eminent in the way that he connects his teaching, his research, and policy,” Brannon stated. The other recipient this year is Prof. Elizabeth Loftus, University of California-Irvine, recently placed highest among female psychologists in a ranking of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century by the APA Monitor, the Association’s monthly magazine. “I was stunned to be informed that I shared the prize with [Loftus] and that we’d share the podium at the annual meeting of the APA was thrilling,” Ceci wrote in an e-mail. Others in Human Ecology are also pleased that their knowledgeable professors are receiving the recognition they deserve. “I think that’s its a real benefit for faculty members to have [a colleague like Ceci] to help them on the work they’re doing. Having someone there, especially someone who wins such awards, is valuable,” said Prof. Jeffrey Haugaard, human development, who is also the department’s director of undergraduate education. “It’s also a benefit for graduate students and undergraduates who are able to work with him.” Ceci will continue his research of children through the Cornell Institute on Children, which he co-directs and is funded by the National Science Foundation. His lab includes 15 doctoral members, one or two postdoctoral fellows, and several undergraduate students. Ceci has also received three other scholarly distinctions this past year. He was named an elected fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received both the APA’s Bronfenbrenner Award and the Society of Research in Child Development Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy for Children. Ceci has written over 300 articles, books, and chapters. He is the founder and co-editor of the American Psychological Society Journal, Psychological Science in the Public Interest. He was awarded the Robert Chin Prize for “best article” from the Society for the Psyhological Study of Social Issues in Psychological Bulletin. In 1996, Ceci wrote On Intelligence: A Bio-Ecological Treatise, which was praised by critics. Additionally, Jeopardy in the Courtroom: a Scientific Analysis of Children’s Testimony written in 1995 with Maggie Bruck, won the 1999 William James Award for Excellence in Psychology. – Sun News Editor Carlos Perkins contributed to this story. Archived article by Shelia Raju