Starting in the mid-1960s, David Tudor made up a homemade electronic music by following his ears and his all-absorbing mind. He wanted new instruments and began a unique self-education which embraced Brazilian hobby mags, engineering journals, and countless trips to junk surplus outlets. His musical methods were as idiosyncratic as the tools he constructed. This talk will explain his instruments, the way they made his music—and vice versa.

Johnsen’s presentation draws on archival images, sounds, animated graphics, technical history, and object lessons to trace Tudor’s process of invention and discovery. The talk examines how Tudor built his practice through material experimentation and patient listening, creating systems that emerged from the specific behavior of electronic components rather than predetermined compositions.

Michael Johnsen [Pittsburgh] is known for live-electronic performances with a menagerie of custom devices whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through their complex interactions. His work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se, and an intense focus on observation, the way a shepherd watches sheep. The extensive patching of large numbers of devices produces teeming chirps, sudden transients and charming failure modes; embracing the dirt in pure electronics. His current research concerns the circuit-level documentation of David Tudor’s “folkloric” homemade instruments. His work has been shown widely at MoMA, SF Cinematheque, Radio France, Idiopreneurial Entrephonics, and Musique Action. He co-edits ubu.com/emr which is devoted to technical resources concerning the experimental practice of sound. He also designs analog circuits for Pittsburgh Modular.

Estimated run time: 60 minutes. Free admission. No registration required.This event is immediately followed by a Tudor Exhibition Gallery Tour.

Major support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.