| Robert Rich (musician) |
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Information AboutRobert Rich (musician) |
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At an early age he thought he disliked music. However, at age 11 or 12 he began growing Succulents as a hobby. He would leave a radio tuned to static at low volume for his plants. This experience influenced his interest in Avant-garde and minimal composition. In fifth grade, he began studying Viola and later choir. He never completed his formal training, however, as he never became comfortable with reading musical notation. He began looking for ways to generate sounds similar to those he heard in his mind. He started improvising on his parents piano to hear the sound of the sustained strings droning in tonal combinations. He began building his own synthesizer in 1976 , when he was 13 years old. In the years that followed, he adopted several musical influences ranging from John Cage and Terry Riley to Cluster and Klaus Schulze . In 1979 he began working with a musician named Rick Davies , creating experimental music inspired by a wide range of avant-garde and Art Rock influences. This was the beginning of a long term working relationship between these two artists. In 1980 he bought a Lap Steel Guitar from a pawn shop. With it, he began experimenting with alternate tunings and developed a fluid and almost vocal tone which he continues to use. Around that time he had also learned to overcome the limitations of his synthesizer rig with Spring Reverb , Tape Delays and custom made Feedback systems he created himself. Also around this time, he attended Stanford University . During his tenure there, Rich became well known in the San Francisco Bay area for giving live night-time performances for somnolent or sleeping audiences. These were experiments to influence REM cycle sleep with auditory stimulus. They were usually 9 hours long and lasted from 10 pm to 7 am. During these performances he would generate abstract drones and atmospheres while the audience dozed in sleeping bags which they brought themselves. In the morning he would end the concert with piano solos. He would then serve tea to the audience. During this time he released four albums on cassette: '' Sunyata '' ( 1982 ), '' Trances '' ( 1983 ), '' Drones '' ( 1983 ) and his first live album titled '' LIVE '' ( 1984 ). The first of these was recorded when he was 19. The music on these albums reflects similar droning atmospheres to those of his sleep concert series. Rich applied to study at Stanford’s Center For Computer Research In Music And Acoustics . He scheduled a meeting with John Chowning , the founder of the class and inventor of FM Synthesis . When Chowning saw Rich’s first three albums Rich was approved for the class. This was a unique privilege for an undergraduate with incomplete formal music training. In 1983 he and Rick Davies together with a bassist named Andrew McGowan formed a group called Urdu . They performed several live concerts in the San Francisco Bay area. The group dissolved after a live radio broadcast in 1984 . Some of their recorded materiel was released as a self-titled album in 1985 . In 1987 he released an album titled '' Numena ''. This was the beginning of a new sound for Rich. It was his first album to explore complex rhythmic patterns, a wider range of acoustic instrumentation and Just Intonation . It was also his first album to be originally released on CD. In the years that followed he developed a complex range of sounds founded upon the seamless integration of Electronic , Electric , and acoustic instrumentation, and the exploration of complex just tunings. His music continues to tend toward the Organic and much of it is based on a concept in synthesis he refers to as “glurp”. His interest in using unique sounds has inspired him to create a large collection of original field recordings and home made instruments. One of these instruments is a range of flutes made from PVC pipe. This interest has also given him work as a sound designer for synthesizer presets, perhaps most notably for Synthesis Technowlogy’s MOTM Modular Synthesizer . In 1999 he also created a library of Acid Loops for the Sonic Foundry company called ''Liquid Planet''. His collaborators over the years have included Steve Roach , Brian Lustmord , Lisa Moskow , Alio Die , and Ian Boddy . In 1992 he formed a new group called Amoeba . The group has released three albums featuring ex-Urdu members Rick Davies and Andrew McGowan at different times. In 2001 he released an album titled '' Somnium ''. ''Somnium'' was a 7 hour album divided into three tracks on DVD. This album was a simulation of the sleep concert experiments which he conducted a Stanford. In 2004 he released an album of piano solos titled '' Open Window ''. This album documents his improvised piano style that has been part of his live concerts for decades. It was recorded on a 1925 vintage A.B. Chase baby grand piano. On March 11 , 2005 he suffered a hand injury. He had been cleaning a glass jug and accidentally fell on top of it. The shards penetrated his right wrist, severing an artery, 7 Tendon s and the Ulnar Nerve . During the slow recovery process he has continued to record and release new materiel and tour. He has also constructed end-blown flutes that are more easily played with limited right-hand dexterity. One of Rich’s other interests is food. He maintains a web site of recipes and other food related topics called Flavor Notes. He also has a long list of recipes for wild mushrooms. DISCOGRAPHY
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