Jill Fraser (born October 11, 1952) is an American composer and electronic music pioneer based in Los Angeles, CA. She is particularly known for her longstanding work using analog modular synthesis systems. Fraser has written both electronic and acoustic music for films, television and TV commercials since the 1970s. She has received Clio awards for her work with Lexus and Adidas.
Born in Cincinnati, OH, Jill started classical piano training at age 4. In 1962, the family moved to Chapel Hill, NC. While she was still in high school, composer Roger Hannay heard her compositions and allowed her to attend his classes at the University of North Carolina. Fraser went on to earn a Bachelor of Music degree from East Carolina University, where she studied with Otto Henry and composed her first electronic works using a Moog IIIp modular synthesizer system.
At the urging of composer Morton Subotnick, Fraser left North Carolina to attend California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where she was mentored by both Subotnick and Mel Powell, and attended master classes with John Cage and Lou Harrison. During this time, Fraser composed on the Buchla modular system and worked as an assistant to Morton Subotnick, helping to create voltage control tracks for the composer's original Nonesuch Records release of "A Sky of Cloudless Sulfur."
After receiving her M.F.A. from CalArts in 1978, Fraser began work at Serge Modular Music in Hollywood, where she built her first modular synthesizer system. The first Serge synthesizers had been introduced at CalArts five years earlier by composer/inventor Serge Tcherepnin. [1] Together with Berkeley-based Don Buchla's seminal designs, [2] these modular instruments came to define the "West coast synthesis" approach to electronic music creation, focusing on waveshaper techniques and non-traditional controllers, such as touch plates, rather than the subtractive synthesis and piano-style keyboard controllers characteristic of "East Coast synthesis." [3]
The relatively compact and accessible Serge modular systems were designed to democratize the sonic possibilities provided by the larger, costlier modular systems produced at the time by Buchla, Moog and ARP. [4] Today, Fraser continues to perform and record with classic original Serge modules, along with modern analog and digital electronics. In 2015, she performed with Tcherepnin and other original members of Serge at a 40-year reunion concert held in San Francisco at The Lab. [5]
Jill Fraser has written original music for hundreds of TV commercials. Her clients include Lexus, BMW, Honda, Porsche, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, NBC, Apple, Adidas, Estee Lauder, Baskin Robbins, Yamaha Motorcycles, Bose, Carl's Junior, Hardee's, Mattel, Nike, and National Geographic, among many others. Fraser has been honored with Clio awards for her work with Lexus and Adidas.
Fraser created the electronic sound effects for the cult classics "Zardoz" (1974) starring Sean Connery, and "Empire of the Ants" (1977). She collaborated with Oscar-winning composer Jack Nitzsche to create electronic music for the Paul Schrader film "Hardcore" (starring George C. Scott), as well as William Friedkin's "Cruising" (starring Al Pacino) and "When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?".
In 1982, Fraser co-composed the score (with Nitzsche) for the movie "Personal Best," the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne and the first starring role for Mariel Hemingway. Fraser's score utilized both analog synthesizers and the then-new Fairlight CMI, one of the world's first digital samplers and audio workstations. Controversial at the time of its release due to the film's exploration of physical attraction between same-sex athletic competitors, "Personal Best" is today considered a classic and frequently cited as one of the greatest sports movies of all time. [6] [7] [8]
Fraser also created synthesizer tracks with Buffy Sainte Marie on the score for the film "Spirit of the Wind" and later performed live with Sainte Marie, touring with her Serge modular synthesizer in Canada, Europe and the US. [9] Other film scores from this period include "Reckless and in Love" (starring Meg Foster) and "Cutting Class" (starring Brad Pitt).
In addition to her work for film and television, Fraser's music has been released on several solo and collaborative albums. Her first CD was "Alphabetical Disorders," a collection of synthscapes set to poetry by Ivan E. Roth, released on the pioneering electronic music label Periodic Music in 1988. [10] Fraser's performances with Roth were part of the vibrant Los Angeles punk and spoken word scene curated by Harvey Kubernik, opening for acts such as the Minutemen and Henry Rollins. [11] [12] A collection of Fraser's shorter pieces entitled "Smart Shack" was released in 2015, followed by electronic duets with the zZyzx Society (2018). Fraser is set to release a new album of solo electronic work titled "Earthly Pleasures" on Drag City in September 2024.
Alphabetical Disorders (with Ivan E. Roth) (1988)
Splashdown, commissioned by Health & Tennis Corporation of America (1988)
Smart Shack (2015)
the zZyzx Society (2018)
“Cutting Class” composer (1988)
“Reckless and in Love” composer (1983)
“Personal Best” composer (1982)
“Hardcore” electronic music (1979)
“Spirit of the Wind” electronic music (1979)
“When You Comin’ Back Red Ryder” electronic music (1979)
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener.
Subtractive synthesis is a method of sound synthesis in which overtones of an audio signal are attenuated by a filter to alter the timbre of the sound.
An analog synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically.
Modular synthesizers are synthesizers composed of separate modules for different functions. The modules can be connected together by the user to create a patch. The outputs from the modules may include audio signals, analog control voltages, or digital signals for logic or timing conditions. Typical modules are voltage-controlled oscillators, voltage-controlled filters, voltage-controlled amplifiers and envelope generators.
Morton Subotnick is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the founding members of California Institute of the Arts, where he taught for many years.
The RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer was the first programmable electronic synthesizer and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, with contributions by Vladimir Ussachevsky and Peter Mauzey, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, the Mark II gave the user more flexibility and had twice the number of tone oscillators as its predecessor, the Mark I. The synthesizer was funded by a large grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments (BEMI) was a manufacturer of synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The origins of the company could be found in Buchla & Associates, created in 1963 by synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla of Berkeley, California. In 2012 the original company led by Don Buchla was acquired by a group of Australian investors trading as Audio Supermarket Pty. Ltd. The company was renamed Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments as part of the acquisition. In 2018 the assets of BEMI were acquired by a new entity, Buchla U.S.A., and the company continues under new ownership.
The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer and established the analog synthesizer concept.
Suzanne Ciani is an American musician, sound designer, composer, and record label executive who found early success in the 1970s, with her electronic music and sound effects for films and television commercials. Her career has included works with quadraphonic sound. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album five times. Her success with electronic music has her dubbed "Diva of the Diode" and "America's first female synth hero".
The San Francisco Tape Music Center, or SFTMC, was founded in the summer of 1962 by composers Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick as a collaborative, "non profit corporation developed and maintained" by local composers working with tape recorders and other novel compositional technologies, which functioned both as an electronic music studio and concert venue. Composer Pauline Oliveros, artist Tony Martin and technician William Maginnis eventually joined the SFTMC.
Donald Buchla was an American pioneer in the field of sound synthesis. Buchla popularized the "West Coast" style of synthesis. He was co-inventor of the voltage controlled modular synthesizer along with Robert Moog, the two working independently in the early 1960s.
Ivan Alexandrovich Tcherepnin was an experimental, then later modernist/postmodernist, composer and a noted innovator in the field of electronics and modular synthesizers.
Serge Alexandrovich Tcherepnin is a Russian-American composer and electronic-instrument builder of Russian-Chinese parentage. Tcherepnin is noted for creating the Serge Modular synthesizer.
The Serge synthesizer is an analogue modular synthesizer system originally developed by Serge Tcherepnin, Rich Gold and Randy Cohen at CalArts in late 1972. The first 20 Serge systems were built in 1973 in Tcherepnin's home. Tcherepnin was a professor at CalArts at the time, and desired to create something like the exclusively expensive Buchla modular synthesizers "for the people that would be both inexpensive and powerful." After building prototypes, Tcherepnin went on to develop kits for students to affordably build their own modular synthesizer, production taking place unofficially on a second floor CalArts balcony. This led to Tcherepnin leaving CalArts in order to produce synths commercially, starting in 1974.
A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI.
Silver Apples of the Moon is the debut album by American composer and musician Morton Subotnick, released by Nonesuch Records in July 1967. It contains the titular composition which is divided into two parts. A showcase for the Buchla 100 synthesizer, an early analogue synthesizer that the composer helped develop, it was the first piece of electronic music commissioned by a record company.
Illuminations is the sixth album by American singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, released in 1969 on Vanguard Records. From a foundation of vocals and acoustic guitar, Sainte-Marie and producer Maynard Solomon made pioneering use of the Buchla 100 synthesizer to create electronically treated vocals. It was also an early quadraphonic vocal album. The album's only single was "Better to Find Out for Yourself".
André Stordeur was a Belgian electronic music composer.
Caterina Barbieri is an Italian composer and musician currently based in Milan, Italy.
The Volca Modular is an analogue synthesizer manufactured by the Japanese music technology company Korg. It is part of their popular Volca series of affordable electronic synthesizers and drum machines. Like other Volcas, it sports a 16-step sequencer and can be powered by batteries.
Artist's web site: www.jillfrasermusic.com
IMDB: Jill Fraser on imdb
The zZyx Society web site: https://www.zzyzxsociety.com/
Art + Music + Technology: Podcast with Jill Fraser
Synthtopia: The zZyzx Society Releases Their First Album on ZSR Records
Jill Fraser: Interview and profile in book Patch and Tweak by Chris Meyer and Kim Bjorn
Jill Fraser Music: "Smart Shack" http://smartshack.com
dublab: Thomas Klepper w/guest Jill Fraser and Peter Grenader of zZyzx Society
Matrixsynth: An Interview with Peter Grenader on The zZyzx Society