raymond scott's "soothing sounds for baby" C or D

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man i love the retro futurist sound (i guess it was just futurist back when they did it ) and i love the r.scott manhattan research comp but i'm sure someone played me ssfb at some point in my distant past and it pist me off. are these up there with 60's bleep, pauline oliveros & oskar sala? or are they just annoying crap?

― bob snoom, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd put them up there with Terry Riley's "In C" and Steve Reich's "Come Out" as pioneering early minimalist works. I think their high-pitched blips might get a tad annoying if played too loud, but as spritely background music (which is what I guess they're supposed to be), they're great.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

i have the series.... on one hand you've got high-pitched pop classical sounding tunes. they're somewhat cutesy and musicbox playful. on the other hand, you've got what could be mistaken for autechre or some of the more kraftwerk-influenced boards of canada stuff. it's very mechanical, yet light and feathery. extremely
repetitive as well.

it's classic as an artifact. less classic for everyday listening unless you're less than a year old. it has soothed my son's savage beast.

― msp, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I wasn't as thrilled with this series of Scott recordings as I was expecting, and some of them can go on a bit long for my tastes. But I guess the compilations really were designed for babies...apparently a friend played the CDs for her baby and the baby's eyes got big and then the baby started getting, you know, soothed. Weird but true!

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Hasn't it been firmly established that these LPs should not be played for any babies, anywhere?

I've seen the LPs around recently, and noticed that the CD reissues up the kitsch factor. Cf.

http://www.showandtellmusic.com/images/galleries/gallery%20b/soothing.jpg vs. http://www.flicklives.com/Music/soothing/soothing_sounds.jpg

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:45 (twenty-two years ago)

classic for me. 'the happy whistler' on volume 2 is the high water mark from these three for me, the melody is beautiful and the arrangement of muted pulsey sinewaves is so ahead of it's time it is lightly scary.

though I'd probably say volume 3 is the best overall. they're very primitive pieces, but immersive and timeless. and often not very relaxing at all, bizarre minimal squawking NOISE. he was arguably the first person to build himself a sequencer, in this case a huge wall-sized bank of relays turning signal generators on and off. so there he is in the late 50's early 60's letting those 8th notes run into tape echo, going 'wow, these things really start to sound great when you let them run for more than about 5-10 minutes, but how in the world am I going to _market_ this stuff?'

the raymond scott 'manhattan research' 2 disc set is filled with more actively composed pop songs, many more changes & tambres stuffed onto dozens of 1-2 minute long pieces. people who find 'soothing sounds' too simplistic often flip for 'manhattan research'. A lot of the 2 disc set is composed of his finished radio jingles, complete with spoken ad copy -- I must admit I didn't listen much to this set until I ripped and burned just the pop tunes onto a single listening disc, then it became one of my top 10 of last year.

― milton, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

CLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSICCLASSIC

So, so classic.

― David Allen, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I posted this on a thread about albums to help your baby sleep:

"It's broken down into 3 records, for 0-6 months, 6-12 months and 12-18 months. Unfortunately I bought it too late to try out the first disc on my son, which is a pity as that's obviously when their sleep patterns are at the most random and you need a bit of sonic assistance. He was about 6 or 7 months when I tried it out, and to be honest, I got into it more than him. Soothing sounds for daddy."

Has to said the cover(s) is(are) classic too.

― James Ball (James Ball), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

eight years pass...

Is it possible to find original copies of all three? Or should I just buy the german reissue box set?

― JacobSanders, Thursday, 5 January 2012 05:55 (thirteen years ago)

sometimes i open threads that i think are milton-bait just to see if milton has posted on them.

― sarahel, Thursday, 5 January 2012 07:35 (thirteen years ago)

I've never seen the originals for sale. Reissue is Dutch, not German. xp

― ban this sick stunt (anagram), Thursday, 5 January 2012 09:50 (thirteen years ago)

bought one of these volumes for my sis when she had my niece. when she told me she gave it away i was pissed

― epigram addict (outdoor_miner), Thursday, 5 January 2012 14:09 (thirteen years ago)

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