I was really surprised my last post didn’t take off. I’m not going to say that I wrote that specifically with getting a larger audience (at least for a short time) in mind, but it was definitely a factor. This may sound selfish and whiny, but having an audience feels good sometimes. That’s the main reason why I’ve severely curtailed my other site. People really dig the record store guides, and that makes me really happy. But damn never everything else I wrote fell on death ears, especially the posts that I enjoyed writing the most.

I’ll be honest (and I think I’ve mentioned this before) but my readership for this blog continues to decline. When I started this up I was quickly getting thousands of hits a day thanks to the attention given to MP3 blogs. Now, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I get a fraction of that. People don’t want to read about music anymore. And people don’t even want to download it (legally or otherwise) it seems. They’re more than content to give a service 10 bucks a month for the right to borrow poor-sounding streaming music that they don’t even own.

Whatever. I’m an old man. I’m nearly 40 and feel more and more out of touch each year. When my clickwheel iPod finally croaked earlier this year, I really had a difficult time finding a decent replacement. I wondered why, but then it hit me – people don’t buy MP3 players anymore. They just listen to music on their phone because they’re getting most of it via Spotify or a similar service. I would say that made me feel old, but even people my age don’t buy music anymore, so I guess my obliviousness to current trends is more than just a generational divide.

Anyways, rambling. All this to say that I was once again reminded by all of this that I should never ever bother writing posts strictly “for the hits.” The posts will inevitably fail to find a substantial audience and I’ll just get bummed. Best for me to stick to my wheelhouse and write about things that will never find a meaningful audience.

Keep them expectations low.

So yeah, here’s a post about a synthesizer rendition of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.

Frank W. Becker – Synthesizer Four Seasons
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
This is the second time I’ve shared a rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The first was an interpretation done entirely on the Japanese koto. This time I’m going the opposite route, with one done predominately on synthesizers.

One of the the many things I absolutely adore about Japanese record stores is their tendency to break things up into the most specific genres imaginable. Stores here don’t just have “rock” sections. For example, a rock section is properly segmented to include special sections dedicated to prog, punk, heavy metal, jazz fusion, and so on. It makes it so much easier to find new music. You can go to a sub-genre you like, find an interesting-looking album, and give it a whirl.

And while most record stores in other areas would neglect synthesizer-centric albums to a general “electronic” section, here they get their own placard. I chalk this up to the relative influence that Japanese musicians had on the early synth scene. Even before YMO, many Japanese musicians were embracing the synth craze started by Wendy Carlos. The most notable of these is, of course, Tomita, but there were many more, including new age darlings Kitaro and Fumio Miyashita, who both made a killing with “healing music” in the early 80s.

But a lot of synthesizer albums in Japan weren’t made by Japanese musicians. As I dig through the crates looking for obscure pieces of moog-ephemera, I often find Japanese exclusive synthesizer albums by artists from all over the world. Sometimes the albums are just reworked versions of records already available overseas, with altered tracklistsings or covers. However, on occasion, the album is an entirely new creation made specifically with Japanese audiences in mind.

That’s the case with the work of Frank W. Becker, who released six albums of synthesizer-focused music in just two years, from 1978 to 1979. His work with the instrument runs the gamut. A few are entirely original compositions that he made specifically for the synthesizer. Two are Beatles covers albums (and are quite good).

But the one I come back to the most is his rendition of Four Seasons. Of course, that has a lot to do with the source material. Four Seasons is a classic for a reason, and like I said in my first post where I wrote about it, very few pieces of music calm me down like Four Seasons. I also like it because it doesn’t force itself to be limited to only synthesizer. On the album, Frank’s synth work is accompanied by a violin. Why some who enjoy synthesized renditions of classical music might be let down by this, I find it to be a welcome addition. It gives the record a sense of life that would not have been possible by synthesizer alone in 1978. Also, the violin isn’t used as a crutch to hide imperfections or weaknesses with the synthesizer material. It’s just an accompaniment and nothing more. The crux of the album is still Frank and his amazing synth work.

Frank is still with us and still making music. He has a website. I even tried contacting him (several times) to see if it was okay for me to share his music. He never responded. (Frank, if you do find this and don’t want me sharing this, let me know and I’ll delete it immediately.) His website mentions his electronic work, but only in passing, and this album is absent entirely. Perhaps he only wants to focus on his original material, which I guess makes sense.

I have five of his six albums and cherish them all. His covers are fun, his classical pieces are soothing and well-done, and his original pieces make great use of the synthesizers of the day. I hope to share more of his work in the future.

Frank, if you stumble upon this, just wanted to let you know, your shit rocks and you kick ass.

Dope beard too.