All language subtitles for A.Life.in.Waves.2017.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Ladies and gentlemen,
this woman standing
next to me is, uh...

-(ELECTRONIC FEEDBACK RINGING)
-(LAUGHS)

...an electronic wizard.
(LAUGHS)

She composed many
of the soundtracks
you hear on commercials,

she's reproduced
the electrical musical effects

for the disco version
of Star Wars,

and she's won award
after award.

-(ECHOING STOPS) This is
Suzanne Ciani, and, uh...
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Hello.

First of all,
why do you have this stuff?
What do you do with this?

Uh, well, this is how
I make a living.

-(STAMMERS) But I mean...
-(LAUGHTER)

You don't go
door to door saying,

-"I'll make you sound goofy."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

-No, they call me.
-They call you.

SUZANNE:
This is like the sound
that I would make.

(CHIMES ECHOING)

-This is, uh...
-It's very nice.

-Is that pretty?
-Yes.

SUZANNE: That's "Lights".
DAVID LETTERMAN: Do the one

where it sounds like
the whole studio
is gonna explode.

-Here we go. Ready?
-LETTERMAN: Yeah.

(AIR SIREN WAILING)

Oh, yeah. (LAUGHS)

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

(SOUND GROWING IN VOLUME)

(ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING)

SUZANNE: I've always wondered
why my path

has always been
a little bit different.

If somebody else can do it,
they should do it.

I want to do
what only I can do.

NARRATOR:
What do the Coca-Cola
pop and pour sound effect...

-(BOTTLE CAP POPS)
-(DRINK POURING)

...and the Atari
video games audio logo
have in common?

They were both created
by Suzanne Ciani,
a pioneer in electronic music.

RUTH CIANI:
I used to tell people,

"You don't know her,
you don't know her name,

"but you've heard her music."

WOMAN 1: I want to
introduce you to a five-time
Grammy-nominee composer.

She's a woman whose music
has touched the lives

of tens of thousands
of people around the world.

ROBERT LOWE: She's a pioneer.

The fact that
she took an instrument
that was really built

for future sound
or future music,
and applied that

in the most popular context
that you could think of.
Advertising.

Was an amazing
and subversive thing.

The future is now
and the future is right now.

She came up with
sounds that were just
completely different.

(VOICE DISTORTED)
Welcome to Xenon.

Suzanne imagination
went like pinball.
Pinball game.

Like a...
(IMITATING PINBALL SOUNDS)

SUZANNE: Pinball machines,
soap operas,
orchestral scores.

I always love taking on
something new.

Being a woman
in this business
is very, very tough.

It made her stand out.

SARAH DAVACHI:
She was, on the one hand,

an artist who didn't really
sell out or compromise

but on the other hand,
she was this super successful
businesswoman

who made her art work.

MONA-MATHUS: She gave
everything to a project.

I mean, and she explored
all different possibilities.

She's a woman who
was unafraid of pleasure,
unafraid of her own

sensuality, and unafraid
to show it in her music.

HUNTER MURTAUGH:
She's always had this
inexhaustible musical talent.

Once you're on that path
to make music,

you don't stop,
and she never has.

SUZANNE: I was always told
that I was different.

"Okay, you're different."

Okay, well, maybe
you take that to heart,
that you're different,

and maybe
you become different.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING)

(ELECTRONIC FEEDBACK
LAYERS OVER PIANO)

(MUSIC FADES OUT)

Maybe we we're supposed
to go right down there.

Excuse me, do you know
where Alumnae Hall is?

Yeah, that's
probably closed off.

You would have to go
down this and around.

-Okay. Okay, thanks.
-It's around
the campus center.

All right. Great. Thanks.
Oh, good. We wanna see
the campus center anyway.

I got a letter from Wellesley.

"We are pleased
to inform you that
you have been selected..."

Blah, blah, blah.

First of all,
I've never heard of the
Alumnae Achievement Awards.

I haven't had much contact
with Wellesley for...

Forty years,

and I didn't know what to say.

I thought, (LAUGHS)
"Why are they giving me
this award?"

Like, "Who am I?"

And I thought,
"Oh, you know,
is it the electronic thing?

"Is it composition?
Is it..."

You know,
it's not like I'm a pop star.

You know, there are people
who've been given the award
who are, um,

organic gardeners or poets
or... You know, some of them
are brain surgeons,

and some of them
are biologists and...

But in all different fields
because Wellesley really is

a, uh, broad-based
academic environment.

It's not about,
you know, just...

Ooh, I smell something.
(SNIFFS)

Uh, you know... (LAUGHS)
Do you smell something?

Uh, look how pretty that is.

(SNIFFING) I smell...

I smell grass. (LAUGHS)
I smell...

Sorry.

Uh, so this is
Lake Waban right here.

I just love...

It's so simple and pristine
and magical all at once.

It's just amazing.

MURTAUGH: Suzanne's life
has always been
about art and beauty.

You get the voice,
you get the person,

you get the sounds,
you get the knowledge,
you get the computers.

It's all wrapped up
in Suzanne.

PROFESSOR: I am
beyond thrilled to welcome
Suzanne Ciani to our class.

Let's give her
a nice, warm welcome.

(APPLAUSE)

This is thrilling
because, you know...
Uh, really.

I mean,
there's just not enough
women in this area.

ALFRED MERRIN:
She was always ebullient,
always effervescent,

and always excited
about what she was doing.

Always excited
about what she was doing.

And which nobody
really understood.

SUZANNE: So, this is
for the Wellesley newspaper?

STUDENT: Yeah.
SUZANNE: Yeah.

STUDENT: Do you have
any words of wisdom
for the students of Wellesley?

I perceive that
there's a lot of

emphasis on fame
and fortune.

It's like...
It seems like
people wanna be famous.

-Yeah. (LAUGHS)
-You know?

Or they wanna be rich.

And I do say
that both of those
are not real goals.

There's somebody
without any pants on.

I mean, her legs are bare.

Suzanne has
an astonishingly
original approach,

because she kind of
trusts to fate

and trusts to the world
that it's all gonna
come out right.

SUZANNE:
So, here is, uh, Louise Dolan.

She was
a superstring theorist.

An astronaut.
That's pretty cool.

Hillary Clinton.
She got it in 2003.

A trail blazer, a scholar,
educator,

a humanist.

Isn't this wonderful to see
what all these women
have accomplished?

I guess I'm old enough
to get some recognition,
you know? (LAUGHS)

-(CAMERA CLICKING)
-But it's not a comfortable
place to be,

because it's,
it's kind of acknowledging

that you're at your endgame,
you know? (LAUGHS)

And you start to look
at the span of your life,

and you see
all the different chapters.

(FILM REEL ROLLING)

SUZANNE: Well,
I grew up in a big family.

My father clearly
was waiting for a boy
and I was the third girl.

So, when I was brought up,
I... You know,
I learned to play baseball.

I was a pitcher
on the boy's baseball team.

She was pretty much a star
in the classroom,

and she was a star
on the athletic field

or on the basketball court.

RUTH: She was just gorgeous.
She was brilliant
and she was gorgeous.

There were lots of boys
hanging around the house.

Mom said, "Oh, my gosh,
Ruthie, they, they're coming
out of the bushes."

SUZANNE:
There were boys every place.
(LAUGHS) There were boys...

But we don't have to go...
How far did they
go into that?

(LAUGHING)
I don't know. It's like...

-(FILM REEL ROLLING)
-My dad was
an orthopedic surgeon,

and my mom was a housewife.

My dad ran the house
like the king.

A woman needs to know
how to shave a man
and polish his shoes.

That's what he always said.

He wanted to be a musician,
and when he went to Harvard,

he immediately signed up
for music classes,

and they were
just all crossed off,

because he was pre-med,

and they said,
"No, you can't study music,"

and it always broke his heart.

So, this is
my childhood piano.

It's a Steinway
that my mom bought,

uh, and brought it
into the house

and so, I grew up
with this piano.

CYNTHIA CIANI: Suzanne tells
this story that mom came home
from a garage sale

with some albums
of classical music,

and that inspired her
to want to learn music.

SUZANNE: My mom
has always been pivotal.
She found the piano.

She found
the classical records
that changed my life.

And I took those things
for granted,

but I really have her
to thank.

(PIANO PLAYING)

SUZANNE: I played constantly.

I loved the piano,

and I could play
the same Chopin piece

over and over and over
and just get lost in it.

JUDITH CIANI:
She played the piano
hours every night

and it was when
she was in high school

that she, on her own,

decided to go to
Longy School of Music.

SUZANNE: I was so grateful
for the independence
that I had with music.

The fact that I was a woman
gave me the freedom
to pursue music,

because nothing more
was expected of me.

If I had been a son,
I would've been directed

into a profession
like medicine or law,

and, as it was, I had freedom.

Here I am...
How many years later?

I'm sure it's just
completely different now.

I don't know
what it's like now,
you know?

Do you still have bells
where they announce
when your date comes?

No.

They just come in?

-Yeah, people just go in
and out, pretty much.
-(GASPS)

We had this thing,
you know,
where the receptionist

would announce, you know,
the man...

-"You have a male,
a male visitor."
-(BOTH LAUGHING)

You know, it's like,
okay, everybody...
(LAUGHS)

-Oh, my God.
-Be prepared,
there's a male.

I had a boyfriend.

He was at Harvard Law School.

You know, he did propose.

You know, all the girls
were getting married
senior year,

and my mother loved him,
and, you know,

she would've been happy
if I had married,

but I just wasn't ready.

(WOMEN SINGING CHORAL MUSIC)

The truth is, I really didn't
want to narrow my life down
right away.

I mean, maybe,
I would've been
perfectly happy,

but it would have been
a completely different life.

(CHORAL SINGING CONTINUES)

(ALL APPLAUDING)

EMCEE:
It is now my great pleasure
to introduce to you

the recipients of the 2015
Alumnae Achievement Award.

Suzanne Ciani.

(ALL APPLAUDING)

I first heard of the concept
of electronic music
while still a student here.

My senior year, we became

the sister school of MIT,

and a professor there
had taken the budget

that was intended
for something else

and was trying to make
a musical tone

in this, you know,
big university computer.

It was quite an amazing thing
when I heard
this little sound emitted.

And that planted,
in my mind, a concept

that would draw me forward,
continuously,
from that moment on.

That's the tower.
That's where, you know,

all the, uh,
students would meet
to do protests.

It was at the base
of that tower.

Berkeley,
when I went there,

I was, you know,
the girl from
Wellesley college,

and that blew up in minutes.

(PROTESTORS CLAMORING)

You know,
it was the late'60s.

It was 1968 when I got there,

and it was the beginning
of all these uprisings
and upheavals,

and it was
a very political time,

and so I got politicized
like right away.

I was playing Chopin
in the music room,

and a rock came
through the window.

And I was like, "Uh-oh.
I guess it's not the way
I thought it was gonna be.

"There's no time
for Chopin right now."

This is the
architecture department,

and that's the bench
where I had met Joseph.

The music department
was right next to
the architecture department,

and so I saw a sculptor
sitting out in front of
the architecture department.

He was polishing a sculpture,

and I went down
and sat beside him
and found out where he lived,

(LAUGHS)
and we moved in together.

We lived in a model
of the future home
that he believed in.

So, he built this thing
out of foam.

And it was like a womb.

We lived in this red womb

in the front of which
had a sculpture

that went off into infinity.

So, the idea was that
you could live
in a small space

but visually feel,
you know, huge dimension.

It was a very exciting time.
It was a hippie time.

It was a drug time.

It was exactly
the right place to be.

The first electronic
music center
with public access

was the San Francisco
Tape Music Center

which was housed right nearby
the campus at Mills College,

and I could go there
and stay there all night.

When I came to Berkeley,
I came as a composer,

but once I got involved
in electronic music,

I saw it
as a compositional tool,

and I was very excited,
you know, to introduce that
into my graduate work.

(PERCUSSION PLAYING)

This was the theater
that I brought
my music class to

to hear
my electronic composition,

and we came here
and there were speakers
and a sound system.

When I brought over

my first
electronic composition
to the class,

I was catapulted into,

you know, nirvana,
hearing the sound

in the big theater
with the speakers.

I thought it was the most
amazing thing I'd ever heard.

And when it was over,
I looked over
at my professor,

thinking that I would get
a smile, an accolade,

some, you know, recognition,

and he looked
at me and he said,

"Tell me, why did you
bring us over here?"

Okay, why did
I bring you over here?

It's like,
"What was that

"useless piece of nothing

"that you made us listen to?"

And so,

I knew that those two worlds
weren't gonna...
They weren't gonna match.

(ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING)

SUZANNE: I decided
that I would just finish
my degree

but put my heart
into my own work
outside of school,

and I just happened
to find myself in the place

where one of
the original designers
of synthesizers was working.

Don Buchla.

Don Buchla was the inventor
of the modular synthesizer.

He made the first
modular synthesizer
in 1963.

Don was so important
because of the fact
that he built an instrument

that did not necessarily
consider instruments
that had come before

or traditions
that had come before.

He didn't need
a black and white keyboard
to make music.

DAVACHI: I think Don
inspired Suzanne in probably
a pretty similar way

that he inspired
everybody else
who was around him,

but especially her,

because she just had
all this enthusiasm
and wanted to learn

and was just, like,
super keen to get into it,

and I think maybe that might
have caught him off-guard.

SUZANNE: My memory
is going to Don Buchla's
big warehouse

and being led into
this massive, dark space,

and in the center
was a tower of modules,

all flashing lights.

And I thought,
"Oh, this is where I belong."

And so, I did
get the opportunity
to work there.

I can't remember
exactly how I got the job,

but I can tell you
that I lost it the next day.

They found
a cold soldering joint.

He just assumed
that it was the new girl.

Now, I may not have been
the world's best solderer,

but I knew that I didn't do
that cold soldering joint.

I thought it was unjust
that he just assumed
without proof.

The fact that
I wasn't regarded
as an equal

made me put
a lot more energy into it.

That's what women did then.

They were better.

If a guy could do something,
the woman would do it better,

and that's how
they earned their way

into visibility.

And so I said,
"You can't fire me."

And I just showed up
the next day.

I started out
working for Don Buchla

in his factory, and I could...

You know, I was
right there on location,

and I said,
"Gee, I think we
should have a knob here,"

and you'd have
a knob there.

It was all developed
kind of organically.

He became my mentor.

He analyzed
the very essence of,

you know, the human being
and the expression
of music, physically.

You know, what does it mean
to interact with a thing,

an instrument,
and create music.

INTERVIEWER:
I'm in a recording studio
with Suzanne Ciani,

a master musician
of an unusual instrument.

SUZANNE:
A synthesizer is an electronic
musical instrument.

It works
by using electronic signals
to produce sound,

and the sound
could be, for instance,
uh, like normal instruments,

like, oh, a cello,
or a guitar sound,
or a horn sound, or a flute,

or unusual sounds,
the sounds of snowstorms,
of birds,

or just make-believe sounds.

-Can you show me
some of them?
-Sure.

I have the sound in here.

You have to tell me
what it is. Okay? You guess.

(ELECTRONIC TRICKLING)

Like rain drops?

Like water dropping.

It's like things plopping
into water.

SUZANNE: Electronic music
was a wide-open space

with sounds that nobody
had ever heard before.

Buchla's instruments,

the sound was secondary,
believe it or not.

I could make a sound
that went in a second

from a bass sound
all the way up to
off the edge of hearing.

What instrument is that?
What sound is that?

It's not a sound.

It's a movement.

INTERVIEWER: What are they?

Oh, these are patch cords.
This is...

These are the things
that route the signal

from one little module
to another
to get the sound.

You can patch it
in a lot of different ways.

And the way you patch it
will determine
what you get.

It's like creating
an instrument.

LOWE: Modular synthesizers
like the Buchla

are like living beings
in a lot of ways.

The dialogue begins with

the patching of cables
from one module to another,

and they begin to have
a conversation.

And then you sort of
manipulate and control
that conversation.

When you spend so much time
with these machines,

you start to develop
a bit of an emotional
connection to them.

They're kind of, like,
these beings that
you interact with.

Generating sound
is a very personal,
primal thing.

So if you really dive
into this micro space

and spend a lot of time
with the machine, the, the...

The being, whatever it is,

to create those sounds,
they express your emotions.

So, of course,
you can develop emotions

for the creature
that allows you to produce it
and to express yourself.

(THEREMIN PLAYING )

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(DRUMS PLAYING )

(SAXOPHONE PLAYING )

(DRUMS PLAYING )

(METRONOMES TICKING)

All, uh...

-This entire area,
all modulars.
-SUZANNE: Oh, look at this.

Wow.

-(ELECTRONIC BEAT PLAYING)
-This is a very
nice interface.

-Oh, did I hit something?
-You probably
hit something.

(LAUGHING)

SUZANNE: You know,
there are so many
expressions now

of electronic instruments
all over the world, right?

Somebody is making
a little module
here and there.

But Don, in my opinion,

is the one who has taken it
to the highest level

of dedication and concept.

Today, I was lazy.
I did do a little tour
of the modular synths

up in the corner.
And, Don, your designs

are so beyond...

Oh, that's nice of you.

SUZANNE: My first love affair
was with the piano,

and my second love affair
was with the Buchla.

And, you know,
for a good 12 years,

the Buchla was on
all the time.

So it never got shut off.

It lived with me.

It was compact.
I could cart it around
to my sessions.

My mission

was to introduce
these new instruments

as performable instruments

in the same historical vein
as other instruments.

And I took that
very seriously,

especially when I moved
to New York.

Cab karma.

I didn't decide, really,
to move to New York.

I went to New York to do
a live Buchla concert.

And once I got there,

I realized I didn't
wanna leave.

I did see myself,
from the time
I came to New York,

as a performer
and as a recording artist.

I went to every
single record label.

I would say,
"I play the synthesizer,"

and they'd say,
"You what?"

You know?
"You don't sing?
You don't play guitar?"

MURTAUGH: You didn't
know anything
that she was doing.

You didn't understand it.
I don't know from wires,
or Buchla's

or potentiometers,
or rheostats, or...

Whatever makes the sounds
come out, but she does.

She'd make music
the way people used
to do telephone calls

-with all these wires going...
There wasn't any keyboard.
-RUTH: Right. Wires.

MARY CIANI: It was
the weirdest thing
in the world.

SUZANNE: There was just such
a huge, huge chasm

between the music business

and my life as an artist.

I had done scores.

You know, I did X-rated films

when I was trying to,
you know, get started
and make money.

I did the electronic part
of the score for
The Stepford Wives.

Hi, Kit. How are you?

Hello, Mary Ann.

SUZANNE: The Stepford Wives
were women who
were really robotic,

but it wasn't apparent
right away.

Hello, Carol.

Hi, Pat.

SUZANNE: And so
the electronics became,

you know, part of that signal

of something
in the machinery going awry.

No, you look.

Joanna...

(EERIE SYNTHESIZER PLAYING)

(SIGHS) How could you do
a thing like that?

SUZANNE: I did things
with a lot of slow
frequency modulation

that just made you feel

scared and, uh, upset.

(GLASS SHATTERS)

I thought we were friends.

I thought we were friends.

SUZANNE:
I think the electronics
were a metaphor

for the operating system
of these women,

you know, it was technology,

and this was the sound
of their inner workings
kind of coming apart.

And it was scary.

I thought we were friends.

I was surrounded
by visual artists.

And I saw that
if you're a visual artist,

you had something to sell.

So I called
all the top advertising
agencies in New York,

and, a couple of times,

I got a meeting scheduled
with Billy Davis,

who was the head of music
at McCann-Erickson,

and I think that was
the largest agency
in New York.

I would show up at the meeting
and Billy wasn't there.

And I remember going up
to the agency,

I said,
"Where is Billy Davis?"

They pointed
to a control room door,

and I went right
into the control room,

and I said,
"You had an appointment
with me."

And at that very moment,

this is just
the strangest story,

they were playing
a Coca-Cola jingle.

(COCA-COLA JINGLE PLAYING)

And there was
a little blank space in it.

(SILENCE)

(JINGLE CONTINUES)

And he said,
"Can you do something
in there?"

And I said, "Yes."

(BOTTLE CAP POPS)

(DRINK POURING)

(COKE ADDS LIFE
JINGLE PLAYING)

(DRINK POURING)

SUZANNE:
I brought this big Buchla,

and it was in five road cases,
and I'd have to assemble it.

And I set this thing up
and it had all the wires
and patches,

and out came
this wonderful sound
that worked for them.

And they used it
all over the world.

They didn't care
that I was tuning
the sub audio harmonics

of a sawtooth waveform
melodically.

Coke was like
hitting the jackpot.

That was a new realm
of experience for me.

(FIREWORKS BURSTING)

MONA-MATHUS: Nobody was
doing what she was doing
at that time.

MURTAUGH:
There was nobody like her.

-(SUZANNE LAUGHS)
-Suzanne Ciani
is here with us now.

Would you welcome her, please,
to the Morning Show.

-Hi, Suzanne, how are you?
-Great.

In advertising,
uniqueness is everything.

Being the first is everything.

Nowadays, I have access
to an incredibly
wide variety of sounds.

-Just about any sound.
-Uh-huh.

(ELECTRONIC WHOOPING)

ROB ZANTAY: You know,
there's a whole different way
to do music,

accompanying a visual.

And that's what
Suzanne's expertise was,
was sound design.

-This one you've heard.
-That sounds familiar.

-Where would
we have heard that?
-(DESCENDING SCALE PLAYS)

-That's kind of
a PBS-type sound.
-Yeah.

SUZANNE:
There was this concept
of sound effects,

and what I realized is that
I could do what I called
musical effects,

because I could control
the musical parameters

of a sound.

(DOOR HISSES OPEN)

(BUTTON CLICKS)

And it worked in a much more
integrated way,

and on a much higher level,
psychologically and musically.

(ELECTRONIC WHIRRING)

And so, in order to take full
advantage of the potential

I started my own music house
and I did the whole thing.

COMMERCIAL VOICEOVER:
Finally, there is
a fuel-efficient car

that does more than get you
from point A to point B.

When I met her,
she had a company
called Ciani-Musica.

SUZANNE: We became
the number one company
for sound design

and high technology
in New York.

COMMERCIAL VOICEOVER: AT&T.

CHRIS IANUZZI: I remember
going to the library

and looking through
the magazines.

There was a contemporary
keyboard and Suzanne Ciani
was on the cover.

And I thought,

"I've got to meet her,
I've got to go to New York."

I've got to work for her.

RUTH: I knew she was getting
big because you turn on
the television, and then,

"Oh! Suzi wrote that."

It was everywhere.

MONA-MATHUS:
There was Lincoln-Mercury.

There was ITT,

Skittles,

Black & Decker,

Sunkist.

There was Merrill Lynch.
The Bull in the China Shop.

COMMERCIAL VOICEOVER:
Picking and choosing
the right investments

-requires very
careful handling.
-(ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS)

One wrong move
could easily damage
the best laid plans.

SUZANNE:
"Bull in the China Shop,"

what a perfect poetry
to do sound to.

I think for me, you know,
it was about the dignity
of the bull

and that you wanted
to give people confidence.

And so I used
a classical theme.

And so as the bull
marches through,

it picks up
in intensity a little bit,
and he does get through.

And then there's the logo
at the end

which lets you know that
you can sleep well at night,

because your money is safe
with Merrill Lynch. (LAUGHS)

We were doing
quite a few spots for Atari.

And we were the perfect
match for them,

because, you know, we were
the high-tech music cast.

(ATARI GALAXIAN
JINGLE PLAYING)

We were called to do
a commercial for Atari.

It was called,
Nobody's Hotter
Than Atari This Summer.

And a lot of people
got involved in that.

You know,
I laid the drum sound
under the bass sequence.

SUZANNE: It was kind of like
a music video.

You know, the image was
that all these kids

were marching
with their boom boxes,

you know, on the sand,

and the sky would light up
with Atari imagery.

(JINGLE CONTINUES PLAYING)

TV JOURNALIST: It seemed
like an ordinary assignment.

SUZANNE:
Let's welcome him
to the neighborhood.

JOURNALIST: I was supposed
to meet the queen
of musical effects.

(SYNTHESIZED PHONE RINGS)

But I was about to find out
that Suzanne Ciani

makes a living
turning the ordinary...

(SYNTHESIZED DOOR SLAMS)

...into the extraordinary.

MURTAUGH: She's conceptual.
She's creative.

She doesn't need you
to describe the sound.

They would tell you, you know,
we have an airplane,
or a washing machine,

or we're gonna be jumping off
a mountain top

and she would create
a sound perspective
that would work perfectly.

It heightens the reality
to doctor the sound
in certain ways.

The same way
people airbrush models' faces

or, you know,
in a sense it's cosmetic,

in a sense
it's emotional treatment

so that a sound
has a certain impact.

(SYNTHESIZED SPLASHING)

SUZANNE:
A lot of what I did
was married to an image.

So there was a visual,
you know?

Black & Decker,
you could see the visual
of the motor,

you know, whacking the weed.

(SYNTHESIZED SLASHING)

-The real sound
always fell short.
-(POPS)

If you had
a potato chip commercial

and you needed the sound
of a crunching potato chip.

(SNAPS)

And you would record somebody
biting the potato chip.

It never sounded
like much of anything.

You know,
traditional instruments
had a limited palette.

(PLAYS SINGLE NOTE)

Electronics added thousands
of colors

that weren't there before.

You could create a sound

(ELECTRONIC SOUNDS PLAY)

that had all the fantasy
that you would imagine
that thing having.

MERRIN:
We had an assignment to do
a GE dishwasher commercial.

And it was my
opportunity to use

this kind of electronic genius
I heard about Suzanne Ciani,

and she created
a, what we call,
the beep soundtrack.

This is where
you cut to the commercial
so you can see it.

(RHYTHMIC BEEPING)

SUZANNE: The GE beep
was generated by the reality

that the new dishwasher
that GE was making

had a beeping sound.

(BEEPING)

And they came to me
to post score it.

MONA-MATHUS:
It was painstaking.

The preciseness of just, like,
the melody of the lights,
and the sound,

the right little sound
for the lights.

SUZANNE:
Also because, in those days,
there was no way to lock

a multi-track to a video.

You had to start
the multi-track

and start the video by hand
each time you wanted to check,

you know, whether the beep
was in the right place.

You have no idea
how complicated this was.

You know what?
Were those scenes the same?

They're slightly different.

Because that's not
running together.

When the first one's on,
the second one's off.

(PLAYING NOTES)

All I can say is that
the spot was a challenge,

and I created the personality
of the machine.

ZANTAY: I remember the people
from the ads said,

"We want a beep,
but it can't be
an annoying beep.

"It has to be
a friendly beep."

You just...
Sometimes you'd wanna say,
"What are you talking about?

"A friendly beep?"
But she'll go, "Of course.
Of course. A friendly beep."

SUZANNE: The client absolutely
went crazy when they heard it.

So the commercial won,
you know, awards.

ZANTAY: It was a huge success.

COMMERCIAL VOICEOVER:
The GE 2800 dishwasher.

It does almost everything
but clear the table.

(GE JINGLE PLAYS)

(BEEPS)

Well, in a moment,
we'll meet a musician

whose playful experiments
with electricity

may be the forerunners
of a new approach

to both listening
and learning.

SUZANNE:
(VOICE DISTORTED)
Welcome to Xenon.

Welcome to Xenon.

Welcome to Xenon.

Welcome to Xenon.

Welcome to Xenon.

SUZANNE: I was in New York.
I guess it was about 1980.

A lot of stuff
was happening that year.

That's when I got
the film score,

The Incredible
Shrinking Woman,

and I was contacted
by Bally in Chicago

about designing sounds
for a pinball game.

"Okay. Why not?"

MAN 1: When did you first
get involved with this?

Like, was the machine
all designed already?

No. As a matter of fact,
I went to Chicago
and they had the blueprints.

So it hadn't even been, uh,
finished, designed yet.

They had schematics.

And they had the whole
blueprint, and then I went
to the art department,

and they showed
me this drawing.

I thought, "Uh-oh.
(LAUGHS)

"I hope I'm not
denigrating women."

(ELECTRONIC SOUNDS PLAY)

I was very interested
in getting the whole
composition to work.

To think of the pinball
as actually playing a piece.

So I can put in

just a series of pitches.

Okay, now I'm gonna
ask it to play

and see what it does here.

(RHYTHMIC BEEPING)

So did they involve you,
like, did they
want your voice,

or were they more interested
in the technology behind it?

You know, they had two chips.

-So this was the first time
that they had two chips.
-Right.

And one was a little
electronic generator

and one was a sampler
for voice.

-Okay.
-And so I had, like,

a very little bit of time
on the sampling.

(VOICE DISTORTED)
Try tube shock.

Try tube shock.

Try tube shock.

Try tube shock.

Suzanne has this amazing
speaking voice.

And it isn't just
what she says,
it's how she says it.

SUZANNE: One, two, three.

MURTAUGH: There's a sound
in her voice that is so...

If they brought back
HAL as a computer,
it would be Suzanne's voice.

(VOICE HEAVILY DISTORTED)
Xenon.

SUZANNE:
You know, I was watching
people play pinball games

and I realized
how it would produce a sound

and then you would responded
to that sound.

So when you hit the bumper,
it would go... (GRUNTING)

(DISTORTED GRUNTING)

When I looked
at that artwork,

I thought, well, you know,
this is a very sensual game
that people are playing.

So I had the idea that maybe
there could be

a little whip sound
on the flippers, you know.
(LAUGHS)

And you'd whip,
and then it would go...
(MOANING)

You know? And that one
they weren't ready for.

MAN 2: This is our sound chip,
and this is our speech.

SUZANNE: Great.

Okay, we are all set.

-Ready?
-And we close this door.

Would you like to go first?
Power up.

SUZANNE: Power up.

(GAME POWERING UP)

(DISTORTED VOICES PLAYING)

SUZANNE:
(VOICE DISTORTED)
Welcome to Xenon.

SUZANNE: I wanted technology
to be sensual.

That was always my directive.

MERRIN: The advertising world
at the time was...

A male-dominated world.

For Suzanne to be such
a force in the industry
was incredibly unique.

PETER BAUMANN: I remember that
I met Suzanne in New York.

And that she was quite famous
for the Coca-Cola commercial
she did.

Of course,
it was extraordinary

for a woman to be
in the music business

other than
a background singer,

you know, or a pop star.

MONA-MATHUS: We were doing
something together as women

that required us
to perfect our craft,

because we wanted
to be taken seriously,
and we wanted to succeed.

IANUZZI:
What she really wanted to do
from the beginning,

was she wanted
to be a recording artist.

She wanted to make
Suzanne's albums.

SUZANNE: Advertising gave me
the financial means

of outfitting myself

with a proper laboratory
and the gear
that I wanted to use.

I'd like to give you
a short tour of my studio.

In the corner,
I have a vintage Buchla

that I've had
for over ten years.

Then I have, uh,
two drum machines here.

An earlier model
of Roland and a Linn.

At one point, I thought,
you know, I don't need
anybody else to do this.

I don't need
a record label to say,

"Make us an album, you know?
We want your album.

"We think you're wonderful."

I knew that
I could just make it
and that's what I did.

This is all the pitch.

So you don't have to really
be able to sing to do this.

So it's great.

(MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING)

SUZANNE: I look at Seven Waves
and I think...

What I was trying to do
was create a very sensual,

feminine, romantic,
passionate, emotional music

using machines.

So I did that album,
and since I had now
something on tape

I went to do another round
at the record companies.

And I even went to Europe.

There was a group,
Tangerine Dream,

that was starting to get
some notoriety,

and I thought,
"Ah, it's probably easier
in Europe."

So I went all over Europe

and couldn't get
to first base.

Then one day, I thought...

Japan.

In America, when you have
a record meeting,

you know,
the phones are ringing,

people are walking in and out,
nobody listens.

In Japan, you go
into to a listening room.

No telephones,
nobody comes in there.

You have tea
and you have a couch,
and you have the speakers.

And they sit, and they listen.

It was astonishing.

In the United States,
nobody had listened.

So I like to tell myself
that part of the reason

that the Japanese
wanted this album

was that they actually
listened to it.

-(APPLAUSE)
-Synthesized music
is something

that is taken
very, very seriously

in the world of music,
and this is an album.

Once I had the Japanese deal,
it was a lot easier for me

because I had a product,
so I had a record,

and record companies,
you know, noticed a bit more.

I don't think
I see anything in here.

I think I looked
at all these already.

(GASPS)

Okay. (CHUCKLES)

Oh, my God.

Now this is mis-categorized.

This is definitely not...

This is definitely not rock.

This was my second album.

(SOULFUL MUSIC PLAYING)

The second album,
The Velocity of Love,

the song on that,
The Velocity of Love,

was the first time
I had used acoustic piano.

And that one, actually,

is probably
my best-known song to date.

(PIANO PLAYING)

To get music out
in our culture,

you have to belong
to a category.

You have to fit
into a compartment

where they can't market it,
they can't put it some place.

I remember, you know,
my early album Seven Waves.

I mean, I was in jazz,
I was in classical,

I was in electronic,
I was in vocal, I was in...

You know, there was
no place for the album.

Then, finally, there came
this category, new age.

And I was grateful,
because now there was

at least a place
to put the music
where people could find it.

There's a quiet revolution
happening in the world today

dealing with meditation,
reflection and inner peace.

FEMALE REPORTER:
And it's all being called,
New Age.

(KENNY G PLAYING)

MALE REPORTER: Among the more
mainstream artists are Kenny G

whose Songbird
was a top-five hit.

Mannheim Steamroller,
whose many albums

include their
popular renditions
of Christmas standards.

And Tangerine Dream

familiar to moviegoers
for their many film scores,

among them, Risky Business.

Former Tangerine Dream
group member

Peter Baumann now heads
his own record company.

New age is a category, uh,

that the late-night talk shows
make fun of.

WOMAN 2: My sister's
having a baby

and, uh, she is having
a natural childbirth,

so we just decided
to get some music for her.

You know, so that the baby,
when it's born,

can come
into beautiful sounds.

It, in some cases, doesn't
quite get the credibility

as other music has.

New age
is an interesting topic.

It's like a club that nobody
wants to belong to.

BAUMANN: It's usually for...

Shall I say,
a different personality type?

You know,
it's more reflective.

You just got
your new CD player
you're a bit too old

for rock-and-roll

and classical music,
for you, might be
a little cerebral,

and jazz is a little esoteric,

but you wanna be part of
what's going on in music.

KITARO: This is called
the waterphones.

(ETHEREAL CLANGING)

KITARO: Sometimes we can see
the energies, the visible,

but I believe more than
the visible energies.

Invisible energy is more
inside of the body,

and inside of the soul.

So, that's the new age musics
came out a long time ago.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING)

You know, the old day
the listener need
to have an experience

with the sounds.

We have, uh,
the cassette tape,
put it, they put it.

The peoples listening

and then
walking in the forest...

Wow!

And then the title is,
like, uh, you know,

the Forest Magic
or something. (CHUCKLES)

Yeah.

(MUSIC CONTINUES PLAYING)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

SUZANNE: Nature, you know,
brings us peace,

it gives us confidence
that the world works

without us.

This is all orchestrated,
not by us,

we didn't plan it.

It's just here
and it's perfect.

But the other thing
about nature is that

it's a little bit
more chaotic.

It's like birds and Bach,
you know?

(BIRD CAWING)

The birds are beautiful,
but it's not composed.

So, for me, nature is

a spiritual starting point

because it brings me peace

and a calmness.

And that's what
my music is about.

(PIANO PLAYING)

It was interesting to me,
that in my period
of electronic devotion,

I actually didn't
wanna touch the piano,

even though it had been
my childhood instrument.

I'd like to show you
my next album Neverland.

This is recorded
on Private Music.

My albums, from Neverland on,
I think showed a progression

gradually back towards
acoustic instruments.

(ORCHESTRA AND PIANO PLAY)

The piano
was just a perfect universe

to come back to.

Because when I played it,
I appreciated it even more.

-(APPLAUSE)
-The expressiveness
that it had.

My theory was,
was that if I could express

my deepest, personal
emotions and feelings,

that it actually would touch
something universal.

Neverland was
a romantic song,

and I have to say,
my heart was broken,

but in the video, you know,
it's a song about a horse

coming along the beach

and finding this little girl
who's building a sand castle.

She suddenly grows
into a woman,

gets on the horse, and he
takes her up into the sky
to her prince.

And that was really
my concept of romantic love,

was the prince.

(DRAMATIC PIANO PLAYING)

SUZANNE: My personal life

was very integrated
into my musical life.

Even if I lived with somebody,

it would be, like,
five minutes in the morning,

and then
five minutes at night.

MERRIN: Her studio
was actually her living room

and it was just full
of giant mixing boards,

machines that were blinking
on and off

wires going
absolutely everywhere,
and she's plugging stuff in.

MONA-MATHUS: You were
in her house, you had to
take your shoes off.

Nobody was allowed
to come in the apartment
with the shoes on,

which, for advertising folks
that came to the door,

they were oftentimes shocked

in that, "Do we really have to
take our shoes off?"

And it was like,
"Yes, you do."

It wasn't like she was faster

than going into
a regular studio

with musicians
and instruments.

This actually could be
maddeningly slow

'cause she had to
program everything, you know,

and, you know,
it was just so different then.

MURTAUGH: You didn't know
how long things
were gonna take.

Would the machines,
you know, blow up?

Would the wires come apart?

Would things not work?
Would the sounds not be right?

How do you fix it? How do you
change it? It was...
A lot of time was spent.

First of all, you can see
there's a lot of pressure
in this business.

I mean, it happens very fast.

MERRIN:
She was constantly working.

MONA-MATHUS: You had to work.
You had to put in
that kind of work

in order to be the best
at what she was doing,

in order to achieve that kind
of success that she had.

MERRIN: The time pressure
in advertising

is always, you know...

"We need it right now."
"What do you mean now?"

"I mean, really, now.
Tomorrow morning."

The commercials
are like, you know...

(STUTTERS) You have to
go fast. This whole,
"Time is money."

MONA-MATHUS: We worked
12-hour days, 14-hour days,

we worked
weekends, overnights.

I woke up this morning
and I saw these circles
under my eyes,

and I thought, you know,

"These circles
are brought to you by Pepsi."

(ALL LAUGHING)

MERRIN:
It was really hard work.

It was frantic.

SUZANNE: I was
going full blast.

And I ran out of medicine
that I was supposed to take.

The doctor said,
"Well, I can't give you
a prescription for these

"unless you go
and get checked."

I said, "I can't get checked,

"I'm in the middle
of an album."

"I'm in production."

"I don't have time
to go to a doctor."

So I took a morning off,
and I went to the doctor,

and they did
some kind of testing,

and they said, "I'm really
sorry to tell you this,

"but it looks like you might
have breast cancer."

I basically panicked.

It was a time of...

Terrible crisis, really.

When you face your mortality,

and it comes
out of the blue like that,

it's an alarm
that makes you shift gears.

I made a decision that I
had to leave New York, ASAP.

I only stayed there
long enough

to have radiation treatment.

I really thought
I had a mandate to leave
because of the breast cancer.

I thought New York,
all the excitement
and the stress,

and all the things
I loved about it,

but I just made up in my mind,

that that's was, like,
maybe it was killing me.

You know,
maybe it wasn't healthy.

So I just left it.

Here we are at the edge
of the Earth here,

or at least the United States.

So this is a pretty far
western point here.

Um...

There is San Francisco,

this is the ocean,
there is Stinson Beach.

And this kind of
spherical space

is amazing
because you see
the horizon line,

and the dome of the sky,
and the theater of the ocean,

and all the waves,
the sound of the waves,

and, uh, you know, the surfers
are out here every day.

I'm more of an observer
than an actual surfer,

but this is where I moved
in 1992.

(MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING)

You know, I had missed
a good part of my...

You know, romantic life,
just by working so hard
in New York.

So, in a way, I thought,
"Well, now I am in California,

"and I'm in
a more relaxed situation

"I'm out of the fast lane
in New York,

"and I really do have time

"for doing
something personal."

It's Joe.

He was 18-and-a-half years
younger than I was.

We were just very happy.
I was happy.
Everybody was happy.

We were married in 1994,

and we were divorced,
officially, I think in 2001.

I think the idealism
that I had about love

disappeared at that point.

Some of the songs
that I wrote then,
I could never write now.

I don't have, you know,
that same...

Bubbly, cloudy, romantic,

mysterious concept.

I can still play the songs,

but my writing
is not about that

anymore.

So, maybe it's perfect

for me to go back
to electronic music.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

As I say,
I've been living under a rock

for years now,
as far as electronic music

has been going on.

I haven't paid attention.

Andy Votel at Finders Keepers
contacted me,

and they said they
wanted to release

my unreleased
early electronic music.

He released them,
and suddenly,

there was this rush
of attention that happened.

I somehow
have been reincarnated

as an electronic
composer again.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING
AND APPLAUDING)

For me, it is just
you know, astonishing
to come out and see

that there's
this huge audience now
for this experience.

(ABSTRACT ELECTRONIC
MUSIC PLAYING)

(APPLAUDING AND CHEERING)

So now I have
this legion of new fans.

These kids in skinny
jeans, you know,
that show up at my concerts.

LOWE: She's a true innovator.

And what she's done
is absolutely important

to the history
and the development
of electronic music.

DORIT CHRYSLER:
She found her own way.

She had to find her own way.

MURTAUGH: Music people
stay young because
they're always creating.

And music, more people
discover it all the time.

ANNOUNCER:
I am very happy to introduce

a true legend
of electronic music,

-Suzanne Ciani.
-(LAUGHS)

(ALL APPLAUDING AND CHEERING)

SUZANNE: I'm not an expert
on all of this,

but I have noticed some of
the same bearded people

that were new agers

are now ambient.

This generation is aware
that they missed something.

They wanna know, like,
"Okay, wait a minute,

"what was analog like?

"What were LPs like?
What were cassettes like?

"We didn't have that."

And, so, it's fun for me

'cause I've already
been there.

There have been
so many chapters in my career,

and I'm still open

to there being more
unsuspected chapters.

Because if there's anything
that my life has shown me,

is that you just don't know
what's gonna happen.

There used to be a house here,

and the house was
two-thirds gone

when I moved here,

and, eventually, the owner
took the water rights

and relocated.

And then I was able
to buy this little piece,

and add it,

and make this wonderful,
kind of unnerving precipice.

Clearly, I'm on the edge.

And it's kind of a race,
who's gonna last longer.

Me, or the place where I live.

You know, people say,
"Well, what's, what's
gonna happen?"

"Do you know?"

I could ask
a geological engineer

and he could say,
"Well, this and that,

"and the scientific evidence
is this and that,"

but, for me,
I got peace of mind

really just asking
my astrologer

and she said,
"Don't worry, you're fine.

"There's nothing in your chart

"that says you're going to
lose your home."

So that, I don't know
what that means,

but it means that
in my lifetime,

however long that is,
I'll be here.

So, that's all I ask.

You get a little fatalistic
at a certain age

you know, when you're younger,
you don't even see the edge.

And once you've gone
over that,

you know, certain time frame,

you're looking at the horizon.

You know, I notice changes,

I notice things
that have come and gone,

but I've always been romantic.

I mean, my music,
everything I've done,
artistically,

has been based
in the concept of romanticism.

But I don't know if that
can be whittled down to,

you know, just rapport
between men and women.

My romanticism
is with life itself.

You know,
I like to see the best

in life.

The romance, the beauty.

And I choose to see that.

(WAVES CRASHING)

(ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING)