Seven Waves & Counting:
Suzanne Ciani's Life in Music
Interview by Carol Wright
from New Age Voice, June 2000

NAV: Can you describe where you live?

Suzanne Ciani: I'm in Bolinas, on a cliff overlooking the sea. In the distance, I see the San Francisco skyline. To the left are mountains and big hills. In the daytime, I see butterflies and birds and surfers down on the beach. It's wonderful just to see the surface of the ocean, that silvery, sparkling psychic space that is the sea.

NAV: Is your draw to the ocean why you called your company Seventh Wave?

Suzanne: Yes. My very first album is called Seven Waves. All my compositions were called waves at that time. I was mystically bonded to the sea, which I consider a very feminine and powerful force. The architecture of the compositions was in the shape of a wave: start softly, build to a climax, then recede.

    It took years to complete the album, and when I had a few songs recorded, I traipsed all over the U.S. and Europe looking for a deal. But no one understood me. One day, I had this epiphany: go to Japan. I did, and within three days, I was offered numerous record deals. I chose the one that I felt was most empathetic to the music.

    At that time, I had six pieces, and they called me rather sheepishly and said, "Six bad luck number in Japan. You must do, please, a seventh piece." The label was named, lovingly, after that first album that started my recording career. I called my pieces "waves" also for The Velocity of Love, my second album, but the record company insisted on titling them. The Japanese also retitled the Seven Waves pieces.

NAV: You used the Buchla synthesizer on these early works. Someone quoted you as saying that Don Buchla connected "right down to the origins of physical human nature and music." You also commented that you would leave the machine running for months at a time, processing. What is this thing, anyway?

Suzanne: The instrument as Buchla saw it, was meant for live performance.


NAV: Unlike the Moog?

Suzanne: Unlike the Moog. People never really understood these types of early electronic instruments, and that's why Bob Moog put a keyboard on his, just to make it look less threatening.

     But Buchla refused to compromise and wanted to discover a new possibility altogether. He studied the mechanics of the body to develop a whole new interface. The knobs, dials, and keyboard a touch plate actually – sat right under your hands. He would analyze how a human being moved. He found, for instance, that a drummer uses his whole body. But he also realized that the drummer could get the same effect by using just the fingers. He redefined the techniques of musicianship and performing. He said, "Let's get rid of everything and see what the possibilities are." He was such an original thinker, and he still is. He's in Berkeley, still creating instruments and MIDI controllers. His odd, his enchanting self. . .

NAV: What were the sounds like?

Suzanne: The music was not predicated on any other instrument. You could move sound around the room, make notes fly in all directions. You could go from one timbre to another. The sounds were not trying to imitate acoustic instruments such as a flute, for instance; everything was morphing, in transition from one timbre to another everything in motion.

    I left the instrument running for a year or two to create self-generating compositions. I would set up the notes, or the note set, as I was always very tonal. So I would get a nice pretty note set. The way that these notes were played depended on the interaction of the sequencers, random voltage generators, and voltage controlled envelope generators. I could shape the sound very organically. The lights blinked with the intensity of the voltage, with the rhythm, with the movement. And the whole thing was pulsating and breathing and playing with the music. It was very alive!

    I would do a sound installation in a museum, and nobody could understand that this machine was generating the music; they knew tape recorders, and they thought something was being reproduced rather then being generated.

    Seven Waves is very much Buchla. There is no conventional keyboard used on that album. And it's on The Velocity of Love, but then my use of it fades out.

NAV: Was the transition to MIDI and samples hard for you? To go from generating pure sound to having a Strad on demand?

Suzanne: I had the Rolls Royce of sampling systems at the time, which was the Synclavier. Way overpriced at $200,000

NAV: Whoa!

Suzanne: Ten megabytes of RAM cost $50,000. Can you even imagine? It meant so much more when you paid so much for it! But I seldom used it on my albums. I was never fond of the replication of traditional sounds, never found a real use for them except in my work in television and commercials.

    I loved the more sophisticated controllers like the Lyricon wind controller. It was wonderful because you had volume and lip pressure to give you one more dimension of control.

NAV: And now you prefer?

Suzanne: Musically, I've returned to my acoustic roots, but I will always be a technophile. Now my studio is centered around Macs. I use Mark of the Unicorn Digital Performer and their 2408 hard disk recording software. It is super. 24-bit! Also, I have become a big Kurzweil fan and use both the 2500 Keyboard, which I have very suped up, and the 2000R. For mixing, I use the Yamaha M-01V digital mixer, but also do a lot of mixing in the computer, using Waves processing. For writing and sketching, I love the Yamaha Disklavier: I can get my ideas down quickly and then sit back and listen. And for scoring layouts I use Encore from Passport. Other synths include Alesis units, Korg, Roland, and Yamaha.

NAV: You focused mostly on electronics when you had your Ciani/Musica agency in the 1980s. And you won some Clio Awards for your commercial work, correct?

Suzanne: I won boxes and boxes of awards. One Clio winner that I remember fondly was General Electric's "Beep," the "Talking Dishwasher." The execs came to me and said, "Look, we have this new dishwasher that beeps when it's done! Can you underscore the commercial using the beep?" They wanted the whole commercial with this one sound   beep, beep, beep, beep – but I told them I could recreate the beep in my synthesizer, and then I could make it sing, make it come alive. Well, they didn't know if they could do that. Was it false representation? Well, I worked it up and everybody went crazy for it! It was so darling to have a dishwasher that talks, and it all went with the flashing lights.

NAV: So with all this interest in raw sound, did you compose space music?

Suzanne:: Yes, I went through the spacemusic stage way, way back. I did pieces called "breathing" that would go on for days. You'd be fascinated by the very slow evolution of the tone and the organic waves of sound. But as a "composer," I was always in the process of growing and moving forward, so I went . . .

NAV: Back to the melodic?

Suzanne: My Italian roots and a sense of melody. My roots go back to childhood when my mother got me interested in music by bringing home boxes of records, of Brahms, Chopin. I ate them up. Even in the electronic years, I have always been connected to classical music.

    Also, there was another element, which was I needed to "communicate." It would frustrate me greatly when I would write a piece that spoke to me and nobody else understood it.

    When I was a grad student at UC Berkeley, doing 12-tone and aleatory musicÑall the things we had to do as a grad studentÑI was already involved in electronics. But it was not part of the UC curriculum. And I asked if I could submit one of my electronic pieces. "What do you have to do to let us hear it?" I said that we'd have to go to a theatre, and I'd play it on a tape. I was just enthralled, and I was shivering at this ecstasy of sound, the beauty of my piece. And when it was all over, my professor came up to me and said, "Just tell me one thing..." Yes," I said, glowing. And he answered, "Why did you bring us here?" What an attack. But I learned that listening and hearing is an educated process.

    I was at Berkeley from 1968 to 1970; they finally got a Moog, but I wasnÕt allowed to play it until I got a certificate from a class taught by Bernie Krause. Ridiculous! I almost taught the class. It was a weird scene. It's kind of fun thinking back.

NAV: The good old days weren't so wonderful always.

Suzanne: They were wonderful, but they were funny. The only thing that frightens humans is the unknown. Electronics? People got nervous around something like that.

NAV: So even in 1968, with the huge popularity of Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach, there wasn't some acceptance of electronic music in the music department? [read my THREE interviews with Wendy Carlos here]

Suzanne: Switched-On Bach popularized for the public the notion of a synthesizer as an instrument. But not as electronic music. Wendy took existing baroque music and recreated it in these new electronic timbres. What really needed to happen was that there be a new language of the electronic new possibilities.

    Actually, I was also approached by CBS to do something similar; I mean, I had a record deal lined up, the head of the label standing in my studio, begging me. But I said, "No, that's not what electronic music is about to me." I felt very strongly that I didn't want to go down that path. But that's the path it went down, and Wendy was made to follow it for ten years. She was a genius at what she did, and we are all richer for her contribution, but we lost something as well: we lost the potential of a whole new compositional language.

NAV: Fastforward several years. On your 1985 megahit, "The Velocity of Love," you point out that the velocity of love is slow. Why?

Suzanne: You mean "slowly, slowly, with the velocity of love"?

NAV: Yes.

Suzanne: I think that because I knew that the path I had chosen as an artist was going to be a slow one. I was lucky I got an RCA record deal on The Velocity of Love, but they didn't understand the music. Somebody decided to experiment with me. I felt, meanwhile, that I was doing this from my passion. Slowly, slowly, it will find its audience. It will connect. That single "The Velocity of Love" connected so quickly, it was a big surprise when it happened.

     But unfortunately, I had some bad luck: when "The Velocity of Love" became this huge radio success, it was the exact moment that RCA was sold to BMG. So, I was put on the back shelf because I was part of the old regime. It was a huge radio hit, and you couldn't buy the record! It wasn't even distributed. So that was that. I signed a deal with a record company, and a month later, nobody there would speak to me. But I was smart. The good luck was that I knew no one understood the music, so I didn't sell them all the rights: I licensed it to them for five years.

NAV: Now how did you know to do that?

Suzanne: It came from my gut. These albums are like my children. I'd had a lot of experience doing films and commercials and legal contracts regarding the ownership of music. Logically, I thought, this music is part of me and it will be for my whole life. These record people want to own it, but they don't care about it forever. Why should I give it to them? I was stubborn, I was lucky, and I found some people who were willing to have me license.

    After those first two albums, I made a mistake and signed a traditional multi-record deal, where I signed over the ownership of the masters. It was so tempting. Promises were made. You think, "I'll get treated right because now I'm worthy, now they know who I am. We'll work together on a long term vision. And it will be great." Right. But what's the alternative? If you just license, retaining ownership of the master, you can't expect a long-term vision because they really have no rights to get anything additional from you.

NAV: I remember hearing you lecture at the San Francisco NAIRD convention where you and Joe talked about retaining publishing rights. And I was amused when you said that the best career move you ever made was to marry your music lawyer.

Suzanne: It's true! But I don't know if I can give that advice to everyone. (And there are moments I wish I had married a car mechanic!)

NAV: So do you have all your albums back in your company or are some stuck somewhere?

Suzanne: My five Private Music albums are stuck (but still available for sale) at Windham Hill. I could try to buy them back, but the price, if they'd be willing to sell, would be astronomical. Now I have six albums on my own label. And I'm making more music. So I'm happy.

NAV: What are the lessons you learned from being under contract with the majors?

Suzanne: Our culture should have more respect for the independent artist. To sign with a major seems like such a validating endorsement, like if you're not with a major, you're not up to snuff. I think it would be a healthy change of perception to make space for an artist to choose to be independent, that you don't need a major label to be seen as a real artist.

    Also, it is a stark reality that the majors are big, bigger, and biggest. They have taken over the world, and there are few and fewer of them. What that means is the homogenization of life as we know it. The world of music has become very narrow: just a few companies program 90% of radio.

    The big problem for independents is wide distribution. And it's a problem because the majors don't want it solved. They want to control distribution and control the internet, too. The internet "solution" is also tricky: MP3 comes along and says, "Hey, put your demos here. Let's stick it to the majors!" So the artist gives away his songs because he's hungry for exposure. But, realistically, professional musicians have to go the next step. To the artist who is recording and selling albums, this business is beyond sharing art. It's a profession. You want people to love your music, so you give it away? How much sense does that make? You have to have income to go forward with the production. A longer vision is needed.

NAV: How do you operate your business?

Suzanne: My music studio is here at the house, but the label office is in Mill Valley. When we started, my husband was president and we had two assistants on staff. There was a collapse in the independent distribution network a few years, so we had to retool our label and dropped our other artists. We now have a few part time assistants, but I do a lot of the nitty gritty. Over Christmas, I licked stamps for a mailing. I've been on both ends. I had 30 people on staff when I had my company in New York, and I had no contact with the world because I was buffered by my staff. Now I even answer my own email from my website. Some people aren't prepared for getting the real me! I want to be in contact with my own life. I've done the other, and now I want to do this.

NAV: Real life. Can you describe the period when your mother was ill and you found you had breast cancer? Can you even talk about that period?

Suzanne: This is fascinating to deal with. I don't think one can have a bad experience without being gifted something in the other dimension. If you look for it, thereÕs always some good on the other side. Nobody wants painful experiences, but we can't be afraid of them; something good always comes from them.

    So. Story is: I got breast cancer. And that totally changed my life! Living with a view of the Empire State Building. I got breast cancer. And said, "Whoops! Time for a change." I uprooted myself and moved to the west coast. Within six months I met my husband. Amazing! Everything that shifted for me in a good way was brought to me by breast cancer. Life is a limited quantity, so you'd better be following your heart.

NAV: Was your mother out west at the time?

Suzanne: My mom had Alzheimer's. I have four sisters, and we took turns taking care of her. Then my dad got sick, and he died six weeks after my mom. It was a struggle, but through this, I found yet another dimension to life. In that period, I came home a lot, back to Quincy, Massachusetts, where I grew up. At first, home seemed like a foreign place to me. I was coming from New York, from "My Life," and I went back to where nothing was happening, where all I did was clean the house. But I am so grateful for that, because now what do I have in me? I don't have nineteen years in New York. That's just a blip! I have restored my roots, my memories of my father, and that connection with my childhood. I renewed old friendships, and all that enriched my life in a way that the fast track in New York just didn't.

NAV: Meanwhile, youÕve had a lot of wonderful musical recognition. You've been nominated for five Grammy Awards, including this year for Turning.

Suzanne: It's always a wonderful thing, the surprise when you're nominated. This time, it means a lot because I'm an independent label. The majors have such a huge voting block, I don't know how I was selected. It would be really great to win, just for all the indie labels. I feel so indentified with that cause!

NAV: Just a minute, Suzanne. Someone's at the door. . . . You won't believe this. Another New Age Voice writer, Antoinette Botsford, is at the door, and she's holding a large plate of steaming, hot lasagna! Should I let her in?

Suzanne: Italian food! Let her in. Shove it over the phone lines!

NAV: So, what musical projects are you working on now?

Suzanne:: I'm finishing my third piano book, "Suzanne Ciani: Turning" for Hal Leonard. It gives me an opportunity to be the composer and to write out the piano arrangements of the songs the way that I want.

     I'm also pursuing some film scoring. I was the youngest woman to do a major motion picture when I composed the score for The Incredible Shrinking Woman in 1980. I had a lovely mentor at Universal named Verna Fields, and she would continue to offer me films. We were looking for the right project when she got cancer and died. After that, I never quite reconnected with Hollywood.

    I just attended the Sundance Festival, networking with my music editor Kenny Hall, who did all the Jerry Goldsmith films. It's a small community, and it's difficult to crack in to. I really don't want to live and work in LA, and that's not okay with a lot of film people. I lived in New York for nineteen years, so I've paid my city dues. It's okay now for me to spend some time in beauty.

NAV: What about live performances?

Suzanne: I really enjoy performing for people on the piano. After all those years I used to do concerts with synths. It was like raising the moon shuttle, worrying all systems would "go"! Now, here I am at a different stage. I enjoy just sitting at the piano and taking the audience with me into a magical space. It's very satisfying.

    And I've also had the very good fortune of putting together my band, The Wave, an incredible super group of world-class musicians that includes Paul McCandless, Matt Eakle, Michael Manring, Teja Bell, and others. We first played together for the Live album and then toured in Spain and Asia. Performing with The Wave ensemble opened me up to new possibilities and my latest album, Turning, was a direct result. The special beauty of these players is that they are all classically trained, yet jazz players as well, so I was able to stretch my classical vocabulary.

NAV: And your first foray into vocal territory.

Suzanne: "Turning," the title track, is the first vocal I've put on any of my records, and I think that finally writing a song with lyrics has opened up a new direction for me. In all of my early recordings I used my voice through the Bode vocoder as an instrumental timbre to add a feminine presence. I've always felt that having a lyric takes the ear away from the subtleties possible in a purely instrumental form, but as an artist and composer, I'm always drawn to my own uncharted territory. Never say never.

NAV: You could sing it yourself, then...

Suzanne: I don't sing! My third grade teacher let me know clearly that I couldn't. So "Turning" required finding the right voice. Chyi-yu certainly was an inspirational discovery for me, and perhaps we'll do further projects together.

NAV: Going to attend the Grammy ceremonies?

Suzanne: It should be fun. You get bags of goodies and go to lots of parties. But the funny thing about the Grammy awards is that it's limo hell. Everybody is there all dressed up, stumbling around in the parking lot. Nobody can find their car!

NAV: Attach a balloon to your antenna.

Suzanne: What a great idea! That's hilarious. I'll do it! 

 Copyright 2000, Carol Wright, all rights reserved