London: Marx’s beloved Kapital
QUESTION What were the origins of the vocoder that Steve Harley liked to use on his records?
THE VOCODER, short for voice encoder, was developed in the 1920s for telecommunications encoding purposes by Bell Labs engineer Homer Dudley.
Dudley’s work was focused on improving the quality of long-distance telephone calls by reducing bandwidth requirements. His vocoder worked by splitting the input sound into multiple frequency bands. It then used these bands to modulate a carrier signal, creating a blend of the two sources. Selective filtering reduced the input signal’s full audio spectrum to a fraction of its original bandwidth.
Dudley’s research led to the development of the first vocoder prototype, which he called the Voder. The Voder was demonstrated at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and garnered significant attention.
During World War II, the vocoder was used for secure voice communication by the military.
The major transition from military device to musical effect was when composer Wendy Carlos used it on the soundtrack for 1971’s A Clockwork Orange. She performed a vocoder arrangement of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, using a Moog synthesiser as the carrier signal.
Steve Harley, who sadly died recently, used the vocoder extensively on his 1976 album Love’s A Prima Donna, on the songs G.I. Valentine, Finally A Card Came and Is It True What They Say?
They have since become especially popular in electronic music genres where artists use them to manipulate and distort vocal sounds creatively. Some famous tracks that use the technology include In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins and Blue Monday by New Order.
Philip Murray, stirling.
QUESTION Did Canada have Indian Wars in the way America did?
IN CANADA there were conflicts between indigenous peoples and European settlers, but they weren’t systematic.
In the United States the Indian Wars were characterised by largescale violence and displacement of indigenous peoples. They were underlined by a deliberate policy of westward expansion.
One notable series of conflicts in Canada were the Beaver Wars in the 17th century. These were complex affairs; the Iroquois Confederation led by the Mohawks mobilised against Huron, Algonquin and related tribes of the Great Lakes region. The Iroquois were supplied with arms by their Dutch and English trading partners; the Algonquins and Hurons were backed by the French, their chief trading partner.
Another later period of conflict was the resistance of indigenous peoples to the encroachment of European settlers and the imposition of Canadian government policies, such as the Red River Rebellion led by Métis leader Louis Riel in the late 19th century, and the Northwest Resistance led by Cree chief Big Bear.
These conflicts were often localised and driven by specific grievances rather than part of a larger, organised campaign of conquest.
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