When I was researching the History section for Patch & Tweak, one of the people I contacted was Serge Tcherepnin, creator of the Serge Modular Music System. This turned into a lovely email conversation about his early influences as well as the inspiration behind his unique module designs – Serge instruments definitely takes the road less traveled. What follows is not a traditional interview, but highlights from those illuminating conversations, organized into topics.
The Beginnings
Our story starts when Serge moves to the US from Europe, where he finds one of his college friends is a member of the Pulsa Group at Yale University. “I quasi-joined them, spending time at their commune in Connecticut, as did a number of fellow musicians known for electronic music, Alvin Curran, Maryanne Amacher, Richard Teitelbaum, and others.
“This is noteworthy with respect to my work in synths, because they had built their own homebrew synth that they used for their installations. The PULSA synth was materially incapable of performing a version of ‘Switched On Bach’ or any disco type of thing.
