Lyrics '81: How to Play the Synthesizer - The Magnetic Fields

'81: How to Play the Synthesizer

Take a single oscillator
Producing a drone
Send it to the wave shaper
Altering the tone
This can be a triangle
Sawtooth or a square
Modulate the pulse width
Nobody will care
This is how to play the synthesizer
This is how to play the synthesizer
Now go to the filter bank
Low, high, band or notch
Fiddle with the cutoff point
Pour yourself a Scotch
Modern filters oscillate
All by themselves
It sounds like you’re torturing
Little metal elves
This is how to play the synthesizer
This is how to play the synthesizer
Nextly, shape the envelope
AKA ADSR
Attack, delay, sustain, release
Which means how loud you are
One millisecond to the next
Whether you pluck or lurch
Or ooze like an organist
In a Venusian church
This is how to play the synthesizer
This is how to play the synthesizer
Now you play the synthesizer
Don’t be lazy now
Make it hiss like rattlesnakes
Or moo like a cow
Crash like a hundred marbles
Smashing on the floor
You can make a thousand sounds
Never heard before
This is how to play the synthesizer
This is how to play the synthesizer