Intense one hour video tape of every type of tornado in action, shot at close range by courageous amateurs. Produced and edited by Norm Beerger, most of the music is compsosed and performed by Laurie Spiegel but also contains sections by Steve Roach, Sarah Hopkins and Michael Stearns.
Interactive Music Software on computer disk. (Requires no previous musical training!) Widely hailed as a revolution in publicly available music software when first released in 1986, Music Mouse has been called a musical instrument, a compositional method, an interactive process piece, a tool for computer assisted improvisation, an artificial intelligence "expert system," a work of "software art," and "so much fun it should be sold by prescription only."
The program, written by composer Laurie Spiegel for personal computers, uses software logic to allow users at any level of musical experience to express themselves musically simply by moving the computer's "mouse" input device while controlling harmony, voicing, tempo, and electronic "orchestration" from the computer's keyboard. Because of its power, ease of use, and the fact that it requires no conventional music training, Music Mouse is used in extremely varied contexts - amateur home music, professional Hollywood film soundtrack composition, concert performance, all levels of music education and during music therapy in prisons, hospitals and elsewhere.
RECORDINGS
Nine digitally synthesized works by Laurie Spiegal composed during 1987-1990, includes 7 improvisations done with Spiegel's own MIDI program Music Mouse, plus two algorithmic pieces and an extended timbral composition using various computer composition techniques. "Some pretty amazing heartfelt molecular inner-happening soundscape soul journeys." Terry Riley "Laurie Spiegel is one of those rare composers in whom head and heart, left brain and right brain, logic and intuition merge and even exchange roles." Kyle Gann
Laurie Spiegel is widely acknowledged as a long-time pioneer in the use of computers in music. This record was her first complete album and consists of modal and meditational pieces composed during 1974-1976 in which she generated sounds through real time interaction with her early compositional algorithms (using the now-long-defunct GROOVE hybrid computer system at Bell Telephone Labs, Murray Hill.) Using the computer to control analog synthesis modules, Spiegel was able to interact with compositional logic in real time several years prior to the development of real time digital sound synthesis. Consequently, this record is one of the earliest examples of interactive composition using real time digital logic.
These works by Laurie Spiegel are contained on side two of the out-of-print Capriccio Record New American Music, Vol. II, which was produced by American Women Composers, Inc. in 1983. The polyrhythmic Drums was composed on the Bell Labs GROOVE System in 1976 under the influence of Indian and African rhythms. Voices Within was created in 1979 using a 1970 ElectroComp analog synthesizer and classic tape techniques. It is microtonal, moody and builds with timbral density. (Side one of this LP contains works by Alexandra Pierce and Ruth Loman.)
SOLO PIANO SCORES
Two movements, 3 pages, laserprinted, 1985-86.
Two movements, 8 pages, laserprinted, 1988-89.
Photocopy of manuscript, 10 pages, 1981. "Caveat: This history does not pretend to be any more objective, comprehensive, or accurate than any other." L.S.
SOLO CLASSICAL GUITAR SCORES
Photocopy of manuscript, 2 pages, 1972.
Five movements, four pages, photocopy of manuscript. Written for both the composer (Spiegel) and her guitar students in the late 60's.
Three movements, 7 pages, composed in 1983, 1987 and 1990. Laserprinted with handwritten fingerings added by the composer. Evocative of traditional repetoire which includes the likes of Sor and Dowland, but isn't.
OTHER SOLO SCORES
For harpischord, 14 pages, laserprinted, 1982 and 1990.
For solo mandolin, two movements, 6 pages, photocopy of manuscript, 1984.
OUT OF STOCK
Spiegel attended Shimer and Brooklyn Colleges, Oxford University and the Julliard School. She studied composition with Jacob Druckman and computer music with Emmanuel Ghent and Max Mathews. Spiegel draws on a wide variety of musical roots, and her instrumental background includes banjo, folk and classical guitar, and renaissance and baroque lute. She is best known, however, for her work with electronic media, an activity in which she has been involved since the late 1960s. After several years of instrumental and analog composition, she began to compose with computers at Bell Telephone Labs in 1973. Her music has been heard widely in festivals, with video, film and dance. She has received commissions to compose works for chamber orchestra and other instrumental media. web site
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