"Born in Chicago in 1945 she took a degree in social science before studying music at Juilliard specialising in Baroque and Renaissance lute. She then took a leap into electronic music and in the 1970s wrote interactive compositional software at Bell Labs and founded the New York University Computer Music Studio. She also became famous in rock circles for her music software for personal computers. Lauarie Spiegel's own electronic music is minimalist and deals with textures, not melody. Among her works in the 1970s was a piece using mathematical algorithms to make audible a set of laws of planetary motions devised by the 17th century astronomer Johann Kepler which he called the Harmony of the Planets, and it was this work which NASA chose to be part of 'The Golden Record' on board the Voyager space craft."
via Rhythm Divine where you'll find a full transcript and audio if you have WMP or Real Player.
Pictured: "Pioneer in the field of computer-generated music: Laurie Spiegel"
via @stretta
Update: be sure to see the comments in this post for more bits of info.
I think the software was "Music Mouse" and was around in the Atari/Amiga days - I still have a copy someplace... it was amazingly fun to use.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what year that picture was taken? That looks like the RCA Mark II (or part of it)...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Ms. Spiegels contribution to the Golden Record is only about 15 seconds long, although it's a nice introduction to the hodge-podge of sounds that it's a part of.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was Music Mouse, and it's still available - http://retiary.org/ls/programs.html
ReplyDelete