Laurie Spiegel on Electronic Music

Though this previously unreleased (and sadly incomplete) footage from a 1985 interview with electronic music pioneer and secret crush Laurie Spiegel only lasts about twelve minutes, it took me at least three times that long to finish it. This wasn't due to any sense of boredom or confusion, but rather that her statements felt so perpetually "right on" that I kept pausing and rewinding the video in an effort to write them down. I'd hoped that a pithy quote from the interview would motivate a few readers enough to make it through the first couple of minutes of non-Laurie footage and into the really good stuff, but I suppose this meta-anecdote will have to do.

Most interesting to me is just how relevant her comments on the role of computers in the music making process are to my experiences more than twenty-five years later. While I feel that the "time saving" aspect of computer-based composition vs. traditional pen and staff paper has had perhaps less expected repercussions (e.g. for a computer, playing the same musical phrase one hundred times is as easy as playing it one time. Thus: house music), her thoughts on the value of creative discovery through interaction with an instrument (electronic or otherwise) vs. using that instrument to realize an already-formed idea perfectly describes a significant component of my compositional process. Not to mention her thoughts on how the new sonic possibilities made available by electronic instruments broaden the scope of what constitutes "music," or the performance possibilities that emerge when one is freed from strict interactions with limbs and notes, or... actually, just watch the interview.

Here's a clip of the performance she mentions in the interview:

Finally, it might interest you to note that the YouTube user that posted these interview videos is... Laurie Spiegel herself.