Bell Laboratories

Max Mathews was working as an engineer at the famed Bell Laboratory in 1954 when he was asked to determine if the computer Bell was designing could create music. The landmark Music 2 and later Music 4 projects put the two concepts together as early as 1957-–the computer and music had a future and Max was there for the birth. Max had moved on to musical programming when Don Buchla and Robert Moog created similar electronic music in the form of the synthesizer. As a Stanford University professor, Max worked with his close friend John Chowning for several decades on a number of progr

Laurie Spiegel joined Bell Labs in 1973 wanting to explore what digital computers could offer for musical composition beyond what she'd been able to do with traditional acoustic, written and analog electronic music technologies. She worked at Bell Labs, independently, under the sponsorship of her mentor Max Mathews, creating her own interactive software for music and visual art. Over the years, working on one after another computer musical instrument, she establish her track record as a pioneer in the world of electronic composition and a mentor in turn to a new generation of arti