results from previous use of the software, FAQ, etc. The site is maintained in all of the languages in which the CD-ROM has been published.

Functions and Options

Most Norwegian schools are equipped with PC equipment, so the choice of machine base was relatively simple: any PC running Windows 95 with a built-in or added soundcard is able to run the DSP programs included in the CD-ROM.

The user is first asked to name his/her project, and the mixer screen then appears. The mixer screen is the home domain for the project. One may proceed directly to the DSP programs to make sounds, investigate the tutorial texts or select the demo mode.

As mentioned above, the demo mode brings up a description of a piece of music, where each sound may be “opened” in a DSP program with the settings that made that particular sound. If a sound has been processed several times the user may follow the process backwards until reaching the initial starting point. At any point, the user may tweak the parameters. The user may also open the demo piece as a mix file and work on the sounds there, saving new sounds in the project and thus changing the composition.

After tweaking existing sounds, making new ones or treating one’s own sounds, the project will contain enough sound files to make a piece of music. The mixing process works much the same as in the programs “Mix” for the SGI or ProTools for Macintosh. One can bounce the mix to disk and then process it with a reverberation program that teaches acoustics through room simulation; moving walls and ceilings, sound source and listener position.

Project Reports

The CD-ROM has been used in several contexts and is currently being used in the Norwegian school system. The most successful projects were the Breaking the Sound Barrier concerts in 1996 and 1997.

Breaking the Sound Barrier 1996

The composition workshop this year included very different approaches to working with composition. One was the development of a musical work by a composer in collaboration with two fifth grade classes, where the result was performed by the pupils at a huge concert in Oslo Philharmonic Hall. The other approach involved a seasoned composer to have three “apprentices” follow the composer’s work on a concert program with a tape piece of their own, and to participate in the diffusion. The concert was engineered by GRM on the Acousmonium. The concert included these two works as well as a number of electroacoustic works that were directed towards a mature audience.