American classical composer
Gareth Loy is an American author, composer, musician and mathematician. He is the author of the two volume series about the intersection of music and mathematics titled "Musimathics". He was an early practitioner of music synthesis at Stanford, and wrote the first software compiler for the Systems Concepts Digital Synthesizer (Samson Box). More recently, He has published the freeware music programming language "Musimat", designed specifically for subjects covered in "Musimathics", available as a free download. Although Musimathics was first published in 2006 and 2007, the series continues to evolve with updates by the author and publishers. The texts are being used in numerous mathematics and music classes at both the graduate and undergraduate level, with more current reviews noting that the originally targeted academic distribution is now reaching a much wider audience. Music synthesis pioneer Max Mathews stated that his books are a "guided tour-de-force of the mathematics of physics and music.He has always been a brilliantly clear writer. In "Musimathics", he is also an encyclopedic writer. He covers everything needed to understand existing music and musical instruments, or to create new music or new instruments. His book and John R. Pierce's famous "The Science of Musical Sound" belong on everyone's bookshelf, and the rest of the shelf can be empty." John Chowning states, in regard to Nekyia and the Samson Box, "After completing the (Samson Box) software, Loy composed Nekyia, a beautiful and powerful composition in four channels that fully exploited the capabilities of the Samson Box. As an integral part of the (original Stanford) community, Loy has paid back many times over all that he learned, by conceiving the (Samson) system with maximal generality such that it could be used for research projects in psychoacoustics as well as for hundreds of compositions by a host of composers having diverse compositional strategies."
Biographical background.
Loy was born in Los Angeles in 1945. He was an early employee at Apple Computer, and is the brother of the late Tom Loy, a renowned molecular archaeologist, and member of the team that researched Oetzi the Iceman.
In the 1960s and 1970s, CCRMA – the Center for Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University – which was then a research project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), developed fundamental technologies later used extensively in the digital synthesizer and digital audio industries. Dr. Loy was a grad student at CCRMA in the mid-70s, and wrote the compiler software for the original Samson Box, which was the original and most powerful and complex digital synthesizer/processor of the day. Since Dr. Loy is both a mathematician and a composer, in addition to the mathematics, engineering and software code for the Samson Box, Loy also composed Nekyia, a dynamic and powerful four channel composition, to fully demonstrate the capabilities of the Samson Box. Nekyia still stands today as a landmark in digital composition, and maintains its power despite the advances in synthesizer technology since then. Loy received his B.A. from San Francisco State University in 1975 and his DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) from Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and CCRMA, in Computer Science, Signal Processing and Digital Music Composition in 1980. Gareth lives with his wife Lisa in San Rafael, California.
Current activities.
In addition to composing, performing and writing journal articles on the technology of mathematics and music, Dr. Loy has been an expert witness in some high visibility legal cases, performing forensic analysis of technology details. Loy has testified in numerous such cases involving Guitar Hero and other technologies, performing forensic analysis of technology details to clarify patent issues.
Composer and performer.
Loy has been a long-time member of the Flying Without Instruments band, which has performed internationally, including compositions by Loy. Loy's composition "Blood From a Stone" (1992) was written for an electronic violin designed by Max Mathews and performed by Negyesy. Gareth also performs in the Tenaya Classical Guitar Duo, and founded the San Francisco performance art group "Hermes," which performed live concerts of abstract electronic music with liquid light projections for 5 years in the early 1970s.
References.
 ;templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" / ;