on the range

He began along the Western trail.
Forsook sleep for a year 
perhaps he favored
certain interpretations of Mahler & Bartok
& sought explanations in the work
of perfect wakeful delirium.

Because once his trumpet 
had forced Bizet into submission
was compelled to take up Rameau
& become an ornamenteur,
author a science fiction novel,
collect books & the successors of books.

Machine & Classic eras 
merged in him.
Optics, Ovid, Cicero. 
Acoustics, Homer, I Ching.

Levers of logician's craft
were to to be learned & turned:
self-taught Lisp, Greek,
a doer of devices, DMX & drivers.

He took what he could
from the industry of code
& for his muse concocted film music 
& a choreographer's stage.

But the range,
not the peripatetics
of MIT, Montreal, Florence or Flanders
beamed the polyphony of his scores.

Knowing this,
he became hexagram of that range.

for dean 7 APR 2001 

The Digital Music Systems DMX-1000 was an early synthesizer Mr. Wallraff designed.  It predated the DX7, and was used in many academic computer music settings in the 70-80's. Some references to it are still out there (1) (2) (3).  This excerpt from a computer music book review shows its influence: "In the section, 'Synthesizer Hardware and Engineering,' covers the SSSP instrument in Toronto (now, sadly, mothballed), the DMX-1000, and the early IRCAM instruments in Paris."