I have been making music and sound art of some type since high school in the early 70's. My initiation was probably a combination of minimalism and abstract ideas - moving away from melody or standard rhythms. I found in these two ideas a way of enjoying making and participating in music without worrying too much about technical virtuosity and knowledge which I was too lazy to develop or study. Over time - I've developed more traditional skill on a number of instruments (nothing to rival most beginning students though!) and this has deepened my theoretical interest in minimalist and abstract sound. For the last few years I've been performing with a group of like minded people in a group called Ellipsis...

Hopefully you are listening to a piece of mine called Art Train, which I made to help CiTR radio in Vancouver celebrate Art's Birthday on Jan. 17, 2000. In 1963 artist Robert Filliou suggested that we celebrate the birth of art on Jan.17. Every year since, the idea has spread a little further and perhaps you too will now be an art celebrant! CiTR has been mounting a day long celebration for a couple of years.  

If you stop the piece playing in the background (click on the pause button in the media player in the upper left corner) you can then play some of the pieces below. Click on their play buttons. If your soundcards supports it - you may even be able to collage them all at once!

		Cecil, a four part piece.	These pieces were composed on my PC computer with a Creative Labs Live sound card, I also monitor through my stereo. This gives me some very good instrument sounds to work with, especially the pianos. They may sound thinner on your system - but hopeful ly General Midi will give you some idea of the direction these go in!  All compositions copyright Steven Slater, various dates etc. All rights reserved except feel free to listen, dowload and listen to later, improvise on etc, but commercial exploitation etc. cannot be made without my prior written consent. Trumpet graphic above by John S. Gray
		A piano solo.
		A piano duet.
		A grittier piece!

Here is a little slide show I've made. Its a Windows program and is zipped to 560K.It unzips to a massive 640 K but it it will save a couple of nanoseconds.