Paul's Page


	Paul in his home studio Photo ©1999 by Evan Kafka for Wired

About Paul Lehrman Here's his home page…

Paul D. Lehrman, PhD, composer, author, consultant, and educator, is one of the world's leading experts on MIDI and computer music.

He studied electronic music composition at Columbia University with Vladimir Ussachevsky, Mario Davidovsky, and Charles Dodge, and received a B.F.A. in orchestral performance from the State University of New York College at Purchase (now known as Purchase Conservatory), where his teachers included William Polisi, Donald MacCourt, Robert Levin, Anthony Newman, and Raymond DesRoches. In 2000 he received an M.A. in music performance technology from Lesley University, where his thesis advisors included Tod Machover and George Litterst; and in 2010 the PhD in interdisciplinary studies from Tufts University, where his advisors were John McDonald (music composition), Judith Wechsler (art history), Karen Panetta (electrical engineering), and Theresa Marrin Nakra (music technology).

He was the creator of the first all-MIDI album, The Celtic Macintosh (1986), and has had compositions commissioned by Newcomp, the Boston Computer Society, the Society for Small Computers in the Arts, the Audio Engineering Society, and UMass Lowell.

He has scored numerous television films and multimedia productions for PBS, A&E, France 3, Israel TV, Harcourt Brace, and Houghton Mifflin Interactive. Some recent projects include The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Real Story, for the Discovery Channel; The Eternal Road: Encounter With the Past, for PBS and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for which he researched, arranged, and performed music by Kurt Weill; and the feature documentary, When Comedy Went to School.

He is co-author of MIDI For The Professional (Music Sales Corp.), for over 20 years the standard college-level text on MIDI, and is author of Getting Into Digital Recording (Hal Leonard) and The Insider Audio Bathroom Reader (Cengage Publishing), and has contributed to several other books.

He has written over 500 articles on music technology for publications including Wired, New Media, Keyboard, Electronic Musician, EQ, Piano & Keyboard, Sound on Sound, the Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix, Technology Illustrated, Studio Sound, Oui, High Times, Millimeter, and Recording Engineer/Producer, and from 1996 to 2008 was the "Insider Audio" columnist for Mix magazine. He was also the web editor for the Technical Excellence and Creativity (TEC) Awards from 1997 to 2015.

He served three terms as executive director of the MIDI Manufacturers Association during which time he contributed to the development of MIDI Time Code, MIDI Machine Control, and General MIDI. He has been a consultant for numerous hardware and software manufacturers including Kurzweil, Yamaha, Roland, Avid/Digidesign, ROLI, MOTU, Opcode Systems, Passport Designs, AKG, JBL, TASCAM, and Apple Computer. He served on the faculty of the program in Sound Recording Technology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell from 1988 to 1999, and was Associate Director for Development of the Center for Recording Arts, Technology & Industry from 1993 to 1997.

Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of Tufts University, where he directs the interdisciplinary program in Music Engineering, and teaches courses in computer music, sound recording, iOS music app programming, the history of electronic music, and electronic musical instrument design, as well as co-directing the Tufts Electronic Music Ensemble (TEME), and directing research projects sponsored by Steinway & Sons and Avedis Zildjian Corporation.