Suzanne Ciani, “the American Delia Derbyshire of the Atari Generation,” explains how synthesizers work on the Children’s Television Workshop PBS TV series 3-2-1 Contact in 1980 and on David Letterman’s original NBC morning program that same year.

The Grammy-nominated Ciani’s 70’s and 80’s commercial work for Atari, on Xenon pinball machines (the first arcade game to use digitally sampled sound), “The Star Wars Theme” by Meco and other clients is being collected in archival releases by Finders Keepers Records. The first is Lixiviation
 

On 3-2-1 Contact demonstrating demonstrating how synthetic sounds are made.
 
After the jump, Suzanne Ciani with David Letterman in 1980…