This music was instrumented/orchestrated on an iMac using MOTU Mosaic, and Quicktime for the sound playback. Consequently, Quicktime, either in standalone or as a plug-in for Netscape or Internet Explorer, should give you excellent results if you have a reasonably good sound card.

Of course, use of tiny or internal speakers will also damage your realization of this or any music, especially for low notes. Laptops are almost hopeless, since they rarely use the best soundcards.

If, in spite of a QuickTime plug-in the music sounds a lot like an electronic beeper with varying pitch, or a mouth organ, and the percussion is strange and loud, you have a low-cost low-quality sound card. You might get a faint hint that a passage is flute-like or brass-like, but only a hint. Any strings sound like harmonicas, and not very good ones.

There are PC sound cards of varying quality. Very old or very cheap ones use 8-bit. Later ones used 16-bit or 32-bit. These are still pretty bad, although an improvement. The latest, with 64-bit or 128-bit are much, much better. You will find the difference dramatic. It even makes game sound effects sound better.

There is another problem. The Midi standards are somewhat loose on exact implementation of their 127 different sounds/instruments (plus percussion). The high quality cards (even Sound Blaster) will have excellent sound, but vary in loudness and attack (Soundblaster, at least with Microsoft Media Player, favors very sharp, sudden attacks). This can alter the planned balance (relative instrument dynamics) of an orchestral piece. The current Microsoft Media Player also has these poor characteristics, as well as harmonica-like strings.

If these things bother you, and you don't want to get a good soundcard or to use QuickTime for some reason, we recommend use of the Roland VSC (Virtual Sound Canvas) software, which actually bypasses your sound card processor, although you then need a fairly fast main processor, 166MHz or better. Like QuickTime, it seems to match the sound and dynamic setup under which this music was composed. Its download location seems to change sometimes, so you may have to do some searching on the web. There was a free VSC-55 demo for Windows 95, and a VSC-88 full version for Windows or Mac, but these seem to have disappeared, so you'll have to look around. Try this site.

The music is original and was composed in 2000-2001, using the MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) Professional Composer and Performer software on an iMac. All dynamics, ritards, etc. are written in. (The MOTU software is a kind of sophisticated word processor for music notes instead of words.)

The orchestration was performed using the MOTU Mosaic (composer) software, plus the MOTU Performer for adding instrument patches, on an iMac, with QuickTime, which has good instrument sounds.

The music does not strictly follow the story, but motifs are used.

The Dop
The newfound mind virus.

3 Advance Party
Arrival of advance party to Earth, led by the Grath Zac, and 2 Gorgons
Main invasion force coming later.
They consider Earth lacking in psi, an easy civilization for another takeover.

Tommy & Horse
Tommy & Horse ~10yrs old, in Africa, mongrel boy of Bushman, Hottentot, Bantu, European, and Malay
apricot yellow coloration, peppercorn hair, orphan, adopted
Pursuit by Gorgon
The arrow, death of first Gorgon

Johnny
Johnny
8yrs old, in city slum
So ultra-sensitive to radio, sound, and thought that he never spoke, debilitated by the "noise"
Visit by Calder, an alien (Grath) in a man who is a newspaper reporter
His inadvertent trigger of the psi virus in Johnny awakens his psi.

Gorgon Pursuit
The half-sentient flying scanning discs sent by the Grath after Tommy & Horse
The sensing of Tommy & Horse by Johnny and their contact
The first spoken words of Johnny to his mother.

Cathy
Cathy
~9yrs old, medium-sized town, crippled legs, smart, outstanding student
Local government taken over by human aliens are searching for all "different" children
Sample propaganda: "Can normal children maintain their sane, logical outlook on life if they come into contact with mental giants?
Has your child an inferiority complex and the wrong outlook on life because the Jones boy makes him feel like a moron at school?
Wouldn't mental segregation at the infant level be preferable?"
Such children are "voluntarily" taken away, segregated

Cathy's Escape
Daytime attack in park by 3 teenagers against "cripple" and her mother triggers Cathy's psi
She does a "step-up" escape to another space and time
She contacts Tommy & Horse.
As missile goes after them, they step-up and escape its blast.

The Missile
Tommy & Horse are pursued by a hal-sentient disc/missile. Cathy contacts them and transports them away.

Ephraim
Ephraim
7 yrs old, in small town or a suburb
Natural psi, considers it a game, moves into a mist out-of-body, teleports & merges with people to hear their thoughts.
Grathian visitor shot by uncle when he attempts to shoot Ephraim

Alpheus
Alpheus
~10 yrs, very small town, remote location between plains & mountains
Tow-haired boy
Can become semi-solid giant, can "trample", does so to a "human" alien, Alex
Senses and makes contact with other psi children

George
George
~11 yrs; highly sensitive to territory/geography of area
Has luck & telekinesis psis, triggered by Gorgon that George finds (with his dog Bongo) in the crack in the ground.

Bongo (the dog) & The Gorgon
A Grath headquarters city is enclosed by a psi barrier erected by the aliens
Gorgon morphing and growing within plumbing and wiring of city to take it over
In final encounter, George causes acid to spill through the city's plumbing, kills Gorgon.
Joined by other psi children walking as giant shadows into city
Grath Calder killed.

Patience
Patience
~10 yrs old, catatonic, empty mind.
Grath Zac studying similar humans, tries deep telepathic probe, unknowingly triggers her awakening.
Other children sense, join forces to fill her mind with all their experiences and knowledge.
Cathy awakes, possesses a psi force of love.
She finds Zac, re-arranges him, or rather, his attitude.

They fear only one thing -- possible retaliatory Psi powers in the population they are invading, so they have set up teams of Grath who are searching among the population of Earth for possible hidden Psi's. So far, they have found no reason to fear..."

Perceiving esp-gifted people to be a threat, the Grath undertake a world-wide program to find and "re-educate" such people, especially young ones.

However, their very processes of search and interrogation start triggering the previously quiescent esp-capabilities of young earthlings, and some of these capabilities are very powerful indeed...

"They're going to take George away?" asked his wife, knowing the answer.

Wills nodded.

"My God. First the crippled, then the intellectually gifted . . ." Her voice trailed away. "He's none of those!" Wills protested violently. "They say he's different in a wild way, but he's not. He's just an average kid, out playing and dawdling about --"

"Why is this happening?" she screamed,

"What is making us persecute each other?"

George stood by the riverbank, his dog at his heels. Growling softly, the shaggy animal pointed rigidly at a crack in the pavement. The boy kneeled beside it, sensing the wrongness. For an instant a picture flashed of tentacles penetrating through all the corridors under the city. Then the hazy mist gathered in strength, writhing and twisting toward him. In the swirling whirlwind, George could see the outline of long, curving claws....