audio query

> As a writer and non-programmer (high school Fortran in 1986) who has
> used out-of-the-box tools such as flash and dreamweaver, I've just
> begun teaching myself Squeak--which was recommended by a hypertext
> writer/aquaintence Jim Rosenberg.  My interest is in building
> interactive text / audio projects and live-art-performance tools in a
> user-defined workspace apart from the constraints/habits associated
> with Flash and Director, and without the platform dependence and
> proprietary concerns.  I've gathered what seem to be the "classic"
> beginner texts: Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots, Squeak: A Quick
> Trip to ObjectLand, and Squeak: Object-Oriented Design with Multimedia
> Application (Guzdial).
> Can anyone speak to the multimedia potential of Squeak and/or its
> likely development trajectory, especially with regard to audio? The
> midi tools and synthesis look promising, but as I've mostly worked
> with recorded voices, I was worried to see no apparent support for
> compressed audio. Most of my searching in the news-groups has turned
> up dead-ends, like the tool called "Siren" that is now written for a
> different smalltalk dialect. I see the Guzdial now seems to be
> publishing books on Python and Java as "multimedia" languages, and I
> sense much development work must be going into Croquet.
>  
> So in short, can someone with experience using squeak in a multi-media
> presentational format, especially audio, reassure me that what will be
> the somewhat steeper learning curve (for a self-taught,
> non-programmer) will pay off?