Computer Music on a Laptop
Composing, Performing, Interacting
MWF 11-11:50AM / LONG 221
Co-taught by Drs. Yiorgos Vassilandonakis and Bill Manaris.
Principles of music composition and computer programming for developing interactive computer music environments. Team-based, project-driven exploration of Python programming, time-based structures, algorithmic processes, soundscapes, graphical user interfaces, musical language and style.
Prerequisites by Topic:
- Basic computer experience, including file organization and software installation.
- Interest in developing intelligent-listening and sound-structuring skills.
Additional Course Requirement: Students need their own laptops and headphones.
- Quizzes: TBA
- Final: 8-11am, Friday, May 3, 2013
Homework #1, Homework #2, Homework #3, Homework #4, Homework #5.
Final Exam / Performance
The final exam consists of performing the pieces developed in Homework #5.
Here are instructions on how to prepare for the final performance.
Here are some photos from the day of performance.
Readings & References
- Avant-garde cellist Zoe Keating demonstrates her intricately layered compositions. Using a computer, some 'janky code', a cello and her imagination, the classically trained musician shapes her music into something wonderful.
- Pat Metheny's Orchestrion project is a new, open-ended platform for musical composition, improvisation and performance. It uses acoustic and acoustoelectric musical instruments that are mechanically controlled through a guitar, pen or keyboard. This creates a detailed compositional environment, which allows spontaneously developed improvisation. On top of layers of acoustic sound, Pat Metheny adds conventional electric guitar playing as an improvised component - a new level for solo performance by a single musician.
- Edwards, Michael. Algorithmic Composition: Computational Thinking in Music. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 54, No. 7, pp. 58-67.
- The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is a newly established ensemble of computer-based musical meta-instruments. Each instrument consists of a laptop, a multi-channel hemispherical speaker, and a variety of control devices (keyboards, graphics tablets, sensors, etc.).
- Birds on the Wires - Reading a newspaper, Jarbas Agnelli saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. He cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes...
- HARMONIA (3rd Harmonic Resonance) - The image and audio are generated by the same algorithmic process, an unfolding of the harmonic series across the course of an hour. Visually, the harmonic series is represented by the division of the circle. Sonically it is represented by a sinewave series built upon a fundamental frequency of 31.7 Hz (ultra-low C).
- An introduction to pair programming. This 9-minute video describes what pair programming is, the do's and don'ts of effective pairing, and the pros and cons of pair programming.
- Impromptu is a Scheme language environment for music composition and real-time performance.
- Researchers play song recorded before Edison. The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
- The reactable hardware is based on a translucent, round multi-touch surface. A camera situated beneath the table, continuously analyzes the surface, tracking the player's finger tips and the nature, position and orientation of physical objects that are distributed on its surface. These objects represent the components of a classic modular synthesizer, the players interact by moving these objects, changing their distance, orientation and the relation to each other. These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.
- Intro to Fractals from Wikipedia.
- Interactive Mandelbrot Set - user interface allows to zoom in at different areas.
- Victor Staniosis and Hugh Berberich, "Computer Music - Science and Technology of a New Art", Monograph Series of the Liberal Arts, Dartmouth Electronic Bookshelf.
- Phil Burk, Larry Polansky, Douglas Repetto, Mary Roberts, and Dan Rockmore, "Music and Computers", Dartmouth Electronic Bookshelf.
- Richards R. (2001), "A New Aesthetic for Environmental Awareness: Chaos Theory, the Beauty of Nature, and our Broader Humanistic Identity". Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 59-95.
- Spehar, B., C.W.G. Clifford, B.R. Newell, and R.P. Taylor. (2003). "Universal Aesthetic of Fractals." Computers & Graphics, vol. 27, pp. 813-820.
- Chazelle, B. (2006), "Could you iPod be Holding the Greatest Mystery in Modern Science?", Math Horizons, vol 13, April 2006. Algorithmic thinking is likely to cause the most disruptive paradigm shift in the sciences since quantum mechanics. The big ideas revolve around universality, duality, and self-reference.
- CofC Library resources related to Computers, Music, and Art.
- Intro to Python
Artifacts & Rules
- Sounds - find sound effects and musical instrument samples.
- jythonMusic is a Python programming library written for computer musicians. It is simple enough for beginner programmers, but sophisticated enough for experienced music composers. jythonMusic is designed to be used as a compositional medium, as well as for music software development, in particular for digital instrument making. (jythonMusic works on all three platforms - Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.)
- Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
- Noteflight is an online music writing application that lets you create, view, print and hear music notation with professional quality, right in your web browser. Work on a score from any computer on the Internet, share it with other users, and embed it in your own pages.