COURSE OUTLINE

Introduction to COMPUTER MUSIC

(timings are tentative)

Fall 2011

August 23

Ways in which computers are used in music: sound analysis/synthesis, composition, notation,etc. Computer Music centers, organizations, venues.
How do we hear sounds ? Making a CD; ADC & DAC.

Brief history of Computer Music and overview of synthesis methods.
Analog electro-acoustic music.
Synthesis methods:
• Vocoder
• LPC
• FM
• subtractive
• granular
• physical modeling, etc.

Computer-assisted Composition:
• stochastic distributions
• Markov chains
• sieves
• genetic algorithms
• AI techniques and expert systems
• other tools
• Manifold compositions

Introduction to the Computer Music Project (CMP)
• rules and policies
• audio equipment; using the mixer
UNIX/Linux
• logins, passwords;
• directories and files;
• basic UNIX commands (ls, cat, more, cd, mkdir, rm, rmdir, etc.), sftp, and ssh (telnet)
• available editors (vi/vim, emacs, nano, jot, etc.)
• mxv, sweep, audacity, ecasound, xcdroast, etc.
About computers:
• representation of numbers (binary, hexadecimal, etc.);
• integers and floats (real/complex numbers)
• parts of a computer: CPU, memory, I/O
• Operating Systems
• how are operations performed; languages; compilers:
• vector registers and parallel processing; clusters
• representation of sound waves; sampling rate, formats
Object-oriented programming and C++

Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
Sound waves, sound parameters
Sampling rate, aliasing, and the Nyquist criterion
Overtones and partials; wave shapes
Fourier analysis, summation of sine waves
Additive synthesis.

Tuning and scales
Beats, critical band, consonance and dissonance
Difference tones
Rameau's harmony
Helmholtz and the perception of timbre.

Power and loudness; Fletcher-Munson curves
dB, phons, and sones
critical band again.

Creative assignment: a short piece using available tools due 10/6

C++ :
• variables, constants; integers, floats, characters
• cout and cin statements
• how to compile and run a program
  
  
• Control statements: if, for, while, switch
• Functions

DISSCO/SoundMaker:
• A critical look at the MusicN paradigm.
• the object-oriented approach
• unifyiing synthesis and composition
• static and dynamic parameters
• tuning and strength of partials; the definition of "timbre"
• loudness in DISSCO
• envelopes

C++ :
• Arrays and pointers

October 18 - 20

DISSCO/SoundMaker
• Modifiers: AM, FM, Transients: magnitude, rate, envelope
• Spatialization & Reverberation
• perception of distance/movement
• glissando, tuning/detuning of partials
  
• anticlip and the loudness routines
  
• the possibility of producing long works with a wide dynamic range in one run

C++ assignment due 10/27

Lab: working with DISSCO/SoundMaker
• using the random options

Creative assignment: a short piece using SounMaker due 11/3

Lab: working with DISSCO/SoundMaker
• using scripts

Thanksgiving Break

Assignment: Draft of composition project due 11/29

Lab: working with DISSCO/SoundMaker

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