Tuesdays: March 16, 23, 30, & April 6, 2010 from 7 to 9 pm

Class size is limited to 10 people, so call 415-554-1977 to reserve your space early.

This is a workshop for users of Live who want to dig deeper into Max for Live.  The ideal participant is comfortable with Live but has little or no experience with Max or M4L.  Max/MSP/Jitter is a graphical programming environment for music, audio and multimedia that has been used worldwide for over fifteen years by performers, composers, artists, teachers, and students.

After completing this course, students will be able to make new M4L devices that process sound and midi in response to real-time control and/or simple algorithmic processes. Graduates of this course will also have the skills to read and understand larger M4L devises and the foundation for exploring more advanced features cir tutorials, help patches and online documentation.

Day 1: Introduction

• What comes with M4L? (A quick tour of useful devices and building blocks.)
• Getting started with Max
• navigating the patcher window
• messages and objects
• getting help
• data types
• file paths

Day 2: MIDI devices and instruments

• Interfacing with controllers via MIDI and OSC
• Managing lists of data: storing, retrieving, and manipulating
• Timing

Day 3: Audio processing

• MSP: how audio works in Max
• Sampling and manipulating samples
• Building audio effects (chorus, flange, reverb, etc.) from scratch
• Classic synthesis

Day 4: Advanced topics

• Live.API: The inner workings of your live set are exposed to Max via this group of objects and methods.
• Video: Using Jitter to add video to your Live world
• Third Party objects: An overview of some where to find programming and inspiration from the Max User community.

Download the current version from CNMAT.

for Performers and Teachers

Where: Chiostro S.Maria di Castello, Genova, Italy

When: Sunday, 8 June 2008, 9.30-12.30

Note to Participants: A small number of tablets will be provided for hands-on activties. Please bring your own computer and tablet (if you have one), as well as any music that you would like to work on or share with the workshop. -mz

This is a workshop for people who want to get started with tablet-based interfaces or who want to teach others to use tablet interfaces for music. It is based on my method book (in progress, see paper) and will cover:

Basics

• Short history of pen and tablet based interfaces for music
• Choosing a tablet, styluses, etc. and installing and running on your operating system
• Implementation in musical software including Max/MSP, Pd, and OpenSoundControl

Exercises and Etudes

• Musical games to help build technical skills
• Short études that address both skills and aesthetics

Répertoire

• Workshop presenters will perform and demonstrate their own works, illustrating performance and mapping paradigms that are unique to their situations, as well as general strategies
• Participants will be given a selection of tablet interfaces that could make up a “tablet orchestra.” The final stage of the workshop will be a group performance on diverse tablet instruments.

Participants will leave the workshop with an overview of prior musical work with tablets, specifically recent pieces by members of the NIME Community.  They will also have many pre-built software tools to implement their own work, to continue practicing tablet skills, and to teach in individual and classroom settings.

Presenter:

• Michael Zbyszyński, Center for New Music and Audio Technologies, UC Berkeley
• Special Guest:Nicolas d’Alessandro

Schedule

3 hours – 1 hour lecture followed by a short break and approximately 2 hours of hands-on laboratory and demonstrations

Research for this workshop is partially sponsored by Wacom Co., Ltd.

* Navigating the user interface
* Work flow: organizing multi-file projects, the Max search path, where to save things
* Data types: messages, bangs, integers, floats, and lists. Open Sound Control, audio signals, and Jitter matrices
* Structure and interpretation of Max programs: objects, timing, patchers, and abstractions
* Basics of DSP: sampling, aliasing, amplitude, the frequency spectrum
* Examples of sample playback and looping, synthesis (FM, additive, and granular), audio effects
* Basics of Digital Video: the Jitter Matrix
* Examples of Movie Playback and Manipulation, and Animation with OpenGL
* Dealing with input from controllers and sensors (MIDI, the mouse and keyboard, USB devices, and Ethernet)
* Mixing event processing, signal processing, and matrix processing
* Using the CNMAT Max/MSP/Jitter Depot, an online repository of patches, tutorials, and repertoire.

After completing this course, students will be able to write Max programs that synthesize and/or process sound and video in response to real-time control and/or simple algorithmic processes. Graduates of this course will also have the skills to read and understand larger Max/MSP/Jitter programs and the foundation for exploring more advanced features of Max via tutorials, help patches, and online documentation.

An overview of aesthetic and practical issues of long running, installation-based sound and media artworks. Sound installations are compared to concert music, and site-specific works are examined. Strategies for developing and maintaining robust, reliable, and effective pieces are covered.

		Archived webcasts
		course website

2006: CNMAT Spectral Tutorials

An introduction to CNMAT Technologies, including Spectral Synthesis Objects for Max/MSP, OpenSoundControl, and SDIF.

		Short video about the tutorials (1.7 meg)
		Image of overview page
		link to CNMAT downloads page

This course covers basic concepts and techniques employed in post-tonal theory and analysis. Topics covered will include pitch-class sets, combinatoriality, integral serialism, twelve-tone areas, formal, rhythmic, and motivic analysis. Students will study analytical techniques developed by mainstream music theory. The first half of the semester will cover the foundations of post-tonal theory. The second half of the semester will be devoted to recent research. We will consider research in this field within a critical context and push its boundaries by exploring new repertories. Coursework will include weekly readings, written assignments and a term paper. Students will be graded according to the quality of their written work and participation in class.

Texts

Readings will be assigned out of the following texts, on reserve in the library:

Cook, Nicholas A Guide to Musical Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992)

Straus, Joseph Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005)

• To have a developed understanding of cultural, political, social, and intellectual issues in diverse contemporary and historical musical & sound art practices.
• To have distinctive creative ideas and the ability to realize them successfully on a professional level.
• To be able to critically analyze & clearly identify strengths and weaknesses in her/his own work, & the work of others.

Regarding Attendance
Students are expected to attend all classes for which they are registered. Academic work proceeds up to the date and hour of
the beginning of holidays and semester breaks and resumes promptly at the end of such breaks at the time specified in the academic calendar. Students are accountable for any work missed by absence from classes.
If you know you must miss a class (it falls on a religious holiday, for example), please contact me ahead of time and we can make arrangements.

Regarding Americans with Disability Act accommodations
Every effort will be provided to make this class universally accessible.  Though “reasonable accommodation” is the legal right of people with disabilities, this course is designed to be universally accessible for students regardless of disability or other individual categorization. Students with needs for alternate learning materials or strategies should contact SSD in the Cowell Building by calling 430-2130 in order for those accommodations and services to be arranged promptly.

Regarding missed and late exams and assignments
As a general policy, there will be no makeup exams.  Missed exams and assignments will be scored as a zero. Late assignments will be marked down by a grade point for each calendar day.  Please contact me if there are extenuating circumstances relating to late or missed work.

Regarding Academic Integrity
Students shall honestly prepare assignments and take examinations and submit them at the time and in the manner specified by the instructor.  The content of all submitted examinations and assignments is assumed to represent the student’s own work unless otherwise specified (e.g., group projects).

Plagiarism is a serious breach of academic trust. For purposes of the Mills College Honor Code, plagiarism is defined as
intentionally or knowingly using someone else’s ideas, words, and/or thoughts without properly crediting the source.  All work for which a
source is not cited is presumed to be that of the writer.
If the Academic Integrity Standards described above are violated, the instructor will decide on an appropriate response that may
include the assignment of extra work, lowering grades on a particular assignment, failure of the course, and/or the report of the incident to
the Provost and Dean of the Faculty for further sanction.

(NIME Genoa 2008)

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes the creation of a method book for tablet-based instruments, evaluating pedagogical materials for traditional instruments as well as research in human-computer interaction and tablet interfaces.

Keywords

Wacom tablet, digitizing tablet, expressivity, gesture, mapping, pedagogy, practice

Music, Technology and Computers studies the influence of technology upon the musical culture and aesthetics of the United States in the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the role of the computer. This study necessarily involves many disciplines: music, physics and acoustics, cognitive science, computer science, electronic audio technology, and media criticism.

Computer Music Composition

The topic is composition using personal computers for digital signal processing and for control of synthesizers. Concentration will be on the theoretical bases of DSP and MIDI, practical computer applications of those ideas, and investigation of computer-aided composition. Work will include lectures, demonstrations, readings, listenings, compositional exercises, and original composition.

Interactive Arts Programming

A study of artistic issues and programming techniques involved in the development of interactive computer music, including theoretical background in computer-human interaction, basic tenets of programming, and practical exercises in programming interactive computer multimedia art.

Graduate Analysis II

This course teches analytic techniques specific to post-tonal music of the 20th Century. Emphasis is placed on the first half of the century, including works by Bartók, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern.

Socialist Realism

The historical period of the Soviet Union (1917-1989) included and influenced numerous 20th century composers. This was a period of changing censorship and government control of the arts implemented in the name of “socialist realism.” Focussing on music and musicians, this course examines the dynamic of censorship and the evolution of socialist realism across multiple governments and countries.

Free counterpoint within a diatonic tonal context. Emphasis on two-voice and melody/bass combinations.

Two-part Canon and Invention

Two-part cannon and two-part invention in the traditional style

Traditional Harmony & Composition 1

Diatonic harminic analysis in various musical textures. Melody writing. Harmonization of Melodies in various musical textures.

Traditional Harmony & Composition 2

Advanced traditional harmony and intermediate compositional procedures. Seventh Chords, altered chords, modulation.