Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art

The 2006 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art is proudly presented by:

Photo (top) by Michael Berkowski

Special Topics: Computer-Assisted Composition

Music 5950 Section 003, Spring 2006

Professor Doug Geers geers001@umn.edu 612-624-4303
Teaching Assistant Zachary Crockett crock038@umn.edu 612-423-2046
Office Hours
Doug 126 Ferguson 3:45 - 4:45pm Tuesday
9 - 10am Wednesday
Zac 140 Ferguson By appointment

General Overview

This course will explore techniques for composition of music using the assistance of computer programming techniques. More specifically, the objective of this course is to familiarize students with the myriad possibilities offered by use of formalized algorithms as means to generate and develop musical materials for both electronic and entirely acoustic music. Algorithmic procedures discussed will include probabilities, grammars, automata, iterative algorithms, neural computation, and others. Time will be spent discussing not only algorithms themselves but investigating various ways that they may be convincingly mapped to musical parameters. We will focus on the software systems Common Music and OpenMusic, but will also discuss others (see below). Works studied as exemplars will be chosen to illustrate the wide variety of ways that algorithmic methods have been applied to composition.

From the beginning we will assume that all students have a solid understanding of the materials covered in the introductory electroacoustic music sequence, MUS 5591-5592. However, it is likely that students approved for the class who have not completed this sequence will succeed with periodic consultation of texts such as The Computer Music Tutorial.

Texts

All texts are optional, but the first two will be read nearly in their entirety.

NOTE: A number of supplementary readings will be assigned from journal literature. Whenever possible, these will be posted as PDF files to the class website.

Other Necessary Materials

Class Procedure

Each week's class will be divided between discussion of concepts and discussion of specific software systems. Discussions of both may include demonstrations of and/or spontaneous programming of implementations of algorithms. Regarding software systems, to establish a shared working knowledge we will focus our attention on Common Music and OpenMusic. However, through the semester we will make comparisons with a number of widely-known composition systems, such as Common Music, Max/MSP, Pd, Csound, Cmix, Common Lisp Music, Common Music Notation, SuperCollider, C++, and Java. Resources, including those found/known by students, will be added to the class website as the semester progresses.

Grading

Small projects: two at 10 points each. (One project using Common Music and one using another platform; details TBA.) = 20 points
Spark Festival report = 05 points
Participation / Engagement. (This includes attendance, completion of weekly reading assignments, etc.) = 20 points
Final project written proposal & its presentation = 05 points
Final project: in-class presentation = 10 points
Final project: explanatory paper = 20 points
Final project: music / software / etc. = 20 points
TOTAL POINTS = 100

NOTE: Late assignments will receive decremented grades. There is no final exam in this class.

Semester Schedule

DateTopics & Assignments
Jan. 17 Introduction, historical context, and essential programming concepts.
Assignment: Notes from the Metalevel (NFM), pp. ix-36; Composing Music with Computers (CMWC), pp. xi-60; Formalized Music (FM), pp. 180-267.
Jan. 25 Aleatoric Music and data mining. Introduction to Common Music.
Assignment: Read NFM pp. 37-96; CMWC pp. 61-72; FM, pp. 1-42; Ames, "The Markov Process as a Compositional Model: A Survey and Tutorial"; Ames, "A Catalog of Statistical Distributions: Techniques for Transforming Random, Determinate and Chaotic Sequences."
Feb. 01 Stochastics and Markov Chains.
Assignment: Read NFM pp. 97-159; CMWC pp. 72-82; Simoni, "Algorithmic Composition: A Gentle Introduction..."; Roads, "Grammars as Representations for Music."
Feb. 08 Formal Grammars and finite state automata.
Assignment: Read NFM pp. 160-210; CMWC 83-98; Gogins, "Iterated Functions Systems Music."
Feb. 15 Iterative algorithms
Assignment, for March 01: Read NFM pp. 211-232; CMWC 99-118.
Feb. 22 Spark Festival this week. Class will not meet.
Assignment: Attend and review one Spark paper presentation and one concert (5 points). Complete reading assignment given on Feb. 15.
Mar. 01 Neural networks. Spark reviews due.
Assignment: Read NFM pp. 233-275; CMWC pp. 119-128; FM, pp. 155-177; Beyls, "Cellular Automata Mapping Procedures."
Mar. 08 Cellular automata.
Final project proposals due. In-class presentations. Assignment: Read NFM pp. 276-end; CMWC 129-136; Honing, "From Time to Time: The Representation of Timing and Tempo"; Johnson, "Exploring sound-space with interactive genetic algorithms."
Mar. 15 SPRING BREAK
Mar. 22 Genetic algorithms.
Assignment: Read CMWC 137-157; FM, pp. 110-130; OpenMusic.PDF (OMM) pp. i-21 and pp. 111-168.
Mar. 29 Game theory
Assignment: Read CMWC 158-end; OMM pp. 169-230; Dannenberg, R. 1993. "Music Representation Issues, Techniques, and Systems"; Doornbusch, "A Brief Survey of Mapping in Algorithmic Compositions."
Apr. 05 Data mapping.
Assignment: OMM pp. 231-302; Computer Music Journal 26(4): pp. 13-82 (computer music languages and symposium); Ariza, "Navigating the Landscape of Computer-Aided Algorithmic Composition Systems: A Definition, Seven Descriptors, and a Lexicon of Systems and Research."
Apr. 12 Comparing algorithmic systems.
Assignment: Complete final projects
Apr. 19 Final project presentations and discussion
Apr. 26 Final project presentations (continued)
May 03 (Final class) Final project presentations (continued)
May 12 All delinquent work due: Grades submitted
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