Courses

This course will provide a critical survey of the development of electronic and computer music and sound from around the globe. From early experiments and precursors in the late 19th century through to modern-day experimental and popular music practices, this course aims to trace the development of technologies used in the production of electronic and computer derived sound and music alongside the economic, cultural, and social forces that contribute to the development of audiences. The course will focus intently on listening through a series of curated playlists in an effort to unpack style and genre distinctions. Readings and listening examples will be paired with small, hands-on assignments, that demonstrate the effect of music making tools on the process and structure of musical genres and styles ranging from the experimental practices of musique concrete, drone, and harsh noise to the mainstream practices of dub, techno, vaporwave, hyperpop, and hip hop and more.

Course Level: Undergraduate
Credits: 3

As music moves into the 21st century, we find ourselves surrounded by an ever-evolving landscape of technological capability. The world of music,  and the music industry itself, is changing rapidly, and with that change comes the opening – and closing – of doorways of possibility. What does this shift mean for today’s practicing artist or composer? With big label recording studios signing and nurturing fewer and fewer artists, it seems certain that, today, musicians who want to record and distribute their music need to be able to do much of the recording and production work on their own. But where does one go to learn how to do this – to learn not only the “how to” part of music production, but the historical underpinnings and the development of the music production industry as well? How does one develop a comprehensive framework within which they can place their own artistic efforts? How does one learn to understand what they hear, re-create what they like and develop their own style? This class, “Recorded Sound,” aims to be the answer. Its goal is to teach artists how to listen critically to music from across history and genres in order to identify the production techniques that they hear, and reproduce those elements using modern technology so they can be incorporated into the artist’s own musical works.

Course Level: Undergraduate, Graduate
Prerequisites: Instructor's permission
Credits: 3
Note: This class has a wait-list; sign up for it via Courseworks. Music Majors get priority.

This course will address hands-on making through creative projects reinforced with critical and historical readings to contextualize work. Coursework will explore fabrication, gears and motors, homemade instruments, 3d printing, amplifiers and transducers, circuit bending, and getting comfortable soldering and reading circuits. The course engages creative uses of audio technology within and beyond the concert hall, instrumental acoustics and organology, and movement, gesture, and space as elements of structuring sound work. Fluency, troubleshooting, and self-reliance regarding basic audio hardware, signal flow, and technical requirements for supporting the addition of amplification, fixed media, or interactive electronics to sound work will be a focus throughout. We’ll explore instrument building and modification, installation design and construction, and physical interfaces to software instruments through hands-on projects supported by readings and repertoire and will culminate in a creative project of your own design.

Course Level: Graduate
Prerequisites: permission of instructor
Credits: 3

In this year-long sequence students gain familiarity with the materials used in electroacoustic music and the techniques and equipment that are employed to transform and organize these materials into compositions. Individual projects are assigned.

Course Level: Graduate
Prerequisites: permission of instructor
Credits: 3

This course explores the creative visualization and sonification of data. Humans produce enormous amounts of data representing complex phenomena (including but not limited to our own activities), but we there is a deficit in our ability to perceive and understand the patterns in the data. The auditory and visual perceptual systems are optimized for a wide range of spatial and temporal patterns that we process simultaneously to understand our immediate surroundings. How can we use these capabilities to better understand processes that are beyond the range of our direct perception, but we can measure indirectly with a vast range of sensors? This course addresses ways of generating both sonic and visual animations of the same data, from which we will construct videos. Questions of how to design and tune these representations to bring out patterns in the data, based on the nature of human perception and also aesthetic choices, will be discussed throughout. How might these questions of pattern perception vary (or not) for scientific and artistic intents? Students will select datasets they are interested in early in the course, and will develop and build these projects over the semester. While the course is taught using Python and RTcmix, and prior experience in Python is encouraged, students may use other sonic/visual coding environments such as Unity, Max/MSP, or Pure Data for their projects. Hardware for VR/AR and spatialized sound will be available for class use at the Computer Music Center.

Course Level: Graduate
Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor
Credits: 3

Course Level: Undergraduate

Credits: 3

An accelerated MaxMSP creation lab designed for student musicians or programmers who are interested in the manipulation and transformation of sonic and musical data. MaxMSP is a visual programming environment optimized for creative coding. With a focus on the creative generation of musical materials for composition and performance, Max and related software will also be evaluated for analytical use cases in music theory, musicology, and other cross disciplines. Students will produce creative projects with the aid of weekly modules and tasks focusing on classic and contemporary approaches to audio synthesis (e.g. binaural audio spatialization and machine learning applications). Synchronous group coding in MaxMSP will deepen understanding of each module, supported by asynchronous video tutorials, supplementary reading, and listening.

Projects will be evaluated based on creative and personal implementations of synthesis techniques. A major effort has been made towards creating an equitable and inclusive computer music practice incorporating high level open source synthesis tools. Although no formal prerequisite exists for this course, some comfort in any of the following areas is advisable: study of a musical instrument, music-theoretical analysis or historic study, electronic music or synthesis, audio production, or an understanding of basic principles in a computer language. Skills in any of these areas may be taken as a sufficient prerequisite for this course. Onboarding materials and a flexible, customizable scaffolding will be offered to those who are starting out with MaxMSP.

This class explores advanced topics relating to the production of music by computer. Although programming experience is not a prerequisite, various programming techniques are enlisted to investigate interface design, algorithmic composition, computer analysis and processing of digital audio, and the use of computer music in contexts such as VR/AR applications. Check with the instructor for the particular focus of the class in an upcoming semester. Some familiarity with computer music hardware/software is expected.

Course Level: Graduate
Prerequisites: Instructor's permission
Credits: 3

This course explores both analogue and digital tools for the sound reinforcement of concerts in all formats. Through hands-on experience, the course addresses the impact and potential of contemporary tools on the aesthetic choices of musical projects. The course supports artists (performers, composers, improvisers, sounds artists, etc.) by providing a solid foundation and a working knowledge of live sound concepts in order to improve the realization of their creative audio work. A significant feature of the course is direct experience producing live concerts in order to fully understand the implications of the transition between the pre-concert studio preparation and live concert execution. Under the supervision of the instructor, students are expected to oversee the audio-related technical aspects of two to three music department events, including the doctoral composition work of the Columbia Composers concert series. Topics include the practice and theory behind analog and digital mixing, live sound processing, concert diffusion, spatial audio, sound reinforcement, mixed music techniques, concert recording, and efficient equipment set-up and tear-down. Please note that students must be available for two whole-day Saturday events whose dates will be determined and distributed by the instructor at the start of the semester.

Course Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Prerequisites: Instructor's permission
Credits: 3
Note: This class has a wait-list; sign up for it via Courseworks. Music Majors get priority, but be sure to come to the first class for admission!

In this course, we explore the variety of roles that computation can play in the analysis, creation, and performance of music. We start with the fundamentals of sound in the digital domain, covering issues of representation and audio synthesis. We then move through various synthesis techniques including the additive, subtractive, frequency modulation (FM), and amplitude modulation (AM) synthesis. After covering some core DSP techniques, we put these concepts into performative practice by exploring “live coding”. In the space of live coding, we examine various programming language designs to understand how various domain specific languages (DSLs) support live coding. For the third module, we turn our focus to automated composition and analysis, addressing challenges in music information retrieval, generative art, and autonomous improvisation systems. All the while, we continue to develop our fluency in live coding by putting new topics to practice.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Course Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This foundational course in sound will begin by exploring how listening happens as well the tools necessary capture and present that listening. Through hands-on experimentation and demonstration, this seminar will examine both the technical and semiotic use of sound as amaterial within creative practice. Fundamental studio techniques will be explored including soldering for building cables, microphones, and loudspeakers. We will also explore the building blocks of analog and digital processes for the creation of sound, including microphones (types, patterns, and placement), basic synthesis, and techniques for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering. Through creative projects that implement these skills we will learn by doing. We will study theories of sound and listening that determine or are determined by technology, from the physical and social dimensions of the sounds we use to create, language (sound as a symbol or object), acoustics (sound in space), acousmatics (sound without a visual reference), and psycho-acoustics (sound as cognitive process). This class assumes no prior knowledge or technical skill. Some reading will be assigned and we will look and listen to a lot of work, students are encouraged to participate actively in discussions.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Credits: 3

Ubiquitous computing is creating new canvases and opportunities for creative ideas. This class explores the use of microprocessors, distributed sensor networks, IoT, and intermedia systems for the purposes of creative expression. The course is delivered in a mixed lecture and lab format that introduces the fundamental concepts and theory behind embedded systems as well as issues particular to their creative employment. The key objective of the course is for students to conceive of and implement creative uses of computation.

Course Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Credits: 3

This course encompasses the physics and neuroscience of music and sound.  Previous course work in math and physiology is not required, and it is intended to be useful from diverse backgrounds in science or the arts, including undergrad and grad students.Topics include the physics of sound waves (explained with grad school level math), pitch, harmonics, and rhythm: sound transduction and perception mechanisms in the ear and brain: sound, and music and hearing by other species including songbirds, cetaceans, insects, and bats:  associated neurological disorders: and what little is known about the physiology of emotion.  We will study the mathematics by which musical scales, rhythms, and harmonies are derived, a topic that spans the history of math from the monochord of Pythagoras, wave functions, through fractal geometry. The perception of music encompasses the physics, anatomy, and neuroscience of the ear and auditory neural pathways, and synaptic mechanisms that occur within the midbrain and cerebral cortex. There will be guest scientist. and musician presentations. Coursework will include student-led projects.