Music, Interactivity and Technology

From BenningtonWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Bennington College, Spring 2007
MW 4-5:50
Nick Brooke, Randall Neal, Joe Holt, Travis Garrison

From improvisation to composition, to the sounds of installations, dance, and film, new technologies rewire how we make sound. This course will workshop interactive sound technologies, focusing on Max/MSP, and examine how these tools shape musical creativity. Focus will be on students’ creative projects, and selected listening and readings from the work of contemporary sound artists will provide a survey and context for students’ creative work. Visiting artists will explain their personal relationships to technology.

History/performance seminars take place in the EMusic studios in Jennings. Labs take place in the VAPA Pod.

Students are expected to purchase a nine-month license to Max/MSP/Jitter. A select group of students may work on sub-projects in pd and other applications. Computing has six Arduino microcontrollers, configurable input-output devices that will serve as the basis of exercises and possibly student projects. Problem sets each week will help focus the Lab sessions on Max/MSP.

Online Studio Schedule: http://webtools.bennington.edu/phpScheduleIt/

Arduino and networking patches are <-- there.

Arduino Serial/USB Drivers here

[edit] Mid-term Projects

Please list your names, emails and the primary technologies you think you'll be using.

  • Jess Funston - jfunston@bennington.edu, AIM angeljess1285 - Arduino
  • Owen Cartwright - owencartwright@gmail.com, AIM opiortiz - Accelerometers, Arduino, wireless?
  • Matthew Alspaugh - matt.alspaugh@gmail.com - theramin, didgeridoo Image:Midterm.zip
  • Selomé Samuel - selome.samuel@gmail.com, AIM whenuncertain - Video
  • Michael Chinworth- mchinworth@gmail.com-- Ext Mic/proximity sensor as input
  • Will Lulofs - wlulofs@bennington.edu, AIM indiewizard - manipulation of samples Image:Lulofsmidtermfiles.zip
  • Ryan Moran - ryan@nerduprising.net - SMS object: Media:MaxMSP_sms.zip Media:Patches.zip
  • Aurora Thornhill - aurora.thornhill@gmail.com, AIM Baralia - Arduino, Phototransistors Media:InsectsMaxMSP.zip

[edit] Schedule

[edit] February 21, Wednesday

Course overview; Intro to the VAPA Pod and EMusic Studios
(meet in the Pod)

[edit] February 26, Monday

History of Interactive Systems #1
meet in EMusic

[edit] February 28, Wednesday

Lab #1, Intro to Max/MSP
Pod

[edit] March 5, Monday

History of Interactive Systems #2
Emusic studio

  • Business: Reminder that Max tutorials 19-27 are due on Wednesday, including the patch from tutorial 23.
  • Wii remote Max patch

[edit] March 7, Wednesday

Lab #2: (Max/MSP continued)
Pod

[edit] March 12, Monday

History of Interactive Systems #3
Emusic studio

[edit] March 14, Wednesday

Lab #3: (Max/MSP continued)
Pod

  • Do MSP tutorials 1-12 (mini-patch due)
  • Here's a much improved version of the Arduino to Max code and patch. The code is also available via svn: http://svn.bennington.edu/svn/arduino/Arduino to Max

Mini-Patch (duo projects) due Tuesday, March 13, @ midnight by wiki upload

Create a patch with your partner that makes sound in MAX/MSP. Your patch make sound in any way, as long as the sounds are imaginative, the controls unique, and your patch does something different than the patches you have already seen in the tutorials.

Your patch should have three separate controls (sliders, dials, menus) that control aspects of the sound. Show us those controls in class on Wednesday, and we will then hook up these controls to various devices (arduinos, Theremins).

When you are finished with your patch, please upload a zip file to the wiki. (To create a zip file of your patch on a Mac, press Control and click on the file. Choose the menu option marked “Create Archive of…”). Create a zip file with your name, then upload it to the wiki. You are also welcome to e-mail your zip file patch to Joe, Nick, Randy, and Travis.

[edit] Patches

[edit] Biz

  • Start preparing for mid-term project: max patches for a generator, modulator and a consumer.

[edit] March 19, Monday

History of Interactive Systems #4
Emusic studio

  • Guest speaker Ben Frost? (Joe's friend from Iceland) If Ben comes, we'll have a very special out of class experience, instead of in-class. Probably at 7 or 8pm.

[edit] March 21, Wednesday

Lab #4: (Max/MSP continued)
Pod

[edit] Mid-term assignment

You are to create two Max patches: a controller and a squawker. The controller patch takes input from someplace and transforms it into three floating point output values in the range 0.0 to 1.0. The squawker takes three input values (also in the range 0.0 to 1.0) and makes sound (music, noise, whatever). Where the controller gets its input and how the squawker makes its sound are completely up to your imagination. The controller's input can be an Arduino, Theremin, mic'd audio, processed video, bytes in an image file, stochastic numbers from a tuning chart, subjective feedback from a listener, etc. The squawker's output can be a speaker (obviously), a midi device, instructions for a human performer, etc.

In the spirit of true interactivity, try to make the inputs somehow connected to the live performance so that you are creating a feedback loop. We want to see the performance affecting the computer and the computer affecting the performance.

We'll supply sample Max patches showing how the three floating point values are to be passed from the controller to the squawker.

The final patches are due Wednesday, April 4 before class. We'll use the class on Monday, April 9 to perform the patches. Zip and upload your patches to the wiki and place them under "April 4 / Mid-term Patches".

[edit] March 26, Monday

First project prototypes Emusic studio

Joe created a page for the Max patches and external objects he's written: Max.

Ryan created a lil' baby patch for easily connecting live video devices: Media:simpleCameraInput.zip

[edit] March 28, Wednesday

Lab #5: feedback/troubleshooting on projects
Pod

[edit] April 2, Monday

Projects/Performances #1
Kinoteca

[edit] April 4, Wednesday

Midterm Paper Due Wednesday, April 18 5-7 pages

What is interactivity and its relationship to music technology? We’ve dissected that question and found answers that draw on a range of ideas, from instruments to randomness to live performance, and from feedback loops to artificial intelligence to installations. Hopefully by now, you’ve got a sense of what interests you in this open-ended concept.

Write a 5-7 page paper defining your own concept of interactivity, music, and technology, as relates to your own (and upcoming) music. Do this in three ways:

1. Discuss 1-3 of the artists we have covered in class, and critique what you find compelling and/or problematic about their work. Make this critique constructive, i.e. use your discussion to positively shape your own aesthetic. For this discussion you are welcome (even encouraged) to touch on Tanaka’s taxonomy of interactivity.

List of artists (links will appear on the wiki):
Laetitia Sonami
Agostino DiScipio PDF
Joel Chadabe Chadabe info
George Lewis PDF
Miya Masaoka http://www.miyamasaoka.com/media_files/video/
Dan Trueman http://www.music.princeton.edu/~dan/BoSSA/
Aya Karpinska http://www.technekai.com/container/index.html


2. Choose some of the following concepts to relate to the above artists, and to your own work: 1. feedback 2. transparency (of controller to sound) 3. live performance and the role of visuals vs. sonic elements 4. gesturality, sonic or physical 5. randomness or chance 6. the notion of a musical instrument 7. artificial intelligence or machine learning 8. other musical or visual concepts that you see fit.

3. Carve out an aesthetic space for your own work through these discussions. Propose a piece in sketch form, or an aesthetic that might guide an exploration for the second part of the term. If you’re interested in gestural controllers, define an aesthetic of what makes such controllers compelling. If you’re interested in installation pieces, develop a notion of how a “passive” installation can actually be interactive with its environment. If you’re interested in feedback, or in ideas of randomness, create an aesthetic that helps you define what makes these ideas compelling in performance, either visually or sonically—what makes the listener/viewer compelled by randomness, and how can they perceive it fruitfully? What qualities of a piece can make feedback loops transparent, either audible or comprehensible by the listener?

You may define these concepts by proposing, in a verbal sketch, a piece that you would work on after mid-term, or you can define an aesthetic that will guide your explorations into new territory.


[edit] Mid-term Patches

Put them here.
Selomé Samuel Media:selomemidterm.zip
Michael Chinworth Media:controller.zip Media:mid-term foolings squawker.zip Media:soundfiles.zip Andrew KaluzynskiMedia:Andrewkcon.zipMedia:andrewsquak1squak.zip
Julia Walker- Controller Media:juliacontroller.zip Squawker Media:juliassquawker.zip
Jess Funston - Media:jess_midterm.zip
Nick neidorf - Media:NickNES.zip
Owen Cartwright - Media:EfEmeral.zip
Sarah Whicker - Media:Whicker.zip
Will Lulofs - Image:Lulofsmidtermfiles.zip (sorry, these were up yonder) Media:Controller_images.zip
as were these: Ryan Moran - Media:MaxMSP_sms.zip , Media:Patches.zip Aurora Thornhill - Media:InsectsMaxMSP.zip
Matt Alspaugh - Image:Midterm.zip

[edit] April 9, Monday

Projects/Performances #2
Kinoteka

[edit] April 11, Wednesday

NO CLASS, long weekend

[edit] April 16, Monday

Close-up on interactive systems; circuit bending to the Arduino
Emusic studio

[edit] April 18, Wednesday

Lab #6: Arduinos and input devices in Max/MSP Pod

[edit] April 23, Monday

Designs #1 feedback (proposal for final project)
Emusic studio

[edit] April 25, Wednesday

Lab #7: Some more input devices; sonic input (continued); visual and motion detectors
Pod

  • Mini-patch due

[edit] April 30, Monday

Designs #2 feedback (proposal for final project)
Emusic studio

[edit] May 2, Wednesday

Lab #8: imagining your own input devices (theremin, octavox)
Pod

  • Mini-patch due

Media:racket.zip - Patch that Nick and Andrew performed

Media:gigaverb.zip - Reverb in Nick's performance patch

[edit] May 7, Monday

A glance at other interactive systems—theater systems, Ableton Live, DJing and electronica apps
Emusic studio

[edit] May 9, Wednesday

Lab #9: feedback/troubleshooting on final projects
Pod Media:pvoc.zip - phase vocoder--try out "pvoctry" (Nick B.)

[edit] May 14, Monday

Intro to PD and programming your own objects #1
Emusic studio

  • Mini-patch due

Media:Sflists.zip - how to use sflist~ to load and play multiple sound files. (courtesy of Travis)

[edit] May 16, Wednesday

Lab #10: feedback/troubleshooting on final projects
Pod

[edit] May 21, Monday

Final projects/performances
Emusic studio

[edit] May 23, Wednesday

Intro to PD and programming your own objects #2
Pod

[edit] May 28, Monday

Final projects/performances
Emusic studio

Final Project Patches

Julia Walker - Manipulating sound through drawings. Media:graphic_tablet_big.zip

Nick Neidorf - Updated soundbox patch; this is the version displayed in class Media:Final.zip

Retrieved from "http://wiki.bennington.edu/wiki/Music%2C_Interactivity_and_Technology"
Personal tools