Department of Music Situated Instrument Design for Musical Expression Music 158B, Spring 2023
Instructor: Andrew Blanton Email: [email protected] Class Day/Time: T TR 10:0-11:30 Class Website: https://github.com/CNMAT/Music158B_Spring22
Syllabus | Art Resources | Class Website
Music 158b will explore instrument design and musical expression through a practice-based theoretical approach. Students will create new instruments and performance environments using a variety of physical interaction paradigms and musical processes emerging from the UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). Building on methodologies established in Music 158A/258A, the course builds on developing aesthetic, analytic, and technical skills through discussion, empirical study, and collaborative engagement. With a balance of artistic and technical concerns, participants deepen their understanding of the creative process, demonstrating the results through class installation and public performance. Course can be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Music 158A, 258A, or consent of instructor.
Over the semester students will build hybrid physical and software-based musical instruments and focus on workshopping performance. The course will incorporate foundational skills including sensors, signal input, amplification, signal processing, interface design, systems aesthetics, and artistic output. The class will culminate with a final public installation and performance with the instruments built over the course of the semester.
Music 158B/258B students do not take a standardized final exam. In lieu of a standardized final exam, students work alone or in groups to create final projects and performance applying the skills and techniques developed in class. Final projects will be submitted as video documentation and technical materials by the scheduled exam date and will be presented to the public at a class performance installation.
Music 258B students will be required to create a final project that is appropriate to the graduate level of study in music composition. The specifics of the requirement will be discussed and agreed upon by the instructor in consultation with each individual student. Graduate students from outside the Music Department can opt to take Music 158B instead of Music 258B, but graduate students in the Department of Music must take Music 258B.
Music 158B/258B will use the Cycling’74 MaxMSP programming environment extensively. Students must have access to a laptop commuter with MaxMSP, please see the instructor for computer access options. Students may choose to purchase MaMSP, or alternatively, there are student authorization options for under $100 available at cycling74. Lab materials, including software, tangible user interfaces, sensors, actuators, will be made available to students by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies throughout the semester. Lab materials are not available for home use. Students will learn techniques for prototyping instrument design away from the lab.
Each week students are assigned a specific paradigm of instrument design to be worked through in groups. Students individually prepare design sketches to be shared and tested with their teammates. Concluding each week is a critique session with the full class, where each group presents their lab work, shares their evaluation, and discusses ideas for future developments.
Critique Engagement = 30%
It is required that you attend and participate regularly in critique, this will account for 30% of your grade. The course includes engaged group dialogue and student-led presentations of the assigned labbs along with research materials. Students will be assessed based upon their individual level of engagement in seminar and the quality of student-lead presentations as defined in the grading policy/ rubric below.
Lab Assignments = 40% (4 x 10% each)
There will be four lab assignments for the semester and they must be submitted on the day they are due. Students will submit links to code via github and visual documentation of hardware to the coorisponding google slide deck for the lab.
Final Project and Performance = 30%
The class will conclude with a final Performance and installation of works in the CNMAT main room. Final projects and research must demonstrate comprehension of, and engagement with both musicallity and technical working of projects. Research leading to the final presentation will begin halfway through the semester once we are finished with the initial labs.
| Class_Date | |
|---|---|
| Week 1 01/20 | Andrew in France |
| Week 1 01/27 | Class Introduction |
| Week 2 02/03 | Demo 1 - Build a Mic |
| Week 2 02/03 | Discussion / Critique: How do these input devices relate to movement? How well does the range of values relate to the gesture of input? How does the organization and naming of sensor values change the way we think about them? |
| Week 3 02/10 | Discussion / Critique: Building at the edge of perception and software as a medium |
| Week 3 02/10 | Open Lab Prototype Performance 1 |
| Week 4 02/17 | Demo - Transduction - Drum Solenoids |
| Week 4 02/17 | Open Performance 1 |
| Week 5 02/24 | Open Discussion: Activating the environment, mechatronic sound, speaker coils, digital signal processing. |
| Week 5 02/24 | Discussion / Critique: How do these output devices relate to the performance experience? How well does the range of values relate to the gesture of output? How do the names of output processes change the way we think about them? |
| Week 6 03/03 | Open Discussion: Learning to play an unknown instrument by moving between exploratory “babbling” to build a catalog of repeatable figures — this may change each time you sit down to play. |
| Week 6 03/03 | Linda Bouchard and Jeff Lubow presenting their Ocular Scores Morphograph |
| Week 7 03/10 | Discussion / Critique: What was your experience improvising with your teammates’ mappings? What was intuitive and counterintuitive? What makes a successful mapping? |
| Week 7 03/10 | Open Performance 2 |
| Week 8 03/17 | Lecture: How the instrument’s tactile, and response effects experience; towards extended appendages. “Dipping” as a way to test repeatability. |
| Week 8 03/17 | Demo - Spatialized Audio Main Room |
| Week 9 03/24 | Discussion / Critique: How do these input devices relate to movement? How well does the range of values relate to the gesture of input? How does the organization and naming of sensor values change the way we think about them? |
| Week 9 03/24 | Open Performance 3 |
| Week 10 03/31 | Spring Recess - No Class! |
| Week 10 03/31 | Spring Recess - No Class! |
| Week 11 04/07 | Final Proposal Due |
| Week 11 04/07 | Discussion: Contrapuntal textures in time-based arts. Micro-gestures, Polyphonies of movement and their affect on our perception of sound.How does the resulting musical texture effect the experience of performance? Describe your experience of gesture in contrast to the sounding results. |
| Week 12 04/14 | Group Work Session / Workshop |
| Week 12 04/14 | Strategies for flexibility, modes vs statelessness; found content vs composed embedded content. How does the instrument modality effect the performer’s gesture and musical use of the instrument? Which aspects of performance gesture and sounding results create a sense of musical progression and change? Compare modalities between your instruments and those of other electronic and acoustic instrument |
| Week 13 04/21 | Possible Open Performance 4 Group Work Session / Workshop |
| Week 13 04/21 | Discussion / Critique: Describe the experience of performing with different physical and data mediated “feels.” Which gestures were easier to accomplish, which were more difficult?How does the situation surrounding the gesture effect the experience of the performer versus the audience? |
| Week 14 04/28 | Group Work Session / Workshop |
| Week 14 04/28 | Project Discussion / Critique : Show work in Progress |
| Week 15 05/05 | reading week |
| Week 16 05/12 | Final Performance |