Welcome to Music 257: Neuroplasticity and Musical Gaming!

Due to the unusual timing for Lab 2 and the fact that we’ll be playing your Sonified Pong games on Friday before regular office hours later Friday or on Monday, I’ll be holding unofficial office hours Wednesday and Thursday this week. ‘Unofficial’ means I’ll be working at CCRMA between 5 and 7 PM both nights, and you are welcome to come by to work on Lab 2 and get help if you need it. If your CCRMA account has not been activated by then, you can also come by and I can log you into a CCRMA machine so you can work on your Matlab assignment. As I mentioned in class, the Matlab portion isn’t due until next Tuesday when you submit your videos, and I fully expect accounts should be fully up and running by the end of the week, but you will need to use Matlab-generated audio samples in your Pong game, so at least some of your group members will need to complete the Matlab assignment so you can generate sounds to use in your game in time to have it ready for Friday’s GamePlay.

A few quick notes from the first week of class:

Lecture Attendence - The vast majority of course material will be presented during Friday lecture sessions. These are not recorded, and while lecture slides will usually be available via Canvas, these are not intended as a subsitute for lecture. It is extremely important to attend the Friday lecture sessions.

CCRMA Accounts - Hopefully anyone who didn’t have a CCRMA account got one after class on Friday. If you still don’t have one, plan on coming to class early on Tuesday or staying after to get set up. Your CCRMA account means you can access the building after hours, access WiFi, log in to the CCRMA workstations in the ballroom, and ssh into the CCRMA machines. The dedicated CCRMA server for remote access is ccrma-gate(at)stanford(dot)edu, or you can ssh into any of the specific workstations (the names/ip’s are on the front of each workstation). As stated on the lab page, it’s preferred for you to work locally, just so you can utilize the audio playback Matlab functionality. This usually only comprises a small portion of the lab, so you can split up remote / local work if you want.

Game On Talks - Please sign up for a Game On talk as soon as possible. We will only have a maximum of two talks per class meeting. If no spots remain for the rest of the quarter and you have not given your Game On talk, your grade for the talk will be forfeit. We have approximately 30 students and 18 class meetings remaining, which means only 6 slots can go unused for everyone to give a talk! Don’t get left out!

Reminder Lab 1 is due Tuesday - Canvas submissions for Matlab portion of the lab (a single zipped folder) and links to videos should be turned by class time on Tuesday. Remember we won’t actually play our board games until the following Friday, but you’ll want to get started with Lab 2 after Tuesday’s class since we’ll be playing them next Friday also. The Matlab portion of Lab 2 won’t be due until the following Tuesday, although you will need some Matlab-generated audio samples for your Sonified Pong Games.

Welcome to Music 257: Neuroplasticity and Musical Gaming! We are looking forward to an exciting quarter exploring auditory sensory perception and the auditory pathway, neurology fundamentals including neuroplasticity, and how informed game design can literally shape the mind of the player! Course materials will be available through this website. We will also be using Canvas for assignment submission and distribution of additional materials. Class meetings include Lectures on Fridays from 10:30-12:20 and Lab Sessions on Tuesday evenings from 6:00-7:50 PM. Lab will meet the first week of class on Tuesday, April 3rd at 6 PM, although the first lab session will be primarily lecture. If you have any questions about the course, feel free to email Mark or Poppy.

We will be using Piazza as a forum for questions and discussion throughout the course. You can sign up here.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in class! Can’t wait to see the games you create this quarter!