Max/MSP/Jitter 2: Really Understanding Max: program logic, abstraction, data manipulation and conversion, development workflows, and a substantial project

About the Class

Max is a powerful platform that accommodates and connects a wide variety of tools for sound, graphics, music and interactivity using a flexible patching and programming environment. Max allows most computer users to write a simple, meaningful program within a few minutes, even with limited programming knowledge. But to do something more substantial it's necessary to approach Max as an actual programming language, by taking advantage of its various mechanisms for abstracting program elements into scalable, reusable components that can be combined in increasingly powerful ways.

Matt Wright's online Kadenze course gives a thorough overview of Max's capabilities emphasizing how to reason about designing Max software, over the course of about 24 hours of online lectures divided into 10 sessions each with a project.  Anyone on the Internet can sign up for a free (or Premium) membership to watch these lectures and download the class' software, assignment prompts, and other materials.  

The 2020 CCRMA Summer Workshop will be a "flipped classroom": everyone will agree to watch (at least) certain lecture videos prior to each meeting, and we will then spend workshop time together in hands-on lab sessions addressing questions, exploring further discussion, and mentoring student project(s).  

We strongly recommend you bring your own Mac or Windows computer (preferably a laptop); let us know if this is not possible for some reason.

Course Outcomes:  You will design and build a project of your own choosing, e.g., a game, live performance instrument, installation, generative audiovisual artwork, web crawler,  robot brain, or alarm clock.  You will also achieve the learning outcomes of the online class:  proficiency as a Max programmer, an understanding of some best practices, and the confidence to continue learning and troubleshooting on your own.

This class offers two Diversity in Computer Music Scholarships.

Testimonials

"I tried to learn Max/MSP/Jitter for years, but it wasn't until I took this immersive workshop that it finally clicked for me. The combination of self-directed video lectures, real-time feedback from expert instructors and exercising your creative muscles towards a final class project is the best way to get comfortable with this complex language in a short period of time." - H.F., 2019 participant

About the Instructors

Dr. Matthew Wright is a media systems designer, improvising composer/musician, computer music researcher, and the Technical Director of Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). He was the Musical Systems Designer at U.C. Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) from 1993-2008, where he became known for his promotion of the Sound Description Interchange Format (SDIF) and Open Sound Control (OSC) standards, as well as his work with real-time mapping of musical gestures to sound synthesis. His dissertation at CCRMA concerned computer modeling of the perception of musical rhythm: "The Shape of an Instant: Measuring and Modeling Perceptual Attack Time with Probability Density Functions." He was the Research Director of UCSB's Center for Research in Electronic Arts and Technology (CREATE) for eight years, where he taught classes, advised students, founded and directed the CREATE Ensemble dedicated to research and musical creation with technology in a live performance context (which he still directs remotely), as well as being Principal Development Engineer for the AlloSphere, a 3-story full-surround immersive audiovisual instrument for scientific and artistic research. As a musician, he plays a variety of traditional plucked lutes, Afro-Brazilian percussion, and computer-based instruments of his own design, in both traditional music contexts and experimental new works.
 

Chris Lortie is a composer and computer musician. His compositions regularly involve the use of live electronics in Max/MSP and Jitter as a means of augmenting and disrupting both sonic and visual cues; as such, Chris' music often explores the subjects of fakery, deception, and hyperrealism in the electroacoustic domain, often with the directive to blur the boundary between reality and performance. His pieces are informed by his interests in spatial audio, performance art, theatre, intermedia, gestural interactivity, and improvisation. Chris’s music has been performed nationally and internationally at festivals and conferences such as SEAMUS, N_SEME, Electroacoustic Barndance, SPLICE, soundSCAPE, Etchings, and MA/IN by artists and ensembles including Quatuor Bozzini, JACK Quartet, Line Upon Line Percussion, Mari Kimura, Marco Fusi, Karen Bentley Pollick, Sō Percussion, Ekmeles, Ensemble Proton, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Chris Lortie began his musical studies at Bowling Green State University where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition. He is currently pursuing a DMA in Music Composition at Stanford University.

 

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