Teaching

Freshman Seminar in Media Arts: PAT 101
Fall 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020

In our freshman seminar I help students develop literacy in the technological and historical dimensions of electronic music and media art. The course examines music technology within wider cultural and artistic trends of the twentieth century. Students learn about antecedent technologies that led to our present electronic tools, and continue to inform our vocabulary of sound and signals. The course includes composition, oral presentations, and writing assignments where students engage with school resources, learn how to use the music library and practice presenting cogent perspectives the role of technology in musical production, performance and distribution.

Performance Systems: PAT 461
Winter 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020

PAT 461 explores contemporary technologies that support musical performance. Topics include the goals of technology enhanced performance, instrument interfacing, system design, programmable systems, and sound reinforcement design for playback of electronic and acoustic ensembles. Students create original compositions using performance systems that they have designed and built and direct performances that use these systems.

Performance Systems are analyzed in the context of increasing delays in sound propagation through mediation. We investigate an expanding perimeter of sonic diffusion and interaction with corresponding increases in these time delays. To provoke this investigation, we design performance systems for the room (electroacoustic instrument), the zip code ( compositions for electroacoustic Carillon) and finally for high-speed fiber between remote locations (Telematic concert between remote labs across the country). These projects are elaborated below.

Sound Synthesis: PAT 462
Winter 2016, Fall 2017, 2018, 2020

This class is a survey of sound synthesis techniques using the ChucK and FAUST audio programming languages. Students learn the theory of various sound synthesis techniques and implement them in both imperative and functional syntaxes. Students in the class often come with experiences in graphic languages such as MAX MSP, used in many other PAT courses. Although consistency between languages allows for expertise to develop across courses, it is also important for students to experience alternate forms of coding in order to apprehend the way a new syntax conditions creative output and artistic vision. It is critical that we see our courses in the larger context of our curriculum and I have found that shifting languages is an auspicious move in a senior course where students have the literacy to make that shift. In the final weeks the class transitions to a laptop orchestra. Students compose pieces for the ensemble and perform on laptops with six channel hemispherical speakers.

Digital Fabrication for Musical Acoustics: PAT 454
Winter 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020

This course allows our students to leverage the latest technologies in robotic fabrication for acoustic experimentation and instrument design. We fabricate acoustic objects and make empirical tests that corroborate or challenge our predictions. The course is organized around three phases of evaluating tools: replication, augmentation and invention. Students visit the Stearns collection and use 3D scanning to digitize geometries of antique instruments. They replicate broken components to learn the process by which digital fabrication may be leveraged for instrument repair, or replication of irreplaceable objects. In the second project they augment an existing instrument by precisely matching an existing contour to the fabricated form. And finally they are asked to invent a new instrument or conduct a novel acoustic experiment. Inventions arise not only through ideation, but also through the mastery of tools for goal oriented play. Students are encouraged to apprehend the niche affordances of their toolset and to be open to discoveries through iterative design.