CSC354: Digital Sound and Music Processing Seminar
         Spring 2011, 2:40-4:00, Wed and Fri, Ford Hall 345

Instructor promises to bring candy every Friday

Instructor - Judy A. Franklin (jfrankli at cs.smith.edu)

     Textbook: The Computer Music Tutorial, by Curtis Roads, MIT Press, 1996
           text is on reserve in Science Library, Bass Hall

On-line text:
Programming Electronic Music in PD, Johannes Kreidler
Hernandex Tutorial Movies

Office Hours: Mon 12:30-1:30 or by appt. (email jfrankli@cs.smith.edu).

csc354 focuses on areas of sound/music manipulation that overlap significantly with computer science disciplines. Topics are digital manipulation of sound; formal models of machines and languages to analyze and generate sound and music; algorithms and techniques from artificial intelligence for music composition and music database retrieval; and hardware aspects such as time-dependence. This is a hands-on course in which music is actively generated via programming projects and includes a final installation or demonstration. Prerequisites are 111, 212, and 250 or permission of the instructor.

Focus: areas of sound/music manipulation that overlap with computer science disciplines.
  • Knowledge of sound and music is *not* required.
  • Includes:
    • Sound synthesis
    • Machine grammars to model and generate music.
    • Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical methods for music composition
      • Markov Chains, probabilities
      • Fractals, chaos
      • Cellular automata
      • Driving graphics with sound
    • History of computer music and its evolution with computing hardware

Course Specifications:
  • There are no exams.
  • There are exercises and a final project.
    The final project is a composition program, a report, and a presentation. Final Project

    End of Semester Timeline
  • Students are responsible for all reading material. This will be reflected in a literature survey and other references in the final report, as well as in ongoing class discussions.
  • Grading:
    • Exercises: 35%
    • Class Presentations: 20%
    • Class Participation: 20%
    • Final Project: 25%

Course Syllabus (mutable)
pd wiki
Homework Assignments
--> Helpful Links
Student Pages

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