Two perspectives on rebooting computer music education: Composition and computer science

Laptop ensembles and orchestras, in addition to being hubs for collectives of experimental musicians, have become a popular feature in music technology tertiary education curricula. The (short) history of such groups reveals tensions in what these groups are for, and where they fit within their enfolding institutions. Are the members programmers, composers, or performers? Should laptop ensemble courses focus on performance practice, composition, or digital synthesis? Should they be anarchic or hierarchical? Eschewing potential answers, we instead pose a new question: what happens when computer science students and music students are jumbled together in the same group? In this paper, we discuss what a laptop ensemble might have to offer both groups of students and describe the results of our experiments in running joint laptop ensemble courses. We conclude with questions that motivate further iterations of our laptop ensemble as a promising site of computer music education in a modern university environment

A music context for teaching introductory computing

We describe myro.chuck, a Python module for controlling music synthesis, and its applications to teaching introductory computer science. The module was built within the Myro framework using the ChucK programming language, and was used in an introductory computer science course combining robots, graphics and music. The results supported the value of music in engaging students and broadening their view of computer science

Music of 18 Performances: Evaluating Apps and Agents with Free Improvisation

We present a study where a small group of experienced iPad musicians evaluated a system of three musical touch-screen apps and two server-based agents over 18 controlled improvisations. The performers’ perspectives were recorded through surveys, interviews, and interaction data. Our agent classifies the touch gestures of the performers and identifies new sections in the improvisations while a control agent returns similar messages sourced from a statistical model. The three touch-screen apps respond according to design paradigms of reward, support, and disruption. In this study of an ongoing musical practice, significant effects were observed due to the apps’ interfaces and how they respond to agent interactions. The “reward” app received the highest ratings. The results were used to iterate the app designs for later performances

AS LIÇÕES APRENDIDAS COM A ORCHIDEA

Atualmente, o avanço tecnológico realizou diversas transformações nas formas de se utilizar o computador, principalmente na área musical, onde o computador passou a ser utilizado para se criar música, compor ou até mesmo ensinar determinados conceitos musicais. No Brasil, ainda existe uma certa barreira a ser quebrada em relação ao ensino de música / tecnologia devido a escassez de instituições voltadas para tal área. Desta forma, este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar dois estudos de caso realizados em nossa universidade: a criação de um disciplina de Introdução a Computação Musical e seus respectivos efeitos em relação à sua transdisciplinaridade e ao aprendizado dos alunos; e a criação de um grupo de arte digital chamado Orchidea, o qual tem se desenvolvido ao longo de alguns anos, proporcionando um conhecimento coletivo entre os alunos e professores

A music context for teaching introductory computing

We describe myro.chuck, a Python module for controlling music synthesis, and its applications to teaching introductory computer science. The module was built within the Myro framework using the ChucK programming language, and was used in an introductory computer science course combining robots, graphics and music. The results supported the value of music in engaging students and broadening their view of computer science

Tracking Ensemble Performance on Touch-Screens with Gesture Classification and Transition Matrices

We present and evaluate a novel interface for tracking ensemble performances on touch-screens. The system uses a Random Forest classifier to extract touch-screen gestures and transition matrix statistics. It analyses the resulting gesture-state sequences across an ensemble of performers. A series of specially designed iPad apps respond to this real-time analysis of free-form gestural performances with calculated modifications to their musical interfaces. We describe our system and evaluate it through cross-validation and profiling as well as concert experienc

Musical Gesture through the Human Computer Interface: An Investigation using Information Theory

This study applies information theory to investigate human ability to communicate using continuous control sensors with a particular focus on informing the design of digital musical instruments. There is an active practice of building and evaluating such instruments, for instance, in the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference community. The fidelity of the instruments can depend on the included sensors, and although much anecdotal evidence and craft experience informs the use of these sensors, relatively little is known about the ability of humans to control them accurately. This dissertation addresses this issue and related concerns, including continuous control performance in increasing degrees-of-freedom, pursuit tracking in comparison with pointing, and the estimations of musical interface designers and researchers of human performance with continuous control sensors. The methodology used models the human-computer system as an information channel while applying concepts from information theory to performance data collected in studies of human subjects using sensing devices. These studies not only add to knowledge about human abilities, but they also inform on issues in musical mappings, ergonomics, and usability

Musical expertise as a scaffold for novice programming

textThis study addresses the role of musical expertise on novice computer programming. Engaging novices with computer programming is one of the great challenges of computer science education. Although there is extensive research focusing on constructionist approaches to programming education and creative entry points to programming, little research addresses the topic of how musical expertise informs an unstructured programming activity. To answer this question I focused on the role of participant talk during programming, patterns in participant programming, and evidence of computational thinking in participants’ final Scratch projects. For this interpretivist study, I worked with a dozen novice programmers from a variety of musical backgrounds: classical musicians, jazz musicians, composers, and non- musicians. Each participant worked on a free-form musical project in the Scratch programming environment. I collected data including participant talk, screen recordings of participant programming, and participants’ final Scratch projects. Overall, musical participants more readily took to the numeracy involved in programming music in Scratch. Also, musical participants were able to use musical concepts and techniques as jumping-off points for programming challenges. Considering my results by participant group, composers stood out in a number of ways: working the longest, testing their programs the most often, adding Scratch objects the slowest, v removing the most Scratch objects, creating projects of the greatest nested depth, and unanimous use of operators and random numbers. Non-musicians, on the other hand, worked for the shortest amount of time, added the fewest Scratch objects, and created projects of the lowest nested depth. In addition to adding to the body of research around chunking and tinkering, this study reinforces the importance of context and comfort in an introduction to computer programming. Composition may be an especially rich area to leverage, given the design- like programming activity of the composers here. Future research projects could resemble this one while focusing on younger learners, explicit musical concepts like those invoked by participants, or alternative performing arts framings such as theater or dance.Curriculum and Instructio

Composing with Sound-Objects: A Methodology

Technology presents us with the ability to record and manipulate the entire universe of sound in a musical composition. As a result, composers are faced with an overwhelming—often paralyzing—amount of available musical options. My methodology focuses on how a sound-object informs the organization, collection, manipulation, and culmination of a work of electronic music. I believe that breaking down the number of choices to manageable bite-sized portions helps minimize ambiguity, and imposing limits on musical parameters helps the composer focus on productive musical options. This is a methodology where the sound-object holds primacy over the work and serves as the motivic touchstone from which to make all compositional decisions.Part one of the dissertation provides a definition of a sound-object and an historical overview. Part two is my methodology, which is divided into three working stages: onset, continuant, and termination. The onset stage discusses a compositional approach to organizing a piece of music based on the sound-object as motivic touchstone; it introduces the organizational process according to functional considerations as well as conceptual approaches. The continuant stage is the composer’s playground where sound is transformed. It includes the technical and practical approaches used to assess the many parameters of a sound-object, as well as how the object itself informs the transformations. Additionally, the continuant stage represents an approach to composition and improvisation—informed by the sound-object—that uses acoustic instruments. Finally, the termination stage brings all these elements together in order to finish the piece. This stage explores how the sound-object can inform the structure of the piece at the subsequent levels of event, phrase, section, and overall form. I will demonstrate this methodology by explaining how I composed five original pieces with sound-objects—Acoustic Memories (2019), Modular Voices (2019), Interconnected (2019), Synthetic Objects (2019), and Gucci Concrète (2019). Through the framework presented in this methodology, composers of electronic music will better understand this flexible medium of composition, by moving beyond the traditional grid of discrete pitches and rhythms, in order to control the entire universe of sound for their palette of inspiration

Interactive Tango Milonga: An Interactive Dance System for Argentine Tango Social Dance

abstract: When dancers are granted agency over music, as in interactive dance systems, the actors are most often concerned with the problem of creating a staged performance for an audience. However, as is reflected by the above quote, the practice of Argentine tango social dance is most concerned with participants internal experience and their relationship to the broader tango community. In this dissertation I explore creative approaches to enrich the sense of connection, that is, the experience of oneness with a partner and complete immersion in music and dance for Argentine tango dancers by providing agency over musical activities through the use of interactive technology. Specifically, I create an interactive dance system that allows tango dancers to affect and create music via their movements in the context of social dance. The motivations for this work are multifold: 1) to intensify embodied experience of the interplay between dance and music, individual and partner, couple and community, 2) to create shared experience of the conventions of tango dance, and 3) to innovate Argentine tango social dance practice for the purposes of education and increasing musicality in dancers.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Music 201