Music 680: Special Topics in Music Theory - Electronics and Performance (Fall 2004)
Mondays 4:30 - 7:10 pm, Music 240

Christopher Burns
office hours: Music 367, Monday 1:30-3:30 pm or by appointment

Course description:
Aesthetics, composition, analysis, and performance practice of works using electronics in the context of live performance. Historical overview of the genre and discussion of digital implementations of analog techniques and processes. Emphasis on close study of pioneering works. Students will complete short composition / programming assignments and a final creative project.

Course outline:
Monday, September 6: Labor Day, no class meeting

Monday, September 13: historical overview / introduction to Pd
assignment: start with Pd (install software or locate an installation; get up and running!)

Monday, September 20: sinusoids
listening: John Cage / Imaginary Landscape No. 1
reading: James Pritchett, "'For more new sounds...' (1933-48)," The Music of John Cage, pp. 6-35
code resources: quartic~.pd
assignment: make a Pd realization of Alvin Lucier's Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas (due September 27)

Monday, September 27: concept, acoustics & music
listening: Alvin Lucier / "I am sitting in a room"
reading: Alvin Lucier, "Origins of a Form: Acoustical Exploration, Science, and Incessancy"
code resources: additive.pd, fm.pd, delays.pd, lucier-simple.pd
assignment: compose a short etude (using Pd) which responds to Lucier's notion of "a constant unidirectional action [which] yields unexpected and complex results" (due October 4)

Monday, October 4: microphony & signal processing
listening: Karlheinz Stockhausen / Mikrophonie I
reading: Christopher Burns, "Realizing Lucier and Stockhausen: case studies in the performance practice of electroacoustic music"
code resources: pan~.pd, pan-test.pd, filters.pd
assignment: compose a short etude which uses electronics to process an instrumental or vocal performance; the processing should vary over the course of the etude (due October 11)

Monday, October 11: instruments & tape 1
listening: Karlheinz Stockhausen / Kontakte
reading: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "The Concept of Unity in Electronic Music"
code resources: pulse-train-demo.pd
assignment: compose a short study in which acoustic and electronic materials converge or diverge in some way (due October 25)

Monday, October 18: algorithms 1 - Reich, Ligeti
listening: Steve Reich / Pendulum Music; Gyorgy Ligeti / Poeme Symphonique
reading: Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process"
code resources: dyn-table.pd, reich-phase.pd, reich-echo.pd, flange.pd

Monday, October 25: algorithms 2 - Cage
reading: James Pritchett, "'Music (not composition)' (1962-69)," The Music of John Cage, pp. 138-161
code resources: rand-fm.pd, algorithm.pd
assignment: create a brief algorithmic composition using Pd (due November 8)

Monday, November 1: instruments & tape 2
[rescheduled for December 6: conflict with ICMC 2004]
listening: Kaija Saariaho / NoaNoa; Tristan Murail / Disintegrations

Monday, November 8: improvisation systems 1 - Electronic Music for Piano
listening: John Cage / Music for Piano 52-56; David Tudor / Pulsers
reading: John D. S. Adams, "Giant Oscillations: the birth of Toneburst"; Peter Zaparinuk, "David Tudor's Performance Composition"
code resources: analysis.pd
assignment: create a computer "improviser" using Pd that either responds to input (audio, MIDI) or generates directed structures (phrases, larger formal units) on command (due November 22)

Monday, November 15: improvisation systems 2 - Lewis, Ingalls
listening: George Lewis / Voyager, Matt Ingalls / CLAIRE.01, CLAIRE.02
code resources: analysis.pd, average10.pd, fibonacci.pd

Monday, November 22: Nono 1
listening: Luigi Nono / Omaggio a Gyorgy Kurtag
reading: Stephen Davismoon, "...many possibilities..."; Roberto Fabbriciani, "Walking with Gigi"; Hans Peter Haller, "Nono in the studio - Nono in concert - Nono and the interpreters"
code resources: reverb.pd
assignment: write a page-long proposal for your final project (due November 29; projects are due December 16)

Monday, November 29: Nono 2
listening: Luigi Nono / La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura
reading: Harrison, Jonty. "Sound, space, sculpture: some thoughts on the 'what', 'how' and 'why' of sound diffusion." Organised Sound 3, no. 2 (1998): 117-27.
code resources: nono-feedback.pd

Monday, December 6: instruments and tape 2
[rescheduled: see November 1]
code resources: virtual-fundamental.pd, spectral.pd

Monday, December 13: the present day
listening: Curtis Bahn, the Bran (...) Pos, Matthew Burtner, Nick Didkovsky, Jonathan Harvey

Thursday, December 16, 7:30 pm: Final project presentations

Course discography (all selections on reserve in the Music Library):
Curtis Bahn / mechanique: EMF CD 030
the Bran (...) Pos / Parsnip Maker: Chitah! Chitah! Soundcrack CHICD006
Matthew Burtner / s-morphe-s: Innova 620
John Cage / Imaginary Landscape no. 1
John Cage / Music for Piano 52-56: hat ART CD 6181
Nick Didkovsky / I Kick My Hand: CRI CD 672
Jonathan Harvey / One Evening...: Ades 206 942
Matt Ingalls / CLAIRE.01, CLAIRE.02: [self-released]
George Lewis / Voyager: Disk Union Avan-014
Gyorgy Ligeti / Poeme Symphonique: Sony SK 62310
Alvin Lucier / "I am sitting in a room...": Lovely Music LCD 1013
Tristan Murail / Desintegrations: Naive MO 782175
Luigi Nono / La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura: Montaigne MO 782004 (Irvine Arditti, Andre Richard); Kairos 0012102KAI (Melise Mellinger, Salvatore Sciarrino)
Luigi Nono / Omaggio a Gyorgy Kurtag: Montaigne MO 782047
Steve Reich / Pendulum Music: SYR Records 4
Kaija Saariaho / NoaNoa Ondine ODE 906-2 (Camilla Hoitenga); CRI CD 867 (Patti Monson)
Karlheinz Stockhausen / Kontakte: Stockhausen-Verlag 6
Karlheinz Stockhausen / Mikrophonie I: Stockhausen-Verlag 9
David Tudor / Pulsers: Lovely Music LCD 1601

Course bibliography:
Adams, John D. S. "Giant oscillations: the Birth of Toneburst." Musicworks 69 (1997): 14-17.
Burns, Christopher. "Realizing Lucier and Stockhausen: Case studies in the performance practice of electroacoustic music." Journal of New Music Research 31, no. 1 (2002): 59-68.
Davismoon, Stephen. "...many possibilities..." Contemporary Music Review 18, no. 2 (1999): 3-10.
Fabbriciani, Roberto. "Walking with Gigi." Contemporary Music Review 18, no. 1 (1999): 7-16.
Haller, Hans Peter. "Nono in the studio - Nono in concert - Nono and the interpreters." Contemporary Music Review 18, no. 2 (2002): 11-18.
Harrison, Jonty. "Sound, space, sculpture: some thoughts on the 'what', 'how' and 'why' of sound diffusion." Organised Sound 3, no. 2 (1998): 117-27.
Lucier, Alvin. "Origins of a Form: Acoustical Exploration, Science, and Incessancy," Leonardo Music Journal 8 (1998): 5-11.
Lucier, Alvin. Reflections / Reflexionen, Koln: MusikTexte, 1995.
Pritchett, James. The Music of John Cage, Cambridge, University of Cambridge Press, 1993.
Reich, Steve. "Music as a Gradual Process." In Writings About Music, Nova Scotia: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1974.
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. "The Concept of Unity in Musical Time." Perspectives of New Music 1, no. 1 (1962): 39-48.
Zaparinuk, Peter. "David Tudor's Performance Composition." Musicworks 71 (1998): 47-51.