New Interfaces for Musical Expression

This page is a place for the whole class to take notes on each week's class.

countdown timers:
http://www.timeme.com/timer-stopwatch.htm
http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/

2011

Week 1

Types of Musical Instruments

The original Sachs-Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups:

   1. idiophones, such as the xylophone, which produce sound by vibrating themselves;
   2. membranophones, such as drums or kazoos, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane;
   3. chordophones, such as the piano or cello, which produce sound by vibrating strings;
   4. aerophones, such as the pipe organ or oboe, which produce sound by vibrating columns of air.

Later Sachs added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument_classification )

Elements of Musical Compositions

Rhythm - The pattern or placement of sounds in time.
Melody - This refers to a distinctive tune created by playing a succession of pitches.
Harmony - In general, harmony refers to the combination of pitches (or chords) played together. Harmony accompanies and supports the melody. It is created by playing a group of notes [usually having a variety of pitches] (either simultaneously or as broken chords) behind the melody thus giving it musical texture.
Dynamics - The degree of loudness or softness of a piece of music and how it changes over time.
Timbre - Also known as tone color; it refers to the quality of sound that distinguishes one voice or instrument from another. Timbre may range anywhere from dull to lush, from dark to bright.
Texture - Musical texture refers to the number of layers as well as the type of layers used in a composition and how these layers are related. Texture may be monophonic (single melodic line), polyphonic (two or more melodic lines) and homophonic (a main melody accompanied by chords).

(adapted from Elements of Music)

Week 2

http://www.alexrice.co.uk/content/piezo-preamp
http://www.megalithia.com/sounds/tech/piezo/index.html
http://www.rattletree.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=19&p=228
http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html

Contact Mic Examples: Toshiya Tsunoda http://www.hapna.com/H24.html

Alan Lamb http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/music-of-wires

Steven Litt (ITP NIME '09) http://www.crudlabs.org/crudboxwhat.html

and places to buy interesting mics that are a bit off the map. Mic madness is wonderful, great products, never bought from cold gold but they have some cool stuff, most of which you can probably make yourself.

http://contactmicrophones.com/
http://www.microphonemadness.com

Week 3

Example Max patches from class: http://droolcup.com/share/NIME_F2012.zip
Types of sound synthesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer#Types_of_synthesis

Week 4

Analog Color Field Computer video
ACFC planning outline
ACFC planning priorities

A selection of links on doing presentations:

The Elements of Presentation: PPT (power point) - or - HTML via google cache
http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/dept/tips/present/comms.htm
http://www.productivity501.com/powerful-presentations/6941/

Week 5

Audio Effects

An online drum machine

"Intelligent Digital Effects" blog
MSP tutorials
MAX Tutorial: Data Scaling
Delay Lines
Flanging
Chorus
Basic Compression

Week 6 ?

MIDI

MIDI Lab http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/MIDIOutput
Code to change midi note with analog in http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Spring08Shakar/ModifiedMidiLabCode
Code adding midi volume control http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Spring08Shakar/MidiLabCodeWithVolumeControlAdded
MIDI info from PComp syllabus http://www.tigoe.net/pcomp/code/communication/midi
MIDI control of Garage Band http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/MusicalArduino
Tim's MIDI Library http://timothytwillman.com/itp_blog/?page_id=240
Someone's MIDI note vs. Pitch & Frequency chart http://tonalsoft.com/pub/news/pitch-bend.aspx
convert midi commands into key strokes: http://www.charlie-roberts.com/midiStroke/
Tone Output using an Arduino: http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/ToneOutput

OSC

"The advantages of OSC over MIDI are primarily speed and throughput; internet connectivity; data type resolution; and the comparative ease of specifying a symbolic path, as opposed to specifying all connections as 7-bit numbers with 7-bit or 14-bit data types."
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control

Introduction to OSC: http://opensoundcontrol.org/introduction-osc

Week 7 ?

Week 8 ?

Week 9 ?

Some waveform generator ICs: ICL8038, NTE864, XR8038, XR2206, MAX038

Jaime E Oliver, Mano instrument: http://www.jaimeoliver.pe/instrumentos/mano

Week 10 ?

collection of audio engineering articles from sound-on-sound

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_reinforcement_system
image of classroom mixer

ClassNotes

2011

Week 1

Types of Musical Instruments

Elements of Musical Compositions

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6 ?

MIDI

OSC

Week 7 ?

Week 8 ?

Week 9 ?

Week 10 ?

Week 11 ?

Week 12 ?

Week 13 ?

Week 14 ?

Previous Years

2011

2010

2009

2008