CS 3860 Computer Music Programming (4) 2005

Catalog Description

Introduction to the concepts and software techniques of computer music. Students write programs to produce sounds, process sounds, and organize sounds into musical structures. Fundamentals of digital audio. Synthesis techniques. Reverberation and sound spatialization. Algorithmic composition. Computer languages for synthesis and scoring. The MIDI standard. Prerequisities: MATH 1300 and CS 1160.

Course Outline

• Sound Representations (what is sound? what is computer music? digital waveforms, sampling, aliasing)
• Spectrum Measurements (Fourier Transform, DFT, FFT, amplitude and power spectra, convolution, windowing, time-varying spectra)
• Digital Filters (z transform, digital filter equation, poles and zeros, IIR and FIR filters)
• Instruments and Csound (flow diagrams, table lookup oscillators, Csound) Synthesis Methods (additive synthesis, phase vocoder, subtractive synthesis, physical models, frequency modulation, waveshaping)
• Rooms (spatial hearing, early echo return, reverberation, sound spatialization)
• Composing, Interaction (random processes, algorithms, MIDI protocol, network music, virtual reality, fractals, noise, tuning systems, input devices)

Text

Cook, Perry R., Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications, A.K.Peters, Ltd.

Other References

• Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance, 2nd Edition, Charles Dodge and Thomas A. Jerse, Schirmer Books, 1997.
• Elements of Computer Music, F. Richard Moore, Prentice-Hall, 1990