SYLLABUS
MUSIC 424 - MUSICAL INFORMATICS
(timings are tentative)
Spring 2021
January 26 -27
1. Proportions
Get acquainted, organizational.
Relationship between Music, Science, Philosophical and Social attitudes
Pythagoras, sounds and numbers.
vibrating strings and air columns
overtones/partials and their ratios
Rhythm: divisionary and additive systems; proportional notation.
Assignment #1 Proportions due 1/28
Golden Section and Fibonacci series of numbers
Assignment #2 Golden ratio due 2/2
February 2 - 23
2. Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
How do we hear ? What is on a CD ?
complex waves, internal ear
A/D, sampling, D/A; binary numbers, "bumps"
What is a sound ?
frequency/pitch, amplitude/loudness, phase; formula
ranges and noticeable differences
timbre: overtones/partials
Computer sound analysis and synthesis
Fourier analysis
additive synthesis; building sounds from first principles
modifiers: AM, FM, glissando/sound bend, transients
Assignment #3-4 AM and FM due 2/11
Sets and Collections
operations with sets, Venn diagrams
modulation: intersection of sets
Assignment #5 Sets due 2/16
Multidimensional (Vector) Spaces
physical 3D space
musical space - sound parameters
Stockhausen - "...how time passes..."
continuous and discrete values
Assignment #6 Vector spaces due 2/18
Perception of sounds
logarithmic scales of perception
critical band: beats, difference (combination) tones
consonance and dissonance; intersection and union of partials
perceived loudness of complex tones
masking tones, the "cocktail" effect
chords and timbres; Rameau's harmony
blending timbres
Assignment #7 Logarithms and perception due 2/25
Sound and Environment
spatialization
stereo field; polar coordinates
the role of phase
reverberation
perception of distance
"moving" sounds, Doppler effect
Assignment #8 Spatialization and Reverberation due 3/2
February 25 -March 23
3. Organized sounds I: selection of materials
- outside time --- BEING
Tunings
Pythagorean, Just, Mean, Equal-tempered
Harry Partch and Ben Johnston
Assignment #9-10 Tunings due 3/4
Relations of order - scales and modes
tetrachords
pentatonic, pre-pentatonic, diatonic, chromatic, quarter-tone and other
synthetic or "artificial scales"
Messiaen's modes with limited transposition
Equivalence relations modulo m
octave equivalence and pitch classes
bars, beats, subdivisions
sieves
Assignment #11 & 12 Equivalence relations and Sieves due 3/11
Groups: symmetries
non-retrogradable rhythms
dorian and "gypsy" scales
P, I, R, RI and complex numbers representation
mappings, permutations
broken symmetry
meter - Mircea Eliade
Patterns
sets (cells, motives, isorhythms, etc.)
leit-motives in Wagner as mappings
tone-rows and series of proportions
objects/"windows"/Gruppen and collections of objects
isomorphisms in Boulez's domains technique
Hierarchies
tonal/modal hierarchies (degrees of scale, chromatic sounds)
Schenkerian analysis
relations of order; Directed Graphs - trees
non-tonal hierarchies, homomorphisms (?)
floating hierarchies - Herbert Brun
family tree of Oedipus
Assignment #13 Isomorphisms and hierarchies due 3/23
Controlled randomness
probability and weights
stochastic distributions
Assignment #14 Chance and Markov due 4/12
March 25 - April 13
4. Organized sounds II: methods - in time --
BECOMING
Chance procedures
Cage - chance music
(pseudo) random numbers
equiprobable events
conditional probability
Directional processes
Markov chains
random walks
arborescences - Directed Graphs
Cantus firmus and species counterpoint
through-composed music
Self-similar processes
Brownian, 1/f noise
Cage's "square root" method
fractals and "fractal-like" compositions
Developmental techniques
transpositions (I, R, RI)
augmentation, diminution
imitations; tonal, real
distortion
added notes and durations
non-linear processes
Determinism and causality
tonal music
functional harmony, chord progressions
dialectics (Hegel) - sonata form (?)
Game Theory - alternative to aleatorism
April 15 - May 4
5. Music as a Complex Dynamic System --
CREATING/COMPOSING