Instructor, Larry Polansky
Assignment Schedule
1: Spectral Transformations, 1/13-1/20
2: Spectral Transformations, continued 1/20-1/27
3: Spectral Morphing, 1/27-2/3
5: Supercollider, 2/3-2/10
4: Composition using the created, 2/10-2/17
6: Timbral Measures/MDS/MatLab, 2/17-2/24
Final Projects (Due by last day of Finals Week)
Revised Course Schedule
Week 1
Tuesday, Jan. 13
Introduction to class; concepts of timbre and analysis; the FFT
and the spectral domain; use of the FFT as a timbral manipulation tool;
example demonstration (spectral centroid).
Assignment 1 given (use of Spectral Assistant to perform alterations on spectra):
Readings:
Beauchamp, James, "Synthesis by Spectral Amplitude and 'Brightness'
Matching of Analyzed Musical Instrument Tones," 1982, Journal of the Audio
Engineering Society, 30:6.
Dolson, M., The Phase Vocoder: A Tutorial, 1986, Computer Music Journal,
10:4, pp. 14-27.
Dolson, M., and LaRoche, Jean, About this Phasiness Business, 1997,
Proceedings of the ICMC, Thessaloniki, pp. 55-58.
Embree, Paul, and Kimble, Bruce. C Language Algorithms for Digital
Signal Processing, 1991, pp. 27-35 ( section on FFT).
Moore, R. Elements of Computer Music. 1990, pp. 56Ð111, (section
on FFT and Spectrum Measurements). On reserve in Paddock.
Roads, Curtis, and Greenspun, Philip, Fourier Analysis, 1996, from
The Computer Music Tutorial, pp. 1073-1112.
Wednesday, Jan. 14
Special tutorial with douglas repetto on the use of Spectral Assistant,
1-3.
Thursday, Jan. 15
John Puterbaugh, guest. Spectral measurements.
Week 2
Tuesday, Jan. 20
Presentation of Assignment 1. Continued general discussion of ways
of talking about timbre. Time and frequency domain? Morphing as a physical,
mathematical, cognitive, or experimental technique. Feature and spectral
morphing.
Assignment 2 given: Spectral morphing.
Thursday, Jan. 22
Feature, connotative, physical and spectral models of timbre.
Readings:
Erbe, T., and Polansky, L, ÒSpectral Mutation in Soundhack,Ó
1996, Computer Music Journal, 20:1, pp. 92-101.
Langmead, Christopher. ÒSound Analysis, A Comparison and Modification
Based on a Perceptual Model of Timbre, 1995, Proceedings of the ICMC, Banf,
pp. 475-480.
Osaka, Naotoshi. Timbre Interpolation of Sounds Using a Sinusoidal
Model, 1995, Proceedings of the ICMC, Banff, pp. 408-411.
Tellman, Haken, Holloway, ÒTimbre Morphing Using the Lemur Representation,
1994, Proceedings of the ICMC, Arhus, pp. 329-330.
Tenney, James. The Physical Correlates of Timbre.
Week 3
Tuesday, Jan. 27
Guest, Charles Dodge.
Assignment 2 presented in class.
Thursday, Jan. 29
Guest, Perry Cook
Week 4
Tuesday, Feb. 3
Assignment 4: Supercollider.
Guest: James McCartney
Assignment 3: SuperCollider assignment.
Thursday, Feb. 5
James McCartney
Week 5
Tuesday, Feb. 10
Assignment 4 given, pieces, using software developed (by others) in
Assignment 1 and Assignment 2. Compositional mappings, aspects and possibilities
of timbre. Timbre intervals and space, timbre and language, timbral hierarchies.
Timbral compositions. Individual projects.
Readings:
Boulez, Pierre, Timbre and Composition timbre and language, 1987, Contemporary
Music Review, 2:1, pp. 161-172.
Lerdahl, F., Timbral Hierarchies, 1987, Contemporary Music Review,
2:1, pp. 135-160.
Risset and Wessel, Exploration of Timbre by Analysis and Synthesis,1982,
in Deutsch, D., ed., The Psychology of Music, pp. 26Ð58.
Smalley, Denis, Spectro-morphology and Structuring Processes, 1986.
in Emmerson, Simon, The Language of Electro-Acoustic Music, pp. 61Ð93.
Thursday, Feb. 12
Guest: Charles Sullivan
Week 6
Tuesday, Feb. 17
Guest, Charles Owen
Thursday
Spectral metrics and distance functions, multidimensional scaling,
timbre intervals, cognitive measures and statistical tools. Assignment
4 presented in class;
Assignment 5 given (MatLab/MDS/Spectral Measures).
Readings:
Grey, John, Multidimensional perceptual scaling of musical timbres,1977,
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 61, pp. 1270 Ð 1277.
Grey, John, An Exploration of Musical Timbre, 1975, CCRMA Report No.
STAN-M-2. On reserve in Paddock.
Iverson, Paul, and Krumhansl, Carol, Isolating the dynamic attributes
of musical timbre,1992, JASA, 94:5, pp. 2595-2603.
Kendall, Roger and Carterette, Edward, Perceptual Scaling of Simultaneous
Wind Instrument Timbres,Ó 1991, Music Perception, 8:4, pp. 369-404.
Ñ ÒIdentification and Blend of timbres as a basis for
orchestration, Contemporary Music Review, 9:1&2, pp. 51-67.
Kruskal, Joseph, and Wish, Myron. Multidimensional Scaling, Sage University
Papers.
McAdams, et al., Perceptual Scaling of Synthesized musical timbres:
Common dimensions, specificities, and latent subject classes, 1995, Psychological
Results, 58, pp. 177-192.
Sandell, Gregory, Perception of Concurrent Timbres and Implications
for Orchestration.
Wessel, David, Timbre Space as a Musical Control Structure, Computer
Music Journal, 1979, 3:2, pp. 45Ð52.
Week 7
Tuesday, Feb. 24
No class, LP out of town.
Thursday, Feb. 26
Assignment 5 presented in class.
Week 8
Tuesday, March 3
Student Presentations begin
Thursday, March 5
Student Presentations
Wednesday, March 11
Student Presentations (Student presentations will simply proceed till
we're done, the above is only a kind of rough plan)