Contact
Jeff Feddersen
email: fed@zaftig.org
url: www.zaftig.org/frameworks
Office hours: Wednesdays, 11:00 - 2:00 or by appointment, adjunct office

Sketchbooks
Manlio Lo Conte | Taku Lippit | Oliviet Massot | Christine Brumback | Michael Sharon | Joon Seo Lee | Eric Socolofsky | Matt Pilotti | Nathaniel Jabbawy | Marc Maleh | Phillip Manget | Zhenya Plechkina | Uriko Fuji | Koichi Nishi | Daniel Hirschmann

H79.2436 Frameworks for Interactive Sound
This course introduces the student to an array of critical and practical frameworks for creating technologically-based audio works. Drawing from an inclusive perspective of technology and sound throughout history, the coursework is based on in-depth dissections of specific tools, compositions, instruments and installations. Hands-on work is enriched with an equal component of critical reading and discussion. Outside of class students will maintain an audio "sketchbook" with which they will exhibit working knowledge of a range of concepts through the execution of small, simple exercises. Students are expected to be conversant in at least one digital audio platform such as Max/MSP, csound, pd, JSyn, or equivalent, and to be familiar with fundamentals of digital audio as covered in Digital Sound Lab (H79.2266).

Classwork
The majority of classwork will take the form of small, simple exercises executed in one of the digital audio tools overviewed below. In these exercises we emphasize quantity - the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible, while bypassing our natural tendency to analyze and critique ourselves. These sketches will be a way of getting our hands around the concepts presented in class. Class time and out-of-class channels will focus on the presentation, discussion and analysis of the ideas generated from the coursework.

Here are two examples of an audio sketch (in msp and csound).

Each student will also give two 10-minute in-class presentations regarding a specific instrument, piece of software, compositional idea, etc. These presentations may take the form of a performance. Students may work individually or in pairs.

Students will participate in class in the staging of at least two compositions, and possibly more as time/interest allows.

Some class time each week will be devoted to listening. Students will participate by bringing in their own selections of music or sound each week.

Finally, I would like the class to be involved in the ITP Radio Station.

Tools
This class does not focus on the mechanics of specific applications or tools. You should choose an environment that you are comfortable working in and learning about with which to implement the concepts addressed in class. Following are a few of the obvious choices, but anything that can generate audio digitally is fair game in this class and is encouraged. Pretty much any language could do it; even Director or Perl could write data to a text file that could be played as a sound file. Working with the BX or pic could be an interesting challenge - its up to you.

Max/MSP - Graphical programming language from Cycling 74. Probably the best overall package, offering powerful MIDI, digital audio, and video processing, strong support at ITP, extremely easy installation and relative ease of use. Downside is its price tag, compared to the other options, all free, but ITP has a lot of licenses. Newly available for Windows, but most third party objects are probably not yet converted.
http://www.cycling74.com/

JSyn - A Java API for developing audio applications. Cross-platform, and the basics are free; graphical, Max-like GUI editor ("Wire") costs but is available at ITP.
http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn/

Pd - A free, cross-platform program similar to Max/MSP, from its creator Miller Puckette. Cross platform and free are nice in theory, but installation has a few hoops and performance (at least on my tiBook) is slow, with perceptible latency.
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software.html

cSound - Text-language similar to C. Orchestras files describe instruments, which can be any digital audio process; score files coordinate instruments into a sequence of events. Compile the orchestra and score and you end up with an audio file. Pretty low level and arcane at times, with an architecture heavily influenced by old-school electronic music terminology. But there's a large community, with lots of online examples and downloads, and its free.
http://www.csounds.com/
The compiler I've been using (for OS X) is CSndX, available here.

portAudio - another free, cross-platform tool, portAudio is a C library that allows you to incorporate real-time digital audio easily into your C projects (pixel-by-pixel, perhaps?). As low as you'll get.
http://www.portaudio.com/

See also the class notes from the first week for more potential tools.

Books and Resources
There are a huge number of resources available on our subject; here are some of the ones I've found. One of the goals of the class will be to develop and expand this list as a group by sharing insights. Class readings will be handed out the week before they are due.

The Computer Music Tutorial, Curtis Roads, MIT Press. This is the best reference I've encountered for technology and audio. Although its quite detailed and deep, material is presented in an accessible way, with extremely thorough diagrams, illustrations, and references. Over 1000 pages long, it could be studied for a lifetime. Many of our readings are drawn from here.

The CSound Book, Richard Boulanger ed., MIT Press. This collection of essays from a number of authors offers many insights and angles for understanding sound. All the examples are in the cSound language, but the text is of general interest due to its broad range and excellent quality.

Musical Instrument Design, Bart Hopkin, See Sharp Press. Although this book in no way addresses digital technology, it is a superb reference for the way sound is made in the physical world, grounded by its purpose as an encyclopedia of instrument design principles. Offers a thorough understanding of the acoustic principles of all major classes of instruments.

New Directions in Music, David Cope, Waveland Press. A comprehensive look at twentieth-century classical music. The author created the Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI) program, which several years ago was notorious for imitating the style of classical composers.

The Computer Music Journal and Leonardo Music Journal, MIT Press. Excellent academic journals regarding technology and sound.