FINAL REVIEW 1 Structure 2pm on Thursday, Dec 8th, Murray Hall (here!) 40 - 50 Questions, all multiple choice Designed to take about 45 minutes Questions draw primarily on lecture content, although the readings are fair game. If you’ve been attending the lectures you are in good shape. Part I - Listening // Part II - Multiple choice (concepts & people) 2 Alternate Testing Site For students who have provisions for extra time or a distraction free environment same time — 2pm Old Cabell Hall, Room B011 — also known as the VCCM please email me by Tuesday night if you plan on taking the test in the B011 3 AUTOMATION 4 PEOPLE / GROUPS TERMS / TECHNOLOGIES Tangerine Dream Drum Machine Kraftwerk 808 Conlon Nancarrow Linndrum Can Player Piano Moog 960 Sequencer Rhythmicon Loops Vs. Sequences Conlon Nancarrow temporal dissonance Often used poly-tempi and poly-meter Complex temporal canons Precise ratio-based acceleration and deceleration Study 21 Player Piano History Late 1700s: Barrel piano: stubs on cylinder encode music 1804: Drawing-room barrel piano with no keyboard (John Longman) 1800s: Portable barrel pianos are popular street entertainment 1863: Pianista: frst pneumatic piano playing machine (Henri Fourneaux) 1895: Edwin Scott Votey creates the Pianola 1904: Edwin Welte completes frst “reproducing piano” 1904: Welte in Germany records a performer for use in creating player piano rolls 1900-1930: 2.5 million instruments sold in U.S. Gramophones and radio reduced demand by 1930s CAN - EGE BAMYASI THE GERMAN SCENE Characteristics of the “German scene” Rock band instrumentation with electronics Tape Manipulation Extended Improvisations Mechanical Beats Ambient Textures Can collective spontaneous composition LISTEN: SPOON Tangerine Dream Formed in 1967 by Edgar Froese. Most permanent members were Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann. Klaus Schulze was an early member, and went on to a successful solo career. Infuenced by: Stockhausen, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Reich, Pink Floyd, and French composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. Played a pivotal role in the development of Krautrock, Ambient and New Age Music. Moog 960 Sequential Controller (1968) Used by Chris Franke for rhythmic and repetitive structures. Improvisation by using knobs and switches. Three rows of eight potentiometers, each sends out a fxed voltage. A control voltage “clock” controls the speed. Bottom row positions for “play,” “skip,” or “loop.” Examples Three rows could play three note chords if all are sent to VCOs, Voltage-Controlled Oscillators. One row could control the pitch of a melodic sequence, while the second controlled flter cutoffs, while a third controls a VCA, Voltage- Controlled Amplifer. Kraftwerk Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider + They began making music in 1968 with a tape recorder and an organ "Industrial folk music" "Ethnic music from the German industrial center" Technology as art, as it is, not resembling nature. Cyborgs (biological and artifcial), Posthuman humans fused with machines "Machines ARE funky" Rhythmicon 1931: Henry Cowell commissioned Theremin to build a machine that could play complex rhythms light is passed through radially indexed holes in a series of spinning 'cogwheel' discs before arriving at electric photoreceptors. 1980: Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer transistor rhythm (TR); sixteen sounds; 32 programmable steps Linn Drum (1982) Used by Prince, Diana Ross, ABBA, Genesis, Madonna, Kraftwerk, Cindy Lauper, Depeche Mode, & a million others. DIGITAL AUDIO & COMPUTER MUSIC Patchwork (1977) Laurie Spiegel 15 PEOPLE / GROUPS TERMS / CONCEPTS / TECHNOLOGIES Laurie Speigel Digital Encoding Iannis Xenakis Sampling Rate Max Matthews Bit Depth John Chowning Binary (Bit / Byte) James Tenney Nyquist Theorem Paul Lansky Aliasing Music (Software) Music Mouse (Software) Types Of Synthesis Two Parameters of Digital Encoding Pulse-code modulation (PCM) Sampling Rate How quickly are the amplitudes of a signal measured? (time interval) Bit Depth How accurate are amplitude measurements when sampled? (pressure resolution) Sampling Rate measured in hertz (Hz) the faster we sample, the better chance we have of getting an accurate picture of the signal in order to represent all sounds within the range of human hearing (20,000 Hz) we require a sampling rate of (at least) 40,000 Hz. (Nyquist Theorem) Unwanted artifacts are audible when the sampling rate drops below 2x the highest frequency. (Aliasing) Nyquist Theorem to well represent a signal, the sampling rate should be at least twice the highest frequency contained in the signal. In mathematical terms: fs ≥ 2fc where fs is the sampling rate and fc is the highest frequency contained in the signal The highest frequency we can accurately record is half the sampling rate, in other words, at least two points per period must be sampled Aliasing a result of undersampling you not only lose information about the signal, but you get the wrong information. the signal takes on a different “persona” -- a false presentation or “alias” Bit Depth represents how accurately the analog wave can be represented. A higher bit depth will have less noise and a better dynamic range. 16 bit-depth is the standard for CD audio. (65,536 values) Professional audio systems have options for higher bit depths (DVD audio supports 24) and sampling rates (up to 96 and 192 kHz). Common Types of Synthesis Additive synthesis complex tones can be created by the summation, or addition, of simpler tones (organ, telharmonium, fairlight CMI, Fourier theorem, Max Mathews) Subtractive synthesis sound sculpting—start with noise (many frequencies), and then flter them (James Tenney) Formant synthesis a type of subtractive synthesis based on the resonant physical structure of the sound-producing medium, think speech (Paul Lansky) Granular synthesis combining very short sonic events called 'grains' to generate complex textures (Xenakis) Frequency Modulation the frequency of a simple waveform (carrier wave) is modulated by another (FM Synthesis) frequency (modulator wave)(John Chowning) MAX MATHEWS Often cited as the “Father of Computer Music” He continued to develop Music (the program) throughout the 1960s frst real-time computer system Groove in 1968 a conductor program and instrument called the Radio Baton (tracked x- y-z positions - we have one here!) From 1987 to 2011, Professor of Research at Stanford University. The program Max/MSP is named in his honor JAMES TENNEY Worked at Bell Labs from 1961-1963, composing 6 pieces. Analog #1 (Noise Study) is an exploration of noise through fltering (digital subtractive synthesis). Developed while listening during commutes through the Holland Tunnel In 1967 he gave an infuential FORTRAN workshop for a group that included Steve Reich, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, Phil Corner, Alison Knowles and Max Neuhaus. LAURIE SPIEGEL worked with Max Mathews at Bell Labs pioneered hybrid digital/analog composition methods built Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument (1986) experimented with early computer animation IANNIS XENAKIS granular synthesis, computer-aided methods graphic synthesis, graphic scores, UPIC excerpt from “Mycenae Alpha” (1978) FM SYNTHESIS Frequency modulation frst used in radio FM synthesis developed by John Chowning in the early 1970s effcient algorithm - little computation to generate rich sound palettes. when the modulating frequency is less than 30 Hz, it’s called vibrato, but above 30Hz, sidebands are generated, adding to the carrier wave’s complexity Yamaha DX7 (1980), one of the most popular synths of all time PAUL LANSKY digital voices and formant synthesis, linear predictive coding excerpt from “Idle Chatter Junior” (1985) Radiohead sampled his "Mild und Leise" (1973) in their song “Idioteque” on Kid A (2000) teaches at Princeton DISCO, SYNTHPOP & DIGITAL SYNTHESIZERS 29 PEOPLE / GROUPS TERMS / CONCEPTS / TECHNOLOGIES Gloria Gaynor Fairlight CMI Donna Summer Synclavier II Giorgio Moroder DX7 Tom Moulton Culture context for Disco David Mancuso (The Loft) Musical features of Disco Nicky Siano (The Gallery) The Loft & The Gallery Chic Studio 54 Saturday Night Fever (Film) Disco Demolition Night DIGITAL SYNTHESIS — ANALOG SYNTHESIS Sampling & Wavetable Subtractive synthesis Additive Synthesis FM Synthesis FM Synthesis abstract control manual control “precision” “character” FAIRLIGHT CMI (1979) • CMI = computer musical instrument • frst polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer ($20k) • 28MB of memory • Used by Afrika Bambaataa, Jean Michel Jarre, Kate Bush SYNCLAVIER II (1980 - 1982) • 16-bit hard drive recording device. $200,000 - $500,000 • Micheal Jackson [Thriller], The Cure, New Order, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Genesis, Frank Zappa, many flm studios. DX7 FM Synthesizer based on the research of John Chowning frst commercially successful digital synthesizer MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) MUSICAL CONTEXT INFLUENCES: prog rock — over-the-top ideals soul / funk — beat/structural aspects hippie (free love) movement - ideology a reaction against rock’s hyper- masculinity David Mancuso Nicky Siano The Loft The Gallery MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Rhythm - 120 BPM, 4 on the foor Syncopated bass lines (funk infuence) Powerful/soaring vocal lines (lots of reverb) Elaborate/lush orchestration Giorgio Moroder Italian producer, keyboardist, composer Moroder’s “From Here to Eternity” (1977) infuenced synthpop, future electronic dance forms (house, techno) Chic formed by Niles Rodgers Listening: 1978’s “Le Freak” STUDIO 54 Saturday Night