M a k i n g [musical] T h i n g s

>a.k.a. Physical Computing
__a.k.a. Interactive Media<
|a.k.a. MUSI735/435|____
-----\a.k.a. the MICE class/

Professor Matthew Burtner [mburtner@virginia.edu]
TAs: Peter Swendsen [swendsen@virginia.edu] & Charles Archibald [cea2w@virginia.edu]
Technical Director: David Topper [topper@virginia.edu]
University of Virginia, Department of Music/ VCCM

Send E-mail to the entire class: [MUSI435-1@toolkit.virginia.edu, MUSI735-1@toolkit.virginia.edu]

Class: Tuesday, 5:00-7:30pm, VCCM (Rm. BO11 OCH) Old Cabell Hall
Lab (required): Friday 9:30-11:30am, VCCM
Office hours: Tuesday 3-5pm, Old Cabell Hall #201, and by appointment

________________________o v e r v i e w___________
You make things.

___________________________g r a d i n g_________
You get grades.

50% attendance and participation (that means you show up to the classes and the labs, you engage with the discussions and labs, and you try everything at your best ability). 25% group project. 25% final project (may be in collaboration with others in the class, and it may be an extension of the group project).
__________________m a t e r i a l s/links _____________
No textbook is required for this course and materials will be provided when possible. Students should be prepared to purchase books and/or supplies for their own use if necessary. The cost for this will vary depending on the project. Plan to spend around $100 on your own materials.

The following links will be of general use in the class:

• The HyperPhysics Site
• Jameco Electronics
• Jensen Tools
• Parallax
• Building a contact microphone
• MICE (from MUSI435/735 2003): Pictures of Money MICE in performance at 2003 Fringe Festival
• New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) Conference
  (2001 papers) (2002 papers) (2003 papers) (2004 papers)
• Dan O'Sullivan's Physical Computing site: many good resource links
• Resistor Color Coding Chart
• GAIA web page
• Troikatronix website
  ________________________s y l l a b u s___________

Half of each class will be devoted to lectures, discussions and presentations of material.
The other half, as well as Friday's lab time, will be a hands-on time to learn new technologies and techniques.

9.7.04 : Week 1 : Safety/Rules and Instrument Theory

Discussion:

• Matthew Burtner's Metasaxophone pdf paper,
  read http://www.metasax.com/ CD on reserve in Music Library
• Dan Trueman's Reinvented Violin
  read the paper on Interface here
  watch a .mov of Dan performing here
  CD on reserve in the library (listen to "Still")
• Read Perry Cook's article on controller design principles (PerryCookControllers.pdf)
• Instrument Brainstorm -- issues of control on an instrument you play

Lab:

• Lab codes and access
• Safety
• Things you might need and where to buy them
• Basics of Electricity (power sources, current, units, resistors, precautions, short circuit, ohms law, using a breadboard, resistor labels, series vs parallel)
• LED demonstration

Friday Lab 9/10:

• Basics of Electricity lab continued
• Soldering and LEDs
• Assignment1: make an LED circuit

9.14-9.21.04 : Weeks 2-3 : Learning to Hear

9.19: Metasaxophone CD Release Party and Concert at Gravity Lounge

Discussion:

• Acoustics and the ear (read "sound and hearing" on hyperphysics - follow the links for hearing)
• Transduction (read Electricity and Magnetism on hyperphysics - follow the links for circuit elements
• MSP basics
• audio tracking in MSP (read Miller Puckett's paper, "Real-time audio analysis tools for Pd and MSP")
• Rainforest, David Tudor
• Feeding the System, Peter Swendsen
• Delta1, Matthew Burtner
• Pendulum Music, Steve Reich

Lab:

• Continue basics of electronics, including soldering, resistors, capacitors,
• electricity: impedance, capacitors, voltage divider
• Reading resistor charts
• Contact piezo electric mics
• Electret mics

Friday Labs:

• Building contact piezo electric mics in groups
• Building Electret mics in groups
• Assignment2: each group make a working contact mic and a working electret mic

9.28-10.5.04 : Weeks 4-5 : Learning to See

10.1 - 10.2 Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival

Discussion:

• Video tracking
• Isadora and GAIA
• Winter Raven (video staff and masks) Matthew Burtner
• Tree Music (GAIA) Judith Shatin
• Shadow of Myself, Peter Swendsen (puppet piece)

Lab:

• Wiring a board, programming in Basic
• Parallax B2SX
• Sonar circuit (1st week)
• Video input into Isadora and GAIA (2nd week)

Friday Lab (no lab on Oct 1):

• Wiring a board, Basic programming,
• parallax basic stamp
• Sonar circuit
• Video in Isadora and GAIA
• Assignment3: Working in your group, create either:
  • 1) a sonar circuit and program running on the Basic Stamp that converts data into MIDI and sends it to Max/MSP. You should verify that the MIDI is working by making it do something in MSP (blinking bang, changing tone, etc)
  • 2) video tracking patch in GAIA, Isadora, Jitter, etc. that takes a signal in from a video camera and processes it in some way.

10.12.04 : Learning to Have Fall Break (no class)

10.18.04: Laurie Anderson at University of Richmond, Alice Jespon Theater, 7:30pm

10.19-10.26.04 : Weeks 6-7 : Learning to Feel

Discussion:

• Laurie Anderson discussion
• Laetitia Sonami's lady's glove
• Dance, movement and the computer's sense of touch DIEM Digital Dance System
• Read Dominic Robson's article on playing with sound in Soundtoys.pdf
• Charles Nichols' violin
• Group discussions -- plan for project implementation

Lab:

• Wiring FSRs, bend sensors, and Accelerometers
• Assignment 4: Build a touch theremin: each group should make a working FSR, bend sensor and accelerometer circuit and implement it into a software "Theremin"

10.27.04 (Wednesday): Technosonics V in the Rotunda. 7:30pm

11.2.04 : Learning to Salsa at ICMC (no class)
Groups should use this week to make significant progress on the projects.
First working draft of group project due 11/9/04

11.9.04 : Week 8: Learning to Speak

Discussion:

• Composition considerations with NIMEs: Meeting with Dan Trueman

Lab:

• Programming and decoding MIDI for NIMEs
• Multichannel speaker setup (Oct 27)
• other protocols OTUDP, etc.

11.16.04 : Week 9 : Learning to Run

Discussion:

• Performance Considerations with NIMEs
• feedback issues

Lab:

11.23.04 : Week 10 : Learning to Sing

Discussion:

• Composition with NIMEs

Lab:

Group Projects
Group 1: Generalizable Gesture Controller GGC, "The Patches" a project dealing with human gesture tracking and dance -- issues of generalizability in sensing human movement.

Group 2: Speaking Tree: an "aware" instrument that tracks the position of dancers around a space from a central location and reacts depending on its sense of direction -- audio triangulation and tracking.

Group 3: Shaman Staff: Building on the Winter Raven video tracking staff, outfit it with sensors for processing the input video -- video tracking and processing.