November 15, 1999
Music and Technology
Tidbit Archive
| Music has always involved technology in one
form or another. The most primitive musical instruments are a form
of technology, as is musical notation. The advent of computers and
modern electronics, including sound synthesis technology has opened a vast
range of options, however, for composing, playing, and distributing music.
Music CDs, MP3 recordings, home stereo systems, boom boxes, electric guitars, keyboards, and all sorts of other amplifiers and synthesizers are the best known products of this marriage of art and technology. Less known to the general public are experimental forms of computer-generated music that use fractals, genetic algorithms, and software that permits morphing of one instrument's tones into another's. This week's tidbit provides a glimpse at some of these innovations. |
Links:UPDATE (Dec. 13): Electronic Music Interactive is an online interactive primer developed by Jeffrey Stolet at the University of Oregon that teaches the fundamentals of electronic music. Requires Shockwave plug-in.Harmony Central: Computer Music Resources -- a goldmine of information and links on this subject, from classified ads for equipment to links to computer music research centers
The Electronic Music Foundation -- a not-for-profit organization that provides access to materials and information essential to understanding the history and current development of electronic music and related artforms
The Fractal Music Project, featuring an innovative form of computer generated music that results from a recursive process in which an algorithm is applied multiple times to process its previous output; includes downloadable music files as well as research papers and other information
Technology and Music -- annotated links from the UCLA Music Library
Electronic Early Music played on various MIDI instruments by Yasuhiko Higaki of the
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Chiba University in Japan (includes downloadable .au files)Music of Cyberspace, a commercial site featuring original MIDI sequences of multimedia composer Michael D. Walthius (more music downloads)
CREATE, the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology, located in the Music Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara
CNMAT, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University of California, Berkeley; includes some downloadable samples of timbral interpolation, morphing a trumpet into a saxophone
Bruce Jacob's Algorithmic Composition for Acoustic Instruments -- music composed on a computer and played on traditional (i.e., non-electronic) instruments (Jacob is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park)
