BMus/BSc (Hons) Electronic Music, Computing and Technology

This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of programming and object orientation, including the following basic ideas of programming, including: variables, memory and assignment statements, control through conditional statements, loops, functions and procedures, objects and classes, instance variables and methods, arrays, user interaction interaction between objects, inheritance, and polymorphism.

This module introduces fundamental numerical tools to support computational and algorithmic inquiry, and to enable effective computational experimentation.

You will:

• explain the need for different number systems
• understand what a prime number is and perform arithmetic modulo prime bases
• appropriately use combinations of trigonometric or special functions
• represent abstract locations in vector coordinate systems, and derive and apply transformation matrices

In this module you will learn the technical fundamentals of computing techniques used in digital media with a particular focus on sound and music computing.

The topics you will cover include applying and manipulating digital audio media for interactive contexts, sound synthesis theory and fundamentals, basic signal analysis techniques, and rudimentary digital signal processing in an audio buffer.

You'll practice this knowledge through a series of practical and creative exercises, undertaken throughout the module, and will undertake this using appropriate procedural environment with supported audio libraries.

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the styles you will encounter, the debates you will need to consider and the critical skills you will require in studying western musics of the period 1900 to the present.

While exploring musical repertoires of various kinds, from classical to popular (and beyond), the module will:

• investigate the ways this music has been thought and written about
• explore historical cultural contexts
• develop your skills in critical reasoning, conducting research and presenting written argument

You will be encouraged to think about relationships between musicians, their works, and their contexts, and to engage as they do with appropriate ideas from such disciplines as historical studies, sociology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology and musical analysis.

Introduces the overarching themes of music computing: how computers listen and analyse sound and music, how they can generate musical and sonic processes and structures, and how they can render these patterns as sound and music. You develop an understanding of the origins and development of computer-aided composition and computer-based electronic music, presented in a short series of repertoire-based case studies.

This module introduces advanced concepts in music computing as applied to analytic study and creative practice. Methods, concepts and wider implications of music information retrieval and computer-based musicology are explored with reference to notated scores, MIDI data and audio. We also explore the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to music, improvised performance and live DSP. You'll develop your expertise in a music programming language, and learn how to interface audio systems with AI modules. A key concern is the interaction between users and performers and computer music systems in a real-life setting. You'll develop an understanding of practical and aesthetic issues in the production and presentation of such work.

This module enables you to acquire fundamental skills in the use of studio equipment and software which are relevant to experimental electronic music and electroacoustic composition. These include recording techniques, sound editing and mixing, digital audio processing and use of MIDI. You will also be introduced to a range of experimental electronic/electroacoustic repertoire and associated compositional approaches. 

Indicative repertoire:

Pierre Schaeffer - Quatre études de Bruits (Four Studies in Noise) (1948)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)

Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain (1965)

Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting In A Room (1969)

Jonathan Harvey - Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) 

This module is a co-requisite for L2 Sonic Art Practice , and a pre-requisite for L3 Phonography and Live Electronics.

Learning outcomes: 

1. Basic proficiency in the use of studio equipment and software including the mixing desk, recording media, effects processors, Apple Mac computer, ProTools and Audiosculpt.
2. Detailed knowledge of selected approaches to contemporary electroacoustic composition
3. An ability to evaluate by listening electroacoustic music, demonstrating an awareness of compositional method and structure. 

Following Sonic Art Techniques, this module explores the experimental creative possibilities of the studio. Historical and current directions in computer music and sonic art are considered, including acousmatic music, phonography, text-sound composition, algorithmic composition and plunderphonics, with reference to aesthetic issues, historical and cultural contexts and most importantly compositional techniques. You will be introduced to non-real time software for analysing and transforming sound, including Audio Sculpt, Sound Hack and Metasynth. You are encouraged to develop your understanding and technical skills in the production of one substantial composition and a reflective commentary about one pivotal work by an established composer/sound artist.

The co-requisite for this module is Level 2 Sonic Art Techniques.

This module highlights a range of recording techniques and music technology, focusing on sequencing, sampling, multi-track recording, use of a mixing desk, audio and digital effects and microphones. In addition the module introduces the key aesthetic concepts which underlie contemporary production techniques and emphasises the creative importance of recording and technology in popular music. This module will also seek to enable you to explore and develop imaginative and innovative production techniques in a supportive environment, and ultimately set them upon a path to developing their own voice and identity as composer/producers. 

Learning outcomes: 

1. Systematic understanding of key music software
2. Ability to sequence and sample music
3. Systematic knowledge of basic studio recording technology
4. Understanding of the creative use of music technology in popular music
5. Understanding of the key aesthetic concepts that underlie production techniques 

This module aims both to build on the skills and competences developed in the technical modules in the Creative Computing Programme at Level 4, as well as the critical and creative awareness fostered in the Introduction to Creative Practice module. Providing knowledge and skills to be used in exploratory fashion in the Creative Projects, this module will also allow you to develop your own creative practice in general. It will provide you with a detailed appreciation of human visual and audio perception, allowing you to explain the limitations of your own sensory gamut, and to be able to exploit similarities and differences between observers perceptual systems.

You will learn the fundamentals of signal processing and systems, including a programming language suited to the signal processing domain, and how they are applied in typical multimedia applications; andwill then be shown how to combine these signal processing techniques with an understanding of perception to produce multimedia information retrieval systems.

Topics include:

• Visual perception: cones, rods and the eye; optical illusions; colour vision; colour spaces and
• profiles; motion perception and Gestalt psychology.
• Animation: approaches to animation; perception in video and film; making animations; visualisation.
• Sound, hearing and music: sound and the ear; frequency, pitch and harmony; melody; rhythm;
• digital audio formats and compression.
• Signals: the nature of signals; special signals; audio signals and sampling; frequency, amplitudend phase; the Fourier representation.
• Systems: linearity and time-invariance; impulse responses and convolution; spectral analysis;
• convolution by spectrum multiplication.
• Audio and image filtering: EQ; filter design; subtractive synthesis; echo and reverberation; resampling; image representation; two-dimensional convolution and image effects.
• Multimedia information retrieval: retrieval, fingerprinting

This module covers:

• Program development on a primary (Java) and secondary platform (Android)
• Fundamental data structures and algorithms
• Computational complexity, run-time efficiency
• OO design and implementation
• General features of programming languages eg type, abstract data types, the memory model, virtual machines, scope
• Libraries
• Specific language features: primitive and reference types, class and instance variables, overloading, string manipulation, input and output streams, serialisation, internet connectivity, error handling, generics, threads, memory management
• Advanced software techniques: concurrency, internet programming, GUI and event driven programming
• Android application development

This module aims both to build on the skills and competences developed in the technical modules in the Creative Computing Programme at level 4, and on the critical and creative awareness fostered in the Introduction to Creative Practice module; and to provide knowledge and skills to be used in exploratory fashion in the Intermediate Creative Practice and in your own creative practice in general. It will provide you with a detailed appreciation of human visual and audio perception, allowing you to explain for yourselves the limitations of your own sensory gamut, and to be able to exploit similarities and differences between observers’ perceptual systems.

You'll learn the fundamentals of signal processing and systems, including a programming language suited to the signal processing domain, and how they are applied in typical multimedia applications; you will then be shown how to combine these signal processing techniques with an understanding of perception to produce multimedia information retrieval systems.

This module provides you with the opportunity to develop your own creative projects through a variety of means, by focussing on a particular approach, task, concept and platform. It will also take you through the entire production process, from user centred design, to proposal development and implementation. This will re-enforce abilities in project management, planning, critical awareness and design that you need to develop in order to create better software and creative projects.

You will be working individually and/or in groups to conceive, develop and produce finished practical software projects in creative computing, making the fullest possible use of your creative and programming skills. Each project is uniquely specified to allow you the fullest possible creative choice. Projects are mentored by the module leader to ensure that they are at the appropriate level, and to provide you with specific programming and practical suggestions where required. All student projects must feature the creative use of digital media technologies through applied programming.

In addition to allowing you to develop your skills in a chosen area of interest, this unit encourages you to make coherent judgments regarding the application of your computing skills as you develop and reinforce your technical knowledge through creative projects.

This module covers:

• Program development on a primary (Java) and secondary platform (Android)
• Fundamental data structures and algorithms
• Computational complexity, run-time efficiency
• OO design and implementation
• General features of programming languages eg type, abstract data types, the memory model, virtual machines, scope
• Libraries
• Specific language features: primitive and reference types, class and instance variables, overloading, string manipulation, input and output streams, serialisation, internet connectivity, error handling, generics, threads, memory management
• Advanced software techniques: concurrency, internet programming, GUI and event driven programming
• Android application development

This module enables you to acquire fundamental skills in the use of studio equipment and software which are relevant to experimental electronic music and electroacoustic composition. These include recording techniques, sound editing and mixing, digital audio processing and use of MIDI. You will also be introduced to a range of experimental electronic/electroacoustic repertoire and associated compositional approaches. 

Indicative repertoire:

Pierre Schaeffer - Quatre études de Bruits (Four Studies in Noise) (1948)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)

Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain (1965)

Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting In A Room (1969)

Jonathan Harvey - Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) 

This module is a co-requisite for L2 Sonic Art Practice , and a pre-requisite for L3 Phonography and Live Electronics.

Learning outcomes: 

1. Basic proficiency in the use of studio equipment and software including the mixing desk, recording media, effects processors, Apple Mac computer, ProTools and Audiosculpt.
2. Detailed knowledge of selected approaches to contemporary electroacoustic composition
3. An ability to evaluate by listening electroacoustic music, demonstrating an awareness of compositional method and structure. 

Following Sonic Art Techniques, this module explores the experimental creative possibilities of the studio. Historical and current directions in computer music and sonic art are considered, including acousmatic music, phonography, text-sound composition, algorithmic composition and plunderphonics, with reference to aesthetic issues, historical and cultural contexts and most importantly compositional techniques. You will be introduced to non-real time software for analysing and transforming sound, including Audio Sculpt, Sound Hack and Metasynth. You are encouraged to develop your understanding and technical skills in the production of one substantial composition and a reflective commentary about one pivotal work by an established composer/sound artist.

The co-requisite for this module is Level 2 Sonic Art Techniques.

This module highlights a range of recording techniques and music technology, focusing on sequencing, sampling, multi-track recording, use of a mixing desk, audio and digital effects and microphones. In addition the module introduces the key aesthetic concepts which underlie contemporary production techniques and emphasises the creative importance of recording and technology in popular music. This module will also seek to enable you to explore and develop imaginative and innovative production techniques in a supportive environment, and ultimately set them upon a path to developing their own voice and identity as composer/producers. 

Learning outcomes: 

1. Systematic understanding of key music software
2. Ability to sequence and sample music
3. Systematic knowledge of basic studio recording technology
4. Understanding of the creative use of music technology in popular music
5. Understanding of the key aesthetic concepts that underlie production techniques 

This course extends the principles of creative engineering for use in arts, games, and more general interaction scenarios so that students can develop their own projects through the use of computational approaches to audiovisual processing. The lessons will be taught using Javascript or C++. It is recommended that students have some experience with using Processing and some background in digital audio and/or digital image manipulation before taking this course. We will spend the first few sessions exploring Digital Audio Signal Processing. This will cover synthesis, sequencing, filtering, sample loading and playback, panning and rudimentary analysis. Following this we’ll be looking at audiovisual interaction using video and 3D graphics.

Provides a broad overview of topics in securing computer-based resources, especially the information stored on hardware and controlled by software. We explore core concepts of computer security, including attacks and control, and various techniques for the protection of computer-related assets. Covers topics including computer security, attacks and control, elementary cryptography, cryptosystems, security control models, security problems and protection in operating systems, in databases and data mining, and in networks, security management and administration, legal and ethical issues: patents, copyrights and trademarks, and prosecution.

Introduces the essential principles of artificial intelligence as part of computer science. The emphasis is on heuristic problem solving methods. Material includes: heuristic search techniques, knowledge representation, rule-based systems for deductive problem solving, search-based planning, and inductive machine learning. The heuristic techniques covered are: depth-first search, breath-first search, iterative deepening, bidirectional search, hill climbing, and adversarial search. Guidelines are provided for implementing practical expert systems, planning systems, and empirical learning systems with version spaces using the candidate elimination algorithm.

Introduces the theory and practice of neural computation. Covers the principles of neurocomputing with artificial neural networks widely used for addressing real-world problems such as classification, regression, pattern recognition, data mining, time-series prediction. We look at supervised and unsupervised learning. We study supervised learning using linear perceptrons, and non-linear models such as probabilistic neural networks, multilayer perceptrons, and radial-basis function networks. Unsupervised learning is studied using Kohonen networks. We provide contemporary training techniques for all these neural networks, and knowledge and tools for the specification, design, and practical implementation of neural networks.

Tutor: Dr Nikolay Nikolaev

Physical Computing is of increasing interest to artists, musicians, choreographers and other creative practitioners for the creation of novel artworks and also for forms of computational interaction between these objects and people. There are many other applications of Physical Computing, for example in museums, ubiquitous and embedded computing, robotics, engineering control systems and Human Computer Interaction.

A physical environment may be sonic, tangible, tactile, visually dynamic, olfactory or any combination of these. In this module, you will learn how the environment, which is essentially continuous, can be monitored by analogue electrical and mechanical sensors. Computers, however, are digital machines programmed by software. One element which you will focus on, therefore, is the interface between the digital and the analogue.

This study will encompass basic physics, electronics, programming and software engineering. The practical objective of this module is the development of the skills you will need for designing and building interactive physical devices.

This module provides you with advanced skills in designing interactive systems and an in-depth understanding of emerging practico-theoretical developments in interaction design.

The module is delivered as a series of workshops, lectures and seminars where you're introduced to a range of key technical skills for making interactive platforms, and develop an understanding of the role of prototyping though the embedding of technical work in the pursuit of a series of design briefs.

You'll be able to then use these technologies in your projects, and develop an understanding of the roles of software and hardware development.

Provides you with theoretical knowledge of basic and advanced machine learning algorithms and statistical techniques utilised in the process of discovery of hidden patterns in potentially large volumes of data. Practical data mining will be introduced through both algorithm implementation in Java and data mining software utilisation for knowledge discovery in data from various fields of activity.

A large amount of data is available in electronic resources, both offline and online. This module will give a broad introduction to techniques for gathering data from electronic sources, such as databases and the internet. It will cover both fundamental ideas and the use of some of the most important currently available tools. The module will also present tools and ideas for more effectively using the internet to communicate, visualise and generate news stories. 

The module will expose students to state-of-the-art techniques, tools, and open questions related to creative uses of data, signal processing, and machine learning. The emphasis will be on developing hands-on skills using these techniques in creative projects, and on exploring the creative potential of these techniques.

Specifically, students will learn about topics including:

• Representations and feature engineering for sensor data, audio data, image and video data, social media data, etc.
• Signal processing techniques for working effectively with this data (e.g., perceptual audio and video features, smoothing filters,
  onset detection)
• Communication protocols for working with real-time data (e.g., OpenSoundControl, Web Sockets, serial)
• Applications of classification to creative and interactive contexts: e.g., human pose recognition, activity recognition, semantic
  audio analysis
• Applications of regression to creative and interactive contexts: e.g., creating continuous gestural controllers and multimodal
  mappings (such as music visualisations, gesturally-controlled instruments)
• Applications of temporal modeling to creative and interactive contexts: e.g., gesture recognition, temporal analysis of music or
  video
• Current topics in signal processing and machine learning in music, art, and other creative industries (e.g., Google's "Deep
  Dream," chat bots, image style transfer)
• Tools for working with data, signal processing, and machine learning in creative projects, including tools for real-time data
  analysis
• Reasoning about fundamental questions in machine learning and data mining, including e.g., how can an algorithm learn from
  data? What feature representations should we use for a given problem? How do we know whether one algorithm is better than
  another?

This module assesses the history, techniques and aesthetics of musical minimalism in the context of contemporary cultural practice. The period covered ranges from its prehistory in the output of such composers as Satie, through its early maturity in the work of Young, Riley, Reich and Glass, to some of the manifestations of their heritage in the music of such younger composers as Pärt, Branca and Skempton.

Learning Outcomes

1. A detailed understanding of the main general movements in minimalist sculpture and painting in this period.
2. A detailed understanding of the main movements in musical minimalism and postminimalism in this period.
3. A systematic understanding of the compositional theories and practices of the composers discussed.
4. A systematic understanding of the processes of change (technically and aesthetically) and how historical judgements are made.
5. Ability to question historical judgements and values.
6. Ability to use primary and secondary sources discerningly.
7. Ability to use an appropriate technical methodology and vocabulary in written work.

The art of phonography is regarded by some as a recent phenomenon; however the recording, editing and juxtaposing of 'real world' sounds within an artistic context can be claimed to be as old as the technology such practice utilises, and likewise there are as many aesthetic approaches to working with such materials as there are composers working within this genre.

This compositional module will creatively explore the domain of field recording, including the use of recorded sounds in documentary, acoustic ecology and sound art. It will theoretically and practically tackle the salient issues and simultaneously build up the technical skills required in the practice of phonography.

Learning Outcomes

1. A detailed understanding of the techniques involved in phonography through hands on experience of a range of field recording techniques.
2. A detailed understanding of current as well as historical precedence of phonography.
3. An awareness of the salient aesthetic, political and ecological issues that underline phonographic practice.
4. An ability to record, edit and juxtapose 'real world' sound within a critical framework.
5. A critical understanding of the notion of context and site-specific practice. 

The pre-requisite for this module is Level 2 Sonic Art Techniques.

This module aims to familiarise you with standard principles of orchestration and arrangement as found in various forms of late twentieth century music – concert composition and orchestral transcription, film scoring, and jazz/popular music studio arranging  - drawing from a diversity of source material.

It examines the idiomatic use of orchestral instruments and instrumental groups, standard techniques of orchestration and orchestral transcription, and offers creative resources for arrangement.

The module helps you develop the conceptual and analytical tools to ‘reverse engineer’ techniques of orchestration and arrangement in scores and recordings. Teaching takes place through lectures, workshops, tutorial groups, and through online resources, both on the VLE, and at external sites. You will be encouraged to contribute to a database of significant examplars of instrumental use, of specific techniques, and of creative arrangement.

The pre-requisite for this module is Level 2 Arranging in Jazz and Popular Music.

‘Manhattan’, Le Corbusier wrote in 1935, ‘is hot jazz in stone and steel’. The architect wasn’t alone in imagining both built and sounding constructions as articulating a singular design for future living, but what were these modernist ideals that you could touch as well as hear? The theorist Charles Jencks would later date the death of that dream to 1972, and the detonation of the modernist Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St Louis, Missouri – a citation that would become as ubiquitous in the cliché-happy postmodern era as that of John Zorn, the composer-improviser who traded in cut-ups and cartoons and who, in the words of Susan McClary, ‘revelled in the rubble’ of a once-proud Western cultural edifice. Futurism and referentiality, confidence and anxiety, from the solid to the fragmented and on to the airlessly virtual: now, in the twenty-first century, music of all kinds flits around the borderless internet, meshing with other media forms in endlessly mutable networks. Does the work of a composer like Jennifer Walshe – whose operas are based on video game footage, and who, in multiple personae, performs musics ranging across drone, telepathic improvisation and Irish dada sound poetry – sound a digitised post-postmodernity? This module explores notions of the modern, postmodern and post-postmodern in music of all kinds and culture more broadly, considering classic and emerging characterisations of each moment; warily though - you are encouraged to think around illiquid periodisations, and to construct nimble ideas on the creative and theoretical uses made of the new and the old, the human and the machine, the local and dematerialised, the fast and the faster, across music’s modernities.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. A developed knowledge of musical theories and practices associated with modernism, postmodernism and a putative ‘post-postmodernism’.
2. A developed ability to read musical activity in light of wider social and cultural processes, and vice versa.
3. A developed ability to carry out research.
4. A developed ability to present complex critical thinking and arguments in written form.

This module aims to engage with theories of representation and narrative in order to understand how the popular song uses words and music to convey information about, comment upon and tell stories about the world. It will be concerned with fiction as much as realism; social intervention as much as imaginative escapism.

The module will combine theoretical reflection with detailed case studies. Although the main focus will be on songs composed over the past seventy years, it will also consider various historical legacies (particularly the lyrical and musical influence of folk ballads and the blues). The module is concerned with analysing how lyrics and music work together and students will be expected to familiarise themselves with and draw from a wide range of theoretical perspectives including discourse theory, music semiotics, musicology, literary theory and theories of realism.

Case studies will be approached via individual songs, groups of songs that comment on specific events, and specific themes/ issues. The module will be delivered via a combination of lectures, seminars and non-assessed group presentations.

Learning outcomes: 

1. A knowledge of a wide range of musical, lyrical and vocal strategies used by musicians, singers and songwriters when communicating ideas about the world.
2. An understanding of various rhetorical devices (music, verbal, literary) deployed in songs of social commentary and observation.
3. Familiarity with a range of theoretical perspectives and conceptual models that can be drawn on when analysing the popular song.
4. An understanding of the ways that performed songs work across and play with the conventional distinctions between realism and fiction.
5. An understanding of how musical and verbal meanings are shaped by varied politicised contexts of reception and interpretation. 

This module provides an overview and critique of methods for analysing Western art music from 1750, and examines to what extent analysis might inform the understanding of performer and/or listener. By studying how theory-based analysis can illuminate meanings in music, we can see also how analytical tools are the output of specific social contexts.

The module develops analytical skills of a selected method or set of methods, and reviews concurrent criticism of these approaches. The module relates musical form and structure to performance, considering by what means an analytical approach can enrich the performer’s execution and the listener’s apprehension/participation. The exact methods and materials explored will depend on the expertise of the lecturer but typical examples might include: analyses of non-Western repertoires; reflection on the semiotics of ‘topics’ in Classical music and 18^th-century performance practice; how 19^th-century programme music resists and depends on abstract structure to generate a narrative; how different analytical approaches might shape in, different ways, the registral, temporal, and dynamic contours latent in the score.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. the understanding of contrasting methods for analysing music
2. the application of analysis to notated music
3. the illumination of how analytical knowledge strengthens abilities in listening and playing
4. the acquisition of tools to critique methods of musical analysis

This module aims to provide an introduction to the study of music psychology. Lectures will focus on the perception, cognition and neural basis of musical understanding, the perception of musical structure and emotions and theories about music’s evolutionary roots. The scientific methods used in research will be explored in a lab-based class. Student evaluation will be made on the basis of a written assignment selected from a pool of questions.

This module is offered in collaboration with the Department of Psychology.