Assignment 3, for September 7

We have a whole week! So please study Max Basic tutorials 16-22 (Designing equations); MSP Synthesis tutorials 1-5 (Basics review); Grosse tutorials 8-11.

MSP tutorial 5 is a group of three assignments which I want you to try; again, the answers are given to you if you want to check your work. When you email your patch to me (by midnight on September 6) please do something with each of these exercises to make it your own. Whatever you do, please don't just copy and paste - you won't learn anything that way.

Also, start playing with the playlist~ object, and begin watching Darwin Grosse's video series, A Few Minutes with BEAP.

Grosse tutorial 8 (with menu)

Here is a little more of Darwin Grosse's Tutorial 8, with a handy [umenu] object you can download for your own use.

Grosse Tutorial 6

Here is my attempt at some of the exercises in Darwin Grosse's tutorial on random numbers, plus a little bit on noteout (#7) and encapsulated patchers (#8), in case that helps.

Assignment 2, for August 31

After reading through the Grosse tutorials 5-7 (metro, random, noteout - where you finally get to make music!), please do Max Basics tutorial 8, "Keyboard and Mouse Input" (theoretically you already read this for today). At the end of this tutorial you are given directions to make your own "intelligent" patch, based on keyboard and mouse activity. Follow these directions (checking your work in the example patcher) and email to me by midnight on Tuesday.

I found out you don't need to compress your patch, my email is fine with .maxpat files. Just for my records, please title your patch starting with your last name (e.g. Taylor assign 2).

Also, please study Max Basic tutorials 9-15 (Abstractions); MSP Basics Tutorials 1-5, and if you have time, the Global Transport (Max tutorial 19).

Natalie Teodori

Hi everyone!

I'm Natalie Teodori and I play the harp. I love the harp and I love all of the super romantic pretty Debussy-Fauré-Ravel Magic that harpists typically play but I also really love new music, ugly or pretty.

By taking this course I hope to eliminate the freaked out feeling I have about learning/performing music that involves electronics. Also, I'm always interested in learning more about composition and how composers' brains work, in order to better convince them that writing for the harp is an awesome idea.

Hi, I'm Zhaoyu Zhang

I am second year DMA student majoring in composition. This is going to be my fourth year here in Champaign. I did my master here as well. Electroacoustics is always of my interest, and I have a relatively quite experience dealing with fixed media, and coding based interface. I'm looking for collaborating with performers here in this class, and hopefully we all can have a productive class!

Andrew Rodriguez--Introduction

I'm a first year MM student in Composition. I just came here from Texas and the weather is pretty chill. I'm a guitarist and have played for a few different groups across the country, although, I don't perform much anymore so as to focus on composition and music production. I've never used Max before, so I am excited to utilize my knowledge of music production and sound into something new and unique for me. I really like dogs. I really like audio gear. I promise I'm not a loser. This semester should be pretty chill.

Introduction: Ronnie MacDuff

I'm a music technology major with limited experience in electronic music. I would like to learn how to apply Max to future projects.

Introduction: Cassie Wieland

Hi everyone! My name is Cassie Wieland, I'm a first year Masters student in composition. Just last year I finished my BM in composition at Illinois State University. I have no experience with Max/MSP or writing for electronics, but I am very interested in learning. Through this class I hope to learn how to build patches that I can use in my compositions, and can have performers easily navigate through themselves.

I'm Kyle Shaw

I'm a 2nd year DMA in composition - I play piano (I also gig around as an organist). I am a novice in Max -- I've tried teaching myself twice, but I've ended up using a different program called SuperCollider for most of my computer music needs. I've really dug into it over the last 4 or 5 years, so I'm far less of a novice to computer music in general. Since Max is so popular, I think it would still be valuable to learn it if only to be conversant with others who are deeply immersed in it.

I'm pretty crazy about music that combines solo instruments with electronics and would love to collaboratively write a new piece this semester.

Assignment for Monday, August 29

Over the weekend, please read through and mess around with these tutorials: Grosse tutorials 1-4, Max Basic tutorials 1-8; if you have the chance, you might want to get a little ahead, since there is another assignment due on Wednesday.

Then, create a patch with four different sections:

1.Create a converter from one unit to another, using number boxes and sliders (or anything else you feel like adding, the sky's the limit). Grosse suggests Celsius to Fahrenheit; you could also do centimeters to inches, currency calculations (if you want to mess around with the http functions), etc.

2. In this section, one flonum will change the background color of three different number boxes; one red, one green and one blue.

3. Create a pack object that will combine a name (symbol), age (integer) and income level (float) for a set of professional athletes (or you can substitute other parameters like planets, plants, etc.). Use number boxes and flonums for the value inputs, and message boxes for the symbol inputs. Write the output to the Max Console (aka Max Window).

4. Create a pack object that will collect three color values, all between 0.0 and 1.0, and display the output in a message box. Force the output to occur whenever any value is changed.

Please email your patch to me before midnight on Sunday; then I should be able to look at them all on Monday morning and get them back to you. You may have to compress your patch by turning it into a .zip file before sending it (sometimes email filters out weird filename extensions like .maxpat).

I'm David Q. Nguyen

Hi Everyone,
My name is David Q. Nguyen.  I am a First year doctoral Music Composition student.  I love electronic music and willing to learn effectives ways to compose through electronic means.

I have some experience with Max/MSP.  I have one piece with Max is anyone wants to listen:

https://soundcloud.com/dqncomposer/perceptive-fragments-for-flute-and-interactive-computer-maxmsp

Blog Introduction: Annie Mason

Hi Everybody,

I'm a bassoonist in the DMA Performance and Literature program. I have played bassoon since I was a freshman in high school. I switched from flute because the other players around me were super catty (luckily they're much cooler in college and afterwards!). I gig with local orchestras, enjoy playing contemporary music, and teach a private studio of beginning bassoonists. When I am not doing those things, I am either making reeds or playing board games with my husband.

I have some experience with Max. I know enough to know when it's time to walk away from the patch and come back later. Actually, scratch that, I really don't. I just know there will be the occasional cloud of expletives hanging over my apartment as I work on these patches.

What I hope to get out of class is to make some patches I can interact with while performing and to make some off the chain (do we still say that?) [awesome] music. When asked, I am looking forward to playing with your patches too! -Annie

Blog Introduction-Kolten Heeren

Hello, I'm Kolten Heeren, and I'm double majoring in Music Composition/Double Bass Performance. When I was younger, I took piano lessons for a short time, and then began playing bass in fifth grade. I didn't begin composing until high school, where I decided to pursue composition in college. This begins my junior year of my undergrad, and I'm excited to dive into Max! I'm hoping to gain a functional knowledge of the programs so I might compose some pieces for it in the future, as well as perform some concerts for this class!

Blog Introduction: Paul Mock

Hello, I'm Paul Mock and I'm in the last semester of my undergrad. I'm majoring in jazz performance for guitar. I have played guitar since first grade and I have played viola since third grade, but I haven't been playing the viola ever since I got accepted to the jazz program here at UIUC. But I was in the orchestra for all of high school and was first chair in the school chamber orchestra during my senior year of high school. My favorite genre of music is metal and I've been incorporating all the necessary information I've learned here into the music I write, which is predominantly jazz and metal. This class is useful for me because I record all of my material by myself at home with various DAW's. I never heard of Max before, but it seems like an incredibly powerful tool that will benefit my home recording in various ways. 

Theremin video and patch

If you're interested, here's the Joel Rich youtube tutorial I mentioned - he is entertaining and goes through most of what we covered in class today. He's using an older version of Max, so some things will look different, but the ideas are the same.

And here is a fancier version of the theremin patch we made today - feel free to go into edit mode and screw around with this. Remember, you can option-click any object to open a help patch. Please post an introduction to the rest of the class, and see you Wednesday!

Cody Pawlak: Blog Introduction

           Hey guys! My name is Cody Pawlak and I am an undergrad senior that's a Music Technology major. I played the saxophone for 8 years through middle school and high school, but switched over to strictly producing electronic dance music. I've been producing electronic dance music for around 4 years now and actually just signed one of my tracks to a record label this summer, which will be available to listen/download on iTunes/Spotify and other major music distributors around Sept. 6th. I hope to gain a better understand of various DAWs that I have not previously worked with through this course. Lastly, I look forward to learning and working with you all! (You can find my discography here: www.soundcloud.com/cpaws and a private link to my latest track which will be released on Sept 6. through 'Blow the Roof Records' here: https://soundcloud.com/blowtheroofrec/cpaws-feat-logan-starks-mystery/s-012WP.)

Course introductions and blogging

I would like everyone in the class to be contributors to the class blog; you should receive an email inviting you to be a member. Please follow the instructions in that email message, and sign up to be a contributing member to this blog. Then, please write a post about yourself - your musical background, and what you hope to gain from this class.

For Wednesday, August 24, please start going through some of the Max documentation - "Tips and Shortcuts" is very useful. Get started on the Max Basic tutorials, as well as "MSP Introduction," "How Digital Audio Works," "How MSP Works," and "Audio I/O." Don't feel like you have to do everything in the order I've suggested in the class schedule - feel free to mess around and make noise. We should get through these tutorials quickly, so we can spend more time making music and art!

Class schedule

Week 1
8/22 Introduction: how to use Max help; build a theremin
8/24 Introduction to Max tutorials, Darwin Grosse tutorials; blog introductions

Week 2
8/29 How to set up mics; avoiding feedback; working with digital audio interfaces;
Assignment 1 due - Grosse tutorials 1-3, Max Basic tutorials 1-8
8/31 Digital delays; Assignment 2, working through tutorials: Max Basic tutorials 9-15 (Abstractions); MSP Basics Tutorials 1-5; Grosse tutorials 4-8; the Global Transport (Max tutorial 19)

Week 3
[9/5 Labor Day - no class]
9/7 Assignment 3, working through tutorials (Max Basic tutorials 16-22 (Designing equations); MSP Synthesis tutorials 1-5 (Frequency modulation); Grosse tutorials 9-11

Week 4
9/12 Assignment 4 due: digital delay; Grosse tutorials 12-13
9/14 Assignment 5 due: perform in class with your patch; Grosse tutorials 14-15
Collaboration: start finding colleagues to work with

Week 5
9/19 Sound design and playback - Taylor sonification patch; Grosse tutorials 16-17 (Jitter)
9/21 Assignment 6, more tutorials: Max, Data and Interface tutorials; MSP Sampling tutorials 1-4

Week 6
9/26 Plan details for Project 1 - our first gig; Jitter Tutorials 1-4
9/28 Assignment 7, more tutorials (Max, Patcher Storage and Javascript tutorials; MSP Filter tutorials; Jitter tutorials 6-10, Chromakeying)

Week 7
10/3 Assignment 8, using other processing and synthesis (vocoding, granular, pitch shifting, etc.)
10/5 In-class improvising in teams (Assign. 8 cont.); Improvising vs. composing
10/6 Project 1 - first performance, Beckman Institute, 12:20-12:50 pm

Week 8
10/10 Assignment 9, MSP Panning and Analysis Tutorials; Jitter tutorials 11-14, Matrix positioning
10/12

Week 9
10/17 Jitter week - Assignment 10, Jitter tutorial 21, Working with live video and audio input
10/19

Week 10
10/24
10/26 (work up to Jitter tutorial 25, Tracking the position of a color in a movie)
Assignment 11 - in-class improv, combining audio and video

Week 11
10/31 Prepare for Project 2 - performance in Krannert Art Museum - other gig possibilities?
11/2 (At some point in the semester, maybe around here, the class morphs into an ensemble/improv group, rather than a class on how to use Max - so the rest of the semester may resemble a rehearsal schedule more than a class syllabus.)

Week 12
11/7
11/9

Week 13
11/14
11/16

[Fall break, 11/19 - 11/27]

Week 14
11/28
11/30

Week 15
12/5
12/7
Final performance - KAM, others?

Syllabus

Max: Computer Music for Performers and Composers
Music 404C, Fall 2016
Instructor: Stephen Taylor
MW, 1 - 2:20 pm
CAMIL I lab (MB 4033)
School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday at 2:30; MB 4030.

Course Description:
Composers and performers will collaborate to create interactive works for instruments and singers, using Cycling 74's software Max.

Course Objectives:

• Learn the basics of amplification, microphones, mixers, digital audio interfaces, and midi
• Learn how to make patches in Max
• Learn the basics of Jitter, a set of video extensions to Max
• Collaborate with your colleagues to make new music
• Perform your completed works in December
• For performers: learn Max well enough to make adjustments and small patches yourself, and perform without requiring someone to set up equipment for you.
• For composers: make your patches bulletproof, so performers can use them without having you there to help them.
• For everyone: learn how to collaborate with others, make suggestions, accept criticism, and try new things.

Required materials:
Max, available from Cycling74 for Mac and Windows. Max is a graphical programming environment for music, audio, and new media. It's installed on all the computers in Camil I, but you are welcome to use it on your own computer as well. There are student discounts (including a $59 1-year subscription) here. Also, you can download and try it for free for 30 days.

Max has a steep learning curve. Because it is a powerful program that lets you do almost anything you can imagine, it doesn't force you into one way of doing things (for example, pressing "Play" or "Record"). But Max comes with extensive (and fun) documentation, and each new version gets easier to use. There are lots of good online tutorials:

• Cycling74 has some good tutorials on their website - I'm going to use a set of tutorials from 2010 by Darwin Grosse. They're in Max 6 so they look a little different from Max 7, but they are still very useful. There are also lots of tutorials on YouTube, which vary in quality.
• Also on Cycling74's website, check out the Max forum.
• Perhaps the single best tip: to get help on any object box in Max, you can option-click it.

As an alternative to Max/MSP, you can try the open-source Pure Data, developed by Miller Puckette, the original creator of Max.

Although we will supply microphones to use in the CAMIL lab, please bring your own headphones to listen to your computer output.

Evaluation:60% projects; 40% assignments. I hope for this course to be an opportunity to explore, meet new musical collaborators, and have fun. But I also want you to work hard! I'll give you verbal feedback on each assignment and project, and after the midterm project I will email you a written evaluation to let you know how you're doing in the class. If you have any questions on your grade or anything else, please ask me anytime.

Performance opportunities:
The main goal of the class is to make new music, both performances and improvisations. We’ll perform both for each other in class, and in venues on and off campus. If any of you know of opportunities - coffee shops, etc. - please let me know.

Our first public performance will most likely be in October. During the semester there is a series of lunchtime concerts at the Beckman Center on south campus. I would like us to present a plugged-in concert, either there or in the Krannert Art Museum, combining improv and composed music. We'll have to bring our own equipment; we might even get paid! Performance date TBA, probably early October.