Mail Code MB
Daniel Warner
Music and Dance Building 105
413.559.5586
On sabbatical Spring 2022
Daniel Warner, professor of music, holds an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. in music from Princeton University.
He is a composer and electronic artist whose sound and installation work has been presented recently at The Festival Synthese in Bourges, France; The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown; The Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival in Vancouver, Canada; The AV Festival in Newcastle, England; and the Smith College Museum of Art.
Warner's recent music is available on the Virtuelle label. His book Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (co-edited with Christoph Cox) is published by Continuum Press.
This course introduces students to key concepts in the study of electronica. The course will teach students to think critically about electronica's social, historical, ideological, and technological dimensions. Introductory lectures will examine the musics and establish/introduce critical terminology, musical features, timelines, and analytical frameworks. Specific subgenres such as triphop, house, techno, dub, ambient, trance, dubstep, jungle, and drum 'n' bass will be covered through readings, lectures, documentaries, and listening sessions. Students will be expected to complete weekly reading and listening assignments, in-class presentations, and undertake a small creative or research project. (keywords: electronica, electronic dance music, EDM, electronic music)
This course will focus on the role of electronic and computer technology in shaping musical thought, production, and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Because of the hybrid nature of this work, the term 'electroacoustic music' seems apt. We will engage the musical, technical, and aesthetic issues of electroacoustic music, broadly construed to include the classical avant-garde, electronica, DJ culture, and sound art. Listening examples will be drawn from a broad range of these genres and styles. We will explore key concepts and technologies such as acoustics, psychoacoustics, microphones, synthesizers, sampling, and digital sound editing. We will undertake creative projects (e.g., individual compositions, solo or group electronic improvisations, soundwalks, and listening sessions) that will provide ample opportunities for students to actively explore current music electroacoustic production techniques and their aesthetic implications. Formal knowledge of music is helpful, but not required. (keywords: music, electroacoustic music, electronic music, computer music, sound design)
This course will focus on a wide range of topics in sound synthesis and music composition using the MAX/MSP and Max4Live program. Students will undertake projects in interactive MIDI composition, algorithmic composition, additive and subtractive synthesis, waveshaping, AM/FM synthesis, and sampling. Other topics to be covered include SYSEX programming, sound analysis, theories of timbre, and concepts of musical time. (keywords: computer music, electronic music, sound)
A soundscape is an environment of sounds with emphasis on the way it is perceived, understood, and inhabited by individuals, groups, societies, or non-humans. This course invites participants from diverse disciplines to investigate their sonic environments as artist-as-scientist or scientist-as-artist, sensing, surveying and responding to a range of mediums. This course will explore bridges between sound, art, and ecology. Drawing from the fields of sound art, eco-musicology, acoustic and soundscape ecology, physics, and environmental art, students are encouraged to consistently experiment through small, prompt driven projects, and collectively directed rambles. How is the landscape organized and transformed by sound? How is noise pollution impacting ecosystems, organisms, and human health and communities? In what ways do observation, deep listening and critical listening enhance our understanding of the world? Students will be given a wide range of possibilities for course projects such as conservation, ecology and environmental studies, cultural perspectives, art-making, music-making and sound composition. This course requires walking in variable terrain and weather. (keywords: sound, art, ecology, science)
