Daniel Warner

Professor of Music

Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies

dcwMB@hampshire.edu

Personal Website

Mail Code MB

Daniel Warner

Music and Dance Building 105

413.559.5586

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.

Recent and Upcoming Courses

Analog Electronic Music Synthesis
In this course we will study the concepts of basic analog electronic music synthesis. Students will gain hands-on, working knowledge of traditional hardware synthesizers in a studio setting. Topics to be covered are oscillators and basic waveforms, filters and musical timbre, voltage control, envelopes, gates and triggers, modulation, sequencing, control signal flow, and audio signal flow. We will learn how to synthesize acoustic sounds and create new electronic sounds by using additive/subtractive synthesis and various modulation techniques. In addition, students will study to the physical properties and behavior of sound in relation to electronic music.
Computer Music 2
This course will focus on a wide range of topics in sound synthesis and music composition using the MAX/MSP/JITTER 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.
The Tuning of the World: Soundscape Studies / Soundscape Composition
This course invites participants from diverse disciplines to investigate the interconnections of listeners and their sonic environments. A soundscape is an environment of sounds with emphasis on the way it is perceived, understood, and inhabited by an individual, a group, or by an entire society. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an artificial environment. In this course we will learn the basic tenets of soundscape studies, examine the concepts and issues associated with sound, its perception, and listening strategies. We will read and discuss important texts in acoustic ecology, acoustics, sound studies, and soundscape composition. Students will be given a wide range of areas for course projects such as conservation, ecology and environmental studies, cultural perspectives, creative writing, art-making, and sound composition.
Computer Music I
This is a composition course that will also survey the history, theory, and practice of electro-acoustic music. The course will introduce the musical, technical, and theoretical issues of electro-acoustic music, broadly construed to include the Classical avant-garde, Electronica, DJ culture, Re-mixes, Ambient, etc. Digital recording, editing, and mixing will be covered using the Audacity, Logic, or ProTools programs. Students will also work with sampling and looping techniques using Ableton Live. Other topics to be covered include basic acoustics and synthesis techniques. Students will be expected to complete three composition projects during the course of the semester. Formal knowledge of music is helpful, but not required.
Field Study Semester
Audio Culture: Theories and Practices in Music Now
This course will explore a range of vanguard musical practices and various approaches to thinking theoretically and critically about them. We will traverse musical areas such as minimalism, indeterminacy, musique concrete, free improvisation, turntablism, and electronica, and examine these via historical and philosophical texts by theorists, composers and producers. Investigating different modes of listening to and talking about contemporary music, we will ask such questions as: What is the nature of music in relationship to silence and noise? What are the effects of recording and sampling on contemporary musical life? Can music have a political or critical function? Are the distinctions between "classical" and "popular," "high art" and "mass art" still appropriate in the contemporary setting?