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

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.

Recent and Upcoming Courses

Future Sounds: Exploring Electronica
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)
Electroacoustic 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)
Computer Music: MAX/MSP/MAX4LIVE
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)
Media and Technology: The Sound of Life: Observation, Art and Ecology
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)
Sound Cultures: Unpacking Music and Musical Practices
This course explores and critically examines what constitutes "music" and its manifold practices. Presented from transdisciplinary and multicultural points of view, the course consists of several thematic modules, in each of which two instructors will lead the unpacking of specific subjects, such as the nature of sound, listening, sonic realization of time, musical space, and embodiment. By using different kinds of expertise and methodologies drawn from music theory, sound studies, ethnomusicology, etc., the music we analyze will represent diverse traditions around the world as well as contemporary sound practices representing various global styles. No previous training in music theory is necessary, but the required coursework includes weekly listening, creative transcription, various analysis assignments, and hands-on performative activities. Through these exercises, selected readings, and class discussion, students are invited to open their ears, senses, and minds to unique cultural values, sensibilities, and practices, and rigorously question their conception of "music" and musical discourses.