Outline#

  • Due date: 09:00 Monday in weeks 2–6, 8–10 (09:00 Tuesday if Monday is a Public Holiday)
  • Mark weighting: 0% but required for portfolio
  • Submission: submit your videos and reflections on GitLab
  • Policies: late submissions not accepted without an extension.
  • GitLab Template Repos: weeks 1–5 and weeks 6–10

Description#

Your computer music diary is where you will learn and try out core sound and music computing concepts.

Each week before your workshop you will read through the workshop material, create a short piece of computer music and write a short reflection.

The due date is set to 09:00 every Monday (Tuesday if Monday is a public holiday). In your workshop session we will watch the videos in together together to discuss the ideas you have explored.

You can find the specific pre-workshop instructions on each workshop page under the heading “Solo Diary” or “Group Diary”.

The rest of this page is dedicated to the technical specification for your computer music diary submissions. Make sure you read this carefully and get set up in GitLab in week 1.

Your computer music diary is the main task you need to complete each week as preparation for your workshop. You will need to have completed it to participate in the workshop activities properly. E.g., to be ready for the “week 3 workshop” you need to read the “week 3 workshop” page, complete the “week 3 diary” and submit it on time.

Specification#

Each week’s submission must include:

  • a 60 second video of a computer music piece exploring the week’s topic, which
  • a reflection on how your work responds to the weekly provocation which
    • is a markdown file
    • is a maximum of 200 words and minimum of 100 words
    • has the filename week-NN-reflection.md and is in the correct week folder
    • includes a screenshot or a code snippet of the “main” thing you worked on this week
    • has been pushed to GitLab
  • other files (patches, source code, etc) used in your computer music piece
    • in a subfolder called materials in the correct week folder
    • pushed to GitLab

Please follow the above instructions about file names carefully! Your video needs to have that exact name format to be picked up by our systems and played back in class. The GitLab repositories have CI jobs to help check that you have all the file names correct.

Recording a video#

You will need to record a video every week and most of them can be a simple screen recording. In this class we use OBS to record our screens for the computer music diary which works well in macOS, Windows, and Linux, we do not support use of any other screen recording software.

Using OBS to record a composition in Pd

You must deliver your diary videos as a 1920x1080 .mkv file’. Other file types, such as mp4, mov, wmv, avi, webm, and literally anything else is not acceptable. Just mkv.

Thankfully, mkv is the default recording format for OBS. So we won’t have any trouble if you also use OBS.

Here’s what to do in OBS to get set up:

  1. In Settings -> Output, in the “Recording” area, make sure the “Recording Format” is set to “Matroska Video (.mkv)”
  2. In Settings -> Video, make sure the “Output (Scaled) Resolution” is set to 1920x1080.
  3. In the main interface, in the “Sources” pane, press the “+” symbol and add a Screen Capture source.
  4. Drag the screen area around and scale it until the bit of the screen you want to record is in the output frame.
  5. Verify that when you make sound in your computer music software, the audio meters for your Screen Capture source move around
  6. Hit “Start Recording” and record a video! OBS even has a timer on the bottom status bar so you know how long your recording is! Press “Stop Recording” when you are done!

That’s not so hard!

Example GitLab Upload#

Can upload your videos, reflections, and materials to GitLab directly through the website or from a local copy of your git repository.

If you want to upload and edit files directly from the website, here’s an example with step-by-step instructions.

An example of how to upload a file into the GitLab interface

  1. record your video file.
  2. change the name of your recorded file to week-NN.mkv, e.g., week-03.mkv (be careful to get the filename exactly correct)
  3. open your fork of the correct gitlab repo, and click on the correct week folder, e.g., week-03.
  4. click the “+” at the top
  5. click “Upload file”.
  6. drag your video file in there to upload it.
  7. verify that your video is uploaded correctly (check Pipelines under Build and click on each stage to check which jobs have passed)

Please follow these steps carefully as we need your video to be in the right place so that we can retrieve it for the workshop and marking.

N.B.: Every week we will watch our diary videos together during the workshop, so make sure that it is something you’re comfortable sharing. The point is not to be mean about early ideas/video but to show your improvement in understanding and growth over the semester.

Example GitLab Structure#

As an example, for week 2 your folder structure should look something like this:

├── week-02
│   ├── materials
│   │   ├── README.md
│   │   ├── my-great-pd-patch.pd
│   │   └── whatever-other-files.pd/.wav
│   ├── week-02.mkv
│   ├── week-02-reflection.md

This might seem complicated, but we’ve created (blank) template files for you in the GitLab repo, you just need to modify them and upload your video.

Extra Notes for Group Submissions#

Two of your diary entries will be completed with your ensemble (assignment happens in the week 4 workshop). For these diaries the process is slightly different:

  1. your group needs to create a single video (e.g., week-05.mkv). The group video must show all group members working together.
  2. each member of the group uploads the video to their individual GitLab repository.
  3. You upload an individual reflection on the group diary creation experience in the same manner as other weeks. Make sure you refer to how collaboration assisted with your diary creation.

You can create your group video in any way you choose as long as it shows all the contributions of individual people (their screens) and we can hear each individual performer in the video. Here’s some examples:

  • Do a big video call with each member and one person records it (make sure sound comes through)
  • Get all the laptops on a table and record with a phone (hopefully on a tripod or stand)
  • Record all individual screens in OBS and add the videos together in some video editing software (e.g., can Canva do this?)
  • Connect all the laptops to an HDMI switcher and record the 4-up view (available in second half of the course and for final performance).

For inspiration, we have some videos of past group diaries here (2022 - Pd) and here (2022 - Gibber).

The group diaries require you to organise with your group to find a time, place, and method of creating your group diary. It’s really important to show up and communicate with your group. You are (collectively) responsible for making the group work, it’s not acceptable to ignore or exclude a group member even if they seem to be the one not showing up. Please do everything you can to get everybody involved but it needs to be positive communication and not [harrassment]((/courses/comp4350/policies/#code-of-conduct). If a group member ends up not participating despite your efforts, please let your tutors know. Similarly if you feel excluded or uncomfortable in a group, please let your tutor or the course convenor know privately.

Creative Tips#

Here’s some general tips for completing the diary videos and reflections.

Video#

  1. You really only need one small and focussed idea to make 1 minute of music.

  2. Try more than one idea: brainstorm 10 ideas, try out three of them, pick the best one.

  3. Think about the layout of your patch (font size, object positions, comments, etc.) to make sure it’s going to be interesting viewing (as well as listening).

  4. If you saw something interesting in a classmate’s video the previous week, ask them (on the forum) how they did it (yes, collaboration is ok as long as you cite your sources!)

  5. Have a look at the “screen recording software” section of the Tools page.

Reflection#

  1. Briefly state what you have done then spend more time on how you did it and why.

  2. Discuss your process for addressing the diary prompt and the resources you used to create your submission.

  3. If it’s a group week make sure you discuss how the collaboration influenced your work.

  4. Was your work successful? What were the qualities that did/didn’t work, and how did you know?

  5. Don’t forget to use proper citation.

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