What’s Sound and Music Computing?#

Sound and Music Computing is a course in computer music making and laptop performance open to ANU students in computing, music, art, and anywhere else on campus who meet the prerequisites.

During the course you will create small pieces of computer music weekly while collaborating with your peers to learn about sound and music computing.

At the end of the course, you will present a concert of collaborative laptop music works with your ensemble. You can see the final performances from other students here on our Youtube Channel

What reference format is used in this course?#

We use ACM reference format: https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/reference-formatting

Some example references in Markdown format are as follows:

# References

1. Alice McGuffing. 2022. Ideas for creating the animated ripple effect
2. Jerry Wang. 2022. Background Artwork (artwork.jpg)
3. Howzit (StackOverflow user). 2018. p5js-image-array (CC BY-SA 2.5). Retrieved from: <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51233447/p5js-image-array>
4. p5 Reference. No Date. MouseWheel Example (CC BY-NC 4.0). Retrieved from: <https://p5js.org/reference/#/p5.Element/mouseWheel>
5. Scott Bauer. 2004. Photo of Potatoes (Public Domain). Retrieved from: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#/media/File:Patates.jpg>
6. Aaron Wu. 2018. Boat Photo on Unsplash. Retrieved from: <https://unsplash.com/photos/_8rjlHwN4uk>
7. Wikipedia. 2022. J M W Turner Article. Retrieved from: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner>

What music background is required?#

There are no specific music pre-requisites, and we will teach any musical concepts required from the ground up. Although some music experience is useful, we use musical concepts that are often not taught in a standard music curriculum.

What computing background is required?#

You will need some background in either coding, creative computing, or human-computer interaction to complete Sound and Music Computing. While we use programming languages that are not taught in other courses, it is a lot to take on if you haven’t learned any programming or computing at university.

If you have not taken any computing courses at ANU, we recommend Art and Interaction Computing COMP1720/COMP6720 as an appropriate starting point for a creative computing journey.

Is there anything I can do before the course starts to get prepared?#

  1. Enrol in the course on ISIS and sign up for a workshop
  2. Make sure you have a laptop and commit to attending all lectures and workshops.
  3. Read through the tools page and install things on your laptop that you might need. Test them out and see if you can make a sound.
  4. Have a look at the references page and browse through some of the reference material to start a head start on learning about sound and music computing.

Then show up in week 1 ready to make some computer music!

Do I have to do a live performance if I take this course?#

Yes. The final and biggest course assessment is to use the computer music instrument/system that you’ve built in a group performance alongside some of your classmates.

What music software will we be using in the course?#

In this course you’ll learn to use:

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