Acoustics, Audio, and Music Technology Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

Several courses combine to form an unofficial but nevertheless effective undergraduate and early graduate music technology program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Musical Acoustics is taught within the School of Music and includes topics such as resonance behavior of strings and pipes; perception of loudness, pitch, and timbre; and acoustics of musical instruments. Several courses involving computers and music are taught in the School of Music. These courses discuss the fundamentals of computer music, and extensive computer/recording studios provide students with hands-on opportunities to conduct experiments or to produce audio demonstrations or music compositions. The courses differ in terms of the user interfaces, compositional algorithms, and synthesis models employed. There is also a seminar in analysis and synthesis of sounds. In the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, besides conventional digital signal processing, there are several special courses that offer training for a career in music technology. Fundamentals of Engineering Acoustics supplies a rigorous introduction to wave propagation and acoustical systems. Electronic Music Synthesis describes algorithms for music sound synthesis and representation and includes a laboratory component. Topics in Audio Engineering covers psychoacoustics, signal processing, audio coding and recognition, room acoustics, and tranducers.