Electroacoustics laboratory assignments for computer music students

Abstract

A series of pedagogical exercises are described that integrate concepts from traditional musical acoustics laboratory assignments with the fundamentals of computer music. Students are asked to rapidly prototype hybrid devices that contain both musical acoustic components as well as sensors, embedded audio signal processing, and loudspeaker drivers. To help students rapidly complete working prototypes, students are provided with working audio effects and sound synthesizer programs. Students learn the programming language (Pure Data) only by example for making small changes to the previously designed programs, as they are integrated with custom-made, physical acoustics components (e.g., D-I-Y vibrating strings, drums, columns of air, rattles, etc.). Music students first learned that building quality acoustic instrument components is harder than they originally thought. Although out-of-the-box thinking is regarded as an important factor in devising novel electroacoustic prototypes, students starting from previously existing designs and making small changes tended to be more successful (at least initially) than students striking out on completely new paths. Several pictures of completed instruments will be shown, and one or two example prototypes of electroacoustic instruments and electroacoustic audio effects will be presented live. The example “starter“ programs in Pure Data will be made available for community members wishing to run them on the Raspberry Pi 2, as supported by the author's Satellite CCRMA platform.