On Monday, Professor Frank Mauceri's Music 218 class will deliver what promises to be an "electric" performance. Students from this course, Electronic Music, will present their composition assignments as the culmination of the coursework.
The pieces employ a variety of techniques. Certain performances manipulate audio recordings of the human voice and model their pieces after a genre of electronic music called musique concrète, pioneered in France in the 1940s. In this case, sounds are recorded and then the recordings are manipulated by the students in order to construct sound collage pieces.
Other pieces are constructed from sounds designed by the students through the use of sound synthesis techniques. These syntheses and arrangements are realized using software tools available in the computer music lab located in Gibson Hall.
Next semester Mauceri will continue teaching courses on electronic music, extending the breadth of topics even further by offering an advanced computer music class. The course will focus on using computer algorithms to compose music, synthesize sound and develop interactive music applications.