MusM Composition (Electroacoustic Music and Interactive Media) / Course details

This course covers approaches and techniques of musical and sonic analysis in the electroacoustic medium, as well as the study of electroacoustic-specific aesthetics and repertoire. Students will be encouraged to develop a critical awareness of issues affecting contemporary research and composition, to question their own assumptions, to confront, explore and assimilate unfamiliar musical sounds, concepts, repertoires and practices, and (where possible) to formulate a sense of their own individuality in relation to current schools of thought and compositional methodologies.

• To study and apply analytical methods appropriate to a range of electroacoustic repertoire and language including spectromorphology, structuring processes, typomorphology, space-form
• To engage with supporting background materials including electroacoustic repertoire study, theoretical concepts, historical contexts, developing practices and techniques
• To understand a range of underlying aesthetics principles within the discipline
• To engage with contexts of literature and repertoire relating to analysis and aesthetics of electroacoustic music

•  Call upon a wide knowledge and experience of the electroacoustic repertoires studied.
• Understand and discuss with clarity and conviction aesthetic, analytical and technical issues relating to electroacoustic music
• Understand theoretical and aesthetic systems and relate theory and practice to each other as they pertain to electroacoustic music
• Assimilate relevant scholarly literature and relate its insights into the practice and experience of electroacoustic music
• Confront, explore and assimilate unfamiliar musical sounds, concepts, repertoires and practices.

• Plan, implement, evaluate and reflect critically on research in progress
•  Synthesise inputs (materials, knowledge, instinct, tradition) in order to generate informed and personally owned outputs in written formats.
•  Recognize direct influences and quotations in one’s own and others’ work
• Research and explore repertoire, creative and academic research and new techniques in electroacoustic music

• Engage with a variety of electroacoustic musical traditions and languages (acousmatic, interactive, live electronics or processing, installation) through repertoire and literature study
• Apply techniques of musical and sonic analysis towards a number of works and traditions
• Develop and explore in-depth original insights into a given context with the electroacoustic music subject

• Utilize IT skills including word processing, email, and use of online information sources towards research outcomes.
• Present work- in- progress in feedback and support sessions.
• Develop awareness of professional protocols (for example, academic writing and presentation)
• Respond positively to self-criticism and to the criticism of others while maintaining confidence in one’s own work.
• Work independently and in isolation (ensuring continued individuality, building upon established technique, continuing research)
• Develop problem-solving skills (reacting to new situations, decoding information and ideas, dealing with complex situations, working under pressure

• Electroacoustic Resource Site project: http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/
• Organised Sound (Cambridge Journals): http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=OSO
• Electroacoustic  Music Studies Proceedings: http://www.ems-network.org/spip.php?rubrique48
• Canadian Electroacoustic Community eContact!: http://cec.sonus.ca/econtact/index.html
• International Computer Music Conference Proceedings
• Handbook for Acoustic Ecology: http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/
• Computer Music Journal
• Spaces speak, are you listening? : experiencing aural architecture, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter, 2007.
• The Language of Electroacoustic Music, Simon Emmerson, 1986.
• Electronic Music, Media and Culture, Simon Emmerson, 2000.
• Living Electronic Music, Simon Emmerson, 2007.
• Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, Bob Katz, 2007.
• Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic, Curtis Roads, 2015.
• On Sonic Art, Trevor Wishart, 1996.
• Audible Design, Trevor Wishart, 1994.