Blog

September 10 Lab Materials

1) great_central_railway_excerpt

2)guitar_with_drum_stick-2

Samples from NASA’s Voyager online

Samples from the Voyager Spacecraft’s Golden Record (launched from earth in 1997), containing dozens of Earth sounds and greetings (as well as music) is now available on Sound Cloud:

 

The collection was originally curated by Cornell’s own Carl Sagan. Enjoy!

Some materials from today’s lecture

You will note the video I posted of the Varese, below. In addition, I welcome you to listen to several other historical works mentioned today in our lecture on musique concrète, elektronische musik, and the unification or rejection of these idea(l)s in later works, such as Verese’s Poem…

Represented below are 1). Pierre Schaeffer’s earliest example of musique concrète, the first piece from his Cinq études de bruits (“Five noise studies”),1948, titled Étude aux chemins de fer (“Railway Study), 2.) An example of Elektronische Musik by Karlheinz Stockhausen, his own “Study I” from 1953, and 3) Stockhausen’s later “classic” work, Gesang der Jünglinge (literally “Song of the Youths”), 1956, his setting of the Biblical story in The Book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace but they are miraculously unharmed.

 

Reich “It’s Gonna Rain”

Here is a link to a short article about Steve Reich’s seminal “It’s Gonna Rain” (1965). The piece is constructed using some analog equivalents of digital techniques we explored in lab last week.

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/01/27/381575433/fifty-years-of-steve-reichs-its-gonna-rain

Sept. 3 lab

Hello everyone,

Please use this file for our first lab session.
I’m enjoying reading everyone’s introductions!

-Tonia

For in-class use:

Hi, I am He

(This post is kind of late…)

Hello,

My name is He. I am a senior physics and maths major. I don’t have much music background  but I am very interested in the subject of editting and composing music on computer, and do have a little experience in using some of the music softwares, along with certain relevant knowledge. I think being able to compose our own pieces of music is especially exciting and it can give us a sense of achievement,   so I am glad to enroll in Music  1421 and looking forward to exploring the field throughout the semester and collaborating with everyone else in the class.

 

Items from today and some for next week

The complete audible discography of Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville, the world’s first recording artist, and French inventor of the Phonautograph.

And on the topic of “What is Music?” some listening for your consideration. I encourage you to explore the history and context of this piece (some names and terms to get you started: Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenakis, Philips Pavilion, Brussels World Fair, “Space Measured in Seconds”, musique concrète).

Edgar Varèse’s “Poem Electronique”.

Wesley I am

Hello everyone,

My name is Wesley, and I am a senior in the Hotel School. I’ve played guitar for about 5 years now, and only recently began to try to record myself. It was then that I realized I had so much to learn about music production and that’s why I signed up for this course.

I also have played the drums and bass guitar for a few years, and played trumpet all throughout middle school and high school. My passion definitely lies with the electric/acoustic guitar, though!

I am very interested in collaborating with others. I think that collaboration is one of the best ways to broaden one’s musical ability!

Yo, It’s Philippe

Hey guys,

I’m a senior in Mechanical Engineering. I’ve been trying to fit 1421 in my schedule for quite some time. I’m very relieved to take something more creative than math and engineering. I’m really into electronic music like house, techno, trance and EDM, as well as alternative and indie music. I used to mess around quite a bit with Garageband in middle school and some in high school just for fun. I got into Ableton late in high school, but have always had limitations with the software. I don’t think I’m too bad at mashups though. Find my Soundcloud at: boi chips. Don’t worry, the name is a joke.

Cheers,

Philippe

Hey guys, I’m Nick

Hey! My name is Nick and I am a senior studying economics in the Arts and Sciences School. My only formal music training would be my ~3 years of piano lessons when I was in elementary school.

As with nearly everyone, although I have always loved music, my interests seemed peak as I grew older and my experiences broadened, especially in college. While I appreciate virtually all forms of music, my favorite genres include hip-hop, punk rock, various forms of electronic / techno, and the more-recently popular trap. I want to explore creating music within each of these genres, but I think right now my primary end goal for the class is to develop a fluid and creative trap song. Within trap, my favorite artists include Baauer, Yellow Claw, and RL Grime, but there is so much good trap music on the internet that my playlists are always evolving. Additionally, I love the sounds of Kanye’s Yeezus album (especially “Hold My Liquor” and “I am a God”) and want to experiment with something along those lines.

I am very open to collaborating with anybody in the class, so please reach out to me if you have any ideas!

– Nick Goldman

Skip to toolbar