Music 264 - Soundscapes

In this course we will examine the history of electroacoustic music in tandem with practical composition assignments so that we may explore how class, race, gender, and sexuality are expressed through sound and music technologies. This course introduces soundscape composition, a subset of electroacoustic music, as an artistic practice and research method. Students will use journaling in order to document their individual relationships with music and to reflect on the role sound plays in the formation of personal and community identity. Weekly assignments include the creation of autobiographical sound pieces that incorporate techniques and practices that emerged out of the musique concrète school of Paris and the Elektronische Musik of Cologne. Together we will learn to listen to our acoustic environment in a new way, explore self-identity through field recordings and synthesis, and develop our ideas into fixed media compositions to be shared at the end of the semester. The course readings are selected from various disciplines, and all students are welcomed regardless of previous musical experience.

Spring semester. Visiting Professor Jackson.