The Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) is a world class interdisciplinary facility for musical research, composition, performance,and study. It was founded by Richard Felciano, Professor of Music, and established by the University of California, Berkeley in 1987. As part of the Department of Music at Berkeley, CNMAT brings a musical orientation to research and practice in engineering, computer science, and the cognitive sciences, at the same time using technology to expand musical possibilities. The Center has established itself as a common ground for a musically focused intellectual exchange among a variety of disciplines.
CNMAT, with its strong emphasis on the musical application of computer and related technologies, and with its cognitive science orientation to musical research and theory, is destined to play an essential role in future music teaching, composition, performance, and research.
A visible element on the landscape of contemporary musical life in the Bay Area, CNMAT organizes concerts of contemporary music, sponsors public lectures by composers and music researchers, teaches University of California courses, and hosts workshops and meetings of professional societies. CNMAT's Affiliates: * CCRMA - The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics * IRCAM - Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique
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Updated May 4, 1995 by Kalina Wilson (kalinaw@violet.berkeley.edu).
Most of the materials on this server have been contributed by Guy Garnett and Leslie Delehanty.
HISTORY AND FACILITIES
CNMAT was founded in 1987 at the University of California, Berkeley. We are located in historic Genevieve McEnerney Hall (once the headquarters of 1750 Arch Records and Arch Ensemble), on the hilly north edge of the UCB Campus . The CNMAT facility includes research labs, seminar rooms, performance spaces, offices, and digital audio recording, analysis and synthesis facilities.
The building itself has recently been renovated. The recording studio, equipped with a Yamaha Disklavier, has also being refurbished and brought up to modern professional standards.
More than a dozen workstations are available to faculty, researchers, students, and staff including Macintosh, NeXT, and Silicon Graphics computers. A wide variety of music and audio peripherals is also available including various digital signal processing boards (single and multi-processor), MIDI synthesizers, and assorted MIDI and non-MIDI controllers and instruments.
Due in part to close affiliations with Stanford University's CCRMA and France's IRCAM, CNMAT also maintains an unusually broad array of software tools for various musical and research uses. For example, users have access to the standard software synthesis programs (such as cmusic, csound, and cmix), DSP software (filter design programs, signal analysis, and real-time instrumentation and control), various programming environments (C, C++, Common Lisp, Smalltalk, Max, Mathematica, etc). Real-time control of music synthesis, both MIDI and at the DSP level, is possible through the use of the Max programming environment. CNMAT is pre-eminent in Max development, tools, and production.
Updated April 17, 1995 by Kalina Wilson (kalinaw@violet.berkeley.edu).
MUSIC
CNMAT has presented numerous concerts including a full evening of works by the composer Jean-Claude Risset. This concert featured a performance by the composer of his Duo for One Pianist (1989), a piece that uses Max and the disklavier to explore live interaction between a pianist and the computer-controlled grand piano. Other concerts have featured the flutist Rachel Rudich, improvisor George Lewis, and a collaboration between David Wessel and Jin Hi Kim. The CNMAT Ensemble has presented concerts of works created at CNMAT. In 1993, The Ensemble toured in Korea. In 1994, the Ensemble presented an evening of live interactive works by Cindy Cox, Guy Garnett, Ron Smith, and David Wessel. In addition to performances and compositions by visiting artists, a number of works have been created by faculty, staff, and students including Cindy Cox, David Eagle, Richard Felciano, Guy Garnett, Georg Hajdu, Ronald Smith, and David Wessel. In March of 1994, CNMAT collaborated with the UC Berkeley Symphony in presenting a concert including works using electronics by Guy Garnett and Anthony Deritis. Guy Garnett's Concerto for Violin Orchestra and Conducted Electronics featured a conductor-following computer system to synchronize and control live electronics.
Some special areas of compositional concern include: interactive composition and performance; structure, performance, and perception of rhythmic nuance and microtonal pitch inflection; exploration of timbral hierarchies; and the specification and performance of complex scores. Tools for interactive performance and composition have been developed in Max. In a recent concert, David Wessel has used Max controlling an AudioMedia board and a Reson8 to respond interactively to acoustic gestures performed on a Kumongo, a traditional Korean instrument, by Jin Hi Kim (Wessel 1991). Guy Garnett has been developing composition and graphical interface tools for scoring and performing complex rhythmic structures based on equal duration ratios rather than on isochronous beats. The effect of such temporal relationships can be thought of as imposing continual, subtle tempo changes on otherwise simple rhythmic patterns. Most of these scoring tools have been created in Smalltalk and make extensive use of Smalltalk's graphics environment. Georg Hajdu is using Max to create pieces in non-standard tunings such as 17-tone equal temperament. Some of these aspects will be demonstrated in the accompanying audiovisual materials.
Updated April 17, 1995 by Kalina Wilson (kalinaw@violet.berkeley.edu).
UPCOMING EVENTS
* CNMAT Summer Workshop '95 June 12 - July 21, 1995 * Society for Music Perception and Cognition Conference '95 June 22-25, 1995
CURRICULA
CNMAT offers two regular semester-long courses and one month-long summer course as well as numerous short seminars and workshops on special topics throughout the year.
* Music 158 - Musical Applications of Computers and Related Technologies (4 units) ====== Course format: Three hours of class per week. Prerequisites: 51B and 61B. Basic concepts and techniques of computer-based musical research, composition, and performance. Essentials of digital audio signal processing, musical acoustics and psychoacoustics, sound analysis and synthesis, musical data bases, use of MIDI, computer programming for music, computer-aided music analysis, printing and composition. Works from the computer music repertoire will be examined, as well as the impact of methods from the information sciences on music research. (F) Wessel. (From the '94-'95 General Catalog updated as of 01/25/95)
* Music 115 - Introduction to Psychoacoustics (4 units) ====== Course format: Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: 27 or consent of instructor. A review of the sensory, perceptual and cognitive foundations of listening, performing, and composing. Topics include: relations among various acoustical and perceptual characterizations of sound; perceptions of pitch, time, timbre, consonance and dissonance, and auditory space; auditory source identification, auditory stream segregation, perceptual grouping mechanisms; perceptual principles for orchestration. (SP) Wessel. (From the '94-'95 General Catalog updated as of 01/25/95)
A week long Max workshop was recently taught by CNMAT staff, and David Zicarelli presented a special seminar on writing external objects for Max. The response was so enthusiastic we expect to conduct more such workshops in the coming months.
CNMAT Summer Workshop 95
The Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at the University of California, Berkeley is offering an intensive summer program in new music performance technology for instrumentalists and composers.
Performers of traditional and/or electronic instruments will be introduced to new instruments, repertoire, and performance practices and will have the opportunity to work intensively with suitable instruments or controllers. For example, bass players will have access to the newest models of Zeta electronic string instruments, conductors will work the the Center's conductor-follower software, pianists will work with a variety of new synthesizer keyboards as well as with staff members to gain experience in using new technologies and in composing for the new instruments and techniques.
The program provides instruction and practice in state-of-the-art technology for real-time music performance, interactive performance, and composition for and with synthesizers, computers, and special-purpose hardware. In addition to practical sessions on the student's instrument and related controllers, lectures and laboratory sessions will cover the theory and fundamental concepts underlying the new technology.
Topics covered include: real-time and interactive software for performance and composition, new electronic instruments and controllers, electronically modified acoustic instruments, aspects of musical acoustics and psychoacoustics, programming using Max, the object-oriented graphical language for digital signal processing and MIDI, the use of computer workstations in live performances: rehearsing and on stage.
The course will be held at CNMAT's historic 1750 Arch Street facility in Berkeley. It will run from June 12 through July 21, 1995. Participating performers and composers will collaborate in preparing music for a concert to be presented in the final week. Local accommodations can be arranged.
For more information call or write:
CNMAT Summer Workshop 95 Center for New Music and Audio Technologies University of California, Berkeley 1750 Arch Street Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 642-8731
All Applicants: send an application letter, a curriculum vitae, and other materials as specified below. In the application letter, describe your electronic music experiences, including what computers and/or software you have used, if any, and how familiar you are with them. If you wish to be considered for scholarship, include a statement to that effect in the letter of application. Please specify whether local accommodations will be needed.
Instrumentalists: In addition to the above, include a list of recent performances, and a tape of at least two representative recent performances.
Composers: In addition to the above, send at least two representative works in score and/or tape (cassette or DAT, only).
Deadline: March 1, 1995. _________________________________________________________________
Updated 11/28/94 by Kalina Wilson (kalinaw@violet.berkeley.edu).