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  6. MU4504: ELECTROACOUSTIC COMPOSITION: THE VOICE AND THE MACHINE

MU4504: ELECTROACOUSTIC COMPOSITION: THE VOICE AND THE MACHINE (2015-2016)

Last modified: 25 Mar 2016 11:35


Course Overview

Seminar-based classes will provide an historical overview of electroacoustic music that utilises the voice as sound object. The theme of each seminar, focused each week around a different aspect of the voice and technology, will provide the theoretical, philosophical, and aesthetic basis for practical applications, focusing on particular cultural and aesthetic issues that concern the mediated voice in recorded sound. Running concurrently, practical, studio-based classes will provide a technical overview of software applications and of sound recording techniques, particularly looking at the way the voice is rendered, represented or transposed through the electronic medium.

Course Details

Study Type Undergraduate Level 4
Session Second Sub Session Credit Points 30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus None. Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Dr Suk-jun Kim

Qualification Prerequisites

None.

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • Music (MU) (Studied)
  • Any Undergraduate Programme (Studied)
  • Programme Level 4

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

Practical, studio-based classes will provide a technical overview of software applications ProTools, Audiosculpt and Max/MSP, and of sound recording techniques and the microphone. Running concurrently, seminar-based classes will provide an historical overview of electroacoustic music that utilizes the voice as sound object. The theme of each seminar, focused each week around a different aspect of the voice and technology, will provide the theoretical, philosophical, and aesthetic basis for practical applications. Drawing from readings, close analysis and listening of key electro-vocal works from the twentieth-century and beyond, we will assess particular cultural and aesthetic issues that concern the mediated voice in recorded sound. The course will probe the role and influence of technology in compositions that involve the voice and technology, particluarly looking at the way the voice is rendered, represented or transposed through the electronic medium.

Topics include the microphone and recording technology, sound recording technology and its implications for voice recording, early vocal immortalizations onto the phonograph, the theremin, musique concréte, the looped voice, the mechanical voice, the synthesized voice, the fictional robotic voice, human beat-boxes, the interactive voice, sampling the voice and plunderphonics, the electroacoustic voice, and lastly the spoken narrative in contemporary music composition.


Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 31 August 2023 for 1st half-session courses and 22 December 2023 for 2nd half-session courses.

Summative Assessments

1st Attempt: Written journal (25%); in-class participation (10%); mid-term composition project (25%); final compositional project (40%).

Resit: Written journal (25%); composition project (75%).

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Feedback

Oral feedback during studio work. Written feedback on compositions and journal using report forms.

Course Learning Outcomes

None.
 

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