Course description
This course uses hands-on media production, in the form of audio and video art, to examine the interplay between music and technology since the dawn of sound reproduction, especially in the digital age. Embracing such technologies ourselves, we employ popular, powerful music software (Ableton Live) to explore new techniques and idioms for storytelling by composing a series of Ètudes. Readings, discussions, and projects focus on several significant forms and their histories, including soundscapes, mashups, supercuts, and DJ-style mixes. Students develop a fluency in the history of sound studies while cultivating competencies in audio and video editing, sampling and arranging, mixing and remixing, and, in framing their projects, descriptive and poetic forms of writing.
