Sound and Music Research

Research Areas in Brief

• Composition via hierarchical assembly of musical objects
• Algorithmic composition
• Artifical instrument design
• Software for composition

Research Areas in Detail

• The aim of this research is to provide a computer system in which sound and music can be constructed from primitives. Any larger pieces built from primitives can then be used as building blocks themselves. This allows for the handling of sound as real objects that can be moved to points in musical space without affecting the internal structure of the object.
• Research Team :-
  • David Chapman.
  • John Fitch.

• The aim of this research is to investigate how natural and physical processes can be used to model the compositional process. The current model uses differential equations to generate music.
• Research Team :-
  • Jeremy Leach.
  • John Fitch.

• The long-term aim is the creation of a numerical instrument which is capable of producing interesting sounds, with the kinds of local timbral variation which is found in natural instruments. Current interest concentrates on the use on non-linear recurrence relations to generate interesting sounds and envelopes.
• Research Team :-
  • Richard Dobson.
  • John Fitch.

• Provision of a range of music software for composers who do not have access to large university computers is a significant component of the work, while not being research in the strict sense. We concentrate on software for IBM-cloned PCs, from 80286 to Pentium. The most significant tool is the Csound language of Barry Vercoe (MIT Media Lab), which we have enhanced with new utilities and expanded capabilities. We also are in contact with the Macintosh implementors for Csound, and with Composers' Desktop Project. More traditional composition is supported with the Rosegarden notation editor and sequencer for X/Unix. This will shortly be available on Windows3.1.
• Research Team :-
  • John Fitch.
  • Chris Canam.
  • Andy Green.

• There is a file server where many of the products of this division are available for ftp, the Dream server (Division for Research in Electro Acoustic Music)
• The server is maintained by John Fitch