Visual Music H79. 2760
Friday, 12:30 – 3:00pm
ITP
Instructor: Zach Layton

contact: zachlayton@gmail.com
course website: www.zachlaytonindustries.com/visualmusic.html

course blog: http://itpvisualmusic.wordpress.com

 

week 1::
Intro, Syllabus, Synaesthesia

 

Discussion of early Colour Sound Instruments, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, Early Music Notation

 

read Heidegger: “Origin of the work of Art“
read Kandinsky: “Concerning the Spiritual in Art“
read William Moritz “The Dream of Color Music and the Machines that Made it Possible”

 

read “Serial Composition and Atonality” George Perle – Chapter 1

suggested: Tom DeWitt, “Visual Music: Searching for an aesthetic” Leonardo, 20(115-122) 
suggested: Oliver sachs synaesthesia chapter in Musicophilia

 

week 2::
Klangfarbenmelodie (sound-color-melody), intro to serial composition (Anton Webern)

 

discuss 12 tone theory, total serialism (boulez)
listen and analysis: Messaien, Webern

read: Messiaen “Technique of My Musical Language“

read: Boulez “Technology and the Composer”

read: Tymoczko “Geometry of Music”

read: Sol Lewitt “Sentences on Conceptual Art“

read: Sol Lewitt “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art“

 

assignment: write short 12 tone piece for piano or electronics

check out this 12 tone row calculator

 

week 3::
Spectral Music & Sonification (Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Kaija Saariaho)

 

listen and analysis

discussion of FFT, SPEAR, Spectrograms, FFT in Max/MSP

assignment: take 12 tone piece & stretch it out with FFT, do spectral analysis, make it a new piece
read: Computer Music Tutorial – FFT

download:

SPEAR

 

 

 

Soundhack

 

week 4::

Harmonic ratios + color

discussion of pythagoras & Just Intonation

 

Listen – La Monte Young (dream syndicate, well tuned piano), Tony Conrad (early minimalism)

 

write drone music piece using just intervals

 

read: James Tenney “Cage & Harmony”

 

Newton & Goethe on Color

 

read: Newton,”Optics” – excerpts

 

suggested: Helmholtz, Hermann; On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

suggested: Partch, Harry: “Genesis of A Music”

 

 

week 5::
Graphic Notation (Cornelius Cardew, Morton Feldman, John Cage)

 

Listen and analysis (Ligeti, Penderecki, Stockhausen)

John Cage: Variations ii
Morton Feldman: Projections and Intersections

assignment: take spectral piece and try to express it using original approach to graphic notation
OR make an original graphic score

Rhythm and form

John Cage: Fontana Mix -

read: “The Music of John Cage” – James Pritchett – Chapter 4

read: “Morton Feldman” Paul Griffiths

 

week 6:: Presentations of Graphic Scores

 

assignment: take graphic notation and begin using the score as a basis for visual piece, animation, etc.

Read John Tilbury – Cornelius Cardew – A Life Unfinished- (re: Treatise)

SECTION 2

 

week 7::

Optical Poetry (Fischinger, Moritz, Whitney, Len Lye, Harry Smith)

 

Geometry and vibration (James & John Whitney)

 

Short Introduction to Jitter (qt movies, timing control)

 

read Gene Youngblood, Expanded cinema, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970

 

watch – James Whitney: Yantra(57), Lapis(66), John Whitney – Arabesque(75), Matrix III

 

week 8::
Experimental Film & Expanded Cinema (McCall, Brackage, Belson) (guest TBA)

 

Anthony Mc Call - Line Describing a Cone (volume)

 

read Gene Youngblood, Expanded cinema, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970 - (continued)

 

Jitter workshop pt 2 (applying filters, color levels, keying)

 

John Stehura – Cybernetik 5.3

read: cybernetic cinema 
http://cyberanimation.tripod.com/

 

 

week 9::
Color & Form (guest TBA)

 

Article: Thomas Wilfred, Light and the artist, The Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 1947 
read: Summer of Love “Joshua White and the Joshua Light Show”, Pouncey, 2005

The Dichromaccord: Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ – Daniel Conrad

 

assignment:

Make a projected image display without computer…only light and other
means to diffract it

Jitter workshop pt 3 (Intro to Open GL, Geometry, Basis Function Generators)

 

week 10::

Movement, Flicker & Time (guest TBA)

 

paul sharits, warhol, bruce mcclure, conrad…

Read: Buffalo Heads: Media Study, Media Practice, Media Pioneers, 1973-1990 (paul sharits, tony conrad)
pg. 542, 553, 591 (retrospect I, II, non-linear time)

 

 

week 11::

Oscilloscopes, Video & Analog Techniques (guest TBA)

 

Paik, Experimental TV center

Read: Buffalo Heads: Media Study, Media Practice, Media Pioneers, 1973-1990 (Vasulkas)
Read: Nam June Paik – Theories and Documents pg. 434 

 

week 12::

Digital Techniques (advanced jitter workshop) (guest TBA)

 

watch: PaperRad P-Unit Mixtape 2005

watch: Christian Marclay – Video Quartet

 

week 13::

Ambient Topologies and Digital Architecture

 

Topography + physical harmony (cymatics)

 

week 14::

Critiques & Discussion
Final Performances @ ISSUE Project Room

 

resources / links

http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org
http://visualmusic.blogspot.com/

http://www.vasulka.org/archive/

 

rhythmic light bibliography 

Grading:

Attendance / Participation 10%
Midterm Assignment 25%
weekly short assignments 20%
final performance 25%
class presentation 20%