Calendar

The Google Calendar above should be synchronized with the schedule below - please let us know on Piazza if there are any inconsistencies.

Note: this calendar is subject to minor modifications. Please refer to announcements in class and on Piazza for any changes to the schedule.

Associated readings from the course textbook are shown in (parentheses). You should read these sections of the textbook before the corresponding lecture.

See the important note about final exams and travel at the end of this page.

Week 1: Introduction to Computer Music

• Tuesday, January 14 – Introduction to Nyquist and SAL (1.3-1.9)
• Project 0 (Setup) – due Wednesday, January 15 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Wednesday, January 22 by 11:59PM)
• Thursday, January 16 – Principles of Sound and Sampling, Intro to Audacity (1.1-1.2)
• Project 1 (Audacity and Nyquist) – due Tuesday, January 21 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Tuesday, January 28 by 11:59PM)

Week 2: Basics of Synthesis

• Tuesday, January 21 – Unit Generators, Piece-wise Functions (2.1-2.5)
• Project 2 (Envelopes and Scores) due Monday, February 3 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Monday, February 10 by 11:59PM)
• Thursday, January 23 – Programming Scores (2.6-2.7, 4.5-4.8)

Week 3: Sampling Theory

• Tuesday, January 28 – Frequency vs. Time, Fourier Analysis (3.1-3.2)
• Thursday, January 30 – Sampling issues: Aliasing, Negative Frequencies, Quantization (3.3-3.7)

Week 4: Synthesis by Modulation, Spectral Analysis

• Tuesday, February 4 – Amplitude and Frequency Modulation (3.8-3.9, 4.1-4.3)
• Project 3 (FM Synthesis, Spectral Centroid) due Monday, February 17 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Monday, February 24 by 11:59PM)
• Thursday, February 6 – Frequency Modulation (continued), DFT, Spectral Centroid 5.1-5.3)

Week 5: Intro to Algorithmic Composition / Symbolic Music Generation

• Tuesday, February 11 – DFT/FFT (continued), Behaviors (4.4-4.9)
• Thursday, February 13 – EXAM 1

Week 6: Granular Synthesis, Sampling

• Tuesday, February 18 – Patterns, Algorithmic Composition (5.3-5.7), Mastering Nyquist, Granular Synthesis (6.1-6.2)
• Project 4 (Granular Synthesis) due Monday, March 10 by 11:59PM Eastern (Note: first day back after Spring Break) (peer grading due Monday, March 17 by 11:59PM)
• Thursday, February 20 – Markov Chains (5.5.3), Sampling Techniques (7.1)

Week 7: Filters

• Tuesday, February 25 – Filters (McFee 3, Dannenberg 7.2)
• Thursday, February 27 – Filters continued

SPRING BREAK (no classes): Monday, March 3 – Friday, March 7

Week 8: Spectral Processing, Vocal synthesis

• Tuesday, March 11 – STFT analysis and resynthesis, spectral processing (McFee 9, 8.1-8.2)
• Project 5 (Sampling, Spectral Processing) due Monday, March 24 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Monday, March 31 by 11:59PM)
• Thursday, March 13 – Vocal synthesis (9.1-9.8)

Week 9: Physical Models / Acoustic Music Generation

• Tuesday, March 18 – Instrument acoustics (10.1), delay and feedback (10.3.1-10.3.3), physical modeling synthesis (11.1-11.3)
• Thursday, March 20 – Phase vocoder (9.6), physical modeling continued (11.4-11.12)

Week 10: Acoustics and Perception

• Tuesday, March 25 – Acoustics and Perception (10.1-10.2)
• Project 6 due Monday, April 7 by 11:59PM Eastern (peer grading due Monday, April 14 by 11:59PM)
  • Option 1: Original Project, Physical Models
  • Option 2: Experimental Python Project, Scores and Sound Design
• Thursday, March 27 – EXAM 2

Week 11: Acoustics and Perceptions (cont’d), Synthesis Techniques

• Tuesday, April 1 – Effects, Echo, Reverberation and Panning (10.3)
• Thursday, April 3 – NO CLASS [Spring Carnival]

Week 12: Audio Compression

• Tuesday, April 8 – Advanced Synthesis Techniques (12.1-12.4)
• Project 7 (Computer Music Composition) due Monday, April 21 by 11:59PM Eastern (NO LATE DAYS ALLOWED) (No peer grading)
• Thursday, April 10 – Quantization, compression (13.1-13.5)

Week 13: MIDI, Future Directions in Computer Music

• Tuesday, April 15 – Computer Music Performance (14.1-14.5), Lossy audio compression (13.1-13.4)
• Thursday, April 17 – Lossless / neural audio compression (13.5,13.7,13.8), AI/ML for music (14.6), where to go next (15)

Week 14: Project Presentations

• Tuesday, April 22 – 15-622 Project Presentations, Project 7 concert (in class)
• Thursday, April 24 – Project 7 concert (in class)

Final exam: Monday May 5

• FINAL EXAM (90 minutes), Monday May 5, 8:30AM, location TBD

IMPORTANT: Do not plan post-semester travel until your final exam schedule is finalized, including dealing with any conflicts or cases where three exams are within 25 hours. Our final is scheduled on the very last day of finals week (May 5), so you should plan your travel for the day after at the earliest. If you have conflicts, you may want to plan to depart even later. Early final exams will not be accommodated.