Composing for loudspeakers: computer music pioneer John Chowning visits MITIn 1967, late one night in the eucalyptus-scented hills of Palo Alto, John Chowning stumbled across what would become one of the most profound developments in computer music. “It was a discovery of the ear,” says Chowning, who gave a lecture and concert on Oct. 11 sponsored by the Media Lab and the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST). While experimenting with extreme vibrato in Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, he found that once the frequency passed out the range of human perception — far beyond what any cellist or opera singer could ever dream of producing — the vibrato effect disappeared and a completely new tone materialized.

What Chowning discovered was FM synthesis: a simple yet elegant way of manipulating a basic waveform to produce a potpourri of new and complex sounds — from sci-fi warbles to metallic beats. Frequency modulation (FM) synthesis works, in essence, by using one sound to control the frequency of another sound; the relationship of these two sounds determines whether or not the result will be harmonic. Chowning's classically trained ear had sounded out a phenomenon whose mathematical rationale was subsequently confirmed by his colleagues in physics, and would populate the aural landscape with the kind of cyborg sounds that gave the 1980s its musical identity.

Chowning licensed and patented his invention to a little known Japanese company called Yamaha when no American manufacturers were interested. While the existing synthesizers on the market cost about as much as a car, Yamaha had developed an effective yet inexpensive product. In 1983, Yamaha released the DX-7, based on Chowning's FM synthesis algorithm — and the rest is history. The patent would become one of Stanford's most lucrative, surpassed only by the technology for gene-splicing and an upstart called Google.

With its user-friendly interface, the DX-7 gave musicians an entrée into the world of programmers, opening up a new palette of possibility. Part of a rising tide of technological developments — such as the introduction of personal computers and the musical lingua franca MIDI — FM synthesis helped deliver digital music from the laboratory to the masses.

The early dream of computer music

The prelude to Chowning's work was the research of scientists such as Jean-Claude Risset and Max Mathews at AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1950s and '60s. These men were the early anatomists of sound, seeking to uncover the inner workings of its structure and perception. At the heart of these investigations was a simple dream: that any kind of sound in the world could be created out of 1s and 0s, the new utopian language of code. Music, for the first time, would be freed from the constraints of actual instruments.

As Mathews wrote in the liner notes of Music from Mathematics, the first recording of computer music, "the musical universe is now circumscribed only by man's perceptions and creativity."

"That generation," says Tod Machover, the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media at the MIT Media Lab, "was the first to look at the computer as a medium on its own." But both the unwieldy, expensive equipment and the clumsiness of the resulting sounds — two problems that Chowning helped surmount — inhibited these early efforts (by Chowning's calculations, as he noted in his lecture, the Lab's bulky IBM 7090 would be worth approximately nine cents today). But by the mid-1960s, the research had progressed to the point where scientists could begin to sculpt the mechanical bleeps and bloops into something of musical value.

Frequency modulation played a big part. Manipulating the frequency unlocked the secrets of timbre, that most mysterious of sonic qualities. In reproducing timbre — the distinctive soul of a note — Chowning was like a puppeteer bringing his marionette to life. The effects of FM synthesis conveyed "a very human kind of irregularity," Machover says.

The future of music

Today, the various — and often unexpected — applications of FM synthesis are omnipresent, integrated so completely into everyday life that we often take them for granted– a ringing cellphone, for instance. Yet while digital technologies became more and more pervasive, Chowning's hearing began to worsen and he slowly withdrew from the field. For a composer whose work engaged the most subtle and granular of sonorities, this hearing loss was devastating.

Now, thanks to a new hearing aid, Chowning is back on the scene. The event at MIT on Thursday — titled "Sound Synthesis and Perception: Composing from the Inside Out" — marked the East Coast premiere of his new piece Voices featuring his wife, the soprano Maureen Chowning, and an interactive computer using the programming language MaxMSP. Chowning sees the piece as a kind of rebuttal to those who once doubted the "anachronistic humanists" who feared the numbing encroachments of the computer. In Voices, he says, the "seemingly inhuman machine is being used to accompany the most human of all instruments, the singing voice." The piece also sums up a lifetime of Chowning's musical preoccupations, his innovations in our understanding of sound and its perception, and the far-reaching aesthetic possibilities in the dialogues between man and machine.

At MIT, Chowning enjoyed meeting the next generation of scientists, programmers and composers, glimpsing into the future of music. "The machinery is no longer the limit," he announced to the crowd. Indeed, MIT has its own rich history of innovation in the field, as embodied by figures such as Professor Emeritus Barry Vercoe, who pioneered the creation of synthetic music at the Experimental Music Studio in the 1970s before going on to head the Media Lab's Music, Mind, and Machine group. "MIT is in many ways a unique institution," Chowning says, where, "cutting edge technology interacts with highly developed artistic sensibilities." In the Media Lab, Chowning saw the dreams of his generation pushed forward. One thing, in his mind, is clear: "music has humanized the computer."

Video: The Paradiso Synthesizer Video: Lucy Lindsey and Melanie GonickIn 1973, Media Lab associate professor Joe Paradiso was an undergraduate at Tufts University, and didn’t know anyone who had built an analog music synthesizer, or “synth,” from scratch. It was a time, he says, when information and parts for do-it-yourself projects were scarce, and digital synthesizer production was on the rise. But, he decided to tackle the project — without any formal training — and sought out advice from local college professors, including his now-colleague in the Media Lab, Barry Vercoe. Paradiso gathered information from manufacturers’ data sheets and hobbyist magazines he found in public libraries. He taught himself basic electronics, scrounged for parts from surplus stores and spent a decade and a half building modules and hacking consumer keyboards to create the synth, which he completed in the 1980s. That synthesizer, probably the world’s largest with more than 125 modules, is now on display in the MIT Museum. Every few weeks, Paradiso changes the complex configurations of wires connecting the synthesizer’s modules, called "patches,” to create a new sonic environment. The synthesizer streams live online 24 hours a day at http://synth.media.mit.edu; starting this week, visitors to the synthesizer’s website can even change the patch parameters online. Learn more about Paradiso’s synthesizer

Disembodied performanceLater this month, the Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab will premiere Death and the Powers, an opera more than 10 years in the making. Featuring life-sized singing robots and a musical chandelier, the opera could redefine how technology can enhance live performance and help reestablish opera’s spirit of innovation.Created by composer and MIT Media Lab Professor Tod Machover, who has designed customized instruments for musicians like Yo-Yo Ma and Prince, the one-act opera will premiere Sept. 24-26 in Monaco (the city-state’s ruler, Prince Albert II, is the honorary patron of the project and will attend the gala opening). More than 60 students and collaborators are traveling with Machover to help stage the complex production.

Video: Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey play new music at TED

With Death and the Powers, Machover seeks to expand the traditional definition of opera through the use of technology — but in a way that enhances the human presence on stage and therefore strengthens the bond between audience and performers. “In theater, technology has consistently pulled music in the wrong direction,” says Machover. Recalling a Taylor Swift concert he recently attended with his teenage daughters, Machover bristles at the way in which “gigantic mega-screens and boom-box-like audio systems” have come to overshadow human performers, creating an experience that “forces rather than entices.”For this project, Machover and his team attempted to use technology to bring the stage to life, almost as another character: Death and the Powers features an animated set and nine singing “OperaBots” that serve as the chorus and frame the narrative.Creating “The System”The opera tells the story of Simon Powers, a successful inventor who wants to ensure his legacy. To do so, he constructs “The System,” which makes it possible to download his memories and personality into the physical environment. As soon as Powers enters the system and disappears from the stage at the end of the first scene, the stage takes on his persona. His character expresses himself through giant bookcases with thousands of lights that move to the rhythm of the music, as well as a sinuous, light-emitting musical chandelier with resonant Teflon strings that can channel Simon’s presence while being strummed by his wife, Evvy.By capturing the essence of a performer whom the audience can’t see, Death and the Powers creates what Machover calls a “disembodied performance.” This is done using software that Peter Torpey and Elly Jessop, two PhD students in Machover’s Opera of the Future Group, developed to measure aspects of a singer’s performance that the singer is likely aware of, including volume and pitch, as well as those he or she may not be monitoring, including muscle tension and breathing patterns. These conscious and unconscious elements then become part of the look and feel of “The System,” whether it’s through the movement of walls and chandeliers, pulsating lights or specially designed sounds.

MIT Media Lab Professor Tod Machover discusses his robotic opera, Death and the Powers.Video: Paula Aguilera/Jonathan Williams/Nobuyuki Ueda/Yolanda Spínola Elías; additional footage/stills: Melanie GonickThis creative fusion of music and technology could reposition opera as an art form that embraces innovation, says Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, a nonprofit that serves U.S. opera companies. He notes that for hundreds of years, opera was known for welcoming innovation through new technologies and instrumentation. But that role was usurped in the late 19th century when film emerged as the most innovative art form; opera appeared staid in comparison.“I’m always cheering when I see opera once again reasserting itself as the richest tapestry for innovative, live art,” Scorca says.Not only does Scorca consider Death and the Powers to be groundbreaking because it tests the “definitional boundaries” of opera, but he also notes how rare it is for an opera to be conceived and produced outside the framework of a traditional opera company. The fact that Machover’s group at the Media Lab produced Death and the Powers “shows opera’s potent viability as a medium that has creative potential for anyone who is innovating in interdisciplinary art,” he says.While Scorca hopes that the use of technology in Death and the Powers will inspire other operas, Machover cautions that it will be some time before the opera’s influence is clear — either within the world of opera or beyond. He notes that many of his larger endeavors have had unexpected results, such as his audience-interactive Brain Opera, which yielded many of the technologies behind the Guitar Hero video game. Although Machover believes that techniques like disembodied performance will influence how emotions are captured and communicated in performances, he thinks that a major impact of Death and the Powers will be through its story and music. “‘Powers’ is packed with vivid melodies, quirky rhythms and pungent textures that I hope might stick in the ear, stir the imagination and resonate in unexpected ways,” he says.

3 Questions: Evan Ziporyn on his new operaWhile a master of many forms of music, Evan Ziporyn has a particular affinity for the sounds of Bali. Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, has been involved with Balinese gamelan - a kind of percussion orchestral music - since his 1981 Murray Fellowship from Yale University. In 1993, three years after coming to MIT as an assistant professor, he founded Gamelan Galak Tika, a popular performing group. Yet Ziporyn, a composer and musician, writes and performs music ranging from classical, hard rock, alternative to ensemble. He is a composer and soloist with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, a high-energy chamber ensemble, and has toured as a saxophonist with Paul Simon. Ziporyn now adds another credit to his lengthy resume: an opera based on a true-life story that combines Balinese and Western musical forms. "A House in Bali," based on a 1930s memoir of the same title, traces the roots of the West's century-long infatuation with Bali, through the true story of three Westerners - composer Colin McPhee, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and artist Walter Spies - during their 1930s sojourn in Bali. Ziporyn composed the music, which will be performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and a Balinese gamelan directed by Dewa Ketut Alit, with choreography by Kadek Dewi Aryani. Marc Molomot, Anne Harley and Timur Bekbosunov will perform the roles of McPhee, Mead and Spies, respectively. "A House in Bali" (www.houseinbali.org) will premiere on June 26-27 in the Puri Saraswati, a part of the palace complex in the village of Ubud, Bali; it will be performed on Sept. 26-27 in the Zellerbach Auditorium at the the University of California, Berkeley. (See www.houseinbali.org.) The MIT News Office caught up with Ziporyn by e-mail while he was in Bali preparing for the production. Q: Why did you choose to create an opera as opposed to another kind of musical form? A: The word "opera" just means "works" - and to me it means total theater, a combination of all the performing arts - music, theater, dance, lights and costumes, etc. This is what it meant to Wagner as well, but that doesn't mean all opera has to sound like Wagner - not that there's anything wrong with that. I am in fact working with three opera singers (mainly from Baroque opera, as I prefer those vocal qualities), and the piece does tell a story, but I'm also working with three traditional Balinese singers, whose voices and mannerisms have nothing to do with western opera or, for that matter, western music. Q: What is your source material? What will the music be like? A: "A House in Bali" is based on a memoir of the same name by the first Western composer to travel to Bali, Colin McPhee. McPhee heard the first recordings of Balinese gamelan in 1928 and immediately went there to study and document the music. He did a tremendous job of it: his book and transcriptions are still considered the definitive source on the music of the period, both by Westerners and the Balinese. And he loved Bali. He came back to America as WWII loomed and, sadly, never got his life back on track. His own music was never the same, and he died without ever finding a way to return. He's a very important figure to me, both a model and a warning, and his story is truly tragic: unrequited love, but the object of affection is a culture, rather than a person. As with the singers, the instrumental music brings together two worlds. My own ensemble, Bang on a Can, is involved, and our instrumentation is basically a rock band with strings. Beyond that, I have a full Balinese gamelan - 16 musicians from the Ubud area - and the combination of these disparate sounds mirrors and frames the story. They come together and drift apart, mesh and clash - just as they do in my own imagination and, I think, as they did in McPhee's. Q: Is there anything that is particularly characteristic of MIT in the opera? A: Only that it's sui generis or "in a class of its own." There have been other operas that have employed Balinese music for color or exoticism, but I don't know of any piece that's interweaved these two cultures so extensively. There may be a reason for this; we'll find out.

Music at MIT hitting all the right notesLater this month, the MIT community will celebrate the 70th birthday of one of America's most prominent and prolific composers with a special tribute concert and symposium.That the individual in question, Pulitzer Prize-winning musician John Harbison, has been a member of the MIT faculty for four decades may come as a surprise to many in the outside world who tend to equate the Institute with white coats, computer algorithms, rocket science, quantum physics and cutting-edge efforts to cure cancer and solve the energy crisis.Harbison and the music scene at MIT are among the Institute's best-kept secrets, but they shouldn't be. Scientists and engineers have often been avid musicians — think of Albert Einstein and his violin or physicist Richard Feynman and his drums. The fact is, music at MIT plays a cathartic role in campus life and displays many of the bold characteristics — innovation, ingenuity, excellence and creativity — that lie at the heart of the MIT culture."Music at MIT is superb — and John is emblematic of that quality," says Associate Provost and Ford International Professor of History Philip S. Khoury, who has known Harbison for nearly 30 years. "He is one of the world's most distinguished and musically versatile composers, and he has always been completely devoted to teaching and, as he would say, learning from our remarkably talented students."An artist known for lucidity and logic in his compositions and performances, Harbison is equally adept at opera, choral and jazz. His Pulitzer Prize came in 1987 for his choral work "The Flight into Egypt," with text from the Gospel of Matthew. Two years later, he was awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant for his work, and in 1995 he became an Institute Professor — the highest honor MIT can bestow on a member of the faculty.Harbison, who is currently working on music inspired by Alice Munro's short stories, says MIT students bring with them the right ingredients for studying, composing and performing music: high intelligence, logical thinking, interest in structure and a curiosity about how things are made. In true MIT spirit, he tells students to break new ground and take risks."Go out and write things that your teacher won't necessarily approve of," he advises.Music on the MindWhether it's tinkering with music-editing software, performing in one of MIT's eight professionally led music groups or making brain waves audible, music at MIT can mean many things. In the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, associate professor Pawan Sinha and graduate students are working on way to create music and art from brainwaves. Intrigued with the possibility of understanding how minds extract meaning from sounds, Sinha has charted the electroencephalographic (EEG) response of brain neurons to tone sequences. Using a form of video gaming headsets that pick up these brain signals and by associating them with specific sounds, Sinha eventually hopes to allow an individual to "perform" in an orchestra simply by thinking. Sinha is also designing a "Your Brain on Music" program in which a person would watch a shifting electronic projection of EEG signals that reflects his or her brain's response to a piece of music. And, in what is perhaps his most ambitious project, Sinha hopes to design a "Brain Jukebox" that would let listeners hear music through the transformational lens of another person's brainSinha's research is in line with MIT's emphasis on interdisciplinary collaborations — and he is not alone in melding music with basic or applied research. Elaine Chew SM '98, PhD '00, an engineer and pianist who has designed algorithms for real-time analysis of music compositions based on mathematical models, and used them in her performances and lecture-concerts, says her engineering and music studies at MIT were entwined. "There are deep connections between the way the human mind works when making music, and when it solves problems in the sciences," she says. "Asking if my music studies help my engineering studies is analogous to asking a computational biologist if her biological studies help her statistical studies."Talented students, talented teachersChew's passion for music is fairly typical of the average MIT student. More than 60 percent of incoming freshmen declare advanced proficiency in a musical instrument, and at least 1,400 MIT students enroll each year in a music and theater arts class. As part of the Emerson Program for Private Instruction, the Institute offers scholarships each year to some 50 of its most talented scholar-musicians to pursue private instruction on their instrument with local master teachers.While only a few MIT students eventually pursue a full-time career in music, many graduates incorporate performance or composing into their professional and private lives. Such alumni include Eran Egozy '95, MEng '95, and Alex Rigopulos '92, SM '94, who founded the company that created "Guitar Hero." This hugely popular video game emerged from the pair's interest in providing a way for average people to express themselves musically through technology. "Students are engaged in music and the arts in general at MIT as they are with all their other academic work: with intensity, passion, commitment and rigor," says Fred Harris, director of wind ensembles and lecturer in music. "Over and over I am told by students and alums that it's the opportunity to explore, study, create and perform music that is among their most important, treasured and long-lasting experiences at MIT." Janet Sonenberg, professor of theater arts and head of the Music and Theater Arts Section, says much of the credit for MIT's creative music spirit goes to Harbison, who made it possible to attract an "extraordinary" group of arts faculty to MIT. Harbison, in turn, praises MIT for seeking to hire faculty with new approaches instead of being merely content to hand the baton to professors cut from the same template. Such hires include Evan Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music. In 1993, Ziporyn founded the Gamelan Galak Tika, a Balinese music ensemble, not because it was logical for the Institute to have such a group but because he thought it would fit the Institute's quirky, expansive nature. "The kind of person that is going to seek out a Gamelan is similar to the kind of person who is going to seek out a robot club to build robots," he says. Teaching music at MIT was once thought to be about training the audiences of tomorrow, but today it's about letting students have all manner of musical experiences, says Ziporyn. Among other things, he has taught a course in computer music composition, in which students write music with computer-processed sound. Many of the students who take that course have little formal music training, but know far more about computers than he does, Ziporyn says. "One of the things I always love about teaching a computer music course is I would have all students in there making pieces of really weird music," Ziporyn says. "They ended up realizing, 'I can write a piece of music. Maybe I'm not Mozart, but I can write a piece of music.'" The Harbison celebration concert, which begins at 8 p.m., April 24 in Kresge Auditorium, is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit: http://web.mit.edu/arts/announcements/prs/2009/0212_Harbison.html.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 15, 2009 (download PDF).

'Chameleon Guitar' blends old-world and high-techNatural wood, with its unique grain patterns, is what gives traditional acoustic instruments warm and distinctive sounds, while the power of modern electronic processing provides an unlimited degree of control to manipulate the characteristics of an instrument's sound. Now, a guitar built by a student at MIT's Media Lab promises to provide the best of both worlds. The Chameleon Guitar — so named for its ability to mimic different instruments — is an electric guitar whose body has a separate central section that is removable. This inserted section, the soundboard, can be switched with one made of a different kind of wood, or with a different structural support system, or with one made of a different material altogether. Then, the sound generated by the electronic pickups on that board can be manipulated by a computer to produce the effect of a different size or shape of the resonating chamber. Its creator, Media Lab master's student Amit Zoran, explains that each piece of wood is unique and will behave in a different way when it is part of an instrument and begins to vibrate in response to the strings attached to it. Computers can't model all the details of that unique responsiveness, he says. So, as he began experimenting with the design of this new instrument, he wondered "what would happen if you could plug in acoustic information, like we do with digital information on a memory stick?" Under the direction of Media Lab Associate Professor Pattie Maes, and with help from experienced instrument builder Marco Coppiardi, he built the first proof of concept version last summer, with a variety of removable wooden inserts. The concept worked, so he went on to build a more polished version with an easier quick-change mechanism for switching the inserts, so that a musician could easily change the sound of the instrument during the course of a concert — providing a variety of sound characteristics, but always leaving the same body, neck and frets so that the instrument always feels the same. With Coppiardi's help, he selected spruce and cedar for the initial soundboard inserts. This January, he demonstrated the new instrument at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it received an enthusiastic response. He also demonstrated the earlier version at two electronics conferences last year. The five electronic pickups on the soundboard provide detailed information about the wood's acoustic response to the vibration of the strings. This information is then processed by the computer to simulate different shapes and sizes of the resonating chamber. "The original signal is not synthetic, it's acoustic," Zoran says. "Then we can simulate different shapes, or a bigger instrument." The guitar can even be made to simulate shapes that would be impossible to build physically. "We can make a guitar the size of a mountain," he says. Or the size of a mouse. Because the actual soundboard is small and inexpensive, compared to the larger size and intricate craftsmanship required to build a whole acoustic instrument, it will allow for a lot of freedom to experiment, he says. "It's small, it's cheap, you can take risks," he says. For example, he has a piece of spruce from an old bridge in Vermont, more than 150 years old, that he plans to use to make another soundboard. The wooden beam is too narrow to use to make a whole guitar, but big enough to try out for the Chameleon Guitar. The individual characteristics of a given piece of wood — what Zoran refers to as the "romantic value" of the material, "is very important for the player," he says, and helps to give an individual instrument a particular, unique sound. Digital processing provides an infinite range of variety. "Now," he says, "it's possible to have the advantages of both." For now, Zoran is concentrating on developing the guitar as a thesis project for his master's degree, and hopes to continue working on it as his doctoral thesis project. After that, he says, he hopes it will develop into a commercial product. A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 4, 2009 (download PDF).

MIT's Makan wins Rome PrizeMIT professor Keeril Makan, a musician and composer acclaimed for his technique of layering recorded and live sounds, has been awarded the prestigious Luciano Berio Rome Prize for musical composition by the American Academy in Rome for 2008-2009.The prize, announced Thursday, April 10, in New York, carries a stipend of $24,000, and work and living accommodations for 11 months at the academy.Makan, assistant professor of music, originally trained as a violinist. He describes his music as an outgrowth of the western classical tradition, using familiar instruments and other musical traditions in new ways. Makan's music moves fluidly among disparate sounds, weaving them into instrumental combinations that range from small chamber ensembles to works for orchestra. Innovative and exploratory, it has required the composer to develop hieroglyph-like notations for musicians performing his work. In a saxophone piece, "Voice within Voice," for example, a row of jagged markings that look like shark's teeth means "put your teeth on the reed and grind." But notation is not where the process of composing starts for Makan, a 36-year-old native of New Jersey. "I write by physically interacting with the instrument I'm composing for. If I'm writing for the oboe, I'll play it in as many ways as I can imagine," he says. "As I work, new musical possibilities develop. This is how I get the raw materials for a piece; I record myself, then I figure out how I'll work with the material."Makan will devote the 11-month residency in Rome to working on three major pieces, he says.One project will be to compose "Tracker," a five-part chamber opera in which technological instruments of the past, such as 19th-century contraptions for measuring pulse and motion, are linked thematically to current technologies and to the impact of technology on the imagination and emotional experience.Sketches for "Tracker" are now taped in five columns to the wall of Makan's MIT office, a small room packed with books and musical gear. Photographs by 19th century scientist Etienne-Jules Marey top each column; poem-shaped segments of Jena Osman's libretto spill downward like adding machine paper. There are no visible musical notes.In addition to the opera, Makan's plan for Rome is to complete a work for electric guitar and orchestra, commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, to be premiered this November at Carnegie Hall. He will also finish a trio for flute, viola and harp, commissioned by the Harvard Musical Association, for violist and MIT professor Marcus Thompson.A tall order for 11 months, but Makan, who owns neither a car nor a television, finds economy in technology. He relies on Finale, a notation program, for experimenting with time and modeling, and on a digital audio workstation for analyzing the frequency components of pre-recorded sounds, en route to creating new ones.Recent MIT winners of the Rome Prize include Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz, associate professor in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and John Ochsendorf, associate professor of architecture.A national competition, the Rome Prize is awarded annually to 15 emerging artists in various fields. A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 16, 2008 (download PDF).

Alum 'zaps' Museum of Science April 27

Composer Christine Southworth (S.B. 2002) rehearses "Zap!," a composition in which the Van de Graaff generator provides static and flashing lights for her musical composition with flutes, guitar, cello, bass, piano, robots and human voices. "Zap!" will be performed at the Museum of Science's Theater of Electricity (Science Park, Boston) on Friday, April 27 at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. Tickets cost $10; for more information, see cambridgesciencefestival.org/. Photo / Bill Southworth

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 25, 2007 (download PDF).

ICA presents Machover workMIT Media Lab composer Tod Machover, known for his innovativeness as a musician and as a creator of new technology for musical instruments, will present an evening performance of work commissioned for the Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet. The concert at Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art will feature Machover's composition "…but not simpler…" on Friday, April 6, at 8 p.m. at the ICA's waterfront site. (Also, due to popular demand, a second show has been scheduled on the same date for 6 p.m. Tickets for the 6 p.m. show are on sale now.)Built around Machover's new string quartet commissioned by the Ying, the upcoming concert of continuous music brings together works from diverse periods and styles, from Bach to Beethoven, Cage to Carter, Byrd to the Beatles. The concert also includes original electronic interludes. The concert premiered last season in New York and was given a rave by the New York Times. April 6 is the event's Boston premiere. Media arts and sciences graduate student Mike Fabio helped design the technology and sound infrastructure for the event. For more information and to reserve tickets, please go to the ICA's web page for the peformance.Machover's work will also be featured this spring in other venues, including a concert piece on "Music, Mind and Health," to be presented at the Media Lab's "Human 2.0" symposium in Kresge on May 9 and the world premiere of "VinylCello," his new work for Hypercello and live DJ, to be performed by Matt Haimovitz, DJ Olive with Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra on May 11.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 21, 2007 (download PDF).

Japanese hip-hop: from 50 Cent to mirror balls and world peaceSix months of hanging out in smoky, grungy "genbas," or Japanese hip-hop clubs, gave cultural anthropologist Ian Condry insight into how American rap music and attitudes were being transformed by the youth in Japan. But he couldn't figure out the mirror balls. Every club, from large to small, had a mirror ball that sent glittering light into the sweaty haze above the Japanese hip-hop fans, artists, music executives and first-timers. So "I had to develop my own philosophy of the mirror ball," Condry, associate professor of Japanese cultural studies, told an audience on March 1 during a discussion of his new book, "Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization" (2006, Duke University Press). That philosophy highlights the relationships within the hip-hop community, he explained. The mirror ball illuminated "no single star on stage but rather spotlighting and then passing over all of the participants," Condry said, reading from his book. "The dynamic interaction among all these actors is what brings a club scene to life. Mirror balls evoke this multiplicity, splashing attention on each individual for a moment and then moving on--not unlike the furtive glances of desire between clubbers in a zone of intimate anonymity." Such details were crucial to Condry's insight into how affluent Japanese youth had transformed the music that came straight out of Compton into something distinctly Japanese. "The evolution of the Japanese hip-hop scene reveals a path of globalization that differs markedly from the spread of cultural styles driven by major corporations such as Disney, McDonald's and Wal-Mart,'' Condry said. "Indeed hip-hop in Japan is illuminating precisely because it was initially dismissed as a transient fad by major corporations and yet took root as a popular style, nevertheless." Condry's talk was part of "Cool Japan: Media, Culture, Technology," a Feb. 28-March 3 conference at MIT and Harvard that explored the power and significance of Japanese popular culture.To illustrate his points, Condry played the video of the song "911" by King Giddra, a Japanese hip-hop group named after a three-headed monster in the Godzilla movie series. The video movingly juxtaposed images of Hiroshima with the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, as the group rapped about the elusive nature of world peace.Japanese hip-hop--which Condry sees as having the four basic elements of rapping, deejaying, break dancing and graffiti art--quickly jettisoned the use of English, which had lingered in rock music. Japanese rapping has almost no talk of guns and very little mention of drugs but incorporates images of samurai or uses Kabuki performance style and often focuses on global political issues. Yet bravado remains crucial: One female rapper uses the eighth-century poetry style of waka; "yet she does it to say, 'I'm the number one rapper and I can beat the boys,'" Condry said. Japanese rappers say they're not into American culture, Condry explained in an interview. "They say they're into black culture. They say, 'I don't care abut America per se. But I love Spike Lee movies and I read the autobiography of Malcolm X … and I appreciate what black Americans have struggled to achieve.'''In the late 1990s, Japanese rap became more commercialized but a wide underground hip-hop movement also emerged, which spread throughout the country among a wide range of social and economic backgrounds. Only in the last four or five years, have "poor Japanese found a voice in hip-hop," he said.Condry admitted, with a laugh, that there were moments when hanging out in the genbas when he wondered if this was appropriate field work for a cultural anthropologist. Of course, he loves surveys as much as the next academic, but "You become part of the world. You see what's important to them," he said. "To get into that world, you need to learn a lot." He also admitted that the Japanese hip-hop fans began to imitate him, although politeness prevented them from showing him how he was copied. The "Cool Japan" conference was sponsored by the MIT Japan Program, Harvard's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Harvard Asia Center, MIT Foreign Languages and Literatures and MIT Comparative Media Studies.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 7, 2007 (download PDF).

Media Lab plans 'sonic bath' for Lewis Music LibraryThe Lewis Music Library will be transformed into what Tod Machover, professor of media arts and sciences, calls a "sonic bath" next week as graduate students from the Media Laboratory join him in a collaboration with Music Library staff to present "Library Music," a group of interactive music installations that explore the relationships among space, movement, touch and sound.

Musical stairs, a tactile rainfall and a sonorous, robotic chandelier are among the 10 "experiences" to be featured in "Library Music." Workshop sessions, open to members of the MIT community, will give participants an opportunity to discuss the concepts and technologies behind each installation with Machover and the student designers.

The workshops will take place January 16 to 18, culminating with a demonstration on Friday, Jan. 19 from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Lewis Music Library (Room 14E-109).

No advance sign-up is required for the workshops, and participants are welcome at individual sessions. The final demonstration is open to the public.According to Machover, the installations were developed individually but have been assembled so that they work nicely together in a progression through the library spaces, turning the library into a comprehensive, sound-filled experience. Some installations will be explored with use of headphones; some will be set up in separate, enclosed rooms, and some will be in the open spaces.One of the installations, a robotic Music Chandelier, will be shown for the first time in "Library Music." Mike Fabio, graduate student in media arts and sciences, designed the laser-based system for the chandelier, which can be played by the public in its current iteration. Fabio's chandelier is being developed for Machover's opera, "Death and the Powers," which will premiere in Monte-Carlo, Monaco, in November 2008."A library to listen to should be fun!" said Machover, expressing delight that the Music Library, a place normally devoted to listening to and thinking about music in silence, will be transformed by willing staff members and Machover's group into an interactive, musical environment. At the Jan. 19 demonstration, the student designers will explain the how, what and why of their installations and will be available to guide visitors through each experience. Also, Lewis Music Library staff will share some of its hidden treasures that relate to sound installations and experimental music technology. Refreshments will be served.For more information, contact Ariane Martins, x3-1613, e-mail: ariane@media.mit.edu.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 10, 2007 (download PDF).

Makan's '2' marks the moment when music and computing became one"Almost every composer in my generation uses a computer," says Keeril Makan, who, like many of his peer group, seeks ways to incorporate digital media and cutting-edge technology into his music. Makan, 35, is a sought-after contemporary composer who has received commissions from various ensembles and organizations all over the country and has participated in music festivals around the world. He joined the MIT community this fall as an assistant professor of music and teaches courses in music theory and composition.One of his earlier pieces for violin and percussion, "2," will be performed next month in Boston as part of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project Club Concert series. Makan, who takes his influences from American folk music, the European avant-garde, Indian classical music and minimalism, considers "2," written in 1998, to be the beginning of a long creative process. Most importantly, "2" marks the time when Makan began using a computer as a tool during composition. "The computer served as a modeling environment," explained Makan. "I could hear what I was doing, and I could take ideas to a further extreme than I would have if I was just working on paper. I could force myself into positions that were purposely uncomfortable to explore something new about the way I was hearing continuity in music." While Makan acknowledges that the computer was essential to the composition of the piece, it wasn't because of the way the computer sounded; it was more in the experience of time that the computer afforded him during the composition process. A performer by nature (he played both the violin and oboe growing up), Makan isn't interested in purely electro-acoustic work. He's happier when he creates a "hybrid world where you can't tell where the acoustic ends or the electro-acoustic begins," he said.And while Makan believes that the future of music will include technology, he noted that how technology is used will depend on the composer: Some composers only use their computers for notation, while others, like Makan, incorporate the use of the computer into the composition process, using it as an earphone. Makan received his degrees in composition and religion at Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio and completed his Ph.D. in composition at the University of California at Berkeley; he began composing at a summer camp in a classroom environment. "The teacher walked in and said, 'Composing is like painting; time is your frame and sound is your palette of color. Now go compose,'" recalled Makan with a laugh. "There was no instruction whatsoever." That teacher's philosophy, however, has been invaluable to Makan's confidence. "If you have a connection to sound and you want to work with it, then you can find a way to do it. You can begin to compose," he says."2" will be performed on Tuesday, Dec. 5, with Gabriela Diaz on violin and Aaron Trant on percussion, at 7 p.m. at the Moonshine Room, Club Café. (209 Columbus Ave., Boston). Tickets cost $15. For more information, call (617) 363-0396.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 22, 2006 (download PDF).

R.D. Lewis Music Library turns 10The newly renovated Rosalind Denny Lewis Music Library opened its doors 10 years ago. Thanks to the generosity of Cherry Emerson (S.M. 1941) and other donors, the library added a mezzanine, new listening/viewing equipment, comfortable study rooms, an audio preservation room, a special collections room and new office space for staff. New detailing included glass panels etched with a canon composed by Institute Professor John Harbison. Since 1996, the renovated library has served its users well: People entered the library more than 500,000 times; approximately 330,000 items were circulated; more than 26,000 books, scores and recordings were added to the collection and more than 20 concerts and events were performed in the library by MIT faculty, students and staff. A total of 26 music oral history interviews with 16 individuals were also recorded. The library will host a celebration of its 10th anniversary on Wednesday, Nov. 15 from 2 to 4 p.m. For information on upcoming events, please go to libraries.mit.edu/music/.Music library records top ten CDs, scoresThe ten most frequently borrowed CDs and musical scores over the past 10 years show the Institute community is classically inclined yet enjoys a world music beat. Top ten most circulated CDs:1. Vivaldi - L'Estro Armonico & Bartók - String quartets (tied at 226 loans)2. Schumann - Dichterliebe, Liederkreis & Corelli - Concerti Grossi Op. 6 (tied at 215 loans)3. Corelli - Trio Sonatas (213 loans)4. Wagner - "Tristan und Isolde" (209 loans) 5. Mozart - "Don Giovanni" (204 loans)6. "Music from Ethiopia" (202 loans)7. Handel - "Messiah" (198 loans)8. Bizet - "Carmen" & Bach - Brandenburg Concertos (tied at 196 loans)9. "Shona Spirit: Mbira Masters from Zimbabwe" (193 loans)10. Mozart - String Quartets 14 & 15 (191 loans)Top 10 most circulated scores:1. Schubert - Gesänge für eine Singstimme mit Klavierbegleitung, Peters (99 loans)2. Haydn - String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 76 No. 4. Wiener Philharmonischer (81 loans)3. Boulez - "Le Marteau sans Maître," pour voix d'alto et 6 instruments, Universal Edition (77 loans)4. Strayhorn - "Take the 'A' train"; edited by Gunther Schuller. Smithsonian Institution (75 loans)5. Haydn - Quartet for 2 Violins, Viola and Violoncello. Op. 74, No. 1. Eulenburg & Mozart - "Don Giovanni." Vocal score, Schirmer (tied at 72 loans)6. Chopin - "Balladen." G. Henle (69 loans)7. Corelli - Sonate: a violino e violone o cimbalo. Edizioni Scelte & Beethoven - Klaviersonaten I. G. Henle & Vaughan Williams - "The Lark Ascending": Romance for Violin and Orchestra. Eulenburg & Beethoven - Piano sonatas; edited by Heinrich Schenker. Universal Edition (tied at 68 loans)8. Purcell - "Dido and Aeneas"; edited by Ellen Harris. Eulenburg & Bartók - Music for string instruments, percussion and celesta. Boosey & Hawkes (tied at 67 loans)9. Beethoven - Klaviersonaten II. G. Henle (66 loans)10. Porter - The Cole Porter song book. Simon and Schuster (65 loans)For call numbers and additional information about Top 10 titles go to: libraries.mit.edu/music/activities/index.html.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 1, 2006 (download PDF).

Grad student's Hyperbow makes music to measureA Ph.D. candidate in the Hyperinstruments Group of the MIT Media Lab has developed a new electronic sensing system to measure minute changes in the position, acceleration and strain of a violin bow.The system can be used to evaluate different bowing techniques and may expand the expressive possibilities of the violin by electronic means, according to Diana Young, who built the gesture sensing system for the Hyperbow.Young recently spoke about her work at the 151st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) in Providence, R.I., and at the sixth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression in Paris. The Hyperbow is an enhanced bow, used in conjunction with a Hyperviolin. The latter, another product of the MIT Media Lab, is an instrument that makes no sound but creates an electronic output when played. The Hyperviolin can readily be played by anyone used to an acoustic violin. "Electronic music is a way of combining my interests in music and engineering," Young said.Young, who has a B.A. in music from Johns Hopkins University and a certificate in violin performance from the Peabody Conservatory, built the gesture-sensing system for her master's degree, which she received from MIT in 2001. Designed as a performance interface for professional violinists, the Hyperbow includes a set of accelerometers, gyroscopes and force sensors all installed on a carbon fiber bow.Because the system is wireless, it interferes only minimally with the violinist's bowing.Both the Hyperbow and the Hyperviolin have been played in concert, by the renowned violinist Joshua Bell among others; several composers, including MIT's Tod Machover, have created new compositions for them. The Hyperbow premiered at the 2002 Conference on New Instruments for Musical Expression in Dublin. (You can hear samples of Hyperviolin music on the Toy Symphony web site, www.toysymphony.net, then follow links for Sound and Images/Dublin - National Symphony Orchestra/AUDIO Samples.) The Hyperbow is just the latest in a series of Media Lab inventions on the vanguard of musical expression. Hypercello and Hyperinstruments were developed at the Media Lab by Joe Paradiso, Neil Gershenfeld and composer Tod Machover in the 1990s. An abstract of Young's paper is available via the ASA web site.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 13, 2006 (download PDF).

Orchestra leader to bid farewell at concert May 17Dante Anzolini, music director of the MIT Symphony Orchestra (MITSO) since 1998, will conduct his farewell concert tonight, leading the symphony in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 7.The 8 p.m. concert in Kresge Auditorium will be followed by a post-concert reception in the lobby of Kresge. Admission is $5 at the door.Anzolini, who is also music director of the Teatro Argentina Orchestra, is renowned in the United States and Europe, where he has toured extensively. During his years here, he has maintained an active conducting schedule outside of MIT, to critical acclaim. Institute Professor John Harbison praised Anzolini, noting, "It has been a privilege for us in music and theater arts to acquaint our students with Dante's high level of musicianship." Harbison also said that MIT students could not have played for a "more articulate, perfectly prepared and musically acute conductor" than Anzolini.Anzolini's students sang their own songs of praise for their teacher and conductor, citing both his remarkable musical abilities and his high standards on their behalf. Daryush Mehta, a doctoral candidate in health sciences and technology and MITSO clarinetist for three years, recalled Anzolini's astuteness and candor as a conductor: At the end of a long rehearsal, Anzolini observed that Mehta had played a single incorrect note earlier in the evening. "From that moment on, I knew Dante was special. He could hear a pin drop in the middle of a snowstorm from a mile away -- and then he would tell you if it were flat or sharp," said Mehta.Violist Andrew McPherson (S.B. 2004, music and electrical engineering; M.Eng. 2005), also remembers being impressed, if not intimidated, by Anzolini's musical ear. "Dante once remarked to his conducting class that if someone throws a cat on the piano keyboard, we should be able to transcribe the notes it plays. I'm convinced he could do this."McPherson credits the MIT music section and, most importantly, Anzolini himself in shaping his decision to continue in the Ph.D. program in music composition at the University of Pennsylvania. Anzolini "treated us as professionals ... and constantly challenged us with difficult and complex repertoire," McPherson said. That repertoire included large orchestral works by Bartok, Stravinsky, Copland and Ives, compositions by MIT faculty and student composers, and pieces more familiar to American audiences such as Georges Bizet's "Carmen Suite" and symphonic dances from Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story."Pieces by Mahler are prominent on the list of works Anzolini has conducted at MIT, including Symphonies No. 1, No. 6 and No. 9. MITSO recorded Mahler's Fifth Symphony on its first European tour in May 2000 and the Adagietto movement was played in Killian Court on Sept. 12, 2001, during the community response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.Mehta said, "My mouth watered almost each time our repertoire list would come out. Dante knows how to choose a wide range of energetic and level-raising repertoire. He has the ear, the heart and the soul of a great orchestra conductor."Anzolini's next performance outside MIT will take place on Sunday, May 21, when he will lead the Choral Arts Society of Washington, D.C., in a performance at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in celebration of its 40th anniversary.An interim conductor will lead MITSO next year while a search is launched for a new director.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 17, 2006 (download PDF).