Prime Directive: To develop a basic understanding of how computers and software are used in the musical composition and audio engineering process.

Instructor: Dartanyan Brown

1. Music and Technology--an overview
2. History of Electronic Composition
3. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface
4. MIDI composition exercises
5. Analog vs. Digital audio-- a primer
6. The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
7. DAW exercises
8. Project Definition (using MIDI & Digital Audio)
9. Project Session #1 Song Writing
10. Project Session #2 Quicktime/Multimedia Applications
11. Completion of performance project
12. Written examination and delivery of student-conceived project

The student will be evaluated on his/her ability to understand and implement concepts including, but not limited to:
1. Describing basic properties of audio information ( how we perceive sound)
2. Describing how computers are used within the audio recording process.
3. Describing and demonstrating the basic components of digitally generated sound
(compare with the process by which acoustic or ‘natural’ sounds are generated.)
4. Naming important dates and people associated with the history of computers and music
5. a.Creating simple in studio compositions and
b.Remote or field-recordings in accordance with specifications from the instructor.
6. Coordinate video images with music and sound effects using a time-base system. (MIDI; SMPTE)
7. Completing a student-conceived project.

http://www.midifarm.com

http://www.dartanyan.com/welcome.htm

About the Instructor
Dartanyan Brown has been involved in technology , art and education since 1973 when he began his professional recording career with Bill Chase, the legendary arranger, bandleader and trumpet player whose career spanned the best of the 1960’s Jazz big band era to the Jazz Fusion renaissance of the 1970’s. The Chase band pioneered the use of the synthesizers in live performance and in the studio. They are included in the Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll published by Rolling Stone. The group regularly held instructional sessions, clinics and professional workshops at high schools, universities and music conservatories nationwide.
Dartanyan continued his work as a Jazz Artist-in-Residence for the National Endowment for the Arts’. During the period from 1979-1984 Dartanyan did groundbreaking work in combining the traditional instruments of jazz with then-new microprocessor-based musical instruments.
“We talked about writing tones in the same importance as writing tunes. It was expected that you would create not only your own compositions but also your own timbres and textural realities.
I think it is important for young artists of any discipline and most obviously for musicians to discover what mysteries are at the intersection of modern technology and music.”
Dartanyan’s electronic compositions have been performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (1983) and his scores are still being performed by dance professonals at schools including Sweet Briar College, Virginia and the University of Montana, Missoula.