Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

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highwood
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by highwood »

The fundamental (the note being played) should always be the loudest component (or else you wouldn't be able to tell what note is being played).
This is not true - but I'll leave it to the reader to do the research, for I should be in bed and not typing!
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Tunborough »

highwood wrote:
The fundamental (the note being played) should always be the loudest component (or else you wouldn't be able to tell what note is being played).
This is not true - but I'll leave it to the reader to do the research, for I should be in bed and not typing!
What highwood refers to is the brain's amazing ability for (or insistence on) inferring a fundamental when only partials are available. If your ears hear sounds at frequencies 440 Hz (A4) and 660 Hz (E5), and they are in phase, the brain will hear the note A3 (220 Hz). This is why bells and chimes, which don't have neatly tuned (harmonic) partials, produce something we hear as a musical note, sometimes paradoxically high for the size of the chime. If your course doesn't cover this, it isn't giving you the straight goods.

You'll find a good explanation of this in chapers 5 and 14 of Arthur Benade, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics.

Although some of it is out of date, this book is still a great lay-person's introduction to musical acoustics, very easy to understand, and an incredible value in the Dover reprint.
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by fearfaoin »

Caroluna wrote:Apparently the syllabus has undergone a Fast Fourier Transform. :wink:
I name you the abbess of this punnery.
Thanks for your observations about what's coming up in the course. Next time I'll keep my brain on one frequency instead of a complex mixture of many frequencies with the energy distributed more-or-less randomly. :lol:
Nice. I usually have white noise in my head, too.
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by swizzlestick »

So far I am enjoying the course except for the inane pop-up questions. Obviously created by someone not paying attention to the actual lecture.

I am been away from C&F because I didn't have any time left between the lectures and looking the the many (very many!) discussion groups. I now realize there is better commentary here on this forum. I should have expected that. I am going to drop the official discussion groups unless I have specific questions and concentrate on working with the software packages since this is entirely new territory for me.

The Japanese comparisons were intriguing. I enjoy listening to classical Japanese instrumental music, but have never been exposed to the other formats. This broad exposure is part of what I was hoping to get in a short survey course.
All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out. -- Mark Twain
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Caroluna »

swizzlestick wrote:So far I am enjoying the course except for the inane pop-up questions.
I just wish the poor guy would quit clearing his throat -- it's driving me crazy!
The Japanese comparisons were intriguing. I enjoy listening to classical Japanese instrumental music, but have never been exposed to the other formats. This broad exposure is part of what I was hoping to get in a short survey course.
I was amazed at the bit about infants and white noise (crying baby calms down when he hears a hairdryer!) I used to think of white noise as a sound filter -- something to use when the neighbors are being too loud. I didn't realize that it had a soothing psychological effect just by itself.

I also liked the part about emotion being expressed by different kinds of timbres. The prof. gave the example of the Korean art form where the narrator sings / screams the story for several hours -- the cluster of closely-packed harmonics in his voice making a horrifying sound. It was very intense and dramatic. Even a short sample of it set me on edge.

Here is an example of "nice" harmonics and "rough" harmonics in the world of birds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awofeXTZPcU

These are some baby zebra finches being hand-fed. The first sounds you hear are a social contact call. "Beep! Beeep!" The finches sound like little oboes. Then as "mom" comes closer, the baby lets her know just how hungry he is. Lots more harmonics. "Beep beep beep argh ARGH ARGHH ARGHHH". I'm sure this affects the emotions of the parent birds. At around the 0:40 mark I imagine the poor parent birds would be thinking "please, please just make it stop!!!" Then you gradually hear the chicks going back to their original, cheerful contact call.

We've handraised various kinds of pet finches, and when they're screaming with hunger like that, they make an unbelievable amount of noise. I have to wear earplugs to muffle it because otherwise I can't feed them slowly and calmly! :o
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by fearfaoin »

swizzlestick wrote:So far I am enjoying the course except for the inane pop-up questions. Obviously created by someone not paying attention to the actual lecture.
Thank you! In the other courses I took on coursera, the lecturer paused for quizz placement and often mentioned that one was upcoming. In this course they are obviously an afterthought, and the content of some quizzes are asinine. I just starting skipping them.
Caroluna wrote:I just wish the poor guy would quit clearing his throat -- it's driving me crazy!
Also, thank you. That's driving me nuts. Hopefully an acute condition.
swizzlestick wrote:I am been away from C&F because I didn't have any time left between the lectures and looking the the many (very many!) discussion groups. I now realize there is better commentary here on this forum. I should have expected that. I am going to drop the official discussion groups unless I have specific questions and concentrate on working with the software packages since this is entirely new territory for me.
I think they're more useful when there's more technical problems. But I'd rather treat C&F like a study group, frankly. Y'all are a known quantity and largely not crazy, which cannot often be said on the Interwebs at large.
swizzlestick wrote:The Japanese comparisons were intriguing. I enjoy listening to classical Japanese instrumental music, but have never been exposed to the other formats. This broad exposure is part of what I was hoping to get in a short survey course.
Yes, I agree. I might have to take the World Music course that Caroluna mentioned.
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Caroluna
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Caroluna »

Oh, dear...and this looks good too -- starts in March.
Introduction to Music Production The introduction of high-quality and low-cost software and hardware has made it possible for musicians everywhere to record and produce themselves at a fraction of the cost of what a professional studio charges. Of course, although it is possible to record and produce your music at home, you are still going to need the foundational information and best practices for how to create a professional-sounding recording.

That is where this course comes in. No matter what kind of music you are making, there is a large set of tools that you will need to use. Each lesson of this course will demonstrate a different set of music production tools, loosely following along the music production process of recording, editing, and mixing.

By the end of this course, you will have a solid background in the art of music production, and understand the key characteristics and tools associated with recording, editing, mixing, and effects.

I'll write again when the course begins.

Best regards,
Loudon Stearns
Coursera and Berkleemusic.com instructor
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Caroluna
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Caroluna »

Fearfaoin wrote:largely not crazy
:really:

yeah, I know what you mean :lol:
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by swizzlestick »

I suspect the throat clearing problem is a temporary thing. I don't remember seeing it in the introduction or first video.

Yes, there are several related courses that look good, but I just don't have the time. I did sign up for a course starting in August called Survey of Music Technology. I suspect it will cover some of the same material. However, it is two weeks longer and will touch on different software including Reaper, a DAW I have been testing.
All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out. -- Mark Twain
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by fearfaoin »

Caroluna wrote:
Introduction to Music Production The introduction of high-quality and low-cost software and hardware has made it possible for musicians everywhere to record and produce themselves at a fraction of the cost of what a professional studio charges. Of course, although it is possible to record and produce your music at home, you are still going to need the foundational information and best practices for how to create a professional-sounding recording.
AH HA! That's what I was hoping this course would be.
Now we're cooking with grease! Thank you.

Here's a link for the Music Production course from Burklee College of Music starting in March.
https://www.coursera.org/course/musicproduction
I'm signed up.
Last edited by fearfaoin on Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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TC
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by TC »

Thanks for suggesting this! I'm in as well.
I want to test some of the knowledge I've gained through years of trial and error. I admit to no formal training, but have years of music and sound reinforcement experience. Guess I want to find out if I really know what I think I know.

So far, I've learned the correct pronunciation of the word timbre . :oops:
Other than that, the first few videos cover mostly familiar territory.
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fearfaoin
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by fearfaoin »

TC wrote:So far, I've learned the correct pronunciation of the word timbre . :oops:
Same here. I wondered what the heck "tamber" was, then I finally saw it written on a slide and said, "Oh, timbre". Duh.
Other than that, the first few videos cover mostly familiar territory.
Yeah. Next week show pick up a bit. It starts with Microphones, so I'm hopeful.
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Caroluna
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Caroluna »

Whoa!! I thought those last 3 vids were amazing. ...For context though -- I've had a previous course on music history in the western tradition, and the music from the 1920s on was just incomprehensible to me. It really bothered me. "Why am I not getting this?!" After those last couple of lectures, I see now what I was supposed to be listening for. Or not listening for. Apparently I had been listening "teleologically" and I ought not to have been :lol:

No but seriously, it did help explain many things I had been wondering about.

Meanwhile -- I found some good stuff on YouTube

Here's a version of Etenraku with traditional instruments -- "auditory roughness" intact
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRFfyDE3gEo

Here's the "sanitized" version he mentioned
Etenraku -- Hideki Togi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx1uw4n5 ... E0287ACCE5

Here is a whole 1-hr vid. -- Gagaku: The Court Music of Japan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRM_FNooJHc
Gagaku: The Court Music of Japan allows the viewer to experience the haunting sounds of the Japanese court orchestra and to see the magnificent costumes and masks of its stately dances. Host for the program is Dr. William P. Malm, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan, who introduces the instruments of gagaku and the musicians who play them. Also featured in the program is Suenobu Togi, Gagaku Master at UCLA and Dr. Sidney Brown, Professor of Asian Studies of the University of Oklahoma, who explains the historic roots of gagaku. Performances by the Imperial Court Orchestra in Tokyo illustrate the contrasting styles of gagaku. NB: I do not own the rights to this video, and I will remove it upon request from those who hold the copyright. I am trying to make an out-of-print educational resource available to students.
and finally--This was adorable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqXIQo88ZRg
That is a wild and crazy looking flute, and look at the music notation he's reading from (shown at the end)
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fearfaoin
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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by fearfaoin »

Wow, thanks for those, Caroluna!

You want some real fun, pull both videos up with a crossfader:
Click here to do just that (please forgive the Samuel L Jacksonness of the URL.)


Also, speaking of Fourier (as we were earlier)

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Re: Free college course: Intro to Digital Sound Design

Post by Nanohedron »

swizzlestick wrote:I am been away from C&F because I didn't have any time left between the lectures and looking the the many (very many!) discussion groups. I now realize there is better commentary here on this forum.
Very gratifying to hear that, and to be able to dismiss charges from the implacable that all at C&F must be by definition a sweeping waste of one's time.
swizzlestick wrote:I should have expected that.
This intrigues me, but not to derail. Please do let's carry on. :)

I only just now posted to this thread, so I hope that I'm not out of order; but I must say that as for Gagaku, it remained for decades one of the most opaque and unlistenable forms of music for me until not so very long ago. I can't speak to such ideas as teleological listening, but I do think it's not amiss to say that one needs very "long" ears to listen to (and comprehend!) Gagaku without squirming.
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