Overview

The purpose of the final project is apply the technical and compositional skills that you have learned throughout the semester and apply it to a project of your choosing. The scope of the final project is larger than the assignments. Students should expect to spend around two months working on their project. Students can choose from one of two types of projects:

• Project 1: A Musical Composition (1 - 2 people)
• Project 2: A Research Project (2 - 3 people)

All projects will culminate in a presentation to the class of approximately 10 - 15 minutes where students will present either their composition or tool and answer one or two questions from the audience.

Do not wait to the last minute!

Partner

You are allowed to work on your final project with one partner for compositional projects and up to two for a research and implementation project. Partners should contribute equally to the final result. Partners can work well for the second project. Artistic collaborations can be tricky if both you and your partners have different artistic visions. Be sure to communicate with your partner about your goals and ideas before beginning work on a joint compositional project.

Some observations on partner work:

• It is important to have teams establish rules of communication and mutual expectations from the beginning.
• Teams that are committed to the project and composed of students with the same attitude will be successful.
• Successful partnerships can often work well when teams bring a diverse set of skills to the project. Consider pairing an experienced programmer with an experienced musician. If choosing the second option, students with strong writing and research skills will be an invaluable asset.

Project Details

You may choose one of two kinds of project. The links below detail the complete project descriptions for each kind of project. Please read over both descriptions before selecting which kind of project you would like to do.

Project 1: A Musical Composition
Project 2: A Research Project

Some general thoughts on what creates a successful project:

• Students first and foremost should choose something they are passionate about and should work with others who share a similar passion.
• Projects are most successful when students work on them a little bit each day as opposed to working on everything at the end. The main purpose of the milestones (noted below) is force your work habits to meet the final goal through smaller, evenly spaced goals.

Checkpoints

The project is a semester long goal and along the way I will expect you to hit certain milestones as your project develops. Below are the due dates and descriptions of those respective checkpoints. Please see the project descriptions for more details about the requirements.

Project Proposal: Thursday, October 7 at 11:59PM
Phase 1: Thursday, November 18 at 11:59PM
Phase 2: Monday, December 6 at 11:59PM
Final Submission: at 9:30AM

Project Presentation

The project presentation will be held during Reading Period on Wednesday, December 15 from 9:30AM to 12:00PM in the Sound Lab. Each group will have 15 minutes to discuss their project. The general format of the presentations should be as follows:

• 10 - 12 minutes to present the project
• 3 - 5 minutes answering questions from the group/instructor

The content of your presentation will vary by the kind of project you chose. If you chose to do a musical composition, your presentation should have the following format:

• An introduction stating the kind of piece you wrote and your objectives.
• A public performance of the piece. Execute your SuperCollider code live. Practice this many times. You will use your own laptop to play the piece so that there are no unexpected hiccups if you attempt to run the code on another machine.
• Discuss some of the technical details about how each element in the piece was made. What were your SynthDefs? What kind of synthesis did you use? What were the samples? Etc.
• Be prepared to answer questions about your piece, your objectives, the construction of your sounds.

This is suppose to be a positive experience. Performance is always never wracking. You are among friends learning to write music for the first time. Do not be embarassed or nervous. No one will criticize your music.

If you chose to do a research project, your presentation should have the following format:

• A discussion of the highlights of your paper. What topic did you address? What were the important things you learned from your research?
• A demonstration in SuperCollider of an aspect of your research. Show us a small example. This should not even be close to an entire piece. But rather a demonstration of some aspect. This portion need not come at the end of your presentation but can be integrated into the larger discussion wherever appropriate.
• Be prepared to answer questions about specific points you addressed, related topics that touch on your discussion, connections to other things we have learned in class, etc.

For both kinds of presentations, you may elect to use slides or no slides. Either way is fine.

Note that you will be graded on the following aspects of your presentation:

• Delivers a quality presentation with good clarity, cohesion, and organization of information
• Speaks clearly and delivers content while engaging the audience (good eye contact, not too much pausing, etc.)
• Performs SuperCollider code/music smoothly and without hiccups.
• Successfully and thoughtfully answers questions from the audience/instructor
• Addresses the all the requirements stated above for your kind of presentation.

Grading

The project is worth 30% of your overall grade, a significant portion. You should expect to put considerable effort and care into making the best project you can. The project will be graded out of a total of 100 points. The breakdown of the points will be as follows:

Project Proposal: 5 points
Phase 1: 10 points
Phase 2: 10 points
Final Submission: 60 points
Presentation: 15 points

If you meet the listed criteria for your specific project, you should expect to do well on the project. Effort is key here. It is easy to discern those projects that have been given considerable care and thought versus those that have not. Unfortunately due to the newness of the course, I do not have examples of previous student projects. If you have any questions or concerns about the quality of your project or its grading, please do not hesitate to reach out to Andy.