HONR218v - Honors Seminar: Digital Sound & Fury On Mac OSX

Desktop Publishing, Music, Photography, and Video

Spring 2005

Course Information:

Lecture:	Wed 2:00 - 4:30, AVW-4456
Mailing List:	honr218v-0101-spr05@coursemail.umd.edu
Required Materials:	Strunk & White: The Elements of Style
	Phillips: A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel
	Anything by Bach, or any Beethoven symphony #3 or later

Instructor Information:

Professor:	Bruce L. Jacob, Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Office:	1325 A.V. Williams Building
Phone:	301-405-0432
Email:	blj@umd.edu
Office Hours:	Open door policy (for now ...)

Course Handouts and General Information:

Syllabus.pdf
Assignment #1 examples. This directory contains a few examples of mine.
Some Pages templates you might find useful (I will update with new templates and change dates as I add styles to existing templates):
- Conference-2col.tgz - Conference paper, two-column format, 8 Feb 2005
The GarageBand audio files that I used to demo GarageBand in Lecture 6 ... the e. e. cummings audio as well as the GarageBand file that I created on the fly in class.
Bicubic resampling. This gives a few example results of algorithms used (in Photoshop and XV) to scale down image size.
Some 3D landscapes. For those who are having trouble working with pandromeda's software, here are a few already-rendered scenes (some of them kinda boring because I was looking at the same pile of rocks and changing world parameters, to see the effects). I also threw in a few scenes from Myst 3.

Lectures:

Week	Slides	Topic/s	Readings for Following Week	Composition Projects for Following Week
Week 1 jan24	Lecture1.tgz	Overview, some examples, what is "good" content?	Eno: The Long Now Naipaul: Reading & Writing Jacob: Algorithmic Composition
Week 2 jan31	Lecture2.pdf (view 2-up)	Intro to desktop publishing, Form as Content (Macro-level). Demo: Apple's Pages		Asst. 1: In any application, create company letterhead (or personal letterhead) and business card. Email me a 1-page PDF file.
Week 3 feb07	Lecture3.tgz Lecture3.pdf	Form as Content (Micro-level). Demo: Apple's Pages, Adobe's inDesign	The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation If interested, check out Ligature Schmigature	Asst. 2: Improve upon your letterhead and business card. Email me a 1-page PDF file.
Week 4 feb14	Lecture4.tgz QuickTime ver.	How to give a good talk. Demo: Apple's Keynote	Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon (see some background on the album if interested) Byrne & Eno: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (see transcriptions of the songs if interested)	Asst. 3: CD cover (front/back) or two-page magazine spread. Do at least one thing that cannot be done in Pages. Email me a PDF file.
Week 5 feb21	Lecture5.tgz	Audio I/O basics, musique concrete and the use of ambient sound in music. Demo: Amadeus II	Pink Floyd: The Wall (an analysis of the album/movie [not mine]) Yes: Fragile, "Roundabout" Yes: Close to the Edge	Asst. 4: Record (or find) 3 water, 3 voice, and 3 mechanical sounds; put into a single file, linear form. Email me an mp3 file.
Week 6 feb28	Lecture6.tgz GarageBand files	Intellectual content in music, part I, Melodic themes in Pink Floyd's The Wall. Demo: Apple's GarageBand	Yes: Close to the Edge, "Close to the Edge" (again) Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans, "The Revealing Science of God - Dance of the Dawn" Jacob: "Under the Ceiling of Sky"	Asst. 5: Use your nine sounds from asst4 to create your own musique concrete. Use only the nine sounds from asst4. (but you need not use them all) Email me an mp3 file (try to keep it under 2-3 minutes long).
Week 7 mar07	Lecture7.tgz	Intellectual content in music II, Thematic development in Yes's Close to the Edge and Tales from Topographic Oceans.	For fun: Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue ELO: Out of the Blue	Asst. 6: Improve upon your concrete from the last assignment. You may refine what you have and/or add to what you have (including the addition of new audio and/or instruments). Email me an mp3 file, or bring a GarageBand file to class.
Week 8 mar14		Cancelled -- make up on May 18
Week 9 mar21		Spring Break
Week 10 mar28		Multitrack recording, MIDI orchestration, audio processing & multi-effects units, basic sound engineering. Demo: Apple's GarageBand, take II	Dynamics analysis - this site contains an incredibly in-depth, well-done analysis of several dozen albums; well worth a look.	Asst. 7: Create a multi-part (instrument) MIDI composition. Use at least 8 parts. All phrases must be derived from a set of no more than three basic phrases. Email me an mp3 or bring a GarageBand file to class.
Week 11 apr04	Lecture9.tgz	Audio wrap-up. Intro to digital cameras & photography, CCDs & SLRs, edge sharpening, histograms, and color correction. Demo: Apple's iPhoto '05	Ultimate in hi-res photography - You really must check this out ... truly mind-boggling resolution.	Asst. 8: Shoot (or find) 3 water, 3 people, and 3 mechanical photos. Email me the files (reduced to < 3MB if necessary).
Week 12 apr11	Lecture10.tgz	Guest Lecturer: Axel Persaud, Axpressions (principles of portrait photography, Photoshop) ---- General hints on producing good photos. Demo: Apple's iPhoto '05		Asst. 9: Improve your pictures from previous assignment, using> Photoshop or iPhoto (or similar), and put the sequence of before/after shots into a movie. Email me the quicktime movie.
Week 13 apr18	Lecture11.tgz	Guest Lecturer: Eric Schurr, UMCP (no show) ---- Bicubic resampling, Fake photography (i.e. 3D modeling, a really basic intro), A well-known example of minimalism at work. Demo: Book-building in iPhoto '05		Asst. 10: Use Pandromeda's world-rendering software to create a realistic (but unreal) lanscape, and populate it with some sign of habitation (e.g. with Photoshop). Email me the picture.
Week 14 apr25	(Lecture 12 is about 300MB, so i haven't put it up; sorry -- email me for a copy)	Guest Lecturer: Hawk & Ananth, Applegeeks (2D Illustration using Flash and Photoshop) ---- 3D modeling in more depth, Intro to video (formats, etc.).		Asst. 11: Shoot (or find) 3 water, 3 people, and 3 mechanical videos (no more than 10 secsonds each). Bring the files to class.
Week 15 may02	may04.mp4 (4MB) the iMovie I made in class (and after). (best as half-size) See me if you want the iMovie project, or the full-res QT movie (250MB).	Guest Lecturer: Pete Hatzakos, Naval Media Ctr (principles of video, producing good content) ---- Video, take II (editing). Demo: Apple's iMovie		Asst. 12: Create a movie out of your clips and still images. Use your audio assignments for audio tracks (you may keep the ambient audio of the video clips).
Week 16 may09	may11.mov (66MB) may11.mp4 (2MB) a Quicktime animation of my son & daughter in our basement. (I thought it better to do this than put devil's horns on my son :)	Guest Lecturer: Chris Butcher, Penn Camera (principles of in-the-field photography) ---- The role/s of audio in video, Quicktime animation. Demo: Apple's iDVD and Final Cut Express		Asst. 13: Improve your movie from previous assignment. Burn a DVD and bring it to class.
Week 17 may16		Guest Lecturer: Matt Kirschenbaum, UMCP (putting media in perspective, looking forward) ---- Last-minute thoughts & rants.