February, 2011


2
Feb 11

homework 1

Your homework has two parts:

a) Images as inspiration for sound creation
b) watching a lecture about physics and sound

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here’s the images needed for the first homework. Your job is to create
a sound which is less then 5 seconds for each of these images. The
sounds can come from anywhere, things you record, things you
synthesize, etc. I recommend you take a moment to familiarize
yourself with an audio editor, like Audacity and I’m happy to help
introduce you to it if you have trouble / need help. this is a decent
intro pdf:

http://library.albany.edu/imc/pdf/introaudacity.pdf

By using a tool like audacity, you can cut and rearrange samples,
generate tones simply, apply effects and in general clean up sound.
Also, it will give you access to cutting up your mp3s. In order to
output mp3 in audacity, you’ll need a plugin, which is simple to
install, but saving .wav / .ogg should be no problem.
Your job is to take these 9 images, and create 9 sounds, a sound for
each image — the only requirement is that they be less then 5 seconds
long. They could be synthesized, recorded, found samples, etc, but
the goal is to create a tight relationship between what you see and
what you hear.

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Second, you will need to watch this video:

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/168

which is a great introduction to the physics of sound. I will send on
later today or tomorrow a list of questions, just to make sure you are
paying attention :) The lecture is given by an MIT professor, Walter
Lewin, who is amazing. If you like how he explains concepts, check
out others. I like to watch them when I am bored or cooking, etc.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/index.htm

that second link has an amazing demo at the end about why the sky is
blue / sunsets are red, etc.

also, if you like the ideas of the physics of sound lecture, I
recommend you get a copy of this book, which gives an amazing
explanation of the interplay of physics and sound from ancient times
to MP3s, etc.

http://is.gd/gPr2

it’s worth getting ! really, really nice book.

images for the sonification homework: