Manipulated music at UF merges digital, acoustic sounds into masterpieces

April 2, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Dancing to your own music becomes possible when wearing a special suit that generates computerized sound in real time. Sound fantastic? Well, the very thing has occurred at the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival at the University of Florida.

The festival showcased such a dance control suit — the MIDI Movement Module, or M3 — in past years’ performances. There is no telling what innovative arts technology an international group of composers and live performers will present at this year’s 16th annual Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival April 12-14.

While the words electronic and acoustic are normally considered antonyms, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival showcases how the two terms are pulled together in the art of creating cutting-edge computerized compositions.

Electroacoustic means anything that can be created, manipulated or reproduced under electronic means, said James Paul Sain, a professor of music in the School of Music at the UF College of Fine Arts, and the festival’s founder and director.

“Festivalgoers will hear something completely different from what they have ever heard before,” Sain said. “They will think of music in ways they have never thought of.”

There are two parts to making the diverse, often multilayered sound: creation and control.

“Some sound is created with a keyboard terminal, or by live performers, some is controlled with a game controller,” Sain said.

Then there is the dance control suit.

Considered revolutionary, the field has, nevertheless, been around for about 50 years — about as long as computers have been in existence, Sain said.

The festival will highlight the work of UF’s composer in residence, Charles Dodge. One of the early founders of the field, Dodge inaugurated the graduate study of computer music at Columbia University from 1970 to 1980. Dodge is best known for incorporating speech synthesis and live performance into his electroacoustic compositions.

The three-day festival will include musicians and composers from as far away as Australia, five juried concerts and several presentations by Charles Dodge. In addition, Richard Boulanger, a researcher in the One Laptop Per Child project, will demonstrate a new sound synthesis system for the $100 laptop. OLPC is a non-profit organization that aims to build and provide $100 laptop computers for the world’s poorest children. The computer, called an XO laptop, runs on an innovative operating system and which supports the “Csound5”.

The events will take place at the Black Box Theatre of the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

For updated program information, visit the Web at http://emu.music.ufl.edu/femf/fest16prg.html.