Ge Wang, Music Department
TITLE: At the Intersection of Music and Computer Science: ChucK, Live Coding, and Laptop Orchestras
ABSTRACT:
We present ChucK, a new programming language and paradigm for precise and rapid experimentation of computer audio/music for composition, performance, and pedagogy. The tenets of ChucK include a "strongly-timed" programming model, and support for live coding - a way to rapidly experimenting with audio programs (i.e., as they run). Overall, the framework provides a different way of thinking about how to create, explore, and work with sound and music via code.
In this context, we describe our adventures with the "laptop orchestra", a new type of large-scale, computer-mediated music ensemble and classroom. The laptop orchestra consists of twenty sets of laptops, humans, special hemispherical speakers, sensors, and software. It presents new challenges and opportunities in instrument design, programming, composition, performance, and learning about computing and music. We present our ongoing adventures with the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), and discuss the laptop orchestra's potential to serve as a unique and naturally integrated platform for research in computing, as well as musical expression and exploration.
All audiences welcome!
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Bio
Ge Wang received his B.S. in Computer Science in 2000 from Duke University, PhD in Computer Science (advisor Perry Cook) in 2008 from Princeton University, and is currently an assistant professor at Stanford University in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). His research interests include interactive software systems for computer music, programming languages, sound synthesis and analysis, music information retrieval, new performance ensembles (e.g., laptop orchestras) and paradigms (e.g., live coding), visualization, interfaces for human-computer interaction, interactive audio over networks, and methodologies for education at the intersection of computer science and music. Ge is the chief architect of the ChucK audio programming language. He was a founding developer and co-director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), the founder and director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk). Ge composes and performs via various electro-acoustic and computer-mediated means.