Logic Studio (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Try these Music Technology exercises to test your creativity or give them to your music technology students. I originally developed these projects as part of my Music Technology class at Murray State University. They helped developed both skills and creativity in the classroom. These are each worded exactly as given to the students. Feel free to borrow and improve on these assignments in your studio. MIDI EXERCISE Using a variety of musical and nonmusical sound samples and MIDI instruments, create two 2-5 minute compositions demonstrating: 1) Musicality  2) Originality 3) Variation 4) Use of 8 separate MIDI tracks (minimum) each song 5) Concept 6) Professional/Concert Quality 7) Use of at least 1 audio files (of any length) each song The two compositions must be of entirely different styles and should be concert quality material. Finished composition must be burned to a CD using a high-quality audio file and u...

Scribd (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) For those of you interested in promoting your own music (either scores or CD), I recommend checking out these links: CD Baby.com For a small fee you can set up CD distribution and a free web page for your latest creation. CD baby recently joined the crowd with music licensing, although it can be difficult to see your profits on synced tracks. Still, it's an opt-in. A word of warning, if you have a YouTube account with adsense, get ready for useless e-mails from YouTube warning you about infringing on copyright on your own songs. It's annoying, but easily cleared up. Reverbnation Create a free Widget of your album for webpages and downloads. Reverbnation has great ways to create your own artist backs, license your music, reach fans, set up a Street Team, get gigs, and really can be a one-place stop to organize your music activities. I wouldn't count on Reverbnation for sales, but it's a great organizational and networking too...

Robert Voisey (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Vox Novus 60x60 Project, the brainchild of Vox Novus Director and talented composer Robert Voisey . The New York composer came up with the unique idea of presenting new music in short sixty second bites compiled into a one hour electronica extravaganza. 60x60 has exploded from an experimental idea to a worldwide new music phenomenon, with mixes representing nearly every part of the globe, 2000 composers, and literally thousands of musical compositions. Many 60x60 concerts combine multimedia and dance with the performance for a truly eclectic and exciting way to experience new music. This year Robert Voisey challenged himself further by coordinating ten separate mixes for the 20th Anniversary Celebration. This includes the Athena Mix, New York Mix, Pacific Rim Mix, Presenter's Mix, and countless other mixes. Each mix represents a gamut of musicians with backgrounds diverse and eclectic, in...

Moviestorm (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) As I worked on my animated electronic opera Libertaria: The Virtual Opera , I ran across several very helpful websites for any musician or media artist that would like to create a large scale multimedia music project for a small budget. Here's several helpful websites and media tools that you can use to create your next musical or media masterpiece! :) The most useful site by far has been Bandcamp . Bandcamp allows me to easily upload all of the scores, instrumental tracks, and click tracks for my opera cast (who are scattered throughout the country). Each opera cast member for Libertaria downloads the album for free, complete with scores and click tracks. There is no limit to how many albums you can post, and you can give up to 200 albums for free. This is great if you need a one-site location for sharing electroacoustic scores, click tracks, and other media items in a single download Bandcamp allows you to set yo...

What is MIDI? MIDI: Musical Instrument Digital Interface The MIDI language allows different electronic instruments and computer interfaces to "talk" to each other. Before the invention of MIDI, musicians had a difficult time syncing up their instrument set-ups because the instruments were not compatible with each other. MIDI was developed in 1982 and was shared freely as open source. Today most music studios and professional software programs operate off of MIDI. At first MIDI sounds were limited to 127 specific sounds that you would most likely recognize from some of the earliest video games of the 1980s. Ghostbusters Atari Music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDjALoIeKU Composers like Laurie Anderson took MIDI and found new ways to express music and art through technology like the Drum Suit, samplers, CD -Rom, vocoder, and video. Puppet Motel CD Rom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPYOSLqN5Ns O Superman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd7XnOnSkkA Pa...

When does electronic music history begin? Many argue that the history of electronic music began with the invention of the record player in the 1870s. Certainly the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison . Yes, the same Edison who invented the lightbulb. The record player allowed music lovers to enjoy a concert without leaving their living room! Of course, the music establishment worried that the record player would reduce overall sales, but instead record players allowed further expression of ideas. Not only could music be distributed internationally, for the first time in history, music could be preserved and archived for study. Phonograph Recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv7i-gkSWn0 Early Electronic Instruments There were a number of early electronic instruments from the 1900s. Among them were the Theremin (still in use today), the Ondes-Martenot , the Trautonium, and the Hammond Organ . Each of these instruments brought musicians one step closer to ...

For students who want to find an easy online matrix generator, you can check out: http://composertools.com/Tools/matrix/MatrixCalc.html The atonal system was a large break from the traditions of before. Western music first began with simple intervals in the time of Pythagorus . His system marked intervals like a unison and an octave as the most tonal (and pleasing to the ear). In the middle ages, musicians used church modes ( Gregorian Chant ex.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MbDqc3x97k ). In the Baroque Era , composers began to use what is now considered major and minor scales. True western harmony was born. When Arnold Schoenberg experimented with atonality, he developed a complex musical (and mathematical) system. Essentially, a composer would arrange the twelve notes of a scale in a specific row, and then compose using those rows (in that order alone) to eliminate any sense of tonality . The retrograde, retrograde inversions, etc. of the tone row were cre...