Download - CCRMA - Stanford University

The relative democratization of electroacoustic music is clearly one of the positive effects of MIDI revolution.
The atfordahility of the new set of tools led to the appearance ot home computer electroacoustk
music studios. MIDI also had a positive effect on concert practice. Also. MIDI marked the beginning of
active commercialization of the field.
About a half of the surveyed composers had practiced some kind of live (non-tape) music before MIDI.
MIDI gave a boost to this genre, providing reliable, portable, storable devices and connections and
raising the number of composers involved into live interactive music. Meanwhile, tape pieces have
continued to be the principal performance genre among the art composers just as software synthesis
continued to be the major source of timbres after the introduction of MIDI. The evaluation of these
preset synthesized sounds in MIDI instruments is unfavorable. In particular, the opinion on the quulity
of acoustic simulation in such sounds is utterly negative.
As the study has shown, the influence of MIDI is multifaceted. The conflict between the origins oi MIDI
and the pre-existing compositional practice has not been entirely solved. Instead, the results of this
investigation show the incorporation of the new tools into the existing tradition, compromise in some
elements of interaction, rejection of others and development of new practices.
6.7 Computer Assisted Music and Acoustics Research
6.7.1 The Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities (CCARH)
The Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities (CCARH). located in the Braun Music
Center. Stanford University, is concerned with the development of data resources and software applications
for music research and allied areas of humanities study.
Its address is:
Teaching
Braun #129
Stanford University
Stanford. CA 94305-3076
tel. (650) 725-9240
fax (650) 725-9290
Web: http://uwu.ccarh.org/
CCARH staffs a two-quarter graduate sequence, cross-listed with Computer Science:
Music 253 Introduction to Musical Information http://uuu.stanford.edu/class/music253/
Music 254 Seminar in Music Representation http://uuu.stanford.edu/class/music254/
This course sequence is team-taught by Eleanor Selfridge-Field and Walter B. Hewlett. The current
teaching assistant is Craig Sapp.
Lab for Music Notation and Analysis
CCARH maintains a lab for applications in music notation, analysis, and sound sequencing. It also
maintains some CD-ROM titles related to music research.
Currently supported third-party applications include:
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