Make Max make music for you! Make Max make music like you! Make Max make music without you! Do the beginnings of your performances always start with you predictably building layers? Get the party kicking *immediately* with Markov chains! Are you sick of making music with static loops that never ever ever ever ever change? Not with Markov chains. Do you tweak one thing at a time while everything else just sits there repeating over and over and over and over? Never again! Maybe you just want a friend to jam with when there’s no one around. This weekend ONLINE class will teach you to make your Max patch improvise on it’s own! You’ll walk out with ideas and strategies for making melodies, chords progressions and especially drum parts write themselves and only repeat when you want them to! This class is part of this year’s New York Electronic Art Festival.
[Jul 13/14] Making Max Make Music with Markov Chains – ONLINE CLASS
Matthew Aidekman
Sat/Sun July 13/14 – All times are 9am to 4pm EST – see detailed schedule below. Since this is an online class, it is designed to accommodate students in other timezones as well.
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Location: This class is held online, you need to have internet connection to watch videos and engage in the forums. Shortly before the class starts you will get a link with further instructions how to take part in it.
In collaboration with Tenlegs, a network for artists to connect, collaborate, earn and learn, Harvestworks offers this class as part of it’s new online TEAMLab class program. Online means that anyone can take it and make it work with your schedule. Initially and throughout the course you’ll have access to video lectures created specifically for this workshop, a series of hands-on challenges meant to give you experience building your own generative art, and live sessions to ask questions, get answers, and go deeper with the material.
Max/MSP is the perfect place to go for composing algorithmic music. This class will get students knee deep in this subject by starting with a simple patch that contains just six max objects called a Markov chain. This Markov chain will act as the core for every program in the course. From there students will be shown numerous strategies for how to use this patch to generate everything from song structures to rhythms to bass lines. Students will also learn to teach this tiny program how to improvise. From here the class will discuss a few ways to make the output of our Markov chains a little bit more human and musical. Finally we’ll talk about creating drum kit parts. Everything students learn can be easily dropped into Max for Live to instantly bring a sparkle to live performances.
Requirements
You need to have internet connection to watch videos and engage in the forums. This class assumes students have a basic knowledge of Max programming.
Timetable
On Saturday & Sunday, students will be able to watch videos with instructions/assignments between 9am to 2pm EST. From noon to 4pm EST our teacher will be available via forums to discuss assignments with the students. The assignments are due 4pm EST.
All times are EST / New York time. Since this is an online class, it is designed to accommodate students in other timezones as well.
Sat, Jul 13 (Instructions & Assignment 1)
Given by: 9am EST
Teacher’s Office Hours: noon to 4pm EST
Assignment due: 4pm EST
Sun, Jul 14 (Instructions & Assignment 2)
Given by: 9am EST
Teacher’s Office Hours: noon to 4pm EST
Assignment due: 4pm EST
Matthew Aidekman
Matthew Aidekman has been a sound engineer since sixth grade. At the age of seventeen he opened Estate Recording where he spent nearly ten years recording acts of all different genres while composing unique and strange songs on the side. In 2003 he began working in Max/MSP focusing his attention on algorithmic music, novel synthesis techniques and user interface design. Matt has spent a great deal of time working on the relationship of user interfaces to Markov chain based algorithms for making music. He’s currently working a degree in physical modeling synthesis and a record which focuses on sounds that evoke images of soil, root systems, and the underground in general.
