A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Image of William Harper

William Harper

Professor, Adjunct

Bio

Photographer, Videographer, Composer. Education: PhD, Eastman School of Music. Recent film festival screenings: Sanctuary International, Queensland, Great Lakes International, Pennsylvania, Evansville Museum, Indiana Natourale, Germany, Kharkiv, Ukraine Moondance, Colorado, Beyond Earth, India, Barcelona Planet and others. Opera Productions: El Greco, Peyote Roadkill, Dead Birds, Crimson Cowboys, Extraordinary Measures. Awards: National Institute for Music Theater, National Endowment for the Arts, MacArthur Foundation, Djerassi Foundation, Yaddo Foundation. Recent Film Awards: Moondance, Nature without Borders, Independent Shorts Awards, Beyond Earth Film Festival, Natourale.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course is offered for those students interested in developing skills in the creation and application of digital audio. Using Apple's Logic software, students interested in exploring sound or music are introduced to audio manipulation techniques that allow them to create soundtracks, to record and produce songs or dance tracks, realize abstract sound pieces or manipulate sound for installations.
Techniques of sound manipulation are introduced, including audio recording and editing, looping, and sound destruction. MIDI, drum programming, the use of software synthesis and basic music and composition techniques are addressed according to the needs of individual students.
The class is structured to encourage the interaction of students with a wide range of technical ability in audio from beginners to advanced artists in the early stages of a professional practice.

Class Number

1154

Credits

3

Description

This course introduces students to the fundamental materials of music composition, the structures used to shape these materials, and techniques and strategies students can use to create fully formed pieces of music. Referencing traditional and experimental practices from many cultures and histories, we examine the basic musical elements of rhythm, meter, tonal organization, harmony, and timbre. These are applied in a digital studio environment via sampling, sound synthesis, looping, and live recording using Apple's Logic digital audio workstation.
Musical works by artists from diverse backgrounds and identities are analyzed to understand how these materials and concepts are used to sculpt emotional expressions, narrative forms, abstract constructions, or conceptual statements. Students work with these references, elements, and materials to make their own work in genres of their own choice. No style of music is off limits.
Course work will vary but typically includes participation in weekly experiments and the presentation of self-devised projects at midterm and the end of the semester. Students work with the materials, structures, and techniques introduced to make their own work in genres of their own choice.

Class Number

1145

Credits

3

Description

Selected issues in music and related areas are studied. Topics vary each semester and may include (but are not limited to): musical structure and form, aural literacy, opera studies, music and words, music and the visual arts, history of recorded music, history of the oral tradition, semiotics, communications theory, and others.

Class Number

1183

Credits

3

Description

Selected issues in music and related areas are studied. Topics vary each semester and may include (but are not limited to): musical structure and form, aural literacy, opera studies, music and words, music and the visual arts, history of recorded music, history of the oral tradition, semiotics, communications theory, and others.

Class Number

1528

Credits

3