We walk through this world wrapped in the vibrations of sound. Sounds are all around us all of the time, whether we pay attention to them or not. Most people love music. Its melodies, harmonies, rhythms, consonances, dissonances, reverberations, tonalities, and atonalities find resonance in our souls and echo in our minds. Those of us with an artistic calling may love the form, structure, beauty, and endless possibilities for creativity in music and sound. Those of us with a scientific bent may be fascinated by the intellectual intricacy of sound and music, endlessly moldable by mathematics, algorithms, and computers. Sounds can be maddeningly impossible to ignore, or surprisingly difficult to notice. If your neighbor decides to begin his deck construction project early on a Saturday morning, it’s likely that you won’t be able to tune out the pounding and sawing. But when your heart starts racing at a bullet-riddled chase scene in an action movie, you probably won’t even notice how the movie’s background score is manipulating your emotions. Music gets attached to events in our lives so that when we hear the same music again, the memories come wafting back into our thoughts. In short, sounds are a significant part of our experience of life.
So that’s why we’re here – we musicians, theatre and film sound designers, audio engineers, computer scientists, self-taught audiophiles, and generally curious folks. We’re here to learn about what sound and music are, how they interact with the digital world, and what we can do with them when we apply our creativity, intellect, and computer-based tools. Let’s get started!
1.1 Sounds Like Fun!