About Music 253

This two-quarter sequence, offered yearly in the winter and spring quarters, is devoted to understanding symbolic musical information as it is used in different application domains (Mus 253/CS 275A) and providing an in-depth experience with data representations for musical analysis, or a related research questions (Mus 254).

Musical information (Mus 253) examines diverse applications in printing, sound, and analysis of music. Many systems of music representation are tailored to a specific application domain. A basic understanding of the nature of music representation facilitates rapid learning of new notation and sound software, as well as conversion of musical data between applications. It also forms a solid foundation for the development of research projects involving music query, analysis, and style simulation which are topics covered in Mus 254.

Mus 253 can be taken for one to four credits. Students taking the course for one credit are expected to attend the regular class sessions, or they can attend and do homework for one of the three segments of the class: (1) Music Notation, (2) MIDI, or (3) music analysis applications. Auditors are welcome, see the syllabus for the schedule of topics (times special lectures are given in parentheses).

Download listing of Course Credit Options (.pdf)

Course Time & Location

Course Time: Fridays 10:00 am - 11:50 am, Lab: Wednesdays, 3:25 pm - 5:15 pm
Braun Music Center, Room 129

Instructors

Eleanor Selfridge-Field (esfield/at/stanford.edu) - principal instructor
Walter Hewlett - instructor
Don Anthony (ccarh/at/ccrma.stanford.edu) - instructor
Rob Hamilton (rob/at/ccrma.stanford.edu) - teaching assistant

Textbook

Beyond MIDI: The Handbook of Musical Codes, ed. Eleanor Selfridge-Field (The MIT Press, 1997).

A copy of the Textbook is available in the Lab, but also is available for home use from the Stanford Book Store and other on-line bookstores:

- Amazon.com
- MIT Press

Prerequisites

This course sequence is designed for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates students. A basic knowledge of music theory is advisable (equivalent to Mus 19) and the ability to read music in at least one clef is required. Auditors are also welcome; enrolled students are given priority access to computers in the Braun lab (#129). Completion of the first quarter of the sequence is normally a prerequisite for the second quarter (Music 254 / CS 275B).

Schedule

Week 1: Basics of Music Representation: Jan. 12, Jan. 17 (18)

Week 2: Using and Finding Musical Data Resources; Notation Software (1) Finale Input Metehods: Jan. 19, Jan. 25 (26)

Week 3: Data Acquisition (Input) and Interchange: MusicXML and SharpEye: Jan. 26, Jan. 31 (2/1)

Week 4: SCORE (1): User Input: Feb. 2, Feb. 7 (8)

Week 5: SCORE (2): Feb. 9, Feb. 14 (15)

Week 6: SCORE + MIDI/Base-40 Representations: Feb. 16, Feb. 21 (22)

Week 7: Introduction to MIDI/Hewlitt method of Base-40 representation

Week 8: KERN and the Humdrum toolkit