SuperCollider Crash Course

Harvestworks in New York City offers a 40-hour crash course in SuperCollider: an environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition, and lots of fun. It provides an interpreted object-oriented language which functions as a network client to a state of the art, realtime sound synthesis server. You can live code it as you perform, or use it to build interactive systems for concerts and installations (it’s free to download and cross-platform: http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/)

The SuperCollider Crash Course aims to extend from beginner to intermediate and is aimed at artists and musicians who may have never attempted coding, as well as those with some prior programming experience. Aside from a little familiarity with the digital arts, there are no prerequisites, though some prior exposure to computer music (perhaps through Max/MSP or Csound) may be helpful. Later during the week the emphasis will be on live performance with SuperCollider, and facilitating participants’ own projects. The workshop will be adaptable to participants’ needs, and Nick will take requests for topics, and run general question and answer sessions.

All workshops require attendees to bring their own laptops; the tutor will assist with installation on OS X (10.5 or later recommended) and Windows as necessary (SC also runs on Linux but it’s assumed you’d have compiled and installed it yourself in advanced of the workshop if you’re using that platform).The Crash Course will be led by Nick Collins, who has been leading SuperCollider workshops, including annual week long courses, since 2002. He is an editor of the forthcoming SuperCollider Book from MIT Press, and an SC developer particularly associated with machine listening technology (http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/nc81/index.html). A lecturer in computer music at the University of Sussex, he runs the music informatics degree programmes and research group.

He wrote the iPhone apps iGendyn and TOPLAPapp, co-founded the TOPLAP live coding organisation, and has toured on four continents with the audiovisual group ‘klipp av’. He co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music (Cambridge University Press 2007), wrote the Introduction to Computer Music (Wiley 2009) and is fond of the non sequitur. Further details, including publications, music, code and more, are available from http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/nc81/