Andrew R. Brown

Published: Apr 24, 2012 by The Oxford Handbook of Music Education (Volume 2)
Authors: Brown, Andrew R. & Dillon, Steven C.
Subjects: Information Technology

Music is inherently active and interactive. Like technologies before them, digital systems provide a range of enhanced music performance opportunities. In this paper we outline the educational advantages of ensemble performance in which generative media systems are integrated. This points toward a new class of activities that maintain the well established benefits of ensemble performance while adding cultural and pedagogical value of digital media practices.

Published: Apr 24, 2012 by Visions of Research in Music Education, volume 20
Authors: Brown, Andrew R.
Subjects: Information Technology

This paper examines the integration of computing technologies into music education research in a way informed by constructivism. In particular, this paper focuses on an approach established by Jeanne Bamberger, which the author also employs, that integrates software design, pedagogical exploration, and the building of music education theory.

Published: Apr 24, 2009 by Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts.
Authors: Brown, Andrew R. & Sorensen, Andrew C.
Subjects: Computer Science & Engineering

In the research process theoretical claims are usually evaluated in practice and, indeed, the observations and experiences of practical circumstances often lead to new research questions. This feedback loop between speculation and experimentation is fundamental to research. In this chapter we will examine how artistic expressivity results in interplay between actions and ideas that direct the development of techniques and approaches for our audio/visual live-coding activities.

Published: Apr 24, 2009 by Contemporary Music Review, 28(1)
Authors: Brown, Andrew R. & Sorensen, Andrew C.
Subjects: Computer Science & Engineering

All music performances are generative to the extent that the actions of performers produce musical sounds, but in this article we focus on performative interaction with generative music in a more compositional sense. In particular we discuss how live coding of music involve the building and management of generative processes. We also discuss the features of generative processes that make them more or less suitable for live coding performances.

Published: Apr 24, 2007 by International Journal of Education & the Arts, 8(6).
Authors: Brown, Andrew R.
Subjects: Information Technology

This paper discusses how software development can be used as a method for music education research. It explains how software development can externalize ideas, stimulate action and reflection, and provide evidence to support the educative value of new software-based experiences. A new approach to arts educational research called Software Development as Research (SoDaR) is proposed.

By: Andrew R. Brown
Subjects: Computer Science & Engineering

Tactical Temporalities was a semi-improvised live coding performance I did at the xCoaX conference in Porto, Portugal on 27 June 2014. The work manipulates algorithmic descriptions of musical processes in the context of an Algorave setting. The work employs algorithms developed through research into musically salient computational processes and insights from studies in music perception. These are combined into an interactive performance that manages the dance of agency between the human musician and semi-autonomous computational systems. Stylistically, Tactical Temporalities is metrically regular, harmonically diatonic and utilises electronic and sampled timbral elements typically of those employed in electronic dance music. See a video of the perfromance at the link below.

By: Andrew R. Brown

This keynote presentation by Andrew R. Brown was given at the Adobe Education Leadership Forum, held in Malaysia in April 2014. Here's a summary.

Digital arts practices have implications for education effecting the form and modality of work by staff and students and posing challenges for contemporary curriculum in the creative arts. This post will introduce three issues that are of particular importance to digital arts education; interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and learning context.

Interdisciplinarity is native to the digital arts. It arises from the interoperability of digital data between modes of output—as sound, graphics, 3D printing, robotics and text. This has implications across the arts and with the sciences. Education institutions are often built on well-established and highly specialized silos of expertise, with clear boundaries and goals. This rigidity can be a barrier for digital arts educators whose challenge is to maintain the foundations of disciplinary traditions whilst influencing and expanding the field.

Creative collaborations are becoming more frequent as a result of digital data exchange and internet-based communications. Managing these collaborations in creative fields where the individual artist has long been esteemed provides a tension to be managed. Creativity also occurs in partnerships with the computer that range from the use of the machine as a tool to machines acting as autonomous creative systems. Along with the challenges of human-computer interaction comes a societal fear that the embracing of computers raises suspicion about the authenticity of creativity within digital arts.

The pedagogical and cultural contexts in which digital arts learning takes place are being effected by mobile devices and online interactions.  These provide students with the ability to experience and create artworks in many environments and conditions. Locative technologies (GPS, augmented reality, mobile phones, etc.) have brought digital practices into studios, taken them outdoors and put then onto the stage. The impact of this on the development of student creativity and pedagogical practices is still unfolding. As well, the consumption of creative work is being altered by these mobility trends. Traditional disseminators of artworks, such as galleries or funding bodies are less potent in acting as cultural gatekeepers.