While some SF State students’ midterms are hour-long exams or research papers, the students’ midterms in Music 436 -- composed electronic music -- can be heard by a wide audience on April 4.

But do not expect to hear any Paul Oakenfold wanna-bes.

Students in Music 436, Introduction to the Electronic Music Studio, learn to use ProTools, a digital electronic music program to compose their own short, musical pieces. The class meets Monday afternoons and Fridays, which are optional. Instructor Josh Levine spends the first hour of class discussing new concepts or listening to the students’ work of manipulated pre-recorded music and critiquing it. It’s also a chance for students to listen and learn new ideas.

“Many people assume that “electronic music” means dance music -- like techno -- that uses drum machines sequencers,” said Janice Whaley, an electronic music major. “But the Electronic Music degree is more like combining computer science with music theory because we use electronics and technology as compositional tools.”

Introduction to the Electronic Music Studio is the second of three required classes for Electronic Music majors.

“In the previous class, Music 504, Survey of Electronic Music, we studied early -- mainly 1940s to 1960s -- electronic music pioneers such as John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Karlhein Stockhausen, and in particular Pierre Schaeffer, who composed Musique Concrète style,” Whaley said. Musique Concrète is the manipulation of natural and instrumental sounds.

“This class is basically a digital Musique Concrète class,” Whaley said.
On March 19, two Fridays before the performance, Levine and eight students listened to several midterms-in-progress. After an initial listen, the sounds of “wisk,” “psst” and “click” resembled a cacophony of slow, loud burps and soft whispers. But after Levine and his students discussed how they created and dissected each sound, one might be able to decipher a “click” from a “swoop” sound.

The midterm performances this Sunday under the program title, "ReVoice! ReJoyce!" are a homage to Luciano Berio, an early electronic music composer. Berio recorded his wife reading text from the “Sirens” Episode of “Ulysses” by James Joyce in 1958. Levine’s students recorded parts of the same text as well. Each student composed music for one to two minutes. The midterm is an individual project, but the music will be combined into two suites for the performance.

“The voice is one of the world’s richest sound sources,” said Levine on why he chose to use the human voice as the sole musical source. Last semester, students composed music with balloon sounds. Levine has taught electronic music, composition and theory at SF State since 2000.

“My compositional form has also increased exponentially under the tutelage of Professor Levine,” said Nick Barber, an electronic music major. “As we progressed this semester, I've seen Josh in action, composing on the fly and shooting off different ideas and suggestions to fellow classmates. It's nice to work and learn in such an environment. I feel I benefit a great deal from the instruction of someone who has been working in this field for decades.”

“Professor Levine is one of many excellent educators in the School of Music and Dance,” Whaley said. “He is very knowledgeable in electronic music as well as music theory. He knows how to steer us in the right direction while giving us room to explore new ideas and add our own personal style to our pieces within the given framework.”

Students can reverse, filter, reverberate, change the pitch shift, and stretch their recorded voices, but cannot use plug ins that are “easy and cool” because Levine wants the students to learn how to get under the skin of the sounds they produce and how they behave under certain conditions.

The final will be a longer composition – about five to seven minutes – and students have more freedom to experiment with sounds.

In addition to the students’ performance on this Sunday, Kei Kato will present a senior thesis and two electronic music seniors – Brian Naas and Dylan Coyle – will perform their compositions. The class event is free and open to the public. It takes place at 4 p.m. at Knuth Hall in the Creative Arts building.