Overview

This is the course guide for Automated Musical Instruments, a new IDeATe class currently in development to be offered for the first time in Spring 2027.

This collaborative course brings music and engineering together to build on a rich tradition of enhancing physical instruments with automation. In this project-oriented course we create and program novel electromechanical musical devices for live performance and installation.

This site is currently a skeletal draft and will be expanding to include the daily agenda, assignments, tutorials, and reference materials.

Contents

• Daily Agenda Logbook
• Syllabus: Automated Musical Instruments
• Assignments

• Mechanical Design Resources
• Electronics Design Resources
• CircuitPython Microcontroller Programming
• Python Programming Resources
• Data Flow Programming Resources
• Music Theory Resources

• Lab Resources
• Related Work
• Bibliography

For reference: Search Page and Index

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Automated Musical Instruments Spring 2027 Course Guide by Garth Zeglin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Photo credits:

• The playing drum of the carillon of the Belfry of Ghent, Belgium

• The Mills Double DeLuxe Violano Virtuoso Violins

• Parthenope robotic musical siren