Digital Arts Digest

a scary story!

2008-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Laptop Orchestra #2, a group of nine high school students from Summit Charter School in Redwood City, were studying with me this month as part of their arts education.

We made a live performance using laptops and guitars in the style of mid 20th century radio plays, inspired by Orson Welle's War of the Worlds.

This recording is a live performance, no editing done at all, of their scary story told in clipped guitars, an off-balance pilot, and strange sounds. They had a great performance yesterday in Tateuchi Hall!

Click below to listen, if you dare:

A Strange Flight (live)

GATE program for gifted students: recordings by CSMA

2008-06-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone in blogger land. Daniel Wood here. I teach some classes in digital arts at CSMA. Below is a group of recordings done when I was teaching at Crittenden Middle School last week (June 3) as part of the district wide GATE program for gifted and talented students in the local middle schools. We had two classes that day and each class formed smaller groups that composed the following pieces using drums from around the world.

John Neves (faculty member at CSMA) and I had a lot of fun providing the students with an outlet for their creativity. We look forward to doing it again some time.

Recording 1

Recording 2

Recording 3

Recording 4

Recording 5

Recording 6

Recording 7

Recording 8

Recording 9

an audio tour around CSMA

2008-04-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

This is a piece of sound-based music, music that is built on sounds from the world around us rather than instruments. It was made by members of our Cello Camp last year, and is an audio exploration of the sounds of CSMA. As a short excerpt, it gives listeners a chance to experience a casual walk around the campus, remixed to be a kind of music. CSMA AUDIO WALK

new imagery!

2008-04-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the wonderful images that came out of our first Computers and Arts Camp of the year, taught by Jano Cortijo and Rebecca Miller.

at work in the digital lab

2008-01-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

recent project

2008-01-30T13:41:00.001-08:00

Here's an image from Rebecca Miller's Digital Imagery class.

classes offered

2008-01-25T14:24:00.001-08:00

The best way to get the full list of classes offered in our Digital New Media program is to download this catalog.

getting ready for the spring

2008-01-25T14:08:00.001-08:00

Here in Digital Arts, we're gearing up for the Spring Semester! We've got a lot of exciting plans for the upcoming season. Starting next month, we'll offer our first ever Vacation Camp during February, from the 18th to 22nd. The class will be taught by Marcos Saenz, a professional performer, digital musician, and guitar instructor. The camp will look at ways to use Propellerhead's Reason software to make your own songs, recorded onto a CD.

Marcos is also going to be teaching a six-week afternoon class in Reason software, starting Monday, February 4th. If you've ever been curious about this software, here's a chance to learn the basics plus lots of fun tips and techniques!

If you're over 21, you can check out Marcos's band at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on January 30th.

-Roddy

new classes starting October 29th

2007-10-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

We have some exciting intermediate and advanced classes coming up in a few weeks! Check it out:

MONDAYS: INTERMEDIATE (4 o'clock) AND ADVANCED (6 o'clock) DIGITAL AUDIO PRODUCTION
Join performing musician Marcos Saenz in exploring digital composition and recording techniques. These exciting classes will move from Reason software into ProTools, allowing you access to world-class tools and hardware to realize your own projects, whether it be recording your practice sessions or a live concert.

TUESDAYS: INTERMEDIATE (4 o'clock) AND ADVANCED (6 o'clock) FLASH ANIMATION CLASSES
Learn to take your work to the next level with Rebecca Miller's Flash Animation Classes. She will help you build upon your previous knowledge, and teach new ways to develop your ideas into fun moving visuals ready to be posted on the web, used in your portfolio, or for your next art project.

FRIDAYS: INTERMEDIATE GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION (4 o'clock) AND DIGITAL IMAGERY (6 o'clock) CLASSES
Internationally recognized professional artist Rebecca Miller takes students on a creative journey through visual design, focusing on usage of Adobe Illustrator in the Graphic Illustration class or Adobe Photoshop in the Digital Imagery Class. Both classes are perfect for students who have previously taken a Digital class and wish to learn intermediate techniques and explore new areas.

the summer flies by

2007-08-28T11:30:00.001-07:00

It's been a hectic summer here at CSMA. So hectic, in fact, we haven't had time to update the blog in quite some time! There have been summer camps, field trips, hopeful American Idols training, and lots more. Our fall-semester resolution is to keep this blog updated more thoroughly with lots of new content, and a new design as well. Stay tuned, there are exciting things on the horizon!

no, they're not interviewing the trees

2007-06-28T16:32:00.001-07:00

A few of our Digital Music students are making field recordings for their group composition project.

new work from computers and art camp

2007-06-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

This is a piece by Nicole Falsetti, a student in our recent Computers and Art camp taught by Rebecca Miller. The creativity and design of the image is striking.

2007-06-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here are the final Digital Audio Projects produced by students in our Summit Digital Arts program. Congratulations, they turned out great!

Black Cloud (by Austin Fosnes)

Clocks (by Claire Harding)

Lucas's Song (by Lucas Klein)

Puppies of Death (by Kyle Joswiak)

Tech Con (by Aaron Klein)

Technologic (by Eliot Bartz)

Transmission (by Scott Kidd)

Untitled (by Nathaniel Wynne and Ryan Soler)

Untitled (by Wynton Kitzmiller)

Untitled (by Andy Stine)

Drent Poge and the Seven Telstorfs (by Elias Simon)

A Couple Digital Postcards From Summit Students

2007-06-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Summit Classes at CSMA

2007-06-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

From May 21st to June 15th, Summit High students are studying arts at our campus. Here's a pic from our morning Digital Music Class, working with Reason software.

Fantasy Art

2007-05-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

New image from the digital imaging class.

new flash works

2007-04-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

From our Computers and Art Camp last month, taught by Rebecca Miller, we have some new flash animations.

Here's one from Amanda called Emotions:

And here is one from Albert called Flying Birds:

Thanks to everyone who made the camp a great success! We look forward to our camps coming up this summer. See you then!

music for spring

2007-02-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

The Spring Vacation Digital Music Camp has made five new pieces! And a webpage to go with each of them.

Diana
Dan
Alice
Reilly
Laura

Summit Digital Arts @ CSMA

2007-01-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

In January, Summit Preparatory School students took art courses at CSMA during their intercession. The digitla arts students produced an amazing DVD filled with fascinating projects.

Here are a few examples, in quicktime movie format.

My Trip To Japan

Breakdancing Stick Men

digital arts birthday party

2007-01-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

We recently held a digital arts birthday party. Here's one of the fun stop-motion movies a student made.

spring/summer classes online!

2006-12-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

We're happy to announce that the Spring/Summer Digital Arts Catalog is online! If you plan on taking classes beginning in February, please sign up now, as we have limited spaces in our lab.

I'd like to encourage anyone who as questions regarding our program to please contact me, Roddy Schrock, if you should have any questions at all about our classes and the program as a whole.

--Roddy

creative sampling

2006-12-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

Pete Miser, bi-coastal hip-hop genius, was on Soundcheck (a music show on WNYC online) today explaining his technique. What he does is he'll listen to a song he likes, find a riff, and then while listening to it over and over, try to recreate it on his own instruments. So if he hears something he likes, he completley tries to remake it, and he says he usually gets it wrong because he's not formally trained. But his wrong sounds pretty right.

--Roddy

digital audio production

2006-12-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I taught the Laptop Orchestra one-day intensive. The students made some great work. Here's a pic of Nic Chang working on his piece. You can listen to the first part of his song here. Nic played all the instruments, recorded them into ProTools running on our MacBook Pro, then used Ableton Live to add effects and arrange the piece.

Great job Nic, and everyone else!

--Roddy

workshop week laptop class

2006-11-16T14:01:00.000-08:00

Here are two students working on creating their own compositions on the computer. You can click on the files below to play excerpts of their final pieces.

The Snappin' Twiddler

Tree Frogs Favorite

2006-11-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

Mikey and Nick are working on their new song during Workshop Week last week. Well, at least Nick is.