Recent technological innovations in music technology lead to more accessible, ubiquitous, and democratized music. More listeners are exposed to more music in wider contexts while more composers and performers have access to higher quality tools for making and distributing music. But these technological innovations also bear the
risk of losing some of the most important qualities in listening to and making of music. Although music today is more accessible than ever, it is mostly consumed in an incidental, unengaged and/or utilitarian manner. For music creators, the high quality affordable home studio often leads to private and isolated musical practice that obscures the inherent collaborative and social attributes of music making. My approach for addressing the first challenge is to study and model music cognition and education theories and to design algorithms that would
allow novices and children an access to thoughtful and expressive musical experiences. In order to addressee the latter challenge I have decided to employ the digital network – a promising candidate for bringing a unique added value to the musical experience of collaborative group playing. In my talk I will present some of the
projects that I have developed to address these challenges such as the Beatbugs and the Musical Shapers. For more information see http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~gilwein

Speaker:	Dr. Gil Weinberg
Title:	Interconnected Musical Networks
Date:	December 5, 2003
Time:	3:00 pm
Location:	GCATT Room 325
Abstract:	Recent technological innovations in music technology lead to more accessible, ubiquitous, and democratized music. More listeners are exposed to more music in wider contexts while more composers and performers have access to higher quality tools for making and distributing music. But these technological innovations also bear the risk of losing some of the most important qualities in listening to and making of music. Although music today is more accessible than ever, it is mostly consumed in an incidental, unengaged and/or utilitarian manner. For music creators, the high quality affordable home studio often leads to private and isolated musical practice that obscures the inherent collaborative and social attributes of music making. My approach for addressing the first challenge is to study and model music cognition and education theories and to design algorithms that would allow novices and children an access to thoughtful and expressive musical experiences. In order to addressee the latter challenge I have decided to employ the digital network – a promising candidate for bringing a unique added value to the musical experience of collaborative group playing. In my talk I will present some of the projects that I have developed to address these challenges such as the Beatbugs and the Musical Shapers. For more information see http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~gilwein
Biography:	Gil Weinberg is an assistant professor and the director of music technology at the music department at Georgia Tech. He received his M.S and PHD in media arts and sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Weinberg's research centers on developing musical networks for group collaboration with a special focus on devices and applications for novices and children. He has composed and developed workshops and installations for orchestras, art festivals, and museums such as Ars Electronica, the Smithsonian Museum, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish BBC Symphony. His work has been published in journals such as Computer Music Journal, Leonardo Music Journal, and Personal Technologies and in conference proceedings such as ICMC, CIM and CHI. In the past, Dr. Weinberg held a number of positions in music and media software companies such as Sense Multimedia (which he co-founded) and MusicNotes, where he served as the director of product design. He received his BA from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence at Tel Aviv University, where he founded the electronic music studio at the musicology department and developed the electronic music curriculum.
Slides: