Overview

An intensive two day course introducing beginners to the basics of MaxMSP. A combination of extensive practical work and seminar sessions will provide a solid basis helping beginners move quickly to the stage at which they can use MaxMSP in their own creative projects.

About MaxMSP

MaxMSP is a graphical programming language designed by musicians and creative artists for the use of other musicians and creative artists. It is famous for combining ease of use and accessibility  with almost unlimited creative power, making it one of the most popular and widely used pieces of music technology software currently available.

The range of tasks that MaxMSP can handle is huge. From electroacoustic composition to sophisticated video processing, and from algorithmic composition to live laptop improvisation, it can play a central role in almost any creative task that involves a computer.  

Since MaxMSP is a programming language, learning to use it is not as simple and straightforward as learning to use other pieces of ‘ready-made’ software. Its grapical nature and friendly design go a long way to making things easy, but there remains a body of basic ideas and theory that it is important to understand. This course aims to introduce a beginner to these ideas, providing an essential grounding in the basics of MaxMSP on which creative experiments can be built.

About Tim Ward (cv)

Tim Ward has taught MaxMSP for many years, especially to musicians and creative artists just starting out with the software. He is a founding tutor on the very popular MaxMSP courses at Goldsmiths College, University of London, which regularly draw an international spectrum of students to the university each summer.

Course dates

Main teaching sessions will be 10am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday. A follow-up session will take place the following Thursday evening 8pm-11pm, involving an mini-concert and demonstration and open discussion.

Practical details

Those considering joining the  course should have a laptop with a working copy of MaxMSP on it. If you do not have a laptop or a copy of MaxMSP, please contact the  organizers to see if you can be accommodated.

Places on the course are strictly limited, in order to give everyone on the course the best possible practical experience. Please contact the organizers as soon as possible in order to get further information and sign up.