Scott D Barton

Biography

Education: BA Colgate University 1998 MMus Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music 2006 PhD University of Virginia 2012 I compose, perform, record, mix and produce electroacoustic music; I am interested in how we can use the tools and techniques of audio production to explore new musical territory. I build mechatronic and robotic musical instruments; I am interested in how we can free electronic music from the world of speakers through computer-controlled automatic mechanical instruments. I conduct research and experiments that explore how our cognitive and perceptual processes affect our musical experience; I am interested in how we can use such research to guide our compositional and analytic activities. I am interested in the synthesis of these areas, for example, using psychological research to design artificial musical intelligences that control musical robots that perform with human musicians. More generally, I am interested in how we can use ideas and technologies to create new kinds of musical art, and how we, as listeners, perceive and respond to such expressions. WPI is uniquely positioned to make such explorations possible. I love to see people excited and positive about the world, and I love to help augment and guide such excitement in my students. I love developing students’ techniques to articulate their creative ideas. I love turning students on to music that they never heard before, and helping them understand music that they know well in new ways. Concurrently, I love discovering what my students are listening to, what technologies they are using, and how they make music. I love hearing what they create. I love the two-way dialog that makes such teaching and learning possible.

Research Interest

Human-robot interaction in music composition and performance; Design of robotic musical instruments; Music perception and cognition; Audio production