Peter Mcilwain

Lecturer in Composition

Email: Peter.McIlwain@arts.monash.edu.au
Phone: (03) 9905 1330
Fax: (03) 9905 3241
Location: Room 113, Performing Arts Centre, Building 68, Clayton Campus

Biography

Peter is a composer specialising in computer and electro acoustic music but has a wide range of musical and artistic interests. These include writing works for traditional ensembles, film and music theatre as well as computer music and installation art. Recent projects have included the development of software which generates and distributes music in multi-speaker sound systems using a connectionist nodal network approach as well as the development of a flocking algorithm which generates melodies in response to movements by a performer using an ultrasonic sensor. He is Lecturer in Composition and Music Technology in the School of Music - Conservatorium at Monash University where he heads up the Sonic Art Group.

Compositions

instrument landscape #2
In 2002, Peter completed work with clarinetist Peter Handsworth on an electro-acoustic piece for clarinet. The electro-acoustic parts of the piece are being created from samples of clarinet recordings made by the 2 Peters in the Monash recording studio. The samples are cut up and recombined in a software program written by Peter Mc. Here is an example of one of the clarinet recordings after it has been processed by the software. Peter H. has recently performed the piece in conferences and on tour in Bulgaria.

tubetexture [mp3 format]

instrument landscape #3
This work was created in conjuction with Andrew Ross who assisted with oboe improvisations that where recorded and used as soucre material. The software that was used in Instrument Landscape #2 was refined and developed further in this piece. The textures that the software generates are now more mobile and variable. In addition a number of FFT based processes where used to create drone notes that are pitched to match the original source material. Unlike the previous pieces in the Instrument Landscape series this work does not include a live solo part.

Software

Nodal

Resources relating the Nodal project can be found here.

Matrixsynth V2 - A monophonic synthesiser based on the EMS VCS3

This software synthesiser is designed for the purposes of training students in basic analogue style synthesis techniques. The highly flexible nature of the matrix that was employed in the original VCS3s is used here to assist in visualising the signal pathways that are used in sound synthesis.

System Requirements: Mac OS10.2

Download Matrixsynth, Maxruntime & Documentation: Matrixsynth_v2.zip

Last updated: 01/06/05

pollock

This image is from a 2 dimensional mobile generated by a software program created by Peter called Pollock (after the painter Jackson Pollock). This program was exhibited as part of the First Iteration Conference in Melbourne in 2000. The images look at first like still pictures but after watching for a while, it can be seen that they are constantly changing.

Papers

Spatio-temporal Patterning in Computer Generated Music: A Nodal Network Approach .
This paper describes Peter's work in neural net programming

Spatialised Sound: the Listener's Perspective
A paper about the virtual sound spaces created by loudspeakers.

A Survey of Software Designs from the Sonic Art Group
This paper describes a number of software programs written by Peter which have been developed and tested in the Sonic Art Group.