About John CS Keston
John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research.
John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.
I have recently accepted a position as an adjunct instructor at the Slam Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With two Ableton certified instructors the school is offering a variety of classes in electronic music, but also stretching out into topics like Max for Live and music for video games. I will be teaching occasional master classes and private lessons that focus on my listed specialties of Max/MSP, Max for Live, Processing, sound synthesis, and jazz theory. Please checkout the school at Slam Academy, or like the Facebook page for more information.
My name is Wojciech Morawski and I am a part of small company named lowertone which makes Max based apps and utilities. We have already made a release of the first pack of Max h.elpers – a free collection (CC license) of Max patches designed to make the patching process faster, improve its visibility and to encourage Max users to develop their skills. I think you could find it useful during your work at Slam Academy.
Our idea is to give students a bunch of patches which deal with specific problems and can be freely used as abstractions. In that way one can easily use them to speed up patching or to learn how to solve some specific tasks they cope with.
h.elpers is pack of 16 addons for Max/MSP, that should help in faster and easier prototyping and learning.
h.elpers consist of:
h.cpu~ – meter of CPU usage
h.dac~ – audio output with limiter and recorder
h.del~ – delay with feedback and freeze options
h.dw~ – easy dry/wet control
h.ext~ – dynamic external audio routing
h.meter~ – customizable audio signal meter
h.midi_Key – converting computer keyboard into midi input
h.midi_S – mapping for midi signals
h.pan~ – panning module
h.print – easier printing with gate
h.psd~ – pseudo stereo delay
h.rec~ – faster audio recording
h.slider~ – for using dB curves for 0. – 1. values
h.solo~ – easy soloing of multiple signals
h.soloStereo~ – easy soloing of multiple stereo signals
h.vol~ – easier volume control
Mac and Windows versions included!
download: http://lowertone.net/software/helpers/
Take Care!
Thanks, @Wojciech! I will take a look at them at my earliest convenience. Sounds like an ideal collection for jumpstarting the learning process. I’ll also pass this on to the other Slam Academy instructors. Cheers! -John
This is great news! Congrats to you and Slam Academy