Components of the Proposal



As discussed in the Overview, we must address two fundamental needs in the Music Department to accomplish the radical changes we propose. The first is a simple hardware upgrade -- at present the bulk of the Department is woefully under-technologized. Few faculty members have adequate machinery even to take advantage of recent development work done within the Department! The Computer Music Center of the Department has a good (but aging) installed base of research machines for smaller projects, but will need a modest investment to address the larger projects we wish to undertake.

The second area of need is more important. We must have a substantial investment in human resources to make the technology work. Buying hardware alone will do nothing more than provide us with new machines that few Departmental members will fully utilize. We need individuals who can assist at both the "high" end (new project and product development, cutting-edge employment of technology, etc.) and the "low" end (direct assistance to faculty in working with the new machines and classrooms, working with faculty to take advantage of extant software and hardware resources, etc.) if we are to achieve our goal of transforming the Music Department into a new, technology-based operating paradigm.

We are also including a short section describing additional components that lie beyond our current funding request. This is to give a wider context for this request, as these components complete the plans we are making. They also represent near-term foci for additional fundraising.

Human Resources

Technology Liaison

In order for faculty and students to realize the full potential of the foundation we are laying, we must first bridge a basic technology gap in the Department. The Technology Liaison position is intended to build this bridge. We expect the person hired to fill this position to play a critical role in the initial stages of this proposal, and to continue extended work as faculty/student projects reach fruition. More specifically, the Technology Liaison will be expected to:
System Administrator

This position is essential to manage the installed technology base we are proposing. Machinery that is not functioning at peak efficiency levels (or not functioning at all) will seriously damage our attempt to embrace newer technologies. The System Administrator will be responsible for maintaining the integrity of all Departmental computing machinery, including faculty machines and on-the-spot assistance for the multi-media classrooms we propose.

Graduate Fellows

In year 2, we are requesting a new graduate fellowship for advanced degree work in the Music Department. Our goal is to attract young talent to work on focused research and educational projects, providing the skills and developing the expertise we need to realize these advanced projects. We will offer the creation of a new "computer music" degree area within the Music Department for this fellowship. During the past five years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of students applying in Music Composition, Theory and Musicology who might best be placed in this area of concentration. With a minimum of advertising, we will be able to draw from a skilled applicant pool for this fellowship. We also expect to gain additional graduate fellowships to assist in advanced music technology work as our plan gathers momentum.

Post-doctoral Fellowship

A solid, funded post-doctoral position will augment the graduate student fellowship(s) by providing a conduit for mature talent in key areas of cutting-edge audio technology. We also imagine that this conduit will provide a structure for close contact with the new media community in New York City. This position will also allow us to tap into emerging talent with fresh ideas; individuals who are already prepared to tackle extended projects.

Hardware

Faculty Machines

Every faculty member in the Department needs access to the appropriate hardware to embrace new technologies, and (more critically) to imagine better uses for technology in teaching and research. A modest immediate investment in new machines for faculty will meet this need, plus the psychological effect of an influx of new hardware will help fuel the excitement to try new methodologies. Obviously these machines need specialized audio hardware. Our goal is to provide what is required to make basic music technology use as transparent as possible.

Classrooms

Concomitant with the purchase of new faculty machines, we need to upgrade Departmental classrooms in order to use the technology directly in teaching. We ask for "one-shot" funding to upgrade five Departmental classrooms to allow us to do this. We have consulted with Maurice Matiz and have a full set of specifications for these upgrades, including specialized audio features that can be used to showcase our advanced audio technology work.

Computer Music Center Hardware

Much of the work we envision will necessarily involve the Computer Music Center of the Department. We ask for an investment in upgrading the hardware resources of the CMC in order to provide the basic level of computing we need. We also imagine that the CMC can become a locus for the interdisciplinary projects we intend to nurture. A solid installed base of hardware will be essential for this to occur.

Part of this installed base of hardware will be an upgrade to the digital recording studio located at the Center. This resource is necessary for the audio work to be done in many of the proposal components. We also anticipate that the upgraded studio can work to meet other digital audio/media needs in the University, and can be a potentially lucrative source of income by virtue of the cutting-edge technology we offer in the New York City market.

Additional


The investments in human resources and hardware are obviously essential components of our proposal. There are several other items that are also necessary to achieving our purpose that fall outside these two categories.

Computer Music Center Budget

We are also asking for a modest increase in the operating budget of the Computer Music Center in order to deal with the increased administrative load and overall boost in the level of activity. The CMC will function as the backbone of support for many of the key aspects of this proposal, including most of the "high end" pedagogy development and concomitant interdisciplinary research.

Included in this cost is the hiring of a part-time individual ($20,000/year) to handle the increased secretarial and administrative load for the new resources we will be establishing. We are also including a salary adjustment for the two current CMC staff positions ($30,000/year); both positions are presently earning less than 50% the amount paid by peer institutions for equivalent work and less than 1/3 the compensation paid for comparable positions in industry. Finally, the CMC budget enhancement reflects an increase in the cost of basic operation -- supplies, phone, administrative materials, etc. ($10,000) -- that will be required by the additional workload. A $5,000 yearly cost of software purchase/licensing and a $10,000 basic maintenance and minor equipment purchase has also been factored into the total budget enhancement request.

Travel

During the first and second years of the proposal, we are asking for a small amount to be devoted to faculty travel. The intention is to provide a grounding in existing projects at other institutions, and to educate our faculty as to the possibilities of new technology. As with the new faculty hardware component, we believe that there will be beneficial psychological side-effects resulting from this component.

We also want to use this travel budget to ensure a strong, international awareness of our activities at Columbia. This will greatly assist in our future fundraising efforts.

Networking

A basic feature of any contemporary investment in technology is the capability to access high-speed data networks. The largest problem we currently face is the link between Prentis and the main Columbia campus. We desperately need to improve this connection, and we also need to provide for any additional hardware necessary to link the Department with the latest improvements to campus network hardware. We are working directly with Bill Chen of AcIS to ensure that we will have the infrastructure in place to do this.

FUNDING BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THIS PROPOSAL


Senior Faculty Position

This appointment lies at the core of much we eventually want to accomplish with this proposal. Aspects of the position intersect directly with the projects we presently imagine in addition to opportunities for continuing development that will arise in the future. We realize that it is essential that we build flexibility as well as capability into our future plans -- we will need to adapt to rapidly-changing technologies and retain expertise that will allow us to design and implement our own, unique ideas. Creating a high-level, interdisciplinary position such as this is the best mechanism for doing this. A substantial part of our ultimate continued funding plan is also connected to this position. We also believe that a new type of appointment is needed to establish the interdisciplinary nature of this undertaking (see the Interdisciplinary section for an extended discussion of this).

The individual hired into this position would be expected to do the following:



Additional Graduate Fellows

We will seek several additional graduate fellowships to accompany a Senior Faculty appointment. These fellowships could possibly be located within the Computer Music Concentration in the graduate Music Department program, but we recognize that many of the students we would want to attract will desire matriculation in degree programs other than Music. Ideally these fellowships would be "dynamically" allocated to particular Departments (Computer Science, Psychology, etc.), giving us the flexibility necessary to attract interdisciplinary talent with appropriate specialization for significant projects.

Senior Faculty Lab Set-up

We will work to secure funding for this component in order to attract the kind of person we desire for the Senior Faculty position. We expect that the individual hired will require a hardware investment to begin work; and we need a state-of-the-art facility to realize the advanced goals of this proposal. We have space and facilities at the CMC that can be converted to support the activities of a Senior Faculty appointment.

Music Library Technology Reading Room

Essential to the long-term project are facilities designed to enable users to utilize the new technologies we develop to their fullest capacity. The investment to renovate and expand the Music & Arts Library has provided connectivity and hardware for all users. By building on this investment through the creation of the Technology Reading Room, we could provide an example of how new audio technology can be incorporated into the educational and scholarly aspects of music-related work, as well as into existing information resources. The "technologized reading room" will include appropriate hardware, software, literature resources, and music scores exemplifying the creative use of technology in music. The student and research population is our intended target for this space.

Additional Student Spaces

In addition to the Music Library Reading Room, there are several other student spaces that we could use to promote the use of new technologies. We will also be adding to our existing studio facilities, giving Columbia students access to the best audio technology available. By making Departmental technology relatively easy to access, we believe that we will foster involvement by students in the program.

Conference

Finally, to push the agenda that we are unrolling for high-end audio research, we will be seeking a small base of funding for a Columbia-hosted conference on data auralization. We foresee this as a potentially lucrative research area, and our intention is to place Columbia as one of the primary 'players' in this field. We expect it it will be possible to attract external funding for this event without too much difficulty. Ideally the conference would take place in a highly-connected site, using audio networking technologies that we develop at Columbia to involve institutions and researchers through the world.




Time-line for Implementation



Year 1 -- "Building"
  • hire Technology Liaison to begin development work with Faculty, along with any "basic training" needed
  • hire System Administrator to assist in installing and configuring new hardware (including network connections)
  • begin CMC hardware and infrastructure upgrade
  • advertise for graduate applicants for the new Computer Music Fellowship appointment
  • create Board of Advisors to develop external funding prospects and identify projects with partnership potential (see the Funding section for a description of this Board)
  • develop existing grant opportunities (see the discussion in the Funding section)
  • devote appropriate resources for the maturation of FAST TRACK projects (see the Projects section for a discussion of these)
  • begin to identify promising new projects
  • work internally and externally to secure support for the unfunded components in this proposal
  • upgrade and renovate designated multimedia classrooms
  • purchase machines for Faculty
Year 2 -- "Developing"
  • move mature projects showing great potential into "production" mode
  • continue to develop new projects, especially those showing focused pedagogical potential or those receiving significant external support
  • pursue new grant opportunities
  • continue work with the Board of Advisors to develop partnership and support relationships
  • continue CMC hardware and infrastructure upgrade
  • identify and resolve on-going technical problems
  • seek qualified individuals for the post-doctoral appointment
  • upgrade and renovate additional designated multimedia classrooms
  • purchase machines for Faculty
Year 3 -- "Continuing"
  • identify essential activities promoted through this proposal to ensure continued support for these activities
  • evaluate and assess extant projects, with particular emphasis on identifying avenues for additional growth
  • fully develop cooperative projects through the Board of Advisors; potential expansion of the Board into new areas
  • focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of the proposal, providing additional support for successful intra-University ventures
  • organize and arrange sponsorship for conference on pioneering data auralization techniques