Students enrolled in Interactive Electronic Music classes will perform their final projects live at the third UW-MESS Interactive Electronic Music Showcase. In its early stages at PSOA, the UW-MESS program helps students fulfill an education focused on their passion for electronic music.
What is UW-MESS?
UW-MESS stands for University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Electroacoustic Sound Studios and is the electronic portion of PSOA’s Music Composition and Technology BFA and Music Composition and Theory MM. The sequence of four courses is centered on electronic music creation, composition, and production.
Students work with the computer program Max MSP, which junior Calvin Smith-Skwierawski describes as “coding for musicians.” Smith-Skwierawski notes that these classes give students a wide vocabulary of how to create electronic music.
“Take a synthesizer… there are many components to it,” he said. “Within this program, you can recreate those components and create a synthesizer in an electronic program… It’s so unique and these classes break down the different components and ideas.”
What many may not understand about the discipline of electronic music is how an artist can still perform their work in a live setting. When students perform their electronic work, there is a strong element of improvisation and spontaneity that one may commonly expect with physical instruments.
“We have these ideas, but we’re improvising on the set,” said Smith-Skwierawski. “A lot of UW-MESS students do not use sheet music… we judge our pieces by time because it helps us understand what we want and lets us work without any restrictions.”
Mixing electronics with physical instruments
A lot of UW-MESS students possess expertise in a physical instrument family, which helps them with their electronic music creation.
Graduate student Colton Townsend, a long-time percussionist, describes the willingness of percussionists to experiment with sound as a driving force for his interest in electronic music.
“Percussionists are accustomed to trying new things and exploring new possibilities,” Townsend said. “That had a direct correlation into composing for me… I think about the physical act of music a lot when I compose, which goes well with electronics.”
At last year’s UW-MESS concert, Townsend performed a piece that resulted in breaking open a drum to pull a set of bells out of it. This led to experimentation in how to play the drum, the way the speakers surrounded the audience, and what electronic elements to include.
“If you can imagine a series of sounds, then you can make it in this program,” added senior Brodie Miller. “There are virtually no limitations to what you can create… You are not following a predetermined set of classical standards. There are endless possibilities.”
Why UW-MESS?
The electronic music program is an example of how PSOA’s Music Department offers students a modern approach to music education, whether they have physical instrument experience or not.
“I’ve always gravitated more towards creating a unique sound and mangling audio into something new,” said Miller. “I’ve always had a love and affinity for electronic music, so UW-MESS has been right up my alley.”
Miller was initially a computer science major which led well into his UW-MESS involvement. Electronic music became a way to explore the “scientific aspect” of music.
“There are a lot of academic papers and researchers by people like [Pierre] Schaeffer who kind of pioneered electronic music,” said Miller. “Teaching it also runs parallel to music because a lot of it is embedded in programming, but it still uses a lot of the basic knowledge of music theory.”
The performance aspect of UW-MESS
The inclusion of electronics in a student’s performance can help create sounds that may not be accessible through a physical instrument. For some, this helps set a scene and tell a story.
“This program has helped me enjoy electronic music more because you get to do more storytelling with electronics,” said Kyrstyna Jones, a junior.
Jones’ next piece, which she hopes to premiere next year, is meant to create the feeling of driving from Wisconsin to Minnesota using electronics to create sensations such as the time of day, the tiredness of the driver, and the excitement of of getting to visit a close friend.
“It’s going to be a vibraphone with electronics,” said Jones. “Electronics can help set the scene of what that long drive looks like.”
If you would like to see UW-MESS in concert, visit the PSOA Events Calendar for information on their December 12 showcase.
Story by Jason McCullum ’25