Email: jabics@rit.edu
Phone: (585)475-4149
Fax: (585)475-7680
Office: Golisano Building, 70-2559
Fall 2011 Office Hours: Monday - Thursday, 1:00 - 2:00

How to get to me

Barring unforeseen circumstances, I'll be in my office during my office hours, which are posted above and outside my office. At other times, if I'm in my office with the door open, I'm fair game. If you need to set up an appointment outside my office hours (a good idea if you want to make sure I'm in), send me an email, and we can set up something.

Research Interests

• GenJam, my genetic algorithm that learns to improvise jazz, and the software sideman in my Virtual Quintet.
• Evolutionary Computer Music, the title of the book I co-edited for Springer, which was launched in April, 2007 (available at Amazon). Also the subject of my tutorial on Evolutionary Music at GECCO-2004 and 2005.
• Use of sequences in composition (Read about and hear PGA-1 from Fibonacci '98)
• Computer Music in general
• Creativity, especially the nature of creativity and what it means to be creative. For instance, is GenJam creative? I'm exploring this and other fun questions as a member of the Creativity and Invention Working Group (CIWG). One byproduct of this group is the cool photo to the right by John Retallack, who photographed the members of the CIWG as part of his "Colleagues" project. No less hair than before (see above), but it's a lot grayer...
• Computer Games, not as a player, but as an observer of the impact games is having on the computing world and society in general. My interest stems from the unprecidented shift I've observed in the career goals of entering freshmen over the last few years toward our BS degree in Game Design and Development. Check out games.rit.edu!
• Human Factors and User Interaction/Interface Design
• IT Curriculum Development -- Not really an interest these days, but read my paper on the Importance of Synergy, given at CITC-3, and The Role of Programming in IT, given with Dianne Bills at SIGITE '05.

Classes (Fall, 2011)

• 4080-223 Game Software Development III (Materials available through myCourses)
• 4080-295 Intro to Interactive Media (Materials available through myCourses)
• Al's Audio Workshop (given by request)

Out on the Web

• I'm a charter subscriber to the Electronic Music Foundation
• I also am a member of the apparently inactive IEEE CS TC on Computer Generated Music
• I've been active in the International Computer Music Association
• I subscribe to the Computer Music Journal
• I've recorded with Dynamic Recording Studio
• I've made extensive use of Roger Dannenberg's Carnegie Mellon MIDI Toolkit, which, alas, has achieved legacy status
• I use PG Music's Band in a Box as the rhythm section in my Virtual Quintet
• Check out how professional animator Craig Reynolds applies evolutionary computation to animation
• I enjoy playing with Tom Erbe's great music software
• I'm a former member of the Model Curriculum Committee of SIGITE
• You've heard many of them before, but check out some musician jokes

A note on style

You may have noticed that this Web site reflects a minimalist, almost retro style with respect to the level of technology that is employed. This is a conscious decision reflecting the author's design philosophy that "less is more." He believes that content must be presented as transparently as possible and must not be obscured by elaborate and often gratuitous displays of "features."

This Web site also demonstrates the author's utter lack of knowledge about any but the most rudimentary "features" and amply displays his embarrassing lack of skill in creating compelling Web presentations. The best that can be said is that this is a time capsule of what Web sites looked like in the early days of the Internet.