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  • Scott D Barton
Scott D Barton
Scott D Barton
Humanities & Arts
Associate Professor of Music
Affiliated Department or Office: 
Robotics Engineering
Psychology
Interactive Media & Game Development
Education: 
BA Colgate University 1998
MMus Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music 2006
PhD University of Virginia 2012

I compose, perform, record, mix and produce electroacoustic music; I am interested in how we can use the tools and techniques of audio production to explore new musical territory. I build mechatronic and robotic musical instruments; I am interested in how we can free electronic music from the world of speakers through computer-controlled automatic mechanical instruments. I conduct research and experiments that explore how our cognitive and perceptual processes affect our musical experience; I am interested in how we can use such research to guide our compositional and analytic activities. I am interested in the synthesis of these areas, for example, using psychological research to design artificial musical intelligences that control musical robots that perform with human musicians. More generally, I am interested in how we can use ideas and technologies to create new kinds of musical art, and how we, as listeners, perceive and respond to such expressions. WPI is uniquely positioned to make such explorations possible. I love to see people excited and positive about the world, and I love to help augment and guide such excitement in my students.  I love developing students’ techniques to articulate their creative ideas.  I love turning students on to music that they never heard before, and helping them understand music that they know well in new ways.  Concurrently, I love discovering what my students are listening to, what technologies they are using, and how they make music.  I love hearing what they create.  I love the two-way dialog that makes such teaching and learning possible.

Office Location
Alden Hall 208
Contact
Phone: 
+1-508-831-5620
sdbarton@wpi.edu
https://twitter.com/scottbartonmusi
Personal Website
Lab website
The Music, Perception and Robotics Lab

Research Interests

Research Interests: 
Human-robot interaction in music composition and performance
Design of robotic musical instruments
Music perception and cognition
Audio production

News

Artificially intelligent musical robot
Daily Herd
WPI Professor and Students Create Robot-Human Sound Fusion Concert
October 14, 2019
Scott Barton at the musical helm.
Daily Herd
Mixing AI with Music & Literature
March 04, 2019
Daily Herd
Bots and Beer
June 14, 2016
Daily Herd Research
Composing the Future
November 12, 2015
See More News

Media Coverage

Man, machine and music: WPI robots and live musicians to share stage at Mechanics Hall

The Telegram & Gazette interviewed Scott Barton, associate professor of music, about his producing a first-of-its-kind concert at Mechanics Hall, pairing human musicians with artificially intelligent musical robotics.

telegram.com logo
There’s a Persistent Hum in This Canadian City, and No One Knows Why

Scott Barton, assistant professor of humanities and arts and an expert on how sound is perceived, was interviewed for an article about the Windsor Hum, a “persistent noise of unknown origin, sometimes compared to a truck idling or distant thunder,” that has been affecting residents of Windsor, Ontario, for years. 

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