A Thirst for Musical Innovation

Professor Brad Garton has made his mark at the crossroads of musical expression and modern-day innovation. A pioneer in the field of computer music — he describes his life’s work as “creating sounds using technological means” — he is equal parts composer, engineer and programmer.

His expertise has helped to establish more than 40 computer music centers and studios around the world, from Portugal to Japan to Uruguay. At Columbia, where he is director of the Computer Music Center (CMC), his work with students has helped propelled many of them to positions at Ivy League schools and with giants such as Apple and Google.

Garton’s reputation in the classroom is evidenced by the waitlists for his courses, which can exceed 150 students. His approach is grounded in a focus on fundamentals, such as coding and using hardware, while also encouraging student to decide what to create. “We’ll sit down and I’ll say, ‘What would you like to do?’ and someone might say, ‘I want to make a trombone sound like geese flying,’” Garton says with a laugh. “So we’ll deconstruct how the sound is made.”

“I think of my students as colleagues,” he adds. “We work on things together. Obviously there are things I know I can show them, but what they do is up to them.”

Garton, who notes that computer music is an overwhelmingly male-dominated field, has also been influential through his efforts to involve and retain female students and faculty at CMC. He believes that it is ultimately the center’s “open aesthetic” that attracts a broad range of students, including women and minorities. Says Garton of CMC’s diversity, “It’s not that difficult [to achieve] when you have this attitude of ‘try anything’ like we do. It’s a question of support.”

Teaching Assistant David Bird GSAS’13, who is earning his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition, notes the impact that Garton has had on CMC and beyond: “Professor Garton continues to be a transformative figure in the development of the Computer Music Center, as well as a vibrant source of creative energy in the greater artistic community at Columbia.”

I think of my students as colleagues. We work on things together. Obviously there are things I know that I can show them, but what they do is up to them.

Garton hails from Indiana and studied pharmacology at Purdue before earning a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton. It was precisely “the freedom to pursue whatever you like” that drew him to Columbia’s music department, which he joined in 1987. Almost every year since he’s been at Columbia, he has taught a section of Music Hum, which covers everything from Gregorian chants to jazz. “I love music technology, but I’m in this field because I love music,” he says. “Music Hum gives me the opportunity to expand the repertoire of what I teach.”

In 2015, Garton was recognized with a Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award, which honors exceptional teaching in the Arts and Sciences. Established in 2005 with a donation from University Trustee Emeritus H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest LAW’58, recipients receive annual awards of $25,000 for a three-year period. Garton has used the funds mostly for work-related travel. “Having someone say, ‘We think you’re doing a good job’ is a really great feeling,” says Garton. “It gives you the fortitude to continue to do the things you believe in.”

What Garton believes in is experimenting and following creative impulses. Since 2007, for example, he has been involved with the Brainwave Music Project, a collaboration with David Sulzer GSAS’88, professor of neurobiology at the Medical Center, that involves converting brainwaves into sound. Garton designed the software that translates the waves into music. In that and his other projects, he is motivated by the thirst for innovation that he believes defines CMC.

“We want to create something completely new,” he says. “That’s what we excel at.”