Robert Rowe
Music Program Head; Professor of Music Technology
Affiliation: NYU New York
Education: BM, Wisconsin; MA, Iowa; PhD, MIT

Robert Rowe received degrees in music history and theory (BM Wisconsin 1976), composition (MA Iowa 1978), and music and cognition (PhD MIT 1991). From 1978 to 1987 he lived and worked in Europe, associated with the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, the ASKO Ensemble of Amsterdam, and with IRCAM in Paris, where he developed control level software for the 4X machine. In 1990 his composition Flood Gate won first prize in the “live electroacoustic” category of the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition. In 1991 he became the first composer to complete the PhD in Music and Cognition at the MIT Media Laboratory.
Rowe served as Associate Dean of Research and Doctoral Affairs of New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development and is currently Professor of Music Technology in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at NYU, a core member of the Music & Audio Research Laboratory (MARL), and an Affiliated Faculty member of NYU Abu Dhabi. His music is performed throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and is available on compact discs from Urlicht, Innova, Bridge, New World, Roméo, Quindecim, Harmonia Mundi, and the International Computer Music Association, and his book/CD-ROM projects Interactive Music Systems (1993) and Machine Musicianship (2001) are available from the MIT Press.
Courses Taught
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This course analyzes what we understand as "music." Drawing on music of different styles from all over the world, seminar members will explore what constitutes musical meaning, how it is produced, and how music expresses feelings. Taking advantage of the multicultural nature of NYU Abu Dhabi, students will explore the cultural and universal mechanisms at play when we listen to and understand music. A lab portion of the class guides students through basic musical elements such as notation systems, scales, and simple compositional techniques.
Previously taught: Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024, Fall 2024
This course appears in...
- Core Curriculum > Arts, Design, and Technology
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Artistic Practice Track
- Majors > Music > History, Theory, Criticism
- Majors > Music > Music Studies Track
- Majors > Music > Music Theory Electives
- Minors > Music
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Hip-Hop, the Cosmos and Artificial Intelligence: What is the relationship between scientific discovery and the creative process? Intended for students in both the humanities and sciences, the course explores the concepts and structure of modern physics with connections to music, focusing on jazz improvisation and hip-hop. Fundamental techniques from machine learning will be used to help students construct computational models capable of music generation in these genres, and understand how such models connect to current topics such as quantum mechanics, general relativity, particle physics, dark energy and big bang cosmology. Students will work through a series of Python notebooks that generate musical output while exploring the computational analogies to modern physics, leading to a final project that is complete recording of new music produced by the student. No prior coding experience is required.
Previously taught: January 2024
This course appears in...
- Core Curriculum > Arts, Design, and Technology
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Music Practice Electives
- Majors > Theater > Arts Practice
- Minors > Sound and Music Computing
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Music is universal to all human cultures. It has profound and demonstrated effects on everything from emotion to spirituality to healing to the cohesion of communities. This course will explore current research on the psychological, emotional, and therapeutic effects of music and what factors in the human body and brain are involved in producing them, with particular emphasis on cross-cultural study. Relevant research perspectives will include music theory and musicology; perception and cognition; neuroscience; and computational modeling. Students will learn methods of computational feature extraction and machine learning to develop artificial intelligence models that build on and articulate the conceptual frameworks of cognitive science and music cognition introduced in the initial phase of the class, and will learn generative AI tools that will allow them to produce an original musical work as their final project.
Previously taught: No
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Robert Rowe - TR 11:20 - 12:35 Taught in Abu Dhabi
This course appears in...
- Core Curriculum
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
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Music is universal to all human cultures. It has profound and demonstrated effects on everything from emotion to spirituality to healing to the cohesion of communities. Music listening and discovery applications from Pandora to Spotify enable users to explore these attributes by analyzing and organizing large collections of music audio. This course will explore current research on the psychological, emotional, and therapeutic effects of music and what factors in the human body and brain are involved in producing them. Relevant research perspectives will include music theory and musicology; perception and cognition; neuroscience; and computational modeling. In particular, we will explore how commonalities and differences of musicianship across cultures could surface those aspects of musical understanding that are innate and which are culturally conditioned. Students will learn basic audio analysis and processing techniques to design and conduct experiments on the perception and cognition of music across cultures, leading to the automated production of playlists with specified qualities from their own or publicly available music collections.
Previously taught: January 2017
This course appears in...
- Core Curriculum > Arts, Design, and Technology
- Core Curriculum > Data and Discovery
- Majors > Music
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2 credits
Individual Instruction in Music is designed for students willing to develop their skills in one or more musical instruments, vocal performance, or wanting to learn compositional techniques and strategies to help them create musical work under supervision.
Previously taught: Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Abir Youssef Saidani - R 12:40 - 13:40 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Ioannis Potamousis - T 17:15 - 18:15 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Yarub Smarait - T 14:10 - 15:10 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Warren Churchill - Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Mary S Gatchell - W 11:00 - 12:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
F 14:20 - 15:20 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Ioannis Potamousis - M 16:00 - 17:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Cristina Ioan - W 11:20 - 12:20 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Abir Youssef Saidani - T 10:15 - 11:15 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Mary S Gatchell - R 12:45 - 13:45 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Carlos Guedes - T 10:00 - 11:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi
This course appears in...
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Music Practice Electives
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
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2 credits
This course is designed for students wanting to continue with Individual Instruction in Music, either in composition, vocal performance, or a specific instrument.
Prerequisites: MUSIC-UH 1251 and (Declared Music major/minor or one 4-credit seminar (i.e. non-practice) course in Music)
Previously taught: Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Klaudia Olborska-Szymanska - W 13:00 - 14:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Yarub Smarait - T 10:10 - 11:10 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Mary S Gatchell - W 12:05 - 12:55 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Ioannis Potamousis - M 17:05 - 18:05 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Ioannis Potamousis - T 16:10 - 17:10 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Charalambia Steliou - R 10:00 - 11:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Klaudia Olborska-Szymanska - W 11:30 - 12:30 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Charalambia Steliou - T 10:10 - 11:10 Taught in Abu Dhabi -
Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
Mary S Gatchell - T 11:00 - 12:00 Taught in Abu Dhabi
This course appears in...
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Music Practice Electives
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Spring 2025;
14 Weeks
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This intensive course is designed to develop skills in sound synthesis techniques and procedural music, with a focus on their specific application in composition, sound design, New Instruments of Musical Expression (NIME), and games. The course will consist of extensive exploration of analog modular synthesis, Max, and SuperCollider, in recreating algorithms used by synthesis and computer music pioneers (Xenakis, Chowning, Risset) as well as new talents in electronic music such as Agostino Di Scipio, Alessandro Cortini or Richard Devine. Previous knowledge of working with Max and/or SuperCollider is required for this course or students may have to take a complementary lab in order to be able to follow the class.
Prerequisites: One of the following: (MUSIC-UH 1410 & 1420), CS-UH 1001, ENGR-UH 1000, IM- UH 1010, IM-UH 2310, IM-UH 2315 or IM-UH 2318
Previously taught: Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
This course appears in...
- Majors > Electrical Engineering
- Majors > Interactive Media > Computational Media
- Majors > Music > Artistic Practice Track
- Majors > Music > Music Studies Track
- Majors > Music > Music Technology
- Minors > Interactive Media
- Minors > Music
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An intensive, project-driven course designed to develop skills in sound synthesis techniques and procedural music, with a focus on their specific application in composition, sound design, New Instruments of Musical Expression, and games. The course will consist in extensive exploration of analog modular synthesis, Max, and SuperCollider, in recreating algorithms used by synthesis and computer music pioneers such as Xenakis, Chowning, and Risset as well as new talents in electronic music such as Agostino Di Scipio, Alessandro Cortini or Richard Devine. Previous knowledge of working with Max and/or SuperCollider is required for this course or students may have to take a complementary lab in order to be able to follow the class. By the end of the semester, students will have built a small portfolio of musical works employing the techniques learned during the semester.
Prerequisite: MUSIC-UH 2419, or CS-UH 1001, or ENGR-UH 1000, or IM- UH 1010, or IM-UH 2311, or IM-UH 2315, or IM-UH 2318
Previously taught: Fall 2024
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Fall 2025;
14 Weeks
Carlos Guedes - TR 12:45 - 15:25 Taught in Abu Dhabi
This course appears in...
- Majors > Computer Engineering
- Majors > Electrical Engineering
- Majors > Interactive Media > Computational Media
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Music Practice Electives
- Majors > Music > Music Technology
- Minors > Sound and Music Computing
- Minors > Sound and Music Computing > Music Electives
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Fall 2025;
14 Weeks
-
2 credits
Individual Instruction in Music is designed for students willing to develop their skills in one or more musical instruments, vocal performance, or wanting to learn compositional techniques and strategies to help them create musical work under supervision.
Prerequisites: MUSIC-UH 3252 and (Declared Music major/minor or four 4-credit seminar (i.e. non-practice) courses in Music, one of which may be taken as a corequisite)
Previously taught: Fall 2017, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
This course appears in...
- Majors > Music
- Majors > Music > Music Practice Electives