Students in Chris Bailey's "Computers, Music and the Arts" course perform their compositions on Tuesday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

This event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135.

The course is a hands-on study of music-making with computers. Topics range from digital synthesis to MIDI communications to the aesthetics of art produced with computers. Designed for arts students who want to learn about new technological tools, the performance is based on the genre "musique concrete," or music made from found sounds, such as the hum of a dryer.

Students take different approaches to this genre, with compositions ranging from abstract musical gestures that Bailey terms "sound paintings," to pieces that attempt to tell a story with sound, to beat-based electronica.

The performance includes collaboration between students in Bailey's course and students taking an advanced choreography course, and Bailey also hopes to incorporate acoustic instrumental compositions by students in his previous courses. The primary element of the program, however, will be the use of environmental sounds to create music.

"Students, including those who have no music theory knowledge or who don't know how to read and write traditional music, can learn to create music and sound art by using musique concrete," says Bailey.

"My goal is to give students a glimpse of a musical world they've probably never heard of, but along the way, to provide knowledge and skills that might be useful if they should want to work in a recording or production studio."