M1 — Foundations

Status: Complete and live in StemShare — the public Foundations of Audio series (free to read, no account needed). · Weeks: 1–2, read asynchronously · Sprint: none (opening phase)

Purpose

Establish the physics, perception, transduction, and digital/computer literacy every later domain assumes. Students read on their own while Week 1–2 class time goes to community (the opening jam) and onboarding.

Spiral note: microphones, speakers, digital audio, and file hygiene reappear in M2 (signal flow), M5 (recording), and M9 (export).

Calendar alignment

WeekIn classReading due
1Wed Sep 9 — Opening jamM0 checklist + How This Class Works; start Start Here
2Mon Sep 14 — Onboarding · Wed Sep 16 — Signal flow + first studioComplete the series + Foundations Review quiz (Sun Sep 27)

Articles

Every article is interactive: playable audio demos, oscilloscopes and spectrograms you can drive, a hearing test, a filename builder, a backup checker.

#Title
01Start Here: The Foundations Series
02What is Sound — Vibration Through a Medium
03Measuring and Visualizing Sound
04How Your Ear Works
05How Microphones Work
06How Speakers Work
07Foundations of Digital Audio
08Anatomy of a Computer
09Good Digital Hygiene

Assessments

  • Per-article quick checks and inline fill-in exercises
  • Foundations Review — a ~10-question pathway quiz, playable by anyone; recorded for enrolled students

Dependencies

  • Requires: M0 recommended (parallel is fine in Week 1)
  • Feeds into: M2, M5