Evaluation of live human-computer music-making: Quantitative and qualitative approaches

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, [VOL 67,ISS 11(2009)] DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.05.00

The Effects of Musical Tempo and Dynamic Range on Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Adults: A Counterbalanced, Within-Subjects Study

Music therapists often use music to facilitate changes in physiological functioning. In order to better inform the selection and creation of such music, this study explored the influence of tempo and dynamic range on heart rate variability. Two guitar improvisations were digitally recomposed to create fast and slow (90 and 60 beats per minute) as well as narrow and wide dynamic range conditions, while all other elements of the recordings were held constant. It was hypothesized that faster tempo and wider dynamic ranges would cause an increase in physiological arousal, indicated by decreased heart rate variability. It was also predicted that participants (N = 32) would perceive selections with slower tempos and smaller dynamic range as more relaxing. No significant differences were found in heart rate variability for either condition. The narrow dynamic range condition produced an elevation in average heart rate, contrary to expectations based upon previous clinical recommendations. Participants did not perceive any condition as more relaxing, but perception of relaxation level weakly correlated to increased heart rate variability. The results from this study suggest that wider dynamic range is not necessarily contraindicated for music for relaxation, and that participant input is important in choosing music for relaxation

Beating the Air. Phenomenological remarks on the semiotics of conducting.

The subject of the article is conducting as typically known from the classical symphonic practice. The question to be discussed is: In what respect is the conductor’s beat properly to be understood as ”signing” within the frames of a sign language, and as such a proper object of semiotic analysis. My approach to the topic is primarily phenomenological. It makes analytical comments on the task of the conductor; to the very nature of the cooperative and communicative framework embedding the conductor and the musicians; and hence to the constitutional conditions for conducting. The conclusion is that in many important respects conducting is not a matter of signing and there is no such thing as a conductor’s sign language. It will be outlined how the connection between music, musicians and conductor is based on analogies between music, corporeality and onto-temporalit

Real-Time Virtual Pathology Using Signal Analysis and Synthesis

This dissertation discusses the modeling and simulation (M& S) research in the area of real-time virtual pathology using signal analysis and synthesis. The goal of this research is to contribute to the research in the M&S area of generating simulated outputs of medical diagnostics tools to supplement training of medical students with human patient role players. To become clinically competent physicians, medical students must become skilled in the areas of doctor-patient communication, eliciting the patient\u27s history, and performing the physical exam. The use of Standardized Patients (SPs), individuals trained to realistically portray patients, has become common practice. SPs provide the medical student with a means to learn in a safe, realistic setting, while providing a way to reliably test students\u27 clinical skills. The range of clinical problems an SP can portray, however, is limited. SPs are usually healthy individuals with few or no abnormal physical findings. Some SPs have been trained to simulate physical abnormalities, such as breathing through one lung, voluntarily and increasing blood pressure. But, there are many abnormalities that SPs cannot simulate. The research encompassed developing methods and algorithms to be incorporated into the previous work of McKenzie, el al. [1]–[3] for simulating abnormal heart sounds in a Standardized Patient (SP), which may be utilized in a modified electronic stethoscope. The methods and algorithms are specific to the real-time modeling of human body sounds through modifying the sounds from a real person with various abnormalities. The main focus of the research involved applying methods from tempo and beat analysis of acoustic musical signals for heart signal analysis, specifically in detecting the heart rate and heartbeat locations. In addition, the research included an investigation and selection of an adaptive noise cancellation filtering method to separate heart sounds from lung sounds. A model was developed to use a heart/lung sound signal as input to efficiently and accurately separate heart sound and lung sound signals, characterize the heart sound signal when appropriate, replace the heart or lung sound signal with a reference pathology signal containing an abnormality such as a crackle or murmur, and then recombine the original heart or lung sound signal with the modified pathology signal for presentation to the student. After completion of the development of the model, the model was validated. The validation included both a qualitative assessment and a quantitative assessment. The qualitative assessment drew on the visual and auditory analysis of SMEs, and the quantitative assessment utilized simulated data to verify key portions of the model

Fundamentals of Teaching Vocal Music Performance

This study outlines the significance and sole purpose of developing fundamental techniques of student vocal music performances, using professional constructive evaluation that will improve their overall performance experience. One of the most practical ways to support vocalists is to provide a constructive evaluation of their performances. The implementation of constructive evaluation is to reflect upon what is being done well, discover areas of improvement or refinement, plan and facilitate important lessons, and apply the lessons to future performances. As a music teacher who is actively overseeing the development of students as performing or creating musicians, including constructive evaluation is a standard expectation. Methodical, thorough self-evaluations and peer evaluations are enormously valuable practices for young vocalists. In rehearsals, workshops, and other group situations, constructive evaluation from peers will also be very useful, but only if group members understand how to offer the evaluation. To give a high-quality performance, vocalists must get in the habit of evaluating themselves as often as possible. An evaluation that is offered sloppily or in the wrong spirit can be damaging to the student’s vocal development. This study will also include a plethora of techniques for creating positive, useful evaluations, including: Analyzing the Performance, Self & Peer-Evaluations, Glows and Grows, Use of Fundamental Elements of Music, Solutions Oriented Feedback, and helping students develop coping skills for performance anxiety. The principles and ideas offered for private instruction can also be quite valuable to choir and ensemble directors, praise and worship teams, group lessons, and music theatre singers

A theoretical basis for understanding and researching the relationship between music, stress, and biofeedback

Music’s ability to influence emotional states and physical arousal has become an increasingly popular area of study. The wealth of literature around music and stress suggests a significant amount of interest in leveraging music to manage stress. However, as attention increases, the robustness of research becomes an increasing concern. This study investigates the current literature and proposes recommendations for the future studying of the psychological and physiological impacts of music as it relates to stress reduction. Existing literature was reviewed with a focus on the operationalization of key concepts of music and stress. The analysis showed considerable discrepancies in research design, operationalization of music, operationalization of the psychological aspects of stress, and operationalization of the physiological aspects of stress. The findings of this study have implications for future research design. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)

Engineering systematic musicology : methods and services for computational and empirical music research

One of the main research questions of *systematic musicology* is concerned with how people make sense of their musical environment. It is concerned with signification and meaning-formation and relates musical structures to effects of music. These fundamental aspects can be approached from many different directions. One could take a cultural perspective where music is considered a phenomenon of human expression, firmly embedded in tradition. Another approach would be a cognitive perspective, where music is considered as an acoustical signal of which perception involves categorizations linked to representations and learning. A performance perspective where music is the outcome of human interaction is also an equally valid view. To understand a phenomenon combining multiple perspectives often makes sense. The methods employed within each of these approaches turn questions into concrete musicological research projects. It is safe to say that today many of these methods draw upon digital data and tools. Some of those general methods are feature extraction from audio and movement signals, machine learning, classification and statistics. However, the problem is that, very often, the *empirical and computational methods require technical solutions* beyond the skills of researchers that typically have a humanities background. At that point, these researchers need access to specialized technical knowledge to advance their research. My PhD-work should be seen within the context of that tradition. In many respects I adopt a problem-solving attitude to problems that are posed by research in systematic musicology. This work *explores solutions that are relevant for systematic musicology*. It does this by engineering solutions for measurement problems in empirical research and developing research software which facilitates computational research. These solutions are placed in an engineering-humanities plane. The first axis of the plane contrasts *services* with *methods*. Methods *in* systematic musicology propose ways to generate new insights in music related phenomena or contribute to how research can be done. Services *for* systematic musicology, on the other hand, support or automate research tasks which allow to change the scope of research. A shift in scope allows researchers to cope with larger data sets which offers a broader view on the phenomenon. The second axis indicates how important Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques are in a solution. MIR-techniques are contrasted with various techniques to support empirical research. My research resulted in a total of thirteen solutions which are placed in this plane. The description of seven of these are bundled in this dissertation. Three fall into the methods category and four in the services category. For example Tarsos presents a method to compare performance practice with theoretical scales on a large scale. SyncSink is an example of a service

Proceedings of the Sempre MET2018: Researching Music, Education, Technology

MET 2018 Researching Music - Education - Technology (MET2018) 26–27 March 2018 Following the great success of its inaugural conference held by the University of Hull in 2010, MET2014, and MET2016 at IOE London, this fourth two-day conference (#sempreMET) was hosted by the Department of culture, Communication & Media, IOE, University College London, at the University of London’s iconic Senate House. Although the 'musicking' humanity has been reliant on technology from the very beginning of its musical journey, we cannot deny that, nowadays, technology changes, develops, and its role is being redefined at a dramatically greater rate. This sempre conference aimed to celebrate technology's challenging role(s) and provide a platform for critical discourse and the presentation of scholarly work in the broader fields of digital technologies in: music composition and creation music performance music production (recording, studio work, archival and/or communication of music) diverse musical genres (e.g. popular, classical, world, etc.) creativity/ies real world praxial contexts (e.g. classroom, studio, etc.) assessment of musical development and/or assessment of performance computational musicology music and Big Data (a special call for chapters for an edited OUP VOLUME will be posted soon) the music industry special educational contexts/needs The conference provided opportunities for colleagues to present and discuss ideas in a friendly and supportive environment, as well as to provide a meeting point for academics, scholars, teachers, and practitioners who were seeking to form connections and synergies with participants from around the world

What You See Is What You Get: Integrating Visual Performance Methodology Into Vocal Pedagogy

In many ways, singing is an aural event. Since much of the instrument cannot be seen in a normal setting, voice teachers and voice admirers must rely on their ears to evaluate what they hear. However, singing is also a visual event. In the context of voice studios, teachers need to train students to not only achieve a healthy singing technique but also to convey a message to the audience. Each performer must ask herself, “what do I need to do as a performer to show the music?” In the article Sight Over Sound in the Judgment of Music Performance, Chia-Jung Tsay, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at University College London, studied the influence of visual versus aural in several experiments. “The results highlight our natural, automatic, and nonconscious dependence on visual cues. The dominance of visual information emerges to the degree that it is overweighted [sic] relative to auditory information, even when sound is consciously valued as the core domain content” (Tsay 2013). The visual aspect of performance dominates the aural aspect of performance. Therefore, visual performance methodology must be habitually taught in the singing studio