Computational modeling of improvisation in Turkish folk music using Variable-Length Markov Models

The thesis describes a new database of uzun havas, a non-metered structured improvisation form in Turkish folk music, and a system, which uses Variable-Length Markov Models (VLMMs) to predict the melody in the uzun hava form. The database consists of 77 songs, encompassing 10849 notes, and it is used to train multiple viewpoints, where each event in a musical sequence are represented by parallel descriptors such as Durations and Notes. The thesis also introduces pitch-related viewpoints that are specifically aimed to model the unique melodic properties of makam music. The predictability of the system is quantitatively evaluated by an entropy based scheme. In the experiments, the results from the pitch-related viewpoints mapping 12-tone-scale of Western classical theory and 17 tone-scale of Turkish folk music are compared. It is shown that VLMMs are highly predictive in the note progressions of the transcriptions of uzun havas. This suggests that VLMMs may be applied to makam-based and non-metered musical forms, in addition to Western musical styles. To the best of knowledge, the work presents the first symbolic, machine-readable database and the first application of computational modeling in Turkish folk music.MSCommittee Chair: Parag Chordia; Committee Member: Gil Weinberg; Committee Member: Jason Freema

"Yarman-36 makam tone-system" for Turkish art music

This study offers a mathematically rigorous, yet straightforward, fixed-pitch tuning strategy to the problem of adequate sounding and notating of essential Turkish makam genera, in contradistinction to the praxis-mismatched music theory cast in effect known as Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek (AEU). It comprises 36 tones locatable just by ear, via counting exact 0, 1 and 2 beats per second when listening to given octave, fifth and third intervals, starting from an algebraically attained reference frequency for A at 438.41 Hertz, very near the international standard A=440 Hz. The so-named Yarman-36 makam tone-system proposed in this paper accounts for hitherto omitted pitches in Uşşak, Saba, Hüzzam, etc... at popular transpositions, each corresponding to a habitually used Ahenk (concert pitch level specified by a chosen Ney reed), by virtue of being based on a twelve-by-twelve triplex structure of exclusively tailored Modified Meantone Baroque Temperaments. It thus also features pleasant shades of key-colors supporting polyphonic endeavours in line with Western common practice music.Publisher's Versio

EXPERIMENTS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERDE AND SEYIR IN TURKISH MAKAM MUSIC

"WHEN I WAS A KID, THE ELDERS IN THE VILLAGE COULD TELL THE MAKAM OF A PIECE JUST BY LISTENING." While interviewing performers, enthusiasts, and experts in traditional Turkish taksims (improvisations), variations of this comment were made many times. Some of the respondents claimed to be able to identify the makam of a taksim, but others believed that this ability might now be a lost art. This paper documents a series of experiments (based on caricaturized or skeletonized taksim-like creations) designed to determine if it is possible to identify the makam from purely acoustical features, and, when possible, to determine the relative importance of the various audible features that may be used to establish the makam. Two basic classes of features are investigated: perde (the set of pitches used in the performance) and seyir (which relates to temporal motion within the piece, for instance, repetitive or common motives or melodic contour). The experiments provide evidence that both kinds of features contribute to the ability to recognize makams. Experiments that randomize the order of events show that pitch cues (perde) are often adequate to allow accurate identification of the makam. In experiments where both pitch and temporal cues are present but conflict (for example, a piece in which the perde is chosen from one makam and the seyir from another), experts often favor the temporal information

Sufi music therapy with makams as a potential intervention for common mental health disorders

Sufi music has long been regarded as both spiritual and beneficial. This thesis aims to develop and evaluate Sufi music with makams as an intervention for people with mild to moderate levels of depression and anxiety. To reach this aim, the MRC framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions was used. As a first step, reviews of the historical and theoretical framework for Sufi music, its structure and applications were undertaken. Then an umbrella review of systematic reviews on receptive music therapy and its impact on mental health was conducted, followed by a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of listening to Sufi music with makams in patients with mental health symptoms. As a fourth step, a qualitative face-to-face interview study on how such music would best be delivered was conducted in adults attending two Turkish community centres in England. Participants listened to short clips of Sufi music and fed back on the emotions it evoked and how it might help them. A brief manual for the face-to-face delivery of Sufi music as an intervention for anxiety and depression was then designed from the results of these studies, as well as from consultation with three international experts on its application in clinical and community settings. Finally, a feasibility randomised trial was undertaken to explore the acceptability of the intervention, patients’ adherence to the intervention and the research, and to provide preliminary data on its effectiveness. The overall objective of the trial was to estimate whether a major trial would be possible. While the historical and theoretical framework provided a theoretical baseline for the intervention, the umbrella review and systematic review provided an evidence base. The qualitative study revealed that Sufi music with makams was perceived by listeners as spiritual and beneficial. Finally, the feasibility randomised controlled trial demonstrated that this music listening intervention was feasible and acceptable for Turkish people in the UK, and preliminary results of the clinical exploratory analysis revealed that it might be helpful for reducing anxiety and improving mental and spiritual well-being. Thus, the overall finding of this PhD project is that a manualised Sufi music intervention can be delivered to community dwelling people with mild to moderate distress, and that it is a feasible and acceptable intervention for the Turkish community living in the UK. It suggests that a larger randomised trial could be undertaken

Automatic transcription of traditional Turkish art music recordings: A computational ethnomusicology appraoach

Thesis (Doctoral)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Izmir, 2012Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 96-109)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxi, 131 leavesMusic Information Retrieval (MIR) is a recent research field, as an outcome of the revolutionary change in the distribution of, and access to the music recordings. Although MIR research already covers a wide range of applications, MIR methods are primarily developed for western music. Since the most important dimensions of music are fundamentally different in western and non-western musics, developing MIR methods for non-western musics is a challenging task. On the other hand, the discipline of ethnomusicology supplies some useful insights for the computational studies on nonwestern musics. Therefore, this thesis overcomes this challenging task within the framework of computational ethnomusicology, a new emerging interdisciplinary research domain. As a result, the main contribution of this study is the development of an automatic transcription system for traditional Turkish art music (Turkish music) for the first time in the literature. In order to develop such system for Turkish music, several subjects are also studied for the first time in the literature which constitute other contributions of the thesis: Automatic music transcription problem is considered from the perspective of ethnomusicology, an automatic makam recognition system is developed and the scale theory of Turkish music is evaluated computationally for nine makamlar in order to understand whether it can be used for makam detection. Furthermore, there is a wide geographical region such as Middle-East, North Africa and Asia sharing similarities with Turkish music. Therefore our study would also provide more relevant techniques and methods than the MIR literature for the study of these non-western musics

A computational analysis of Turkish makam music based on a probabilistic characterization of segmented phrases

This study targets automatic analysis of Turkish makam music pieces on the phrase level. While makam is most simply defined as an organization of melodic phrases, there has been very little effort to computationally study melodic structure in makam music pieces. In this work, we propose an automatic analysis algorithm that takes as input symbolic data in the form of machine-readable scores that are segmented into phrases. Using a measure of makam membership for phrases, our method outputs for each phrase the most likely makam the phrase comes from. The proposed makam membership definition is based on Bayesian classification and the algorithm is specifically designed to process the data with overlapping classes. The proposed analysis system is trained and tested on a large data set of phrases obtained by transferring phrase boundaries manually written by experts of makam music on printed scores, to machine-readable data. For the task of classifying all phrases, or only the beginning phrases to come from the main makam of the piece, the corresponding F-measures are.52 and.60 respectively.Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, TUBITAK (112E162

Incorporating pitch class profiles for improving automatic transcription of Turkish makam music

In this paper we evaluate the impact of including knowledge about scale material into a system for the transcription of Turkish makam music. To this end, we extend our previously presented approach by a refinement iteration that gives preference to note values present in the scale of the mode (i.e. makam). The information about the scalar material is provided in form of pitch class profiles, and they are imposed in form of a Dirichlet prior to our expanded probabilistic latent component analysis (PLCA) transcription system. While the inclusion of such a prior was supposed to focus the transcription system on musically meaningful areas, the obtained results are significantly improved only for recordings of certain instruments. In our discussion we demonstrate the quality of the obtained transcriptions, and discuss the difficulties caused for evaluation in the context of microtonal music