The Computational Attitude in Music Theory

Music studies’s turn to computation during the twentieth century has engendered particular habits of thought about music, habits that remain in operation long after the music scholar has stepped away from the computer. The computational attitude is a way of thinking about music that is learned at the computer but can be applied away from it. It may be manifest in actual computer use, or in invocations of computationalism, a theory of mind whose influence on twentieth-century music theory is palpable. It may also be manifest in more informal discussions about music, which make liberal use of computational metaphors. In Chapter 1, I describe this attitude, the stakes for considering the computer as one of its instruments, and the kinds of historical sources and methodologies we might draw on to chart its ascendance. The remainder of this dissertation considers distinct and varied cases from the mid-twentieth century in which computers or computationalist musical ideas were used to pursue new musical objects, to quantify and classify musical scores as data, and to instantiate a generally music-structuralist mode of analysis. I present an account of the decades-long effort to prepare an exhaustive and accurate catalog of the all-interval twelve-tone series (Chapter 2). This problem was first posed in the 1920s but was not solved until 1959, when the composer Hanns Jelinek collaborated with the computer engineer Heinz Zemanek to jointly develop and run a computer program. Recognizing the transformation wrought on modern statistics and communications technology by information theory, I revisit Abraham Moles’s book Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (orig. 1958) and use its vocabulary to contextualize contemporary information-theoretic work on music that various evokes the computational mind by John. R. Pierce and Mary Shannon, Wilhelm Fucks, and Henry Quastler (Chapter 3). I conclude with a detailed look into a score-segmentation algorithm of the influential American music theorist Allen Forte (Chapter 4). Forte was a skilled programmer who spent several years at MIT in the 1960s, with cutting-edge computers and the company of first-rank figures in the nascent fields of computer science and artificial intelligence. Each one of the researchers whose work is treated in these case studies—at some stage in their relationship with music—adopted what I call the computational attitude to music, to varying degrees and for diverse ends. Of the many questions this dissertation seeks to answer: what was gained by adopting such an attitude? What was lost? Having understood these past explorations of the computational attitude to music, we are better suited ask of ourselves the same questions today

Music synthesis for home videos

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Interfacing Jazz: A Study in Computer-Mediated Jazz Music Creation And Performance

O objetivo central desta dissertação é o estudo e desenvolvimento de algoritmos e interfaces mediados por computador para performance e criação musical. É sobretudo centrado em acompanhamentos em Jazz clássico e explora um meta-controlo dos parâmetros musicais como forma de potenciar a experiência de tocar Jazz por músicos e não-músicos, quer individual quer coletivamente. Pretende contribuir para a pesquisa existente nas áreas de geração automática de música e de interfaces para expressão musical, apresentando um conjunto de algoritmos e interfaces de controlo especialmente criados para esta dissertação. Estes algoritmos e interfaces implementam processos inteligentes e musicalmente informados, para gerar eventos musicais sofisticados e corretos musical estilisticamente, de forma automática, a partir de um input simplificado e intuitivo do utilizador, e de forma coerente gerir a experiência de grupo, estabelecendo um controlo integrado sobre os parâmetros globais. A partir destes algoritmos são apresentadas propostas para diferentes aplicações dos conceitos e técnicas, de forma a ilustrar os benefícios e potencial da utilização de um meta-controlo como extensão dos paradigmas existentes para aplicações musicais, assim como potenciar a criação de novos. Estas aplicações abordam principalmente três áreas onde a música mediada por computador pode trazer grandes benefícios, nomeadamente a performance, a criação e a educação. Uma aplicação, PocketBand, implementada no ambiente de programação Max, permite a um grupo de utilizadores tocarem em grupo como uma banda de jazz, quer sejam ou não treinados musicalmente, cada um utilizando um teclado de computador ou um dispositivo iOS multitoque. O segundo protótipo visa a utilização em contextos coletivos e participativos. Trata-se de uma instalação para vários utilizadores, para ecrã multitoque, intitulada MyJazzBand, que permite até quatro utilizadores tocarem juntos como membros de uma banda de jazz virtual. Ambas as aplicações permitem que os utilizadores experienciem e participem de forma eficaz como músicos de jazz, quer sejam ou não músicos profissionais. As aplicações podem ser utilizadas para fins educativos, seja como um sistema de acompanhamento automático em tempo real para qualquer instrumentista ou cantor, seja como uma fonte de informação para procedimentos harmónicos, ou como uma ferramenta prática para criar esboços ou conteúdos para aulas. Irei também demonstrar que esta abordagem reflete uma tendência crescente entre as empresas de software musical comercial, que já começaram a explorar a mediação por computador e algoritmos musicais inteligentes.Abstract : This dissertation focuses on the study and development of computer-mediated interfaces and algorithms for music performance and creation. It is mainly centered on traditional Jazz music accompaniment and explores the meta-control over musical events to potentiate the rich experience of playing jazz by musicians and non-musicians alike, both individually and collectively. It aims to complement existing research on automatic generation of jazz music and new interfaces for musical expression, by presenting a group of specially designed algorithms and control interfaces that implement intelligent, musically informed processes to automatically produce sophisticated and stylistically correct musical events. These algorithms and control interfaces are designed to have a simplified and intuitive input from the user, and to coherently manage group playing by establishing an integrated control over global common parameters. Using these algorithms, two proposals for different applications are presented, in order to illustrate the benefits and potential of this meta-control approach to extend existing paradigms for musical applications, as well as to create new ones. These proposals focus on two main perspectives where computer-mediated music can benefit by using this approach, namely in musical performance and creation, both of which can also be observed from an educational perspective. A core framework, implemented in the Max programming environment, integrates all the functionalities of the instrument algorithms and control strategies, as well as global control, synchronization and communication between all the components. This platform acts as a base, from which different applications can be created. For this dissertation, two main application concepts were developed. The first, PocketBand, has a single-user, one-man-band approach, where a single interface allows a single user to play up to three instruments. This prototype application, for a multi- touch tablet, was the test bed for several experiments with the user interface and playability issues that helped define and improve the mediated interface concept and the instrument algorithms. The second prototype aims the creation of a collective experience. It is a multi-user installation for a multi-touch table, called MyJazzBand, that allows up to four users to play together as members of a virtual jazz band. Both applications allow the users to experience and effectively participate as jazz band musicians, whether they are musically trained or not. The applications can be used for educational purposes, whether as a real-time accompaniment system for any jazz instrument practitioner or singer, as a source of information for harmonic procedures, or as a practical tool for creating quick arrangement drafts or music lesson contents. I will also demonstrate that this approach reflects a growing trend on commercial music software that has already begun to explore and implement mediated interfaces and intelligent music algorithms

Proceedings of the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the SMC2010 - 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference, July 21st - July 24th 2010

Applications of Dynamical Systems to Music Composition

Mathematics and music have long enjoyed a close working relationship: mathematicians have frequently taken an interest in the organisational principles used in music, while musicians often utilise mathematical formalisms and structures in their works. This relationship has thrived in recent years, particularly since the advent of the computer, which has allowed mathematicians and musicians alike to explore the creative aspects of various mathematical structures quickly and easily. One class of mathematical structure that is of particular interest to the technologically-minded musician is the class of dynamical systems - those that change some feature with time. This class includes fractal zooms, evolutionary computing techniques and cellular automata, each of which holds some potential as the basis of a composition algorithm. The studies that comprise this thesis were undertaken in order to further examine the relationship between mathematics and music. In particular we explore the notion that music can essentially be thought of as a type of pattern propagation: we begin with initial themes and motifs - the musical patterns - which, during the course of the composition, are subjected to certain transformations and developments according to the rules dictated by the composer or the musical form. This is exactly analogous to the process which occurs within a cellular automaton: initial configurations of cells are transformed and developed according to a set of evolution rules. We begin our study by describing the development of the CAMUS v2.0 composition software, which was based on an earlier system by Dr. Eduardo Miranda, and discuss how best to use the system to compose new musical works. The next step in our study is concerned with highlighting the limitations of CAMUS as it currently stands, and suggesting techniques for improving the capabilities of the system. We then chart the development of CAMUS 3D. At each stage we justify the changes made to the system using both aesthetic and technical arguments. We also provide a composition example, which illustrates not only the changes in operation, but also in interface. The system is then re-evaluated, and further developments are suggested

Instantaneous Harmonic Analysis and its Applications in Automatic Music Transcription

This thesis presents a novel short-time frequency analysis algorithm, namely Instantaneous Harmonic Analysis (IHA), using a decomposition scheme based on sinusoidals. An estimate for instantaneous amplitude and phase elements of the constituent components of real-valued signals with respect to a set of reference frequencies is provided. In the context of musical audio analysis, the instantaneous amplitude is interpreted as presence of the pitch in time. The thesis examines the potential of improving the automated music analysis process by utilizing the proposed algorithm. For that reason, it targets the following two areas: Multiple Fundamental Frequency Estimation (MFFE), and note on-set/off-set detection. The IHA algorithm uses constant-Q filtering by employing Windowed Sinc Filters (WSFs) and a novel phasor construct. An implementation of WSFs in the continuous model is used. A new relation between the Constant-Q Transform (CQT) and WSFs is presented. It is demonstrated that CQT can alternatively be implemented by applying a series of logarithmically scaled WSFs while its window function is adjusted, accordingly. The relation between the window functions is provided as well. A comparison of the proposed IHA algorithm with WSFs and CQT demonstrates that the IHA phasor construct delivers better estimates for instantaneous amplitude and phase lags of the signal components. The thesis also extends the IHA algorithm by employing a generalized kernel function, which in nature, yields a non-orthonormal basis. The kernel function represents the timbral information and is used in the MFFE process. An effective algorithm is proposed to overcome the non-orthonormality issue of the decomposition scheme. To examine the performance improvement of the note on-set/off-set detection process, the proposed algorithm is used in the context of Automatic Music Transcription (AMT). A prototype of an audioto-MIDI system is developed and applied on synthetic and real music signals. The results of the experiments on real and synthetic music signals are reported. Additionally, a multi-dimensional generalization of the IHA algorithm is presented. The IHA phasor construct is extended into the hyper-complex space, in order to deliver the instantaneous amplitude and multiple phase elements for each dimension

Biomechanical Modelling of Musical Performance: A Case Study of the Guitar

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2517 on 07.20.2017 by CS (TIS)Computer-generated musical performances are often criticised for being unable to match the expressivity found in performances by humans. Much research has been conducted in the past two decades in order to create computer technology able to perform a given piece music as expressively as humans, largely without success. Two approaches have been often adopted to research into modelling expressive music performance on computers. The first focuses on sound; that is, on modelling patterns of deviations between a recorded human performance and the music score. The second focuses on modelling the cognitive processes involved in a musical performance. Both approaches are valid and can complement each other. In this thesis we propose a third complementary approach, focusing on the guitar, which concerns the physical manipulation of the instrument by the performer: a biomechanical approach. The essence of this thesis is a study on capturing, analyzing and modelling information about motor and biomechanical processes of guitar performance. The focus is on speed, precision, and force of a guitarist's left-hand. The overarching questions behind our study are: 1) Do unintentional actions originating from motor and biomechanical functions during musical performance contribute a material "human feel" to the performance? 2) Would it be possible determine and quantify such unintentional actions? 3) Would it be possible to model and embed such information in a computer system? The contributionst o knowledgep ursued in this thesis include: a) An unprecedented study of guitar mechanics, ergonomics, and playability; b) A detailed study of how the human body performs actions when playing the guitar; c) A methodologyt o formally record quantifiable data about such actionsin performance; d) An approach to model such information, and e) A demonstration of how the above knowledge can be embeddedin a system for music performance