Clasp together: composing for mind and machine

This paper will explore questions of agency, control and interaction and the embodied nature of musical performance in relation to the use of human-computer interaction (HCI), through the experimental work Clasp Together (beta) 2 for small ensemble and live electronics by J. Harry Whalley. This practice-led research is situated at the intersection of music neurotechnology for sound synthesis and brain-computer interfaces (BCI), and explores the use of neural patterns from Electroencephalography (EEG) as a control instrument. The composition departed from the traditional composer/performer paradigm by including both non-instrumental physical gestures and cognitive or emotive instructions integrated into the score

Black music : three instructional modules and resource materials for urban education.

The black musician in America has created a unique musical experience in a style peculiarly Afro-American, that is often identified as America\u27s distinct contribution to world culture. Yet it has had little impact on the music curriculum of the American educational system. A major challenge for the music education profession has been in the area of curriculum development to meet the needs of urban schools. For the minority students, music education must include the musical activities and contributions of black Americans. In order to meet this challenge, music educators require access to special resources and teaching strategies for the urban classroom. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1)to establish a reference/resource guide in Afro-American music for classroom and individual study; (2)to introduce three instructional modules based on rhythm, melody and harmony in black music. The rationale for this study is based on the underlying assumptions that: (1)the need exists for up-to-date resource materials on Afro-American music; (2)self motivation toward the study of black music will be reinforced through a comprehensive listing of available aural and written resources; (3)a knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of black music will motivate the student toward an appreciation and study of all music; (4)the keys to success in music education are innovative approaches to music instruction and sensitivity to student needs. Based on a review of the literature and currently available record albums, a discography of Afro-American music was compiled including over one thousand long playing records. Brief historical sketches and descriptions introduce each style listed in the discography. Among the many musical styles documented on recordings in this discography are jazz music from ragtime to jazz-fusion, blues forms from the country blues to rhythm and blues, gospel music, reggae, new wave rock and black concert music. Utilizing the information compiled in the discography and accompanying historical sketches, three instructional modules were created to explore the fundamental elements of rhythm, melody and harmony in Afro-American music. Each module was intended as an audio cassette tape presentation including brief histories and selected concepts of rhythm, melody and harmony with illustrative musical excerpts drawn from the discography. The module on rhythm in black American music introduces the rhythmic concepts of swing, snycopation, the juba, after-beat, two and four, and four on the floor. The module on melodic materials in Afro-American music examines the development and application of the scale constructions of the blues scale, the modes, pentatonic, hexatonic, and gypsy scales. The module on harmonic concepts in Afro-American music introduces the distinct blue harmony, substitute harmony and outside harmonic and melodic practices. The instructional modules and listing of resouce materials are intended to increase recognition of Afro-American music as a major contribution to world culture. These material should help music educators overcome the biases of white racism in American schools and society

Investigating the cognitive foundations of collaborative musical free improvisation: Experimental case studies using a novel application of the subsumption architecture

This thesis investigates the cognitive foundations of collaborative musical free improvisation. To explore the cognitive underpinnings of the collaborative process, a series of experimental case studies was undertaken in which expert improvisors performed with an artificial agent. The research connects ecological musicology and subsumption robotics, and builds upon insights from empirical psychology pertaining to the attribution of intentionality. A distinguishing characteristic of free improvisation is that no over-arching framework of formal musical conventions defines it, and it cannot be positively identified by sound alone, which poses difficulties for traditional musicology. Current musicological research has begun to focus on the social dimension of music, including improvisation. Ecological psychology, which focuses on the relation of cognition to agent–environment dynamics using the notion of affordances, has been shown to be a promising approach to understanding musical improvisation. This ecological approach to musicology makes it possible to address the subjective and social aspects of improvised music, as opposed to the common treatment of music as objective and neutral. The subjective dimension of musical listening has been highlighted in music cognition studies of cue abstraction, whereby listeners perceive emergent structures while listening to certain forms of music when no structures are identified in advance. These considerations informed the design of the artificial agent, Odessa, used for this study. In contrast to traditional artificial intelligence (AI), which tends to view the world as objective and neutral, behaviour-based robotics historically developed around ideas similar to those of ecological psychology, focused on agent–environment dynamics and the ability to deal with potentially rapidly changing environments. Behaviour-based systems that are designed using the subsumption architecture are robust and flexible in virtue of their modular, decentralised design comprised of simple interactions between simple mechanisms. The competence of such agents is demonstrated on the basis of their interaction with the environment and ability to cope with unknown and dynamic conditions, which suggests the concept of improvisation. This thesis documents a parsimonious subsumption design for an agent that performs musical free improvisation with human co-performers, as well as the experimental studies conducted with this agent. The empirical component examines the human experience of collaborating with the agent and, more generally, the cognitive psychology of collaborative improvisation. The design was ultimately successful, and yielded insights about cognition in collaborative improvisation, in particular, concerning the central relationship between perceived intentionality and affordances. As a novel application of the subsumption architecture, this research contributes to AI/robotics and to research on interactive improvisation systems. It also contributes to music psychology and cognition, as well as improvisation studies, through its empirical grounding of an ecological model of musical interaction

Lisp, Jazz, Aikido -- Three Expressions of a Single Essence

The relation between Science (what we can explain) and Art (what we can't) has long been acknowledged and while every science contains an artistic part, every art form also needs a bit of science. Among all scientific disciplines, programming holds a special place for two reasons. First, the artistic part is not only undeniable but also essential. Second, and much like in a purely artistic discipline, the act of programming is driven partly by the notion of aesthetics: the pleasure we have in creating beautiful things. Even though the importance of aesthetics in the act of programming is now unquestioned, more could still be written on the subject. The field called "psychology of programming" focuses on the cognitive aspects of the activity, with the goal of improving the productivity of programmers. While many scientists have emphasized their concern for aesthetics and the impact it has on their activity, few computer scientists have actually written about their thought process while programming. What makes us like or dislike such and such language or paradigm? Why do we shape our programs the way we do? By answering these questions from the angle of aesthetics, we may be able to shed some new light on the art of programming. Starting from the assumption that aesthetics is an inherently transversal dimension, it should be possible for every programmer to find the same aesthetic driving force in every creative activity they undertake, not just programming, and in doing so, get deeper insight on why and how they do things the way they do. On the other hand, because our aesthetic sensitivities are so personal, all we can really do is relate our own experiences and share it with others, in the hope that it will inspire them to do the same. My personal life has been revolving around three major creative activities, of equal importance: programming in Lisp, playing Jazz music, and practicing Aikido. But why so many of them, why so different ones, and why these specifically? By introspecting my personal aesthetic sensitivities, I eventually realized that my tastes in the scientific, artistic, and physical domains are all motivated by the same driving forces, hence unifying Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido as three expressions of a single essence, not so different after all. Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido are governed by a limited set of rules which remain simple and unobtrusive. Conforming to them is a pleasure. Because Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido are inherently introspective disciplines, they also invite you to transgress the rules in order to find your own. Breaking the rules is fun. Finally, if Lisp, Jazz, and Aikido unify so many paradigms, styles, or techniques, it is not by mere accumulation but because they live at the meta-level and let you reinvent them. Working at the meta-level is an enlightening experience. Understand your aesthetic sensitivities and you may gain considerable insight on your own psychology of programming. Mine is perhaps common to most lispers. Perhaps also common to other programming communities, but that, is for the reader to decide..

The Neuroscience of Musical Improvisation

Researchers have recently begun to examine the neural basis of musical improvisation, one of the most complex forms of creative behavior. The emerging field of improvisation neuroscience has implications not only for the study of artistic expertise, but also for understanding the neural underpinnings of domain-general processes such as motor control and language production. This review synthesizes functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) studies of musical improvisation, including vocal and instrumental improvisation, with samples of jazz pianists, classical musicians, freestyle rap artists, and non-musicians. A network of prefrontal brain regions commonly linked to improvisatory behavior is highlighted, including the pre-supplementary motor area, medial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsal premotor cortex. Activation of premotor and lateral prefrontal regions suggests that a seemingly unconstrained behavior may actually benefit from motor planning and cognitive control. Yet activation of cortical midline regions points to a role of spontaneous cognition characteristic of the default network. Together, such results may reflect cooperation between large-scale brain networks associated with cognitive control and spontaneous thought. The improvisation literature is integrated with Pressing’s theoretical model, and discussed within the broader context of research on the brain basis of creative cognition

Rock Becomes Jazz: Interpretations of Popular Music by Improvising Artists in the 1960s

The advent of rock and roll changed the jazz world’s relationship to itself and its musical public. The popularity of jazz, in decline since the rise of bebop in the mid-1940s, was further eroded by rock and roll’s rise to prominence in the mid-1950s. By the mid-1960s, the jazz world seemed to be faced with a choice: adapt to accommodate the burgeoning new genre or risk fading further into popular irrelevance. Many jazz artists chose to ignore rock, oftentimes viewing it as a simple-minded pursuit dominated by white artists stealing from black musicians. Other artists, though, chose to engage with the new music and bring it into the jazz world by interpreting rock repertoire. In a way, this trend was no different than the time-honored jazz tradition of interpreting contemporary popular songs. Interpreting rock songs and incorporating them into their repertoire was different, though, because of the many prejudices that jazz musicians held toward rock music and the relative simplicity of rock’s musical attributes. This paper is dedicated to the in-depth study of jazz versions of rock music in the 1960s. By examining biographies and interviews, I highlight the various musical, commercial and racial considerations that were present for jazz artists during this era and seek answers to the following questions: How do jazz musicians deal with changing times, and how do their musical choices reflect that? What do these choices and processes say about their musical/artistic worldview and what non-musical considerations influence the decision making process? How do commercial considerations fuel the choices made by jazz musicians? How do these early interpretations of rock music in a jazz context pave the way for future crossover between the two genres? With these queries as a backdrop, I delve deeply into the the musical attributes of each selection, including form, key, tempo, meter, melody and harmony. Through these musical specifics and in conjunction with relevant testimony from the artists and observers, I arrive at conclusions regarding the interpretive methods and their relative commercial and/or artistic success. Overall, there has been relatively little academic analysis devoted to the covering of rock music by jazz musicians, and this paper is intended to fill that void. The influence of rock music on the jazz world has been important in modern jazz, both in the jazz-rock fusion of the 1970s and the massive up swing of rock songs in the jazz repertoire in 2000s. Looking closely at the first attempts at combining jazz and rock provides a clear foundation for these efforts. Additionally, close study of 1960s jazz interpretations of rock music highlights certain musical, commercial and racial considerations that colored the choices made by artists in the 1960s and continue to influence artists’ decision-making processes in the 21st century.unpublishedis peer reviewe

Notational approaches for composing and directing a non-homogeneous laptop orchestra

Within this composition commentary, I seek to outline my practice for composing for laptop ensembles, as well as the notational approaches I have developed to facilitate composition, direction, rehearsal and ultimately performance within an intentionally non-homogeneous laptop ensemble. Illustrating the requirement to move beyond the current typical ‘application as score and meta-instrument’ paradigm, I outline my own notational approach for laptop ensemble writing and the features it offers to the operation of laptop ensembles. As a consequence of the notational approach I seek to outline the performative coding role of the player and acknowledge the compositional role it extends to the performer. These theoretical considerations are considered within the practical operation of the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra (HELO) and its sibling HELOpg. As a consequence of these experiments I present my preference for graph and text based notations for directing the laptop performer