16th Sound and Music Computing Conference SMC 2019 (28–31 May 2019, Malaga, Spain)

The 16th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC 2019) took place in Malaga, Spain, 28-31 May 2019 and it was organized by the Application of Information and Communication Technologies Research group (ATIC) of the University of Malaga (UMA). The SMC 2019 associated Summer School took place 25-28 May 2019. The First International Day of Women in Inclusive Engineering, Sound and Music Computing Research (WiSMC 2019) took place on 28 May 2019. The SMC 2019 TOPICS OF INTEREST included a wide selection of topics related to acoustics, psychoacoustics, music, technology for music, audio analysis, musicology, sonification, music games, machine learning, serious games, immersive audio, sound synthesis, etc

Robotic arts: Current practices, potentials, and implications

Given that the origin of the “robot” comes from efforts to create a worker to help people, there has been relatively little research on making a robot for non-work purposes. However, some researchers have explored robotic arts since Leonardo da Vinci. Many questions can be posed regarding the potentials of robotic arts: (1) Is there anything we can call machine-creativity? (2) Can robots improvise artworks on the fly? and (3) Can art robots pass the Turing test? To ponder these questions and see the current status quo of robotic arts, the present paper surveys the contributions of robotics in diverse forms of arts, including drawing, theater, music, and dance. The present paper describes selective projects in each genre, core procedure, possibilities and limitations within the aesthetic computing framework. Then, the paper discusses implications of these robotic arts in terms of both robot research and art research, followed by conclusions including answers to the questions posed at the outset

GESTURE AND THE AUDITORY IMPACT ON THE PERCEPTION OF SOUND: A PERFORMANCE GUIDE FOR UNDERSTANDING GESTURAL FUNCTION ON PERCUSSION PEDAGOGY AND PERFORMANCE

I will address the concept of physical gestures and discuss how they are applicable to the way percussionists visually and audibly perceive music. Through my research, I will focus on performance and pedagogy, seeking new possibilities for introducing percussionists at all ability levels to different articulations. Percussionists have traditionally been led to believe that they do not have the versatility over the initial musical attack and sustain that wind and string players do. This document has been developed to provide a more in-depth approach to how physical and musical gestures can function to create a more versatile and musical percussionist. This project will discuss both musical and physical gestures and the current research behind them, as well as a spectromorphology, a method developed by Dennis Smalley to analyze graphic notation from computer-generated scores. By applying spectromorphology to percussion scores, I will examine how musical gestures are present in solo and ensemble literature, and I will offer suggestions on how to effectively apply these findings to methods of study and performance. This project concludes with a thorough breakdown of standard articulations across marimba/mallet instruments, snare drum, and timpani and provides suggestions on how to functionally utilize gestures for these articulations while offering graphs for each category that highlight the focal points for continued use

The gesture's narrative : contemporary music for percussion

Musical performance gestures are recognized by the majority of theoreticians as a critical factor of a musical performance. The aim of the musical performance may consist in not only communicating the musical signs that form a musical piece, but conveying the meaningful succession of gestures, facial expressions and body movements. This meaningful succession, or otherwise the “gesture´s narrative” is assumed to be quite important for the process of directing the audience towards the intended interpretation. Recording music allowed audiences to listen to music without having to go to a musical event for this purpose. On the one hand, this made the listening experience more intense, allowing to concentrate on the aural information exclusively, but, on the other hand, it also imposed restrictions on people’s perception, as the syncretic listening and seeing experience became separated into constituents. Gestures can be considered as operating features of a person’s perception-action system. It presupposes significance of a meaning that involves more than just a physical movement. Movements can be subdivided into specific patterns and conceptualized. Conceptualized gestures are kept in people’s minds as single units, and the subdivision operations are carried out both by performers and the audience. Musical communication through gestures is therefore not about movement only, it should be viewed as structured interactions. For this research, solo percussion contemporary music performance will be analyzed. Overall, percussive music performance is extremely wide, and is accompanied by bright visual images provided by musicians themselves. From this perspective, observation over percussionists’ playing manner and it´s audience provides the researcher an opportunity to understand a narrative ability of music through musicians’ gestures. The quantitative research design divided in three experiments was chosen for the purpose of this study, which can be referred to as the description of the objective reality by using numbers in order to construct meaningful models reflecting various relationships between objects or phenomena. These numerical entities are not the reality itself, but a way of representing it. Moreover, the chosen experimental design gives an opportunity to not only establish the existence of certain effects of one variable on the other one, but also study the magnitude of these effects, considering the major two research questions: Is it possible to detect a percussive gesture’s narrative ? How does the percussive gesture influences the perception of musical narrative?Os gestos que produzem o som são reconhecidos pela maioria dos teóricos como um factor determinante da performance musical e da sua percepção. A conexão entre os gestos, sons e percepção de determinado discurso musical foi já abordada por um amplo número de cientistas, ainda que não haja um claro consenso quanto à medida em que essa conexão é fundamental ou quanto às operações cognitivas subjacentes à percepção de uma peça musical. O objetivo da interpretação em música consistirá não apenas em comunicar os sinais musicais que formam uma obra, mas também em transmitir a sucessão significativa de gestos, expressões e movimentos do corpo. Esta sucessão significativa, ou de outra forma exposto, a “narrativa do gesto” é considerada muito importante para o processo de condução de um público para a interpretação pretendida. O avanço da tecnologia neste estádio de desenvolvimento da sociedade, criou excelentes oportunidades para permitir a separação de atividades auditivas e visuais da música. A gravação e posterior difusão musical, permitiu que o público consumisse música sem ter que, para essa finalidade, presenciar um evento musical. Por um lado, esse fenómeno tornou a experiência de escuta mais frequente e porventura mais focada, permitindo ao ouvinte concentrar-se na informação auditiva exclusivamente. Mas, por outro lado, também impôs restrições a uma experiência musical sincrética com o ouvir e ouvir e ver, a separaram-se em constituintes dentro do fenómeno musical. Os gestos podem ser considerados características de funcionamento do sistema de percepção/ acção de um ser humano. Pressupõe isso a atribuição de expressão a um significado que envolve mais do que apenas um movimento físico. Os movimentos podem ser subdivididos em padrões específicos e conceptualizados. Estes gestos conceptualizados são mantidos como unidades singulares, e as operações de subdivisão significantes são levadas a cabo tanto pelos performers como pelo seu público. A comunicação musical através de gestos, não deve, portanto, ser olhada apenas sobre os aspectos do movimento, mas sim como uma interação estruturada e musicalmente contextualizada. Os processos descritos acima resultam em grande parte do ambiente de envolvimento do individuo ouvinte e dependem fortemente da sua singularidade e contexto cultural. Nem todos os movimentos poderão ser chamados gestos performativos para além daqueles aqueles cuja acção é de natureza intencionalmente expressiva ou inerente à produção de som. Nesta pesquisa, a performance de música contemporânea para percussão solo será analisada. De uma maneira geral, o desempenho dos percussionistas é, do ponto de vista visual, extremamente rico na formação de gestos. Nessa perspectiva, a observação de uma audiência sujeita à sua presença, com e sem contacto visual com a sua acção, fornece uma oportunidade de aproximação ao estudo do gesto e da sua narrativa, do ponto de vista da percepção do discurso musical. Um desenho de pesquisa quantitativa dividida em três experiências, foi o caminho escolhido para o presente estudo. Produziu-se uma descrição da realidade objectiva usando números, de modo a construir modelos significativos que pudessem reflectir as várias relações entre objectos ou fenómenos . Estas entidades numéricas não serão assim uma realidade em si, mas uma maneira possível de a representar . O processo de experimentação, dividido em três partes, dá-nos a oportunidade para perceber não só a existência dos efeitos de uma variável sobre a outra (visual e auditiva), mas também permite uma reflexão sobre a magnitude desses efeitos, tentando assim responder ás questões que levam a esta investigação: É possivel detectar uma narrativa no gesto percussivo? Como é que o gesto percussivo influencia a percepção do discurso musical

Waking Up Into the Moment: Temporal Awareness as a Primary Composable Parameter of Music

In this paper I hope to define, quantify, and analyze the way in which a listener perceives and understands the passage of time during a musical experience—in other words, their temporal awareness. I explore this concept in three capacities. First, I examine the relevant theory, both philosophical and psychological, surrounding temporal awareness and define its two primary manifestations through demonstrative musical examples. Next, I apply this theory to the analysis of six different pieces of music composed between 1895 and 2016, focusing on what I believe are the two strongest catalysts of change of temporal awareness. Finally, I discuss how I incorporate this theory into my practice both as an instructor and as a composer. A thorough musical analysis of my 2018 work be created or is presented through the analytical and compositional lens of temporal awareness, including its descriptive and prescriptive implications

Exploring Hybridity: An investigation into the integration of instrumental and acousmatic structural strategies

The aim of this commentary, which accompanies a folio of electroacoustic/acousmatic, instrumental and mixed compositions, is to investigate the relationship of instrumental and acousmatic compositional practices and to find common integrating structural strategies. These practices are also related to the handling and organization of disparate and large amounts of sound information in both media. Multi-dimensional aural spaces are very common in both instrumental and acousmatic media when timbre becomes a dynamic and form shaping parameter. The listener may perceive the musical discourse in multi-dimensional musical spaces through multiple perceptional modes. A musical syntax of those - usually indeterminate and ambiguous - aural spaces may be achieved through a hybridization of interconnected temporal concepts, connected to motion, gesture and shape, and spatial concepts, connected to sound source and timbre. The narrative structure of the musical discourse is linked to conceptualizations of physical and conceptual musical spaces through cognitive schemas and patterns and can be approached through visual and spatial metaphors that resemble film and TV montage structures. A sound montage theory provides a basic framework for the organization of narrative structure in sound composition

Cubaneo In Latin Piano: A Parametric Approach To Gesture, Texture, And Motivic Variation

ABSTRACT CUBANEO IN LATIN PIANO: A PARAMETRIC APPROACH TO GESTURE, TEXTURE, AND MOTIVIC VARIATION COPYRIGHT Orlando Enrique Fiol 2018 Dr. Carol A. Muller Over the past century of recorded evidence, Cuban popular music has undergone great stylistic changes, especially regarding the piano tumbao. Hybridity in the Cuban/Latin context has taken place on different levels to varying extents involving instruments, genres, melody, harmony, rhythm, and musical structures. This hybridity has involved melding, fusing, borrowing, repurposing, adopting, adapting, and substituting. But quantifying and pinpointing these processes has been difficult because each variable or parameter embodies a history and a walking archive of sonic aesthetics. In an attempt to classify and quantify precise parameters involved in hybridity, this dissertation presents a paradigmatic model, organizing music into vocabularies, repertories, and abstract procedures. Cuba\u27s pianistic vocabularies are used very interactively, depending on genre, composite ensemble texture, vocal timbre, performing venue, and personal taste. These vocabularies include: melodic phrases, harmonic progressions, rhythmic cells and variation schemes to replace repetition with methodical elaboration of the piano tumbao as a main theme. These pianistic vocabularies comprise what we actually hear. Repertories, such as pre-composed songs, ensemble arrangements, and open- ended montuno and solo sections, situate and contextualize what we hear in real life musical performances. Abstract procedures are the thoughts, aesthetics, intentions, and parametric rules governing what Cuban/Latin pianists consider possible. Abstract procedures alter vocabularies by displacing, expanding, contracting, recombining, permuting, and layering them. As Cuba\u27s popular musics find homes in its musical diaspora (the United States, Latin America and Europe), Cuban pianists have sought to differentiate their craft from global salsa and Latin jazz pianists. Expanding the piano\u27s gestural/textural vocabulary beyond pre-Revolutionary traditions and performance practices, the timba piano tumbao is a powerful marker of Cuban identity and musical pride, transcending national borders and cultural boundaries

Synchresis: Exploring gestural relationships between musical-sound and visual-gesture on film: Synchresis as a unifying concept for exploring and creating effective multimedia relationships

This investigation looks at the nature of synchresis in filmic contexts, with a particular focus on film-dance. I have discussed language that can be useful in this exploration, and have attempted to define terms in order to better develop a means of conceptualizing what synchresis is, and how it functions in establishing and shaping connections between media. This theoretical work is the background for my investigation of synchresis in the three contrasting works that make up my creative portfolio. A better understanding of the complexity of synchresis in cross-media interactions provides a useful tool to unify and shape these interactions. The marriage of movement and sound is a central part of human experience and our experiences of music are potently transformed through visual gesture. Likewise film is transformed by music’s vitality and meaning‐shaping role. In other words, synchresis emerges from the primary experience of intermodality. An enhanced understanding of it provides a platform for possible further explorations of the different ways in which different media can be combined. It is hoped that composers might be able to usefully apply ideas from this investigation to intermedia works of their own

Design Strategies for Adaptive Social Composition: Collaborative Sound Environments

In order to develop successful collaborative music systems a variety of subtle interactions need to be identified and integrated. Gesture capture, motion tracking, real-time synthesis, environmental parameters and ubiquitous technologies can each be effectively used for developing innovative approaches to instrument design, sound installations, interactive music and generative systems. Current solutions tend to prioritise one or more of these approaches, refining a particular interface technology, software design or compositional approach developed for a specific composition, performer or installation environment. Within this diverse field a group of novel controllers, described as ‘Tangible Interfaces’ have been developed. These are intended for use by novices and in many cases follow a simple model of interaction controlling synthesis parameters through simple user actions. Other approaches offer sophisticated compositional frameworks, but many of these are idiosyncratic and highly personalised. As such they are difficult to engage with and ineffective for groups of novices. The objective of this research is to develop effective design strategies for implementing collaborative sound environments using key terms and vocabulary drawn from the available literature. This is articulated by combining an empathic design process with controlled sound perception and interaction experiments. The identified design strategies have been applied to the development of a new collaborative digital instrument. A range of technical and compositional approaches was considered to define this process, which can be described as Adaptive Social Composition. Dan Livingston