An approach for identifying salient repetition in multidimensional representations of polyphonic music

SIATEC is an algorithm for discovering patterns in multidimensional datasets (Meredith et al., 2002). This algorithm has been shown to be particularly useful for analysing musical works. However, in raw form, the results generated by SIATEC are large and difficult to interpret. We propose an approach, based on the generation of set-covers, which aims to identify particularly salient patterns that may be of musicological interest. Our method is capable of identifying principal musical themes in Bach Two-Part Inventions, and is able to offer a human analyst interesting insight into the structure of a musical work

Auditive discrimination of musical form in college students of Preschool teaching

En este trabajo se valora la adquisición de competencias de discriminación auditiva de la forma musical en dos grupos de estudiantes de magisterio sin formación musical sistemática previa, y se trata de explicar qué factores contribuyen a su eficacia. Tras un entrenamiento auditivo sistemático durante dos meses, se realizó una prueba de reconocimiento de las formas musicales estudiadas, mediante ejemplos distintos de los utilizados durante el proceso de enseñanza. El diseño del estudio es mixto (cuantitativo-cualitativo); los datos se analizan mediante el software SPSS. Después del entrenamiento sistemático, la mayor parte de los estudiantes fueron capaces de reconocer las formas musicales, es decir, han transferido los conceptos interiorizados a ejemplos musicales no conocidos previamente. También se consideró la valoración de esos estudiantes hacia la educación musical como parte de su formación docente: se pone de manifiesto que el pre-concepto hacia la materia también influye en el logro efectivo de esas competencias.This article studies the acquisition of hearing discrimination skills of the musical form in two groups of students of Teaching Studies at University, people without prior systematic auraldiscrimination training; the purpose is to explain what factors may contribute to its effectiveness. After systematic audition-skills training for two months, a test was performed for the recognition of the musical forms studied, using different examples than those used during the teaching process. The design of the study is mixed (quantitative-qualitative); data are analyzed using SPSS software. After systematic training, most students were able to recognize musical forms, i.e., they have transferred the internalized concepts to previously unknown musical examples. The appreciation of these students towards music education as part of their teaching training was also considered: there is evidence that the pre-concept towards the subject also influences the effective achievement of these competences

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

Music Expectation by Cognitive Rule-Mapping

Iterative rules appear everywhere in music cognition, creating strong expectations. Consequently, denial of rule projection becomes an important compositional strategy, generating numerous possibilities for musical affect. Other rules enter the musical aesthetic through reflexive game playing. Still other kinds are completely constructivist in nature and may be uncongenial to cognition, requiring much training to be recognized, if at all. Cognitive rules are frequently found in contexts of varied repetition (AA), but they are not necessarily bounded by stylistic similarity. Indeed, rules may be especially relevant in the processing of unfamiliar contexts (AB), where only abstract coding is available. There are many kinds of deduction in music cognition. Typical examples include melodic sequence, partial melodic sequence, and alternating melodic sequence (which produces streaming). These types may coexist in the musical fabric, involving the invocation of both simultaneous and nested rules. Intervallic expansion and reduction in melody also involve higherorder abstractions. Various mirrored forms in music entail rule-mapping as well, although these may be more difficult to perceive than their analogous visual symmetries. Listeners can likewise deduce additivity and subtractivity at work in harmony, tempo, texture, pace, and dynamics. Rhythmic augmentation and diminution, by contrast, rely on multiplication and division. The examples suggest numerous hypotheses for experimental research

Music-listening systems

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-248).When human listeners are confronted with musical sounds, they rapidly and automatically orient themselves in the music. Even musically untrained listeners have an exceptional ability to make rapid judgments about music from very short examples, such as determining the music's style, performer, beat, complexity, and emotional impact. However, there are presently no theories of music perception that can explain this behavior, and it has proven very difficult to build computer music-analysis tools with similar capabilities. This dissertation examines the psychoacoustic origins of the early stages of music listening in humans, using both experimental and computer-modeling approaches. The results of this research enable the construction of automatic machine-listening systems that can make human-like judgments about short musical stimuli. New models are presented that explain the perception of musical tempo, the perceived segmentation of sound scenes into multiple auditory images, and the extraction of musical features from complex musical sounds. These models are implemented as signal-processing and pattern-recognition computer programs, using the principle of understanding without separation. Two experiments with human listeners study the rapid assignment of high-level judgments to musical stimuli, and it is demonstrated that many of the experimental results can be explained with a multiple-regression model on the extracted musical features. From a theoretical standpoint, the thesis shows how theories of music perception can be grounded in a principled way upon psychoacoustic models in a computational-auditory-scene-analysis framework. Further, the perceptual theory presented is more relevant to everyday listeners and situations than are previous cognitive-structuralist approaches to music perception and cognition. From a practical standpoint, the various models form a set of computer signal-processing and pattern-recognition tools that can mimic human perceptual abilities on a variety of musical tasks such as tapping along with the beat, parsing music into sections, making semantic judgments about musical examples, and estimating the similarity of two pieces of music.Eric D. Scheirer.Ph.D