A Web-Oriented Multi-layer Model to Interact with Theatrical Performances

This paper presents an innovative approach to online fruition of theater performances. Web applications like traditional viewers are already available for the wide audience of Internet users. Our proposal aims at adding both interactivity and multi-layer fruition, and a way to manipulate and create new media. The premise to reach these goals is digitizing a number of heterogeneous materials in order to describe a single performance comprehensively, e.g. different video and audio-takes from different perspectives, and a number of related materials such as scripts, fashion plates, playbills, etc. The format we adopt to encode such information is based on the XML international standard known as IEEE 1599. Finally, an advanced Web player supporting search and play functions for synchronized materials must be designed. This work describes the whole process, from the acquisition of materials directly on the stage to their publishing on a Web portal

Music-Related Media-Contents Synchronization over theWeb: the IEEE 1599 Initiative

IEEE 1599 is an international standard originally conceived for music, which aims at providing a comprehensive description of the media contents related to a music piece within a multi-layer and synchronized environment. A number of o_- line and stand-alone software prototypes has been realized after its standardization, occurred in 2008. Recently, thanks to some technological advances (e.g. the release of HTML5), the engine of the IEEE 1599 parser has been ported on the Web. Some non-trivial problems have been solved, e.g. the management of multiple simultaneous media streams in a client-server architecture. After providing an overview of the IEEE 1599 standard, this article presents a survey of the recent initiatives regarding audio-driven synchronization over the Web

On the Adoption of Standard Encoding Formats to Ensure Interoperability of Music Digital Archives: The IEEE 1599 Format

With this paper, we want to stimulate the discussion about technologies for inter-operation between various music datasets and collections. Among the many standards for music representation, IEEE 1599 is the only one which was born with the exact purpose of representing the heterogeneous structures of music documents, granting full synchronization of all the different aspects of music (audio recordings, sheet music images, symbolic representations, musicological analysis, etc). We propose the adoption of IEEE 1599 as an interoperability framework between different collections for advanced music experience, musicological applications, and Music Information Retrieval (MIR). In the years to come, the format will undergo a review process aimed at providing an updated/improved version. It is now the perfect time, for all the stakeholders, to come together and discuss how the format can evolve to better support their requirements, enhancing its descriptive strength and available tools. Moreover, this standard can be profitably applied to any field that requires multi-layer and synchronized descriptions

Advanced Experience of Music through 5G Technologies

This paper focuses on new models to enjoy music that will be implementable in a near future thanks to 5G technology. In the last two decades, our research mainly focused on the comprehensive description of music information, where multiple aspects are integrated to provide the user with an advanced multi-layer environment to experience music content. In recent times, the advancements in network technologies allowed a web implementation of this approach through W3C-compliant languages. The last obstacle to the use of personal devices is currently posed by the characteristics of mobile networks, concerning bandwidth, reliability, and the density of devices in an area. Designed to meet the requirements of future technological challenges, such as the Internet of Things and self-driving vehicles, the advent of 5G networks will solve these problems, thus paving the way also for new music-oriented applications. The possibilities described in this work range from bringing archive materials and music cultural heritage to a new life to the implementation of immersive environments for live-show remote experience

Fruizione evoluta via Web di contenuti musicali e multimediali: il portale EMIPIU

Il presente lavoro descrive il portale EMIPIU, un\u2019interfaccia Web per la fruizione evoluta di contenuti musicali. Esso si basa sulle caratteristiche del formato IEEE 1599, che consente di codificare l\u2019informazione musicale eterogenea relativa ad un singolo brano all\u2019interno di un unico documento XML. Il portale fornisce accesso a una libreria di pezzi in formato IEEE 1599, rappresentativi di diversi periodi storici, stili e organici strumentali. Per la loro fruizione e stato realizzato un lettore multimediale IEEE 1599 in HTML5, le cui peculiarita permettono di scaricare in streaming e visualizzare flussi multimediali multipli. L\u2019articolo descrive nel dettaglio il progetto, soffermandosi sulle caratteristiche principali del formato IEEE 1599, del portale EMIPIU, della teca digitale e del player

Music Synchronization, Audio Matching, Pattern Detection, and User Interfaces for a Digital Music Library System

Over the last two decades, growing efforts to digitize our cultural heritage could be observed. Most of these digitization initiatives pursuit either one or both of the following goals: to conserve the documents - especially those threatened by decay - and to provide remote access on a grand scale. For music documents these trends are observable as well, and by now several digital music libraries are in existence. An important characteristic of these music libraries is an inherent multimodality resulting from the large variety of available digital music representations, such as scanned score, symbolic score, audio recordings, and videos. In addition, for each piece of music there exists not only one document of each type, but many. Considering and exploiting this multimodality and multiplicity, the DFG-funded digital library initiative PROBADO MUSIC aimed at developing a novel user-friendly interface for content-based retrieval, document access, navigation, and browsing in large music collections. The implementation of such a front end requires the multimodal linking and indexing of the music documents during preprocessing. As the considered music collections can be very large, the automated or at least semi-automated calculation of these structures would be recommendable. The field of music information retrieval (MIR) is particularly concerned with the development of suitable procedures, and it was the goal of PROBADO MUSIC to include existing and newly developed MIR techniques to realize the envisioned digital music library system. In this context, the present thesis discusses the following three MIR tasks: music synchronization, audio matching, and pattern detection. We are going to identify particular issues in these fields and provide algorithmic solutions as well as prototypical implementations. In Music synchronization, for each position in one representation of a piece of music the corresponding position in another representation is calculated. This thesis focuses on the task of aligning scanned score pages of orchestral music with audio recordings. Here, a previously unconsidered piece of information is the textual specification of transposing instruments provided in the score. Our evaluations show that the neglect of such information can result in a measurable loss of synchronization accuracy. Therefore, we propose an OCR-based approach for detecting and interpreting the transposition information in orchestral scores. For a given audio snippet, audio matching methods automatically calculate all musically similar excerpts within a collection of audio recordings. In this context, subsequence dynamic time warping (SSDTW) is a well-established approach as it allows for local and global tempo variations between the query and the retrieved matches. Moving to real-life digital music libraries with larger audio collections, however, the quadratic runtime of SSDTW results in untenable response times. To improve on the response time, this thesis introduces a novel index-based approach to SSDTW-based audio matching. We combine the idea of inverted file lists introduced by Kurth and Müller (Efficient index-based audio matching, 2008) with the shingling techniques often used in the audio identification scenario. In pattern detection, all repeating patterns within one piece of music are determined. Usually, pattern detection operates on symbolic score documents and is often used in the context of computer-aided motivic analysis. Envisioned as a new feature of the PROBADO MUSIC system, this thesis proposes a string-based approach to pattern detection and a novel interactive front end for result visualization and analysis

Third International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation TENOR 2017

The third International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation seeks to focus on a set of specific research issues associated with Music Notation that were elaborated at the first two editions of TENOR in Paris and Cambridge. The theme of the conference is vocal music, whereas the pre-conference workshops focus on innovative technological approaches to music notation

Sound objects: Towards procedural audio for and as theatre

Procedural audio has been the subject of significant contemporary interest, but prior examples in relation to theatre sound are limited. After providing background to theatre sound and procedural audio, we introduce two artefacts, RayGun and INTERIOR, that explore issues around theatre sound. RayGun is an augmented prop prototype that uses sensor driven, procedurally generated and locally diffused sound to address prior deficiencies. INTERIOR reimagines Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1895 play Interior as an embedded, generative and largely procedurally generated audio play housed in a shortwave radio-like artefact. Intended to provide an accessible experience, the listener uses a single knob interface to scan through a soundscape of simulated radio stations and ‘find’ the play. We present some initial findings and conclude with suggestions for future work

Moving Spaces. Enacting Dance, Performance, and the Digital in the Museum

This collection of essays investigates some of the theories and concepts related to the burgeoning presence of dance and performance in the museum. This surge has led to significant revisions of the roles and functions that museums currently play in society. The authors provide key analyses on why and how museums are changing by looking into participatory practices and decolonisation processes, the shifting relationship with the visitor/spectator, the introduction of digital practices in collection making and museum curation, and the creation of increasingly complex documentation practices. The tasks designed by artists who are involved in the European project Dancing Museums. The Democracy of Beings (2018-21) respond to the essays by suggesting a series of body-mind practices that readers could perform between the various chapters to experience how theory may affect their bodies