COINVENT: Towards a Computational Concept Invention Theory

We aim to develop a computationally feasible, cognitively-inspired, formal model of concept invention, drawing on Fauconnier and Turner’s theory of conceptual blending, and grounding it on a sound mathematical theory of concepts. Conceptual blending, although successfully applied to describing combinational creativity in a varied number of fields, has barely been used at all for implementing creative computational systems, mainly due to the lack of sufficiently precise mathematical characterisations thereof. The model we will define will be based on Goguen’s proposal of a Unified Concept Theory, and will draw from interdisciplinary research results from cognitive science, artificial intelligence, formal methods and computational creativity. To validate our model, we will implement a proof of concept of an autonomous computational creative system that will be evaluated in two testbed scenarios: mathematical reasoning and melodic harmonisation. We envisage that the results of this project will be significant for gaining a deeper scientific understanding of creativity, for fostering the synergy between understanding and enhancing human creativity, and for developing new technologies for autonomous creative systems.The project COINVENT acknowledges the nancial support of the Future and Emerging Tech- nologies (FET) programme within the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the Eu- ropean Commission, under FET-Open Grant number: 611553Peer Reviewe

An investigation into a cohesive method of teaching jazz harmony and improvisation to elective music students in secondary schools using the basic principals of chord-scale theory

This study investigates and suggests a coherent method/curriculum of teaching the basic principals of ‘chord-scale theory’ to elective music students in high schools with a view of increasing and enhancing their skill and understanding of modern jazz harmony and improvisation. The teaching was delivered as a series of eight lessons to a group of Year 10 elective music students in a school in NSW, Australia. In doing so, the purpose of the study was not only to provide information to the students on the harmonic implications of this theory (chords), but also to suggest improvisational possibilities (scales), and to record their personal or group responses to these lessons. The conclusions reached are the results of questionnaires, class recordings, class and individual participation, the students’ general enthusiasm for the subject, and the relevance of the lessons to statements about improvisation in the Music syllabuses of the NSW Board of Studies

Organ improvisation in the Anglican cathedral tradition: a portfolio of professional practice with contextual and critical commentary

This thesis is a practice-based study of organ improvisation in the Anglican cathedral tradition in the UK. I combine exercises in the practice of improvisation in a number of musical styles associated with Anglican Church music, with documentary and sonic evidence of improvisation in this tradition, and interviews with some key practising improvisers. Context for this study is further provided by a comparative study of the very different improvisation practices prevalent in Germany and France. In Part 1, Chapter 1, I first identify the French and German traditions of liturgical organ improvisation, from the perspectives of stylistic development, liturgical and pragmatic demands on organists and characteristic types of organ. Chapter 2 outlines the stylistic development of Anglican voluntary improvisations, whilst considering improvisatory aspects in Anglican hymn playing and psalm accompaniment. These comparisons enable me to define certain characteristic features of Anglican liturgical improvisation. Chapter 3 consults sonic evidence of Anglican organ improvisation and elucidates important influences on the development of Anglican liturgical organ improvisation from the later nineteenth century to the present. The conclusions to Part 1 suggest that a distinct Anglican tradition of liturgical organ improvisation does indeed exist. Whilst there are significant differences in the expectation and demands of the organists between Anglican and continental traditions, there are nonetheless many opportunities in Anglican worship where the discipline of stylistic improvisation could beneficially be applied. I conclude that organists in the Anglican tradition could benefit a great deal from the practice of stylistic improvisation. Part 2 introduces and explains my methods in developing and realising stylistic improvisation using models from the historical traditions of Anglican church music (from Tallis to Mathias). The attached DVD is a means of recording, assessing and disseminating this new-found knowledge. Chapter 4 discusses my own processes in developing and executing historical stylistic improvisation. Chapter 5 presents a portfolio of my own professional practice, which includes the DVD project, in which I apply the continental approach of stylistic improvisation to the Anglican tradition by identifying key formulae and performing improvisations in the style of English organ composers. Whilst some Anglican organists in the UK have been influenced by continental traditions, the lack of extensive formal training in stylistic improvisation in the UK can be compensated by systematic study of composers’ styles and the regular practice of improvisation in these styles within Anglican worship. This is not primarily a historical study of improvisation, but a critical and contextualised examination of improvisation practices in the Anglican tradition since the late nineteenth century, and a practice-based testing of the potential of applying continental methods of preparing and executing stylistic improvisation to the Anglican context as a means of strengthening and enlivening its efficacy. I thus debate questions of value and functionality, finding much of value both in the Anglican tradition of free, modal improvisation, and in the disciplined approaches of French and particularly German improvisers. I note the pedagogical implications of my research, arguing that organ improvisers should develop a consummate musicianship which combines musical disciplines (such as analysis, harmony, counterpoint and aural training) in the act of improvising as opposed to the compartmentalised approach of teaching these disciplines presently the norm in UK colleges and conservatoires. In a series of appendices, I show the responses of fifteen British organists in a survey on ‘Organ Improvisation in the UK’. Furthermore, I present a list of commercially published organ improvisation CDs by British organists, an outline of English tutor books on organ improvisation, a transcription of my improvised Ceremonial March from CD 3, track 1, a list of all the reviews of my DVD/CD Ex Tempore, as well as handwritten notes on Anglican improvisation by Martin How, together with other miscellaneous documents

The music of Toru Takemitsu : influences, confluences and status.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN017265 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Cape Town Harmonies

Cape Town’s public cultures can only be fully appreciated through recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of the ‘research tools’ one needs to get a sense of any city. We have to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive ‘mother city’. Various of its constituent parts sound different from each other … [T]here is the sound of the singing men and their choirs (“teams” they are called) in preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions. The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly ever written down. […] There are texts of the hallowed ‘Dutch songs’ but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few generations ago – back to the early 19th century. This work by Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the history and present production of music in the city

MorpheuS: Generating Structured Music with Constrained Patterns and Tension

Automatic music generation systems have gained in popularity and sophistication as advances in cloud computing have enabled large-scale complex computations such as deep models and optimization algorithms on personal devices. Yet, they still face an important challenge, that of long-term structure, which is key to conveying a sense of musical coherence. We present the MorpheuS music generation system designed to tackle this problem. MorpheuS' novel framework has the ability to generate polyphonic pieces with a given tension profile and long- and short-term repeated pattern structures. A mathematical model for tonal tension quantifies the tension profile and state-of-the-art pattern detection algorithms extract repeated patterns in a template piece. An efficient optimization metaheuristic, variable neighborhood search, generates music by assigning pitches that best fit the prescribed tension profile to the template rhythm while hard constraining long-term structure through the detected patterns. This ability to generate affective music with specific tension profile and long-term structure is particularly useful in a game or film music context. Music generated by the MorpheuS system has been performed live in concerts.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. PP(99

A.J. Potter (1918-1980): The career and creative achievement of an Irish composer in social and cultural context

A. J. Potter (1918-1980) was one of the most significant composers working in Ireland in the latter part of the twentieth century. This thesis surveys his career and creative achievement, which have not hitherto been subjected to detailed scrutiny. The opening chapter presents a biographical overview: its first part outlines the circumstances of Potter's childhood and early adulthood, including his studies with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in London, his period of service in the British Army during World War II and his subsequent three-year sojourn in Africa; the second continues the narrative from 1951, when he settled permanently in Ireland, up to his death in 1980. In addition to detailing events of note in his private and professional life, an important subsidiary focus of this section is to depict the impoverished and culturally marginalised nature of Irish musical life at this period and describe the frustrations that these conditions engendered for the composer and his contemporaries. The remaining chapters are devoted to an examination of Potter's major works. Chapter 2 considers four student compositions that were written or conceived in the late 1930s and were subsequently revised when he resumed composing in 1949 after a creative silence of over a decade. Chapter 3 is divided in two parts: the first delineates the salient features of his mature creative aesthetic, while the second provides an account of his later orchestral works. The remaining chapters explore his choral music and stage works, which, in addition to the scores previously described, constitute his most noteworthy achievements

The Construction and Evaluation of Statistical Models of Melody and Harmony

This research is concerned with the development of representational and modelling techniques employed in the creation of statistical models of melody and four-part harmony. Previous work has demonstrated the utility of multiple viewpoint systems, along with techniques such as Prediction by Partial Match, in the construction of cognitive models of melodic perception. Primitive viewpoints represent surface and underlying musical attributes, while linked viewpoints model combinations of such attributes. A viewpoint selection algorithm optimises multiple viewpoint systems by minimising the information theoretic measure cross-entropy. Many more linked viewpoints are used in this research than have previously been available, and the results show that many new viewpoints are incorporated into optimised systems. A significant aspect of this work is the proposal and implementation of a set of novel extensions of the multiple viewpoint framework for four-part harmony. Statistical models are constructed with the aim that given a soprano part, alto, tenor and bass parts are added in a stylistically suitable way. Version 1 is as closely related to the modelling of melody as possible (chord replacing note), and is a baseline for gauging expected improvements as the framework is extended and generalised. Three versions of the framework have been implemented, and their performances compared and contrasted. The results indicate that the baseline version has been improved upon. Time complexity issues are discussed in detail, and selected viewpoints are examined from a music theoretic point of view for insights into why they perform well. Finally, melodies and harmonisations of given melodies are generated using the best performing models. The quality of the music suggests that, in spite of the improvements achieved so far, the models are still unable to fully capture the musical style of a corpus. Another six versions of the framework are described, which are expected to contribute further improvements

A Passage of Nostalgia

Jacobus Kloppers, an eminent composer, organist, pedagogue, and scholar, significantly contributed to musicological and organ teaching in South Africa and Canada and, in the latter context, art music, and liturgical composition. A Passage of Nostalgia – The Life and Work of Jacobus Kloppers, as a symbolic gesture, constitute recognition of his work both in South Africa and Canada. This publication is unique in that, apart from relevant disciplinary perspectives, biographical and autobiographical narrative, and anecdote, all constitute a necessary means through which the authors illuminate Kloppers’ compositional process and its creative outcomes. In this regard, Kloppers generously dedicated his time to the project to make information on his life and work available, often in complex ways. This retrospective input supports the work offered as an authentic, self-reflective recounting of a life of dedicated service in music. The construct of nostalgia as an overarching theme to this volume on some level denotes Kloppers’ position of cultural and religious ‘insidedness’ and ‘outsidedness’. However, apart from representing a return to a lost and challenging past, the composer’s creative work affirms his individuality, sense of artistic self, and propensity for spiritual acceptance and tolerance. Moreover, nostalgia in his oeuvre takes on importance as a rhetorical artistic practice by which continuity is as central as discontinuity