From Musical Grammars to Music Cognition in the 1980s and 1990s: Highlights of the History of Computer-Assisted Music Analysis

While approaches that had already established historical precedents – computer-assisted analytical approaches drawing on statistics and information theory – developed further, many research projects conducted during the 1980s aimed at the development of new methods of computer-assisted music analysis. Some projects discovered new possibilities related to using computers to simulate human cognition and perception, drawing on cognitive musicology and Artificial Intelligence, areas that were themselves spurred on by new technical developments and by developments in computer program design. The 1990s ushered in revolutionary methods of music analysis, especially those drawing on Artificial Intelligence research. Some of these approaches started to focus on musical sound, rather than scores. They allowed music analysis to focus on how music is actually perceived. In some approaches, the analysis of music and of music cognition merged. This article provides an overview of computer-assisted music analysis of the 1980s and 1990s, as it relates to music cognition. Selected approaches are being discussed

Embodied Music Cognition

The aim of this thesis is to argue in favour of the embodied music cognition paradigm (hereafter: EMC), as opposed to traditional (computational) theories of musical mind. The thesis consists of three chapters. The goal of the first chapter is to (1) examine computational (disembodied) music cognition, focusing on the main problem of this approach (namely: the symbol–grounding problem). In the second chapter, (2) I will present and discuss Marc Leman’s EMC, that may serve as a response to the problems of the computational view of the musical mind. Although this framework is interesting, it is unclear in several places. For that reason, I intend to enrich it with the references to the recent works on human mirror neuron system (hereafter: MNS) and enactivist views on music cognition. Given that, in the last chapter, I will (3) answer the question, whether mental representations are necessary in music cognition

Analysis and resynthesis of polyphonic music

This thesis examines applications of Digital Signal Processing to the analysis, transformation, and resynthesis of musical audio. First I give an overview of the human perception of music. I then examine in detail the requirements for a system that can analyse, transcribe, process, and resynthesise monaural polyphonic music. I then describe and compare the possible hardware and software platforms. After this I describe a prototype hybrid system that attempts to carry out these tasks using a method based on additive synthesis. Next I present results from its application to a variety of musical examples, and critically assess its performance and limitations. I then address these issues in the design of a second system based on Gabor wavelets. I conclude by summarising the research and outlining suggestions for future developments

Using simple controls to manipulate complex objects : application to the Drum-Boy interactive percussion system

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1993.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-93).by Fumiaki Matsumoto.M.S

The Metaphysics of Improvisation

In The Metaphysics of Improvisation, I criticize wrongheaded metaphysical views of, and theories about, improvisation, and put forward a cogent metaphysical theory of improvisation, which includes action theory, an analysis of the relevant genetic and aesthetic properties, and ontology (work-hood). The dissertation has two Parts. Part I is a survey of the history of many improvisational practices, and of the concept of improvisation. Here I delineate, sketch, and sort out the often vague boundaries between improvising and non-improvising within many art forms and genres, including music, dance, theatre, motion pictures, painting, and literature. In addition, I discuss the concept of non-artistic improvisation in various contexts. I attempt to portray an accurate picture of how improvisation functions, or does not function, in various art forms and genres. Part II addresses metaphysical issues in, and problems and questions of, improvisation in the arts. I argue that that continuum and genus-species models are the most cogent ways to understand the action-types of improvising and composing and their relations. I demonstrate that these models are substantiated by an informed investigation and phenomenology of improvisational practice, action theory conceptual analysis, cognitive neuroscience studies and experiments, cognitive psychology studies and models, and some theories of creativity. In addition, I provide a constraint based taxonomy for classifying improvisations that is compatible with, and supports, the continuum model. Next, I address epistemological and ontological issues involving the genetic properties of improvisations, and the properties improvisatory, and as if improvised. Finally, I show that arguments against treating, or classifying, improvisations as works are weak or erroneous, and by focusing on music, I provide a correct ontological theory of work-hood for artistic improvisations