Music analysis and the computer: developing a computer operating system to analyse music, using Johann Sebastian Bach's "well tempered clavier" book 51 to test the methodology

"Most computerised and computer-aided musicological projects are written to achieve specific goals. Once achieved or not achieved as the case may be, the projects and their tools are frequently discarded because their dependency upon specific computer hardware and software prevents them from being utilised by other researchers for other projects. What is needed is a system that, using small tools to accomplish small tasks, can be expanded and customized to suit specific needs. This thesis proposes the creation of a music-analysis computer operating system that contains simple commands to perform simple musicological tasks such as the removal of repeated notes from a score or the audible rendition of a melodic line. The tools can be bolted together to form larger tools that perform larger tasks. New tools can be created and added to the operating system with relative ease, and these in turn can be bolted onto old tools. The thesis suggests a basic set of tools derived from old and new analytical methods, proposes a standard for their implementation based on the UNIX computer operating system, and discusses the benefits of using the system and its tools in an analysis of the twenty-four fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach from the "Well Tempered Clavier", Book II.

PureMX: Automatic transcription of MIDI live music performances into XML format

This paper addresses the problem of the real-time automatic transcription of a live music performance into a symbolic format based on XML. The source data are given by any music instrument or other device able to communicate with Pure Data by MIDI. Pure Data is a free, multi-platform, real-time programming environment for graphical, audio, and video processing. During a performance, music events are parsed and their parameters are evaluated thanks to rhythm and pitch detection algorithms. The final step is the creation of a well-formed XML document, validated against the new international standard known as IEEE 1599. This work will shortly describe both the software environment and the XML format, but the main analysis will involve the realtime recognition of music events. Finally, a case study will be presented: PureMX, an application able to perform such an automatic transcription

Algorithms for an Automatic Transcription of Live Music Performances into Symbolic Format

This paper addresses the problem of the real-time automatic transcription of a live music performance into a symbolic format. The source data are given by any music instrument or other device able to communicate through a performance protocol. During a performance, music events are parsed and their parameters are evaluated thanks to rhythm and pitch detection algorithms. The final step is the creation of a well-formed XML document, validated against the new international standard known as IEEE 1599. This work will shortly describe both the software environment and the XML format, but the main analysis will involve the real-time recognition of music events. Finally, a case study will be presented: PureMX, a set of Pure Data externals, able to perform the automatic transcription of MIDI events

A programmer's environment for music analysis

A model for representing music scores in a form suitable for general processing by a music-analyst-programmer is proposed and implemented. Typical input to the model consists of one or more pieces of music which are encoded in a file-based score representation. File-based representations are in a form unsuited for general processing, as they do not provide a suitable level of abstraction for a programmer-analyst. Instead, a representation is created giving a programmer's view of the score. This frees the analyst-programmer from implementation details, that otherwise would form a substantial barrier to progress. The score representation uses an object-oriented approach to create a natural and robust software environment for the musicologist. The system is used to explore ways in which it could benefit musicologists. Methodologies for analysing music corpora are presented in a series of analytic examples which illustrate some of the potential of this model. Proving hypotheses or performing analysis on corpora involves the construction of algorithms. Some unique aspects of using this score model for corpus-based musicology are: - Algorithms impose a discipline which arises from the necessity for formalism. - Automatic analysis enables musicologists to complete tasks that otherwise would be infeasible because of limitations of their energy, attentiveness, accuracy and time

The Computational Attitude in Music Theory

Music studies’s turn to computation during the twentieth century has engendered particular habits of thought about music, habits that remain in operation long after the music scholar has stepped away from the computer. The computational attitude is a way of thinking about music that is learned at the computer but can be applied away from it. It may be manifest in actual computer use, or in invocations of computationalism, a theory of mind whose influence on twentieth-century music theory is palpable. It may also be manifest in more informal discussions about music, which make liberal use of computational metaphors. In Chapter 1, I describe this attitude, the stakes for considering the computer as one of its instruments, and the kinds of historical sources and methodologies we might draw on to chart its ascendance. The remainder of this dissertation considers distinct and varied cases from the mid-twentieth century in which computers or computationalist musical ideas were used to pursue new musical objects, to quantify and classify musical scores as data, and to instantiate a generally music-structuralist mode of analysis. I present an account of the decades-long effort to prepare an exhaustive and accurate catalog of the all-interval twelve-tone series (Chapter 2). This problem was first posed in the 1920s but was not solved until 1959, when the composer Hanns Jelinek collaborated with the computer engineer Heinz Zemanek to jointly develop and run a computer program. Recognizing the transformation wrought on modern statistics and communications technology by information theory, I revisit Abraham Moles’s book Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (orig. 1958) and use its vocabulary to contextualize contemporary information-theoretic work on music that various evokes the computational mind by John. R. Pierce and Mary Shannon, Wilhelm Fucks, and Henry Quastler (Chapter 3). I conclude with a detailed look into a score-segmentation algorithm of the influential American music theorist Allen Forte (Chapter 4). Forte was a skilled programmer who spent several years at MIT in the 1960s, with cutting-edge computers and the company of first-rank figures in the nascent fields of computer science and artificial intelligence. Each one of the researchers whose work is treated in these case studies—at some stage in their relationship with music—adopted what I call the computational attitude to music, to varying degrees and for diverse ends. Of the many questions this dissertation seeks to answer: what was gained by adopting such an attitude? What was lost? Having understood these past explorations of the computational attitude to music, we are better suited ask of ourselves the same questions today

A computer-based system for production of Braille music

A computer-based system has been developed for production of braille music without the use of a skilled braillist. The system Is designed to be used by an operator having no knowledge of braille or computers. Some ability to read printed music Is helpful, but not essential, and no expert musicianship is required. The input to the system is a coded representation of music notation typed on the keyboard of a graphical display unit by an operator reading printed music. Syntax checking is performed by the program during input to help reduce the number of errors made by the operator. The music is displayed graphically on the screen as it is typed, in a form similar to the printed copy, giving he operator immediate feedback and an opportunity to correct any mistakes. The music, once stored, may be edited until correct using the keyboard of the terminal in conjunction with a joystick or light pen. Any part of the stored music may be rapidly accessed and displayed on the screen or a digital plotter for checking purposes. The stored music may be archived temporarily or permanently on magnetic tape for subsequent retrieval, in both print and braille forms. The translation algorithm performs automatic translation to a close approximation to the international braille music code. Although the system is intended primarily to be used without the aid of a braillist, it does allow access to, and editing of, the braille before final output. The output from the system is the braille music notation corresponding to the input, suitable for embossing directly on an braille terminal connected on-line to the computer. The quality of samples of music of various types produced in braille using this system has been evaluated with the assistance of a number of braille music readers. The system is suitable for implementation at a braille printing house, and incorporates a general-purpose editor for music notation which may also be useful for other musicological applications

Actas de la XIII Reunión Española sobre Criptología y Seguridad de la Información RECSI XIII : Alicante, 2-5 de septiembre de 2014

Si tuviéramos que elegir un conjunto de palabras clave para definir la sociedad actual, sin duda el término información sería uno de los más representativos. Vivimos en un mundo caracterizado por un continuo flujo de información en el que las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) y las Redes Sociales desempeñan un papel relevante. En la Sociedad de la Información se generan gran variedad de datos en formato digital, siendo la protección de los mismos frente a accesos y usos no autorizados el objetivo principal de lo que conocemos como Seguridad de la Información. Si bien la Criptología es una herramienta tecnológica básica, dedicada al desarrollo y análisis de sistemas y protocolos que garanticen la seguridad de los datos, el espectro de tecnologías que intervienen en la protección de la información es amplio y abarca diferentes disciplinas. Una de las características de esta ciencia es su rápida y constante evolución, motivada en parte por los continuos avances que se producen en el terreno de la computación, especialmente en las últimas décadas. Sistemas, protocolos y herramientas en general considerados seguros en la actualidad dejarán de serlo en un futuro más o menos cercano, lo que hace imprescindible el desarrollo de nuevas herramientas que garanticen, de forma eficiente, los necesarios niveles de seguridad. La Reunión Española sobre Criptología y Seguridad de la Información (RECSI) es el congreso científico español de referencia en el ámbito de la Criptología y la Seguridad en las TIC, en el que se dan cita periódicamente los principales investigadores españoles y de otras nacionalidades en esta disciplina, con el fin de compartir los resultados más recientes de su investigación. Del 2 al 5 de septiembre de 2014 se celebrará la decimotercera edición en la ciudad de Alicante, organizada por el grupo de Criptología y Seguridad Computacional de la Universidad de Alicante. Las anteriores ediciones tuvieron lugar en Palma de Mallorca (1991), Madrid (1992), Barcelona (1994), Valladolid (1996), Torremolinos (1998), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2000), Oviedo (2002), Leganés (2004), Barcelona (2006), Salamanca (2008), Tarragona (2010) y San Sebastián (2012)

The Research School of Chemistry of Adolphe Wurtz, Paris, 1853-1884

Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884) established a research school of chemistry in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, which developed throughout the second half of the 19th century, acquiring an international reputation. Owing to particular circumstances, which relate both to his Alsation background and his internationalist ethos, Wurtz's school exhibited certain peculiarities which were in contrast with the current practice of the French scientific establishment and, in particular, with that of other leaders of research schools in Paris. In order to study this research group, a framework of analysis has been constructed, taking into account the origin of the school as a means of organising scientific research, and trying to understand its full meaning in the French context of the time. Thus, a brief account of the research schools of chemistry in Paris contemporary with that of Wurtz is given: the schools of Cahours, Sainte-Claire Deville, Pasteur and Berthelot. A detailed account of Wurtz's school of chemistry is then given, focussing on three major aspects: 1) Wurtz's personal, cultural and educational background, his ideology as well as his career both as a chemistry and as a member of Parisian scientific establishment; 2) his students in particular, their identification and national origins, their cultural and educational backgrounds, their interests, their involvement in Wurtz's school, the research areas and the publishing and institutional activities in which they took part, their publications and their careers; 3) finally, an analysis of the full meaning of the school: the research laboratory, its peculiar administration and routine; a comprehensive analysis of the foundations and development of both the theoretical and empirical aspects of Wurtz's research programme, especially in organic and biological chemistry, as well as the contributions of his students to the programme: an account of the activities in a wider context, focussing on scientific and educational institutions and publications, which were either launched, controlled or supported by Wurtz's school

From Deathly Repetitions to Transversal Co-dependences: Rethinking the Ecological as Tools for Radical Re-organisation of the Curatorial

My research addresses political problems in curatorial practices that engage with notions of ecology and issues relating to environmental concerns. Taking as case studies the RSA/ACE Arts and Ecology project from 2005-2010; Cape Farewell, and exhibition Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009, I argue that these curatorial forms dissipate and reify the political acuity of artistic content, curatorial context and the constituent, non-art issues. In holding on to an idea of the artwork’s autonomy, curating practice addressing issues that exist outside the flows and circuits of the art world is precluded from properly addressing the wider issues with which it seeks to connect. I call this situation the eco-critical curating paradigm. The problem is addressed in two stages: firstly through a detailed excavation of the term ecology, and secondly through a reformatting of the curatorial. Firstly, I argue that the term ecology has reached its limits as an intellectual force. In response, I propose a move to the ‘ecological’, embodied in four theoretical tools that are both questions and propositions, that initiate inquiries into the socio-politics of located forms and processes of organising, making and doing. Secondly I conduct a critique of the eco-critical curating paradigm. This results in a reformatting of the curatorial that exits the frameworks of art, a format I call the ecological-curatorial. What changes for curating is that form, organisation and production are equally situated alongside content, coalescing around a concern, with curatorial activities emerging out of the intersections of the circumstances, interests, aims and inquiries of the collective engaged in the inquiry. Art might align with these or come into their orbit, but this happens according to the terms of each specific format of the ecological-curatorial. Art therefore does not claim any privileged space within an assemblage of the ecological-curatorial, indeed the format of the ecological-curatorial asks us to critically reappraise the relationship between art and social realities