The Temperament Police: The Truth, the Ground Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

The tuning system of a keyboard instrument is chosen so that frequently used musical intervals sound as consonant as possible. Temperament refers to the compromise arising from the fact that not all intervals can be maximally consonant simultaneously. Recent work showed that it is possible to estimate temperament from audio recordings with no prior knowledge of the musical score, using a conservative (high precision, low recall) automatic transcription algorithm followed by frequency estimation using quadratic interpolation and bias correction from the log magnitude spectrum. In this paper we develop a harpsichord-specific transcription system to analyse over 500 recordings of solo harpsichord music for which the temperament is specified on the CD sleeve notes. We compare the measured temperaments with the annotations and discuss the differences between temperament as a theoretical construct and as a practical issue for professional performers and tuners. The implications are that ground truth is not always scientific truth, and that content-based analysis has an important role in the study of historical performance practice. 1

High precision frequency estimation for harpsichord tuning classification

We present a novel music signal processing task of classifying the tuning of a harpsichord from audio recordings of standard musical works. We report the results of a classification experiment involving six different temperaments, using real harpsichord recordings as well as synthesised audio data. We introduce the concept of conservative transcription, and show that existing high-precision pitch estimation techniques are sufficient for our task if combined with conservative transcription. In particular, using the CQIFFT algorithm with conservative transcription and removal of short duration notes, we are able to distinguish between 6 different temperaments of harpsichord recordings with 96% accuracy (100% for synthetic data)

Publishing Music Similarity Features on the Semantic Web.

We describe the process of collecting, organising and publishing a large set of music similarity features produced by the SoundBite [10] playlist generator tool. These data can be a valuable asset in the development and evaluation of new Music Information Retrieval algorithms. They can also be used in Web-based music search and retrieval applications. For this reason, we make a database of features available on the Semantic Web via a SPARQL end-point, which can be used in Linked Data services. We provide examples of using the data in a research tool, as well as in a simple web application which responds to audio queries and finds a set of similar tracks in our database

The temperament police

Keyboard temperaments have been extensively discussed in historical treatises as well as more recent scholarly texts. The work presented in this article aims to provide a unique perspective on the subject, by applying signal processing techniques for estimating the temperaments used in harpsichord solo recordings, to show what is done in practice, thus facilitating a descriptive approach to tuning and temperament.Motivations, previous work, current methods and results obtained from a dataset which currently includes over 2,000 tracks from over 90 harpsichord solo CDs are discussed, together with some of the implications of these results, and the directions this work may take in the future

Visualising Chord Progressions in Music Collections: A Big Data Approach

In the Digital Music Lab project we work on the automatic analysis of large audio databases that results in rich annotations for large corpora of music. The musicological interpretation of this data from thousands of pieces is a challenging task that can benefit greatly from specifically designed interactive visualisation. Most existing big music data visualisation focuses on cultural attributes, mood, or listener behaviour. In this ongoing work we explore chord sequence patterns extracted by sequential pattern mining of more than one million tracks from the I Like Music commercial music collection. We present here several new visual representations that summarise chord patterns according to chord types, chroma, pattern structure and support, enabling musicologists to develop and answer questions about chord patterns in music collections. Our visualisations represent root movement and chord qualities mostly in a geometrical way and use colour to represent pattern support. We use two individually configurable views in parallel to encourage comparisons, either between different representations of one corpus, highlighting complimentary musical aspects, or between different datasets,here representing different genres. We adapt several visualisation techniques to chord pattern sets using some novel layouts to support musicologists with their exploration and interpretation of the corpora. We found that differences between chord patterns of different genres, e.g. Rock & Roll vs. Jazz, are visible and can be used to generate hypotheses for the study of individual pieces, further statistical investigations or new data processing and visualisation. Our designs will be adapted as user needs are established through ongoing work. Means of aggregating, focusing and filtering by selected characteristics (such as key,melodic patterns etc.) will be added as we develop our design for the visualisation of chord patterns in close collaboration with musicologists

Genetic variation in male sexual behaviour in a population of white-footed mice in relation to photoperiod

In natural populations, genetic variation in seasonal male sexual behaviour could affect behavioural ecology and evolution. In a wild-source population of white-footed mice, Peromyscus leucopus, from Virginia, U.S.A., males experiencing short photoperiod show high levels of genetic variation in reproductive organ mass and neuroendocrine traits related to fertility. We tested whether males from two divergent selection lines, one that strongly suppresses fertility under short photoperiod (responder) and one that weakly suppresses fertility under short photoperiod (nonresponder), also differ in photoperiod-dependent sexual behaviour and responses to female olfactory cues. Under short, but not long, photoperiod, there were significant differences between responder and nonresponder males in sexual behaviour and likelihood of inseminating a female. Males that were severely oligospermic or azoospermic under short photoperiod failed to display sexual behaviour in response to an ovariectomized and hormonally primed receptive female. However, on the day following testing, females were positive for spermatozoa only when paired with a male having a sperm count in the normal range for males under long photoperiod. Males from the nonresponder line showed accelerated reproductive development under short photoperiod in response to urine-soiled bedding from females, but males from the responder line did not. The results indicate genetic variation in sexual behaviour that is expressed under short, but not long, photoperiod, and indicate a potential link between heritable neuroendocrine variation and male sexual behaviour. In winter in a natural population, this heritable behavioural variation could affect fitness, seasonal life history trade-offs and population growth. (C) 2015 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Incremental dataset definition for large scale musicological research

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Integrating BDI agents with Agent-based simulation platforms

Agent-Based Models (ABMs) is increasingly being used for exploring and supporting decision making about social science scenarios involving modelling of human agents. However existing agent-based simulation platforms (e.g., SWARM, Repast) provide limited support for the simulation of more complex cognitive agents required by such scenarios. We present a framework that allows Belief-Desire Intention (BDI) cognitive agents to be embedded in an ABM system. Architecturally, this means that the "brains" of an agent can be modelled in the BDI system in the usual way, while the "body" exists in the ABM system. The architecture is exible in that the ABM can still have non-BDI agents in the simulation, and the BDI-side can have agents that do not have a physical counterpart (such as an organisation). The framework addresses a key integration challenge of coupling event-based BDI systems, with time-stepped ABM systems. Our framework is modular and supports integration off-the-shelf BDI systems with off-the-shelf ABM systems. The framework is Open Source, and all integrations and applications are available for use by the modelling community

Pinhole-free perovskite films for efficient solar modules

We report on a perovskite solar module with an aperture area of 4 cm2 and geometrical fill factor of 91%. The module exhibits an aperture area power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.6% from a current–voltage scan and 12.6% after 5 min of maximum power point tracking. High PCE originates in pinhole-free perovskite films made with a precursor combination of Pb(CH3CO2)2·3H2O, PbCl2, and CH3NH3I