Design and implementation of a multi-octave-band audio camera for realtime diagnosis

Noise pollution investigation takes advantage of two common methods of diagnosis: measurement using a Sound Level Meter and acoustical imaging. The former enables a detailed analysis of the surrounding noise spectrum whereas the latter is rather used for source localization. Both approaches complete each other, and merging them into a unique system, working in realtime, would offer new possibilities of dynamic diagnosis. This paper describes the design of a complete system for this purpose: imaging in realtime the acoustic field at different octave bands, with a convenient device. The acoustic field is sampled in time and space using an array of MEMS microphones. This recent technology enables a compact and fully digital design of the system. However, performing realtime imaging with resource-intensive algorithm on a large amount of measured data confronts with a technical challenge. This is overcome by executing the whole process on a Graphic Processing Unit, which has recently become an attractive device for parallel computing

Motion Patterns of Feet’s Movements and Metrical Structure in Electronic Music’s Dance Style

Motivation. In some dance styles, musical meter is encoded in the dancer’s space: some parts of the body go through the same spatial points on the same beats (Naveda and Leman, 2010), producing a metrically aligned motion-pattern (MP). As to electronic dance music (EDM), arms, chest and head movements seem to be highly spontaneous but still aligned with musical metre (Marchiano and Martínez, 2018). In this study we aim at extending the analysis to EDM feet movements to see whether and how MPs are metrically aligned. Methodology. Stimulus: Audiovisual recording of an EDM party in La Plata City, Argentina. Analysis: Microgenetic observational analysis of 27 minutes of 31 people’s feet’s movements, aiming at describing motion regularities and ways of synchronization with music metrical levels. Results. All subjects’ motions showed exclusively 2 looped MPs, both defined by the entrainment to the beat at the footstep level: (i) 2 (1-1) beat cycle (strong-weak/right-left foot alternation) stationary; and (ii) 4 (2-2) beat cycle (strong/weak right - strong/weak left foot alternation), with feet displacement on the horizontal axis. Implications. EDM’s dancers embody the metrical structure of the music through their feet’s spatiotemporal location. The presence of MPs in a dance style non-taught but still developed in parties, attest the social, non-verbal instantiation of musical features through embodied alignment with music.Laboratorio para el Estudio de la Experiencia Musica

Small-Group Interactions with Music and Others in Social Dance

Motivation. In musical environments, large groups of people synchronize on intra-personal, inter-personal, and inter-group levels (Clayton, 2013). Motion behaviour with music has been studied in personal, dyadic (Carlson et al., 2018), and large group’s levels in dance conditions. We aim at studying personal and interpersonal small-group level interactions with music in an electronic dance music (EDM) social context. Methodology. Stimulus: Audiovisual recording of an EDM party in La Plata City, Argentina. Musical analysis: musicological analysis of form. Movement analysis: Observation of a 4:26 minutes of Tech House track, interactive behaviour and microanalysis of legs’ motion patterns of 15 dancers. Results. Small-group interaction: people group together in circles (2-5 people each). Each group shows two kinetic behaviours: (i) a shared 2 beat/4 beat leg’s motion pattern in entrainment with musical metre; and (ii) a dyadic dance-together behaviour inside the small group with momentary inter-personal movement synchronisation, prompted by intentional body contact or mutual gazes. Personal behaviour: most people change their leg’s movement at the main themes’ beginnings (signalled mainly by the salience of the bassline and the high pitched percussions, among others timbral-textural features). Implications. Even though movements’ dancers show a common kinetic behaviour, and a personal, intentional kinetic alignment with musical features such as metric and timbral-textural changes of EDM musical style, interactions within small groups tend to be reduced to dyads, suggesting a transcendence of early traces of communicative musicality in adult social life.Laboratorio para el Estudio de la Experiencia Musica