A temporal framework for electroacoustic music exploration

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.Many aural analytical methods have been produced for electroacoustic music that focus on the identification of salient morphological features of the sounds. Doing so, they usually overlook the importance of time - a central aspect of music - sometimes by considering it as a simple compositional parameter. Instead, this article proposes a novel theoretical framework for electroacoustic music understanding by putting time and its cognitive representations during perception at the forefront. Two concepts are introduced to propose this alternative approach to electroacoustic music description: temporal directionality, which focuses on the sounds themselves, and temporal distancing, which focuses on the relations between sounds. Throughout the text, several musical examples are given to briefly exemplify how such concepts can be used in an explanatory context. Finally, polychrony is introduced, which aims to describe how electroacoustic composers play with the various cases of temporal directionality and distancing, and, in the process, actually weave time itself

Musings on computer music perennity

open access articleIt should come as no surprise that, at more than sixty years of age, the computer music field starts to ponder its legacy: what started almost as a ‘challenge’ is now a well-established academic practice which has had a profound impact over the whole music and entertainment industries. More often than not, breakthroughs in our field were initially established through pursuing musical or aesthetical, rather than purely technical, goals: this is especially the case in ‘early’ computer music. Clearly, it is now time to reflect on the numerous techniques (many of which make the foundations of current music software) that have been initiated over the years. Perhaps one of the best ways of examining these is through in-depth multimodal analyses of computer music works: this approach would constitute an initial effort towards a critical evaluation of computer music history

(Re)discovering Sounds of CCRMA - Towards Computer Music Preservation

Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford UniversitySixty years after the initial experiments on digital sound synthesis, we are now facing several problems regarding the preservation of computer music artefacts. The usual practice has been to safeguard the end product - the actual sound output - at the expense of the sources that have been used in the production process; but by doing so, we risk losing the traces of important practices and works. In that respect, CCRMA provides an interesting case study: as one of the first and leading center for computer music research over four decades, countless musical productions (compositions, musical examples, teaching material) have been produced there. The archives and the different types of documents found will be described; the problems due to the polymorphic nature of these archives will be discussed. A methodology for the preservation of significant musical artefacts will be presented and the key questions raised will be identified and discussed. While this proposed methodology and practice will be initially used on documents of CCRMA, it is designed to be sufficiently flexible to be functional on other similar archives

Editorial: Time in Electroacoustic Music

This issue addresses the multifaceted topic of time in electroacoustic music. The subject is of course a vast one, as all music is by nature temporal. In Western classical traditions, the various manifestations of time ended up being notated through a plethora of conventions: tempo markings, note durations, bar lines, timbre (expressed through a combination of instrumentation, dynamics, articulation and ornamentation but usually with the finer details supplied by the performer). As a result, the few discussions of temporal properties of music beyond the pitch-centred harmonic/melodic texts were usually subsumed into discussions of metre, rhythm and, sometimes, large-scale formal design

Corporate tax: what do stakeholders expect?

Motivated by the ongoing controversy surrounding corporate tax, this article presents a study that explores stakeholder expectations of corporate tax in the context of UK business. We conduct a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with representatives of community groups (NGOs/think tanks and special interest groups), as well as interviews with those representing business groups (business leaders and industry representatives). We then identify eight themes that together describe “what” companies need to do, “how” they need to do it, and “why” they need to do it, if they wish to appeal to a wide group of interested parties. We discuss our findings based on the corporate social responsibility literature and propose novel ways for community groups and business groups to connect on the topic of corporate tax, suggesting opportunities and themes for dialogue and potential steps to co-create solutions in a stakeholder society

Fc-Optimized Anti-CD25 Depletes Tumor-Infiltrating Regulatory T Cells and Synergizes with PD-1 Blockade to Eradicate Established Tumors

CD25 is expressed at high levels on regulatory T (Treg) cells and was initially proposed as a target for cancer immunotherapy. However, anti-CD25 antibodies have displayed limited activity against established tumors. We demonstrated that CD25 expression is largely restricted to tumor-infiltrating Treg cells in mice and humans. While existing anti-CD25 antibodies were observed to deplete Treg cells in the periphery, upregulation of the inhibitory Fc gamma receptor (FcγR) IIb at the tumor site prevented intra-tumoral Treg cell depletion, which may underlie the lack of anti-tumor activity previously observed in pre-clinical models. Use of an anti-CD25 antibody with enhanced binding to activating FcγRs led to effective depletion of tumor-infiltrating Treg cells, increased effector to Treg cell ratios, and improved control of established tumors. Combination with anti-programmed cell death protein-1 antibodies promoted complete tumor rejection, demonstrating the relevance of CD25 as a therapeutic target and promising substrate for future combination approaches in immune-oncology

Emergent Temporal Qualities in Musical Improvisation

Musical improvisation is a phenomenon that is found in most cultures and most musical idioms. Consequently, many methods have been used to analyze it, many focusing on structural elements (Arom, 1985; 2004), several on cultural aspects (Sawyer, 2000), and some comparative, due to the similarity of the musical processes found in diverse cultures and styles (Nettl, 1974). Performers interact in various ways to create the improvised musical discourse, communicating with each other, juxtaposing or coordinating musical phrases, for example through processes such as repetition, harmonic complementation, or rhythmical variations. Therefore, inherently, due to musical improvisation being created "in the moment", the musical result strongly depends on the underlying mechanisms and concepts of time of the performers. This involves interactions at different levels - between the performers and within each performer - this multiplicity of (quasi-)simultaneous complex processes makes music improvisation study and analysis a challenge. We argue that a key for a better understanding of improvisation lies precisely in describing and understanding the specificities of the multiple 'times' that can be witnessed during improvisations. We therefore propose the concept of 'Emergent Temporal Qualities', postulating that a musical structure is actualised through emergent mechanisms in various temporal forms, from the neural aspects (Large et al., 2015) to the musical actualisation in the improvisatory (group) context. This concept provides a more flexible and dynamic tool than the usual derivative structural approach found in classic musicological studies, substituting emergence to derivation, and registering interaction, perception and performance (i.e. the physicality of it) as essential components of the analysis of an improvisation. We then demonstrate its use in the free-jazz and live electronics contexts. We then outline some potential developments, notably in semi-automated music analysis and in the analysis of other musical genres

Reconstructing Computer Music Works Ethos and Praxis

Panel at ICMC2018. Participants: Myriam Akkerman (Bayreuth), Kevin Dahan (DMU; chair), Serge Lemouton (IRCAM), Tae Hong Park (NYU).Computer Music is now 60 years old. During the last six decades, many systems – hardware and software – have been developed, used and abused to create musical works. Most of the older hardware is now decommissioned or in an unusable state; some of the programming languages that have been used are unavailable or not available for current operating systems. As for software, the vast majority of computer music works are now available solely through digital audio files; sometimes these are the nth generation copy of an initial analogic tape – which causes problems for the preservation of these works. With access to part of the original source code or given sufficient information of a given hardware system, it is possible to reconstruct a musical work using software and tools. On top of the technical aspects, it raises many questions, since accessing the source code make it possible to interpret an otherwise fixed musical work, thus opening up the debate on the status of the computer music work. The panel goal is to discuss the techniques that can or may be used to reconstruct computer music works as well as the (technical, analytical, esthetical, historical, ontological…) implications of these approaches