Dig that Lick: Exploring Patterns in Jazz Solos

Abstract

International audienceWe give an overview of outcomes from the recently completed project "Dig that lick: Analysing large-scale data for melodic patterns in jazz performances", involving a multidisciplinary and international team of researchers. On the technical side, the project built infrastructure and tools for extraction, discovery, search and visualisation of melodic patterns and associated metadata. These outcomes facilitate analysis on the musicological side of the use of melodic patterns in improvisation, to answer questions about the origins, evolution and transmission of such patterns. This in turn gives insight into the extent to which improvisers rely on patterns, the development of individual and shared styles, and the level of influence of individual musicians, based on the amount of reuse of their improvised material by later musicians