One of the challenges in planning a digital edition is the selection of the encoding system and representation format that the edition will use to encode musical information. This decision affects ...

Editing musical texts requires a great deal of artistic, intellectual and commercial investment but, once published, an edition tends to become inert, a form of musical still life. ‘Texting Scarlat...

Chord detection is the task of assigning chord labels to segments of an input musical piece. The labels are typically drawn from a pre-defined vocabulary in which each symbol comprises at least a r...

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911) is a key figure in Lithuanian music and art. As a professional composer and painter, he left behind over 220 paintings and 350 musical compositions. Hi...

While it is well known today that J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) was not composed with equal temperament in mind, it is unknown exactly which, if any, well temperament Bach had intende...

Historically, scholarly editions of music have identified a managing editor and individual volume editors. Other contributors might receive an acknowledgement with a vague description of activities...

Studies on music reading have provided insights into the cognitive processes in sight singing. However, there has been limited research on sight singing in a group setting. This study aims to asses...

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Ahead of Print, 2024)

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Vol. 52, No. 2-3, 2023)

Using pose estimation with video recordings, we apply an action recognition machine learning algorithm to demonstrate the use of the movement information to classify singers and the ragas (melodic ...

The study of the similarity matrix of a song has been a particularly efficient technique to characterise song structures. This method transforms a song into a matrix representing the proximity betw...

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Vol. 52, No. 1, 2023)

Violins incorporate numerous interfaces and anisotropic behaviour due to natural materials. Hence, the modelling of these instruments is extremely complex. The present work investigates the structu...

Mastery of a musical instrument, including an ability to reach virtuosity in expression and performance, is commonly achieved through a lifelong commitment to practise. The specific instrument play...

This study investigates the dynamic equilibrium between music and language within art songs, as exemplified in Zhao Yuanren's New Poetry Collection. Zhao Yuanren, a modern musician with a strong ba...

Frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM) are well-known synthesis methods, which have been deployed widely in musical instruments. In this paper, we analyse the design of stacked FM synt...

Deconstruction, a concept that originated from French philosopher Jacques Derrida's post-structuralist theories, has significantly influenced architecture and graphic design. It has evolved into a ...

The present study proposes a new approach to musical referentiality and its alleged tendency to relate to bodily experience and movement. To address this, we collected a corpus of 38,587 words (2,2...

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Vol. 51, No. 4-5, 2022)

In this article, we develop a hypothesis on the role of spectral entropy in conveying a sensation of termination for short musical fragments. We tested the hypothesis in an experiment presenting sp...

We present computational analyses of musical performances during 12-months study by novice participants aged 65–80. They learned two instruments (an electronic piano keyboard; the iPad app ThumbJam...

Tabla is a North Indian percussion instrument that serves as both an accompaniment and a captivating solo instrument. Tabla solo is intricate and elaborate, exhibiting rhythmic evolution through a ...

The automatic transcription for non-Western music presents unique challenges, particularly because the result is often imperfect. How to improve automatic music transcription (AMT) for computationa...

The sape, a traditional Sarawakian instrument played by the Dayak ethnic group, holds significant cultural value, yet its sound quality influences remain unexplored. This study uses qualitative and...

Hit Song Science (HSS) is an emerging topic that aims to unveil the success dynamics within the music industry. Considering the growth of the area, we provide a comprehensive study with a complete ...

Guitarists struggle to play their instruments while simultaneously using additional computing devices (i.e., encumbered interaction). We explored designs with guitarists through co-design and somae...

This paper examines how listeners hear contemporary art music practices such as post-spectralism, glitch-electronica, contemporary classical and electroacoustic music. The sound configurations of t...

The concept of rāga in Carnatic music is based on an ordered set of notes in an octave. Historically rāgas are broadly classified into two sets, namely Janaka (root/parent) and Janya (derived/offsp...

This paper redefines the performance practice of street barrel organs by transcending their conventional physical gestures beyond their role as mere music reproduction machines. We propose a new un...

The concept of shad-makam is explored through an analysis of pieces in makams Rengidil and Ruhnevaz, to see whether these two are distinct structures or transposition of their antecedents; Neveser ...

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Vol. 51, No. 2-3, 2022)

Several studies have found increases in syncopation within genres of twentieth-century popular music, but its evolution across the entire century has not been explored. In this study we use a new corpus of vocal melodies to examine trends in the use of syncopation. We find an increasing trend over the entire century. We also consider three ways of categorising syncopations into ‘strong’ and ‘weak’

FluidHarmony is an algorithmic method for defining a hierarchical harmonic lexicon in equal temperaments. It utilizes an enharmonic weighted Fourier transform space to represent pitch class set (pcsets) relations. The method ranks pcsets based on user-defined constraints: the importance of interval classes (ICs) and a reference pcset. Evaluation of 5,184 Western musical pieces from the 16th to 20th

Published in Journal of New Music Research (Vol. 51, No. 1, 2022)

In Mali, the introduction of 3G alongside growing access to digital audio technologies throughout the 2010s has led a sharp increase in the number of recording studios. Using an ethnography of Bamako studios, we establish a theoretical framework and a methodology to remap music production studies beyond the limits of a Northerncentric narrative. We discuss the notions of high, low and alt tech, and

Material sound effects are widely used in virtual reality and games to convey specific material sensations to the audience and improve the immersion experience. However, systematic research on parametrically controlling the material sensations evoked by sound effects is lacking. This study presents a new method of sound design regarding the control of parameters – pitch, waveform, attenuation time

Study of musical improvisation has proven a significantly worthwhile topic of psychological and musicological research. This qualitative study asked: How do musicians experience sense of agency and state of mind while freely improvising? Twenty-four experts in free form music (Morris, 2012. Perpetual frontier: The properties of free music. Riti) performed short free improvisations that were explored

While music listening on mobile phones can serve many affect-regulatory goals, success in reaching these goals is yet to be empirically assessed. This study aimed to determine how frequently listeners successfully reach their affect-regulatory goals, and the predictors of this success. Data were collected using the experience sampling app MuPsych, from 293 Finnish participants. Goals were successfully

This text describes the musical evaluation of a hybrid music notation system that combines traditional notation with symbols and concepts from spectromorphological analysis. During three academic years from 2017 to 2020, three groups of composition students learned to work with sound notation, recreating and interpreting short electroacoustic music sketches based solely on their notation transcriptions

This paper proposes a new morphing method to generate a melody, given two melodies represented by time-span trees obtained from the generative theory of tonal music (GTTM). In this paper, we define a feature structure based on a time-span tree and the distance between two structures. Next, we construct a lattice of subsumption relations among these structures and define three algebraic operations:

Many practices have been presented in music generation recently. While stylistic music generation using deep learning techniques has became the main stream, these models still struggle to generate music with high musicality, different levels of music structure, and controllability. In addition, more application scenarios such as music therapy require imitating more specific musical styles from a few

This paper has two different aims: presenting the problem of target-based computer-assisted orchestration and introducing a new computational framework to solve it, called Orchidea. After the definition of the static and the dynamic versions of the problem, a historic perspective will be discussed. The cultural context of assisted orchestration will be examined, with particular attention being given

Musical acoustics is a scientific field essential for an in-depth understanding of musical instruments and sounds. As such, it is relevant to wide audiences involved with music, including musicians, composers and even casual listeners. This work describes a twofold approach for introductory, hands-on education in musical acoustics. First, a concise classification approach for acoustic instruments is

ABSTRACT We explored how drummers express a ‘back-beat’ pattern with different timing styles (laid-back, on-beat, pushed) via stroke onset and intensity features. Based on hierarchical clustering analyses and phylogenetic trees, we found three main strategies: (1) ‘general earliness/lateness’, where most instruments are consistently played earlier/later in time relative to a metrical grid; (2) ‘early/late

This article discusses the use of sound sculptures as tunable modulators of the transmission characteristics of acoustic sources during performance. We propose IRIS, a sculpture consisting of a periodic composite formed by an acoustic double-fishnet made up of two discs with periodic perforations and independent rotation. From the analysis of the transmitted field and binaural impulse responses, we

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an analytical technique commonly used across the natural sciences that works upon the detection of magnetically spin-aligned atomic nuclei resonating with an externally applied radio source. This work presents an overview of music created using NMR data and outlines principles for its use in composition. Methods for the sonification and musical interpretation

Digital musical instruments are frequently designed in research and experimental performance contexts but few are taken up into sustained use by active and professional musicians. To identify the needs of performers who use novel technologies in their practices, a survey of musicians was conducted that identified desirable qualities for instruments to be viable in active use, along with attributes

Present-day inquiries into aspects of 19th century performance style mark the growing quest to revive practices of post-1800 music repertoire. This paper aims to trace whether there be found an impact of recordings made by 19th century violinists of coeval repertoire on current performers who've recorded the same works. Early, intermediate, and present-day recordings (N = 81) of three late-romantic

Audiences, juries, and critics continually evaluate performers based on their interpretations of familiar classics. Yet formally assessing the perceptual consequences of interpretive decisions is challenging – particularly with respect to how they shape emotional messages. Here, we explore the issue through comparison of emotion ratings (using scales of arousal and valence) for excerpts of all 48 pieces

This paper uses corpus analysis to explore relationships between tone and melody in folk and contemporary songs in Chaozhou, a Chinese dialect with eight lexical tones and a wealth of tone sandhi. Results suggest that: (1) there is a high degree of correspondence between tone and melody in Chaozhou song; (2) tone sandhi influences tone-melody correspondence; (3) tones realised in context can be categorised

Many studies have presented computational models of musical structure, as an important aspect of musicological analysis. However, the use of grammar-based compressors to automatically recover such information is a relatively new and promising technique. We investigate their performance extensively using a collection of nearly 8000 scores, on tasks including error detection, classification, and segmentation

Violin bowing is a specialised sound-producing action, which may be affected by psychological performance techniques. In sport, attentional focus impacts motor performance, but limited evidence for this exists in music. We investigated the effects of attentional focus on acoustical, physiological, and physical parameters of violin bowing in experienced and novice violinists. Attentional focus significantly

This study aims to recognise emotions in music through the Adaptive-Network-Based Fuzzy (ANFIS). For this, we applied such structure in 877 MP3 files with thirty seconds duration each, collected directly on the YouTube platform, which represent the emotions anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. We developed four classification strategies, consisting of sets of five, four, three, and two emotions

ABSTRACT Making the link between human emotion and music is challenging. Our aim was to produce an efficient system that emotionally rates songs from multiple genres. To achieve this, we employed a series of online self-report studies, utilising Russell's circumplex model. The first study (n = 44) identified audio features that map to arousal and valence for 20 songs. From this, we constructed a set

Ensemble musicians engage with each other visually through glances and body motion. We conducted a case study to test how string quartet musicians would respond to playing conditions that were meant to discourage or promote visually communicative behaviour. A quartet performed in different seating configurations under rehearsal and concert conditions. Quantity of head motion was reduced when musicians'

The relationship between musicians and their musical instruments has influenced music engagement and musical structure across societies. In this work, we study how musicians react to changes in their instrument and the associations between keys and pitches using experiments that simulate the interface of the accordion. Seventeen accordionists, pianists and guitarists took part in the study. The results

The coherent organisation of thematic material into large-scale structures within a composition is an important concept in both traditional and cognitive theories of music. However, empirical evidence supporting their perception is scarce. Providing a more nuanced approach, this paper introduces a computational model of hypothesised cognitive mechanisms underlying perception of large-scale thematic

A previous study showed that ‘bright’ vowels (i.e. front vowels, which have higher second formants) are favoured for on-beat words in hip-hop music. Here we partially replicated these findings in a more diverse sample of pop songs from the Rolling Stone Corpus. Stressed monosyllables were classified by their vowel’s place of articulation and their metric position. Bright vowels were 9–13% more likely

This paper reports on an exploratory study in the field of electroacoustic music aimed at understanding whether a sensation similar to that associated with the concept of “cadence” in relation to tonal music can be identified when listening to sounds diffused in space. Using a variety of patterned stimuli in a perceptual experiment, we asked listeners to evaluate the completeness of multiple trajectories

ABSTRACT This special issue, arising from a symposium in Helsinki in 2019, presents contributions from a diverse group of practitioners, representing a broad range of approaches in the making, thinking and writing about digital musical instruments. The authors consider the socio-cultural role of technology in current and emerging digital music practices with changing social roles, historical and critical