Computer Music

Ways of Reading. Visual Music Course Development at OCADU

by Robert Appleton

Ways of Reading. A course at OCAD University conceived and taught by Robert Appleton using sound, text and image.

Shamanic diffusions: A technoshamanic philosophy of electroacoustic music

by Jon Weinel

Forthcoming in Sonic Ideas/Ideas Sonicas

Electroacoustic music affords the possibility of creating journeys through non-realistic or illusory spaces, through... more Electroacoustic music affords the possibility of creating journeys through non-realistic or illusory spaces, through the use of sonic materials.  This article proposes the application of the concept of ‘technoshamanism’ as a principle for composing and performing electroacoustic works of this type.  I shall commence by examining the use of the term ‘technoshaman’ in relation to psy-trance culture.  Through consideration of Rouget’s (1985) definitions of ecstasy and trance, I will discuss the relationship of psy-trance culture to Rouget’s definition of trance.  From this position I shall then propose the use of electroacoustic music in relation to Rouget’s definition of ecstasy.  This will enable me to define ‘shamanic diffusions’ as an opposing technoshamanic approach to that which is used in psy-trance.  Under this discussion, electroacoustic music will be considered as an ecstatic technology.  I shall then conclude with some comments and speculation regarding how this concept may be useful as an approach for the composition and performance of electroacoustic music.  For example, in various composed works I have used altered states of consciousness and hallucinations, as a principle for the design of sonic materials and musical structure.  Through the course of this article then, I will describe a conceptual model through which to consider electroacoustic composition and performance.

Altered states of consciousness as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music

by Jon Weinel

PhD Thesis

The aim of this research was to use altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing... more The aim of this research was to use altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music, in which common features of the ASC experience provide a basis for the design of sonic material and inform the structural design of corresponding musical sections. Various cultures throughout history have sought to undergo visionary journeys using hallucinogenic plants and drugs. In many cases these experiences have been used as a basis for the creation of art, literature and music. Informed by a survey of relevant work, this practice-led research develops a compositional process for creating electroacoustic music that is based upon hallucinogenic perceptual states. Though situated within the electroacoustic idiom, the work also draws significantly upon Western psychedelic culture and electronic dance music. The output is a creative portfolio containing a series of musical compositions, software and video. This supporting commentary describes the compositional processes in detail, and it is hoped that it will be of interest to other creative practitioners dedicated to exploring this theme in music and other mediums.

The Integration of the PCSlib PD library in a Touch-Sensitive Interface with Musical Application

by Rafael Subía

http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2012/

This paper describes the study and use of the PCSlib library for Pure Data and its implementation in the project... more This paper describes the study and use of the PCSlib library for Pure Data and its implementation in the project "Interface Design for the development of a touch screen with musical application" [Causa, 2011] The project consists of a touch-sensitive interface that allows the drawing of musical gestures that are then mapped to a harmonic structure generated by the PCSlib library. Pure Data also is responsible of the translation and reproduction of the musical gestures viaMIDI.

Generating a Complete Multipart Musical Composition from a Single Monophonic Melody with Functional Scaffolding

by Amy K. Hoover

In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC-2012, Dublin, Ireland).

Amy K. Hoover, Paul A. Szerlip, Marie E. Norton, Trevor A. Brindle,
Zachary Merritt, and Kenneth O. Stanley

This paper advances the state of the art for a computer-assisted approach to music generation called functional... more This paper advances the state of the art for a computer-assisted approach to music generation called functional scaffolding for musical composition (FSMC), whose representation facilitates creative combination, exploration, and transformation of musical concepts. Music in FSMC is represented as a functional relationship between an existing human composition, or scaffold, and a generated accompaniment. This relationship is encoded by a type of artificial neural network called a compositional pattern producing network (CPPN). A human user without any musical expertise can then explore how accompaniment should relate to the scaffold through an interactive evolutionary process akin to animal breeding. While the power of such a functional representation has previously been shown to constrain the search to plausible accompaniments, this study goes further by showing that the user can tailor complete multipart arrangements from only a single original monophonic track provided by the user, thus enabling creativity without the need for musical expertise.

Of Music, Mind and Machines: Towards an Integrative Musicology

by Kevin Dahan

Music, Mind, and Invention Workshop, The College of New Jersey, March 31, 2012.
http://www.tcnj.edu/~mmi/

Music has always been a particular aspect of human culture. It is the first art form that deals directly with time-... more Music has always been a particular aspect of human culture. It is the first art form that deals directly with time- how it is shaped through vibrations and how these vibrations are organized. Numerous theories have been developed to understand how the organization of sounds intimately works, each proposing interesting views on music, albeit very diverse and apparently difficult to conciliate. However it has been shown that two opposite forces are at work whenever music is described: physical resistance and symbolic obfuscation. For the most part, the study of music (musicology) has a vested interest in abstraction and symbols; however recent technological developments make reasoning on (or about) music more difficult, as the well-defined frontier between data and symbol is getting thinner. We present a review of the different aspects of time in music and musicology, proposing a categorization of both musical times and related disciplines, then describe the recent conceptual and technological developments that should be taken into account when studying
music. Finally we show that musicology has a potentiality for
acting as a merger for coordinating up to a certain extent several
aspects of music research.

«Computer Music Enaction»

by Kevin Dahan

Proceedings of the ICMC 2006 Conference

Surface Tensions: Dynamics of Stria

by Kevin Dahan

Emergence, enaction et propagation des dimensions temporelles dans les processus compositionnels

by Kevin Dahan

Filigrane n°10 - Sur le rythme

Electroacoustic Music: Overcoming Analysis Paralysis

by Kevin Dahan

Proceedings of the ICMC 2011 Conference

Directionality in Electroacoustic Music

by Kevin Dahan

Proceedings of the EMS 2012 Conference

ON CONCEPTUAL MISFITS IN COMPUTER MUSIC PROGRAMMING

by Hiroki Nishino

In Proceeding of Asia Computer Music Project 2011

How usability problems in a domain-specific lan- guage(DSL) can be assessed is one of the largely unexplored issues in... more How usability problems in a domain-specific lan- guage(DSL) can be assessed is one of the largely unexplored issues in user-centered design. It has been frequently discussed that abstraction is an essential skill in software design yet inappropriate abstraction can cause significant usability problems. Similarly, the misfits between the users’ conceptualization and the representations implemented within a system are also considered to cause usability problems. We apply such perspectives to this issue of usability problems in DSL design, with an additional consideration on the abstraction layers. We describe an example of conceptual misfits in computer music programming, partly based on our previous publication. Such an assessment can be beneficial for user-centered design of DSLs.

Misfits in Abstractions: Towards User-centered Design in Domain-specific Languages for End-user Programming

by Hiroki Nishino

In Proceeding of SPLASH/OOPSLA 2011

In this paper, we discuss user-centered design of end-user pro- gramming languages with an example of computer music... more In this paper, we discuss user-centered design of end-user pro- gramming languages with an example of computer music lan- guage. We describe an approach to analyze the misfits between the users’ conceptualization and the programming language de- sign in an existing usability problem with a focus on the abstrac- tion layers both in conceptualization and language. When an entity in the users’ conceptualization involved in problem-solving has no counterpart in a DSL, this can appear as a usability prob- lem. Analysis of such a misfit caused by inappropriate abstraction in DSL design can contribute to better usability in end-user pro- gramming.

Cognitive Issues in Computer Music Programming

by Hiroki Nishino

In Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression 2011

Programming Languages are the oldest ‘new interface for music expression’ in computer music history. Both composers... more Programming Languages are the oldest ‘new interface for music expression’ in computer music history. Both composers and researchers in computer music still have considerable interests in computer music programming environments. However, while many researchers focus on such issues as efficiency, new paradigm, or new features in computer music programming, cognitive aspects of computer music programming has been rarely discussed. Such ‘cognitive issues’ are of importance when design or usability in computer music programming must be considered. By contextualizing computer music programming in the psychology of programming, it is made possible to borrow the technical terms and theoretical framework from the previous research in the field, which would be helpful to clarify the problems related to cognitive ergonomics and also beneficial to design a new programming environment with better usability in computer music.

Real Time Custom Spatialisation Patch for a large dimension and non conventional area

by Rafael Subía

Different sound spatialisation tools and methods have flourished and been perfected over the years. Conventional... more Different sound spatialisation tools and methods have flourished and been perfected over the years. Conventional methods are used in typical closed music spaces. Richard Moore’s “Space”, Michael Gerzon “Ambisonics” or even traditional “Equal power panning” have all been designed for a closed location with a sweet spot where the listener is placed. However, what to do when a different area other than ordinary music spaces need spatialisation? This paper describes how the spatialisation patch for Buenos Aires Sonora’s “Oi(r) el Ruido” intervention to the (45 x 15 meters) Argentinian Bicentennial Pavilion was cre- ated. How the method was picked out and how it was implemented in Pure Data (PD).

Optimized Polynomial Spline Basis Function Design for Quasi-Bandlimited Classical Waveform Synthesis

by Jussi Pekonen

(Co-authored with Juhan Nam, Julius O. Smith, and Vesa Välimäki) IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 159-162, March 2012.

Classical geometric waveforms used in virtual analog synthesis suffer from aliasing distortion when simple sampling is... more Classical geometric waveforms used in virtual analog synthesis suffer from aliasing distortion when simple sampling is used. An efficient antialiasing technique is based on expressing the aveforms as a filtered sum of time-shifted approximately bandlimited polynomial-spline basis functions. It is shown that by optimizing the coefficients of the basis function so that the aliasing distortion is perceptually minimized, the alias-free bandwidth of classical waveforms can be expanded. With the best of the case examples given here, the generated impulse-train and sawtooth waveform are alias-free up to fundamental frequencies over 10 kHz when the sampling rate is 44.1 kHz.

Happy New Era. Graphic Design in the 21st c. Robert Appleton. Zhuangshi Magazine, Tsinghua University, 2012

by Robert Appleton

ToCoPlay: Graphical Multi-touch Interaction for Composing and Playing Music

by Miguel Nacenta

Published in INTERACT 2011.
Autors: Sean Lynch, Miguel Nacenta, Sheelagh Carpendale.

With the advent of electronic music and computers, the human-sound interface is liberated from the specific physical... more With the advent of electronic music and computers, the human-sound interface is liberated from the specific physical constraints of traditional instruments, which means that we can design musical interfaces that provide arbitrary mappings between human actions and sound generation. This freedom has resulted in a wealth of new tools for electronic music generation that expand the limits of expression, as exemplified by projects such as Reactable and Bricktable. In this paper we present ToCoPlay, an interface that further explores the design space of collaborative, multi-touch music creation systems. ToCoPlay is unique in several respects: it allows creators to dynamically transition between the roles of composer and performer, it takes advantage of a flexible spatial mapping between a musical piece and the graphical interface elements that represent it, and it applies current and traditional interface interaction techniques for the creation of music.

Perceptually Informed Synthesis of Bandlimited Classical Waveforms Using Integrated Polynomial Interpolation

by Jussi Pekonen

(Co-authored with Vesa Välimäki and Juhan Nam) Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 131, no. 1, pp. 974-986, January 2012. Special issue on Musical Acoustics.

Digital subtractive synthesis is a popular music synthesis method, which requires oscillators that are aliasing-free... more Digital subtractive synthesis is a popular music synthesis method, which requires oscillators that are aliasing-free in a perceptual sense. It is a research challenge to find computationally efficient waveform generation algorithms that produce similar-sounding signals to analog music synthesizers but which are free from audible aliasing. A technique for approximately bandlimited waveform generation is considered that is based on a polynomial correction function, which is defined as the difference of a non-bandlimited step function and a polynomial approximation of the ideal bandlimited step function. It is shown that the ideal bandlimited step function is equivalent to the sine integral, and that integrated polynomial interpolation methods can successfully approximate it. Integrated Lagrange interpolation and B-spline basis functions are considered for polynomial approximation. The polynomial correction function can be added onto samples around each discontinuity in a non-bandlimited waveform to suppress aliasing. Comparison against previously known methods shows that the proposed technique yields the best tradeoff between computational cost and sound quality. The superior method amongst those considered in this study is the integrated third-order B-spline correction function, which offers perceptually aliasing-free sawtooth emulation up to the fundamental frequency of 7.8 kHz at the sample rate of 44.1 kHz.

Towards Transcribing Trevor Wishart's Globalalia

by Jon Forshee