Posters:
Multimodal Implications of Compositional Sketching: Semi-Controlled Tracking Focused on Musical Time
Author: José L. Besada
Compositional sketches often incorporate particular layouts with a diagrammatic value, which, sometimes, are not strictly specific to musical practices and notation. These representations, which may adopt diverse geometrical configurations, can be analyzed through the lenses of cognitive linguistics as material anchors for conceptual blends. Real-time tracking of composers’ interaction with diagrams may help therefore to better understand creative reasoning during compositional practices; my ongoing project 3C-TEMPO mainly focuses on conceptualizations of musical time. From this perspective, I carried an experience with composers Abel Paúl, Rafael Murillo Rosado, and Núria Giménez Comas. They had to write or draft four short pieces for three percussion players (ca. 30–90 seconds) with optional electronics during 30 minutes each. For each piece, they were provided with one diagrammatic material borrowed from preexistent compositional practices (by Boulez, Grisey, Saariaho, and Xenakis) and were requested to consider it as an input for managing their musical creativity with no further explanation. They were left alone during 30 minutes of compositional work. Once time was up, I recorded short interviews in which they explained to me their compositional choices with a particular emphasis on the way the diagrammatic input had an influence on their creative strategies. The day after, composers were asked to perform again the same tasks. In addition, for each diagram, they received a page explaining the origin of the geometric input. Although I told them that they did not have to imitate the style of the revealed composers, they were asked this time to always consider the diagrammatic materials as a representation of musical time. My poster provides a preliminary discussion about the main results of this experience.
Metrically Malleable Notation
Author: Bernd Härpfer
Conventional notation consists of sequences of notes and rests that fit into a metrical framework. This framework is interchangeable, and the same rhythmic durations are differently notated in different metrical contexts. They are thus also differently interpreted. This notational aspect of the well-known phenomenon of metrical ambiguity thus has a technical and a psychological level. I turn the notion of metric ambiguity around into a space of possible metric interpretations and similarly of possible notations, which I call, according to Justin London, metric malleability. I have developed a quantitative heuristic model of the metric malleability of cyclic rhythms based on an analysis and a categorization of its constituting aspects (www.wolke-verlag.de/musikbuecher/bernd-haerpfer-metric-malleability). An application integrates this model in a framework for exploring metric malleability as notation variants of pulse-based rhythms. The software creates Lilypond scripts to print rhythms in varying metric contexts, graded by plausibility according to the model. The poster provides a straightforward introduction to the concept and the notational output of the application, highlighting the aspects that span the dimensions of metric malleability. One aspect is the hierarchic architecture of a metric framework, the metric type. A general categorization separates simple and mixed metric types. The former consist of isochronous metric periods on all metric levels, whereas the latter feature categorically different periods on at least one level that consist of different numbers of periods of a faster, isochronous level (e.g. 2 + 2 + 3). A second dimension is the variation of size relations between combined rhythmic and metric cycles, e.g. by augmenting the rhythmic or metric structure or by combining cycles of different cardinalities. The third aspect that multiplies the variety of possible notations is metric rotation, that is, rhythmic phase shift related to the metric framework. A current beta version of the software will be presented together with the poster. Updated information on the state of software development and publication will be available at haerpfer.net/research.
Motion Capture Data As Machine-Readable Notation To Capture Musical Interpretation: Experimenting With Movement Sonification and Synthesis
Authors: Julien Mercier, Irini Kalaitzidi
Musical notation can be described as an abstract language that composers use so that performers may interpret a score. Such notation comes before interpretation, is re- producible, and although it contains hints targeted at the performer on how to interpret, the actual performance is uniquely situated in time and space. The only way to record and re-experience a sound performance is to use microphones, which transform acoustic waves into an electrical signal and usually lose at least some spatial dimension in the process. This may be hindering in the field of experimental music, where physical limits of sound material may be put to the test. In this short paper, we discuss how motion capture could be an alternative to or an expansion of the acoustic recording of a performance involving movement. By recording the performer’s movements, some of the dimensions that make their interpretation singular (i.e. character, accentuation, phrasing, and nuance) are retained. A method capturing sound through movement may be interesting in the context of sound synthesis with deep learning and hold potential advantages over current methods using MIDI or acoustic, which either lack dimensions or are very sensitive to noisy data. We briefly discuss rationale, practical and theoretical foundations for the development of potentially innovative outputs.
Divine Rationality: Computational Transcription of Chants and Parametric Structuring in Historicized Composition
Authors: Dániel Péter Biró, Peter van Kranenburg
Our ongoing research into computational ethnomusicology, undertaken first in the project Computational Ethnomusicology and continuing in the projects Tunes and Tales and Sounding Philosophy, has allowed for a better understanding of the roles of scales, melodic contour and tuning in Jewish, Islamic and Christian chant traditions. While this research has also given way to new modes of notating chant cultures via computational means, it has also had a profound effect on the creation of what Dániel Péter Biró has termed historicized composition, a way of creating compositions that respond to, in this case, the historical development of chant traditions. To this end, the methodologies used for computational transcription of these chant traditions have been incorporated in compositional sketches and in innovative notational frameworks for new vocal music compositions. The following paper explores the methodology of this research, its technical properties and resulting compositional output, presenting examples from vocal and instrumental compositions completed between 2014 and 2022. Finally, we propose future work in these interdisciplinary research areas.
Granular Poem Project: A Digital Score Based on Deconstruction of Chinese Idioms
Authors: Yuan Zhang Xinran Zhang, Xiaobing Li
We have established a reusable and iterative digital score system, with Chinese four-character idioms at its core, enabling a collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence around selected idioms. Each entity engages in imagination and computation in its own unique way, facilitating spontaneous improvisation based on the mutual outputs. In this system, we have incorporated two models that we independently developed and trained: an AI-assisted modern Chinese poetry generation system and an AI-assisted piano MIDI generation system. Simultaneously, human participation in this musicking process takes two forms. First, human performers interpret graphic scores designed for the selected idioms, engaging in improvisations. Second, audience representative contribute by providing real-time feedback through EEG brainwave signals, actively participating in the creative process. This system explores and expands the ways in which composers create with the assistance of computational tools. Humans and artificial intelligence, converging around a shared theme, dance in mutual reflection on the aesthetic level, making the process itself profoundly poetic. Also, it is the deep involvement of both humans and artificial intelligence that establishes this digital score and gives it its unique characteristics.
Xnk and Hands2MIDIChannels: New Software Tools for Composers and Improvisers
Author: Carlos Mauro
In the evolving landscape of 21st-century music, composers are turning to software tools to enhance creative workflows and improve composing efficiency. This paper introduces two novel tools independently developed by the author: Xnk and Hands2MIDIChannels. Xnk is a deterministic graphic music notation parser that processes .PNG images to produce a .TXT file suitable for the bach.roll object in MaxMSP. By merging qualities of abstract graphics and traditional notations, Xnk provides an alternative approach for composers in music sketching and composition. Meanwhile, Hands2MIDIChannels allocates MIDI events corresponding to a keyboard instrument to specific MIDI channels based on the hand that triggered the event. This allocation is derived by cross-referencing the original MIDI file with a synchronized video capturing the performer’s hand movements over the keyboard. Notably, this tool offers invaluable utility to composers, improvisers, and musicians with disabilities. It enhances compositional efficiency by automating hand-based event assignation, enabling the swift transformation of improvisations into readable scores. The paper will explore the technical aspects, justification, current limitations, and potential avenues for both tools.