Computational melody analysis

2012

In this article we analyze different types of representation of music, both from a cognitive and a computational point of view. Whereas mental representations of music are the objects of the musical mind, and are therefore by definition a matter of cognitive psychology and philosophy, it can be argued that also mathematical representations of music have some cognitive correlates enabling the understanding of non-tonal music. Amongst the many typologies of mathematical representations of music, we will analyze in details some examples belonging to the transformational paradigm, which is a formalized subfield of computational musicology coming from the American set-theoretical tradition. Transformational music analysis also opens new questions about the cognitive and philosophical ramifications of algebraic and category-theory approaches in music theory, analysis and composition.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

generation chapter presents music performance strategies and experiences as well as tools for score analyses and representation. We would like to thank the Program Committee members for their valuable paper reports and thank all the participants who made CMMR 2008 Genesis of Meaning in Sounds and Music a stimulating and unique event. Finally, we would like to thank Springer for accepting to publish the CMMR 2008 proceedings in their LNCS series.

One hundred and forty citations comprise this annotated bibliography of books, articles, and selected dissertations that encompass trends in music theory and k-16 music education since the late 19th century. Special emphasis is upon writings since the 19501s. During earlier development, music analysts concentrated upon the elements of music (i.e., melody, harmony, rhythm, and form). Since 1950, varying viewpoints on the teaching of music analysis have emerged, producing a surge of various analytical trends and philosophies derived from other than musical contexts. Information theory, phenomenology, and the application of computers have made the strongest impact upon music theory in recent years. Classified headings in the listing cover: 1) general discussions of music analysis, 2) the analysis of specific elements of music (melody, harmony, etc.), 3) principal trends and approaches to the subject, and 4) samples of analytic models. The headings reflect the evolution of trends within the subject. Author entries are alphabetically arranged under headings. Whief descriptive annotations are provided.

2016

Can a computer understand musical forms? Musical forms describe how a piece of music is structured. They explain how the sections work together through repetition, contrast, and variation: repetition brings unity, and variation brings interest. Learning how to hear, to analyse, to play, or even to write music in various forms is part of music education. In this chapter, we briefly review some theories of musical form, and discuss the challenges of computational analysis of musical form. We discuss two sets of problems, segmentation and form analysis. We present studies in music information retrieval (MIR) related to both problems. Thinking about codification and automatic analysis of musical forms will help the development of better MIR algorithms.

2011

This paper addresses current chances and challenges in computational musicology. Computational musicology is a genuinely interdisciplinary research area that requires the contribution of questions, methods and insights from both musicology and computer science. This paper demonstrates how computational approaches to musicological questions generate new perspectives for musicology. In turn, computational musicology has the potential to become an indispensible partner for computer science in Music Information Retrieval. We argue that, for unfolding the potential of computational musicology, the full interdisciplinary enterprise has yet to be realized and we discuss examples of promising collaborative directions.

Mathématiques et sciences humaines, 2012

Between mind and mathematics. Different kinds of computational representations of music Entre l'esprit et les mathématiques. Sur différents types de représentations computationnelles de la musique

2007

This position paper describes two families of approaches to automatic analysis of tonal music: approaches based on purely numerical computations, and approaches based on symbolic models. Both approaches have been used in our team with great success, but they address different levels of difficulties, and aim at analyzing different corpus of musical material. Indeed, they are difficult to reconcile and use in a single collaborative environment. We claim that finding ways to integrate smoothly both approaches is the only real bottleneck to producing reliable automatic harmonic analyzers.

2021

Computational models of music, while providing good descriptions of melodic development, still cannot fully grasp the general structure comprised of repetitions, transpositions, and reuse of melodic material. We present a corpus of strongly structured baroque allemandes, and describe a top-down approach to abstract the shared structure of their musical content using tree representations produced from pairwise differences between the Schenkerian-inspired analyses of each piece, thereby providing a rich hierarchical description of the corpus. CCS CONCEPTS • Applied computing → Sound and music computing; • Information systems → Music retrieval.

Sound and Music Computing, 2005

This multidisciplinary work aims to investigate the problem of the computer music analysis. It is based on the analysis of a computer music piece: Winter leaves, created in 1980 by Mauro Graziani at the CSC in Padova, using Music360 software. Listening, sonogram analysis and digital score analysis, represent the counterpart of the attempt to automatic analysing a fragment of computer music, a music which is characterized by "polyphony" of sound objects, any regular rhythm nor melody or timbre. Two researches (one with a Morphological Descriptor, the other with an algorithm which works via audio content and similarity computation) enlighten the practical problems analysis faces when it has to evaluate the difficult nature of this music.

International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics, 2013

What triggers the analysis of a musical piece is essentially a pragmatic impulse: that is working something out on its own terms rather than on the terms of something else. Musical analysis focuses on a certain musical structure (that may be represented by a phrase or by an entire composition), aiming at defining its constituents and explaining the way they operate. The basic procedure of musical analysis is the comparison: it is through collation that it defines the structural elements and reveals the functions. This lecture presents a model of analysis that is capable of progressively exploring the symbolic level of the musical text, identifying its melodic and rhythmic cells on the basis of the information that every single one of them carries as well as the relationships existing among them.