Recent master's graduate Joann Ching is expanding our understanding of how piano players create different interpretations of a piece of music using sustain. "Often in a piano recording you can get the score, like the notes and articulations and dynamic run notations," said Ching, "but the sustain pedal information will be very vague and up to individual interpretation."

"The sustain pedal is like a very intricate, a very detailed tool of designing the sounds that audiences hear. If we can extract the pedal information from the recording, we can compare the habits or the use differences of different performers. Eventually, by understanding how performers use the sustain pedal, we can make generated music more expressive."

Ching uses her background as a performer to guide her investigation into music. "I wanted to use computer science to help us analyze music and understand recordings better," she said. "Some people say music is like a type of language. That was my starting point. What proofs can I actually find from music to say yes, music is a type of language?"