Music Technology Group

When listening to music, different tones evoke different phenomenal experiences. In both Western and non-Western music, listeners report that tones variously evoke a sense of expectation, anticipation, surprise, instability, inappropriateness, poignancy, strength, energy, repose, etc. In different contexts the same pitch may evoke dramatically different qualia. What accounts for the different qualia experiences? That is, what contextual properties contribute to the distinctive feelings evoked by a tone? This research proposes to address this question from the perspective of statistical learning. In particular, can statistical learning account for some of the phenomenal experiences evoked by listeners of Hindustani music. (Parag Chordia, David Huron)

Tabla is the most important percussion instrument in North India; its distinctive timbre is ubiquitous in classical, folk, and popular music. Tabla music is a sophisticated improvisation-based system that focuses on timbre and rhythm, with a complex fingering technique that allows performers to crisply juxtapose strokes of differing timbres. This research attempts to teach a machine to perceive the timbral and rhythmic structure of tabla music. Aside from furthering research in automatic transcription, the immediate motivations for this research are to create representations of tabla performances that can be used for analysis, and that will allow the musical patterns of tabla music to form the basis for new creative works. (Parag Chordia)

Flock, a ninety-minute work for saxophone quartet commissioned by the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, was conceived to directly engage audiences in the composition of music by physically bringing them out of their seats and enfolding them into the creative process. During the performance, the musicians and 60-80 audience members move freely around the performance space. A positioning system, created in collaboration with GVU professors Frank Dellaert and Tucker Balch under a GVU seed grant, determines the locations of the musicians and audience members and uses that data to generate performance instructions for the musicians, who view them on wireless handheld displays. (Jason Freeman, Martin Robinson, Mark Godfrey)

Graph Theory seeks to connect composition, listening, and concert performance by coupling an acoustic work for solo violin or solo cello to an interactive web site. On the web site, users navigate among sixty-one short, looping musical fragments to create their own unique path through the composition. The navigation choices which users make affect future concert performances of the work. Before each performance, the soloist prints out a new copy of the score from the web site. That score presents her with a fixed path through the piece; the order of the fragments is influenced by the decisions that recent web site visitors have made. Graph Theory was commissioned by Turbulence.org and created in collaboration with designer Patricia Reed and violinist Maja Cerar. (Jason Freeman)

iltur is a series of musical compositions featuring a novel method of interaction between acoustic and electronic instruments with new musical controllers called Beatbugs. Beatbug players can record live input from acoustic and MIDI instruments and respond by transforming the recorded material in real time, creating motif-and-variation call-and-response routines on the fly. (Gil Weinberg, Scott Driscoll, Travis Thatcher)

Listening Machines is a concert series featuring pieces by the faculty and students from Georgia Tech's Music Technology group. The concert series explores concepts of machines listening and improvisation and musical human-machine interaction. (Gil Weinberg, Jason Freeman, Parag Chordia, Frank Clark, Chris Moore, Scott Driscoll, Travis Thatcher, Mark Godfrey)