Music technology PhD Candidate Tim de Reuse recommends “Unmixer: An Interface for Extracting and Remixing Loops” by Jordan Smith,Yuta Kawasaki, and Masataka Goto, published in the proceedings of ISMIR 2019. Tim and Finn interview Jordan about the origins of this project, the algorithm behind the loop extraction, the importance of repetition in music, and the creative and playful applications of Unmixer. Note: This conversation was recorded in December 2019. Techically issues with some...

In western classical music, theorists have long argued (and mostly agreed) that individual notes of the major and minor scale have sensations associated, feelings often described in terms of tension, motion, sadness, and stability. Dr Baker recommends Prof. Clair Arthur’s paper “A perceptual study of scale-degree qualia in context” from Music Perception (2018) which describes testing these associations through the subjective reports of musicians and non-musicians when presented scale degrees...

This episode brings recommendations from the 2019 ISMIR conference at TUDelft in the Netherlands. A number of contributors, old and new, highlighted papers that had caught their attention.  Note: At ISMIR, all accepted papers were presented via a short 4 minute talk and a poster. This arrangement made it possible to keep all presentations in a single track. All papers and permited talks are posted on the ISMIR site. Time Stamps * [0:01:51] Matan’s rec* [0:07:27] Rachel’s...

This episode brings recommendations from the 2019 ISMIR conference at TUDelft in the Netherlands. A number of contributors, old and new, highlighted papers that had caught their attention.  Note: At ISMIR, all accepted papers were presented via a short 4 minute talk and a poster. This arrangement made it possible to keep all presentations in a single track. All papers and permited talks are posted on the ISMIR site. Time Stamps * [0:01:51] Matan’s rec* [0:07:27] Rachel’s...

Finn interviews Composer and Machine Learning specialist Dr. Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang about the Music Transformer project at Google’s Magenta Labs. They discuss representations of music for machine learning, algorithmic music generation as a compositional aid, the JS Bach Google Doodle, how self-reference defines structure in music, and compare the musicality of different systems with example outputs.

Finn interviews Composer and Machine Learning specialist Dr. Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang about the Music Transformer project at Google’s Magenta Labs. They discuss representations of music for machine learning, algorithmic music generation as a compositional aid, the JS Bach Google Doodle, how self-reference defines structure in music, and compare the musicality of different systems with example outputs. Time Stamps * [0:01:05] Introducing Dr. Anna Huang* [0:03:43] JS Bach Google...

Music Education doctoral candidate Ethan Hein recommends “Equity and Music Education: Euphemisms, Terminal Naivety, and Whiteness” by Juliet Hess, published in Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, 2017. Ethan and Finn interview Dr. Juliet Hess about this study and whiteness in music education, and addressing systemic racism from within our areas of academia. Time Stamps [0:00:10] Intro with Ethan Hein [0:08:29] Interview: Dr. Juliet Hess, Background and Case Studies [0:18:50]...

Music Education doctoral candidate Ethan Hein recommends “Equity and Music Education: Euphemisms, Terminal Naivety, and Whiteness” by Juliet Hess, published in Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, 2017. Ethan and Finn interview Dr. Juliet Hess about this study and whiteness in music education, and addressing systemic racism from within our areas of academia. Time Stamps [0:00:10] Intro with Ethan Hein [0:08:29] Interview: Dr. Juliet Hess, Background and Case...

Host Finn Upham recommends “How Music Moves Us: Entraining to Musicians’ Movements” by Alexander Demos and Roger Chaffin, published in Music Perception, 2017. They interview Dr Demos about this study and adjacent issues. Note: This interview goes fairly deep into the challenges of time series data analysis. Feel free to use the time stamps listed in the show notes to skip ahead if this is not your cup of tea. Time Stamps [0:00:10] Intro to article and Alex [0:03:20] Design of Air Conducting...

Host Finn Upham recommends “How Music Moves Us: Entraining to Musicians’ Movements” by Alexander Demos and Roger Chaffin, published in Music Perception, 2017. They interview Dr Demos about this study and adjacent issues. Note: This interview goes fairly deep into the challenges of time series data analysis. Feel free to use the time stamps listed in the show notes to skip ahead if this is not your cup of tea. Time Stamps * [0:00:10] Intro to article and Alex * [0:03:20] Design of Air...

Postdoctoral fellow Sarah Sauvé recommends “Individual differences in rhythmic cortical entrainment correlate with predictive behavior in sensorimotor synchronization” by Sylvie Nozaradan, Isabelle Peret, and Peter E. Keller, published in Nature Scientific Reports in 2016. Sarah and Finn interview Dr. Nozaradan about the measures of metrical perception and rhythm production, entrainment to difficult stimuli, and what these results imply for a replication study conducted with older...

Postdoctoral fellow Sarah Sauvé recommends “Individual differences in rhythmic cortical entrainment correlate with predictive behavior in sensorimotor synchronization” by Sylvie Nozaradan, Isabelle Peret, and Peter E. Keller, published in Nature Scientific Reports in 2016. Sarah and Finn interview Dr. Nozaradan about the measures of metrical perception and rhythm production, entrainment to difficult stimuli, and what these results imply for a replication study conducted with older...

Four Music Science attendees of the 2018 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience join Finn to discuss their experience of the conference, their own projects, and other interesting research presented. PhD Candidates Avital Sternin, Andrew Chang, Dr. Keith Doelling, and Prof. Amy Belfi get into the neural processing of song, emotion and alzheimer’s, leadership in small ensembles, onset prediction in the auditory cortex and more. Get an inside view of how Music Science fits into the biggest...

Four Music Science attendees of the 2018 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience join Finn to discuss their experience of the conference, their own projects, and other interesting research presented. PhD Candidates Avital Sternin, Andrew Chang, Dr. Keith Doelling, and Prof. Amy Belfi get into the neural processing of song, emotion and alzheimer's, leadership in small ensembles, onset prediction in the auditory cortex and more. Get an inside view of how Music Science fits into the biggest...

Music tech and data science professor Brian McFee recommends Vocals in Music Matter: The Relevance of Vocals in the Minds of Listeners by Andrew Demetriou, Andreas Jansson, Aparna Kumar, and Rachel M. Bittner, published in the 2018 ISMIR proceedings. Brian and Finn interview Andrew Demetriou about this research combining descriptions of music on Spotify and survey responses on what users pay attention to, like, and dislike in music generally and vocals specifically. Time Stamps [0:00:00]...

Music tech and data science professor Brian McFee recommends Vocals in Music Matter: The Relevance of Vocals in the Minds of Listeners by Andrew Demetriou, Andreas Jansson, Aparna Kumar, and Rachel M. Bittner, published in the 2018 ISMIR proceedings. Brian and Finn interview Andrew Demetriou about this research combining descriptions of music on Spotify and survey responses on what users pay attention to, like, and dislike in music generally and vocals specifically. Time Stamps ...

Music Theorist Daniel Shanahan recommends “Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception” by Josh H. McDermott, Alan F. Schultz, Eduardo A. Undurraga, and Ricardo A. Godoy, published in Nature Letters in 2016. Dan and Finn interview Josh about the musical culture of the Tsimane people, adapting music cognition experiments for cross-cultural studies, and what the absence of preference for consonant intervals (over dissonant intervals) in the...

Music Theorist Daniel Shanahan recommends "Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception" by Josh H. McDermott, Alan F. Schultz, Eduardo A. Undurraga, and Ricardo A. Godoy, published in Nature Letters in 2016. Dan and Finn interview Josh about the musical culture of the Tsimane people, adapting music cognition experiments for cross-cultural studies, and what the absence of preference for consonant intervals (over dissonant intervals) in the...

Music Theorist Mariusz Kozak recommends “When the Sound Becomes the Goal. 4E Cognition and Teleomusicality in Early Infancy” by Andrea Schiavio, Dylan van der Schyff, Silke Kruse-Weber and Renee Timmers, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Marius and Finn interview Andrea about this framing of early musical development and implications of an embodied, embedded, extended and enactive approach to cognitive science. Time Stamps [0:00:10] Intro with Mariusz [0:11:16] Interview: Origins and the...

Music Theorist Mariusz Kozak recommends “When the Sound Becomes the Goal. 4E Cognition and Teleomusicality in Early Infancy” by Andrea Schiavio, Dylan van der Schyff, Silke Kruse-Weber and Renee Timmers, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Marius and Finn interview Andrea about this framing of early musical development and implications of an embodied, embedded, extended and enactive approach to cognitive science. Time Stamps [0:00:10] Intro with Mariusz [0:11:16] Interview: Origins...

Music Theorist Bryn Hughes recommends Chris White’s “Relationships Between Tonal Stability and Metrical Accent in Monophonic Contexts“, published in the Empirical Musicology Review (2017). Bryn and Finn interview Prof. White about his sequence of perceptual studies on how tonal stability may inform metrical hierarchy and vis versa, and together they discuss implications for music theory and some common issues in music cognition studies. Show notes Recommended article: White, C. (2017)....

Music Theorist Bryn Hughes recommends Chris White's "Relationships Between Tonal Stability and Metrical Accent in Monophonic Contexts", published in the Empirical Musicology Review (2017). Bryn and Finn interview Prof. White about his sequence of perceptual studies on how tonal stability may inform metrical hierarchy and vis versa, and together they discuss implications for music theory and some common issues in music cognition studies. Show notes * Recommended article: * White, C....

Data Scientist Vincent Lostanlen recommends Katherine Kinnaird’s “Aligned Hierarchies: A Multi-Scale Structure-Based Representation for Music-Based Data Streams”, published in the proceedings of ISMIR (2016). Vincent and Finn interview Dr. Kinnaird about this method for abstracting structure in music through repetition, how it has been implemented for fingerprinting on Chopin’s Mazurkas, and how Aligned Hierarchies could be used for other tasks and on other musics. Show notes Recommended...

Data Scientist Vincent Lostanlen recommends Katherine Kinnaird's “Aligned Hierarchies: A Multi-Scale Structure-Based Representation for Music-Based Data Streams”, published in the proceedings of ISMIR (2016). Vincent and Finn interview Dr. Kinnaird about this method for abstracting structure in music through repetition, how it has been implemented for fingerprinting on Chopin's Mazurkas, and how Aligned Hierarchies could be used for other tasks and on other musics. Show notes *...