daemon@bartok.Eng.Sun.COM (02/03/90)
Music-Research Digest Fri, 2 Feb 90 Volume 5 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
CCM Seminars in Formal Methods Spring 1990
Cognitive Musicology (from: Research Digest Vol. 5, #02)
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Date: Tue, 23 Jan 90 14:15:20 PST
From: tom <(Thomas Richard Erbe)tom%edu.berkeley.mills@edu.berkeley.jade>
Subject: CCM Seminars in Formal Methods Spring 1990
To: Music-Research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
CCM SEMINARS IN FORMAL METHODS / SPRING 1990
Center for Contemporary Music
Mills College
Music Department
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613
All events are held on Wednesday evenings (except as noted for the
April 1st event) in the Ensemble Room of the Music Building, are FREE and
open to the public, and are sponsored by the Mills College Music Department
and the Center for Contemporary Music with support from the National Endowment
for the Arts. For more information call (415)430-2191 or (415)430-2171.
Feb. 7, 7:30 PM - Bob Ostertag
CCM composer in residence for Fall '89 will present a new work composed on
CCM's Mac II based digital workstation using deconstructions and
transformations of "urgent conversations" recorded in situations of
political crisis from around the world. The composition serves as an
environment for instrumental improvisation.
Feb. 14, 7:30 PM- David Jaffe "The NeXT MusicKit"
The designer of the MusicKit software on the NeXT computer will speak on
principles of it's design and use, illustrating some of the ideas embedded in
it with examples of his own compositional work.
Feb.21, 7:30 PM - Adrian Freed "Reson8: A Digital Signal Multiprocessor
for Musical and Audio Applications"
The designer of digital music workstations working at the Center for New
Music and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley will demonstrate his Motorola
56001 based system capable of 108 million multiply/accumulate/delay
operations per second.
Feb.28, 7:30 PM - Paul Demarinis "Some Synthetic Songs"
The composer and pioneer of live computer music instruments discusses
methods and meaning in recent songs for synthesized voice, in which the
melodies of speech are extracted by a process of computer analysis and
resynthesis using digital musical instruments.
Mar. 7, 7:30 PM - Daniel Kelley and Larry Wendt "GMP - Guided Missile Project"
Creators of hand-built digital signal processors using MC56001 and TI32010
chips will demonstrate and discuss musical applications of their experimental
music circuitry.
Sunday, April 1, 4 PM - Nick Didkovsky
CCM composer in residence for Spring '90 will present a new work created
using CCM's Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HMSL) for multiple
networked computer music systems, designed to model a simultaneously
cooperative and competetive society.
tom erbe * technical director * center for contemporary music * mills college
tom@mills.berkeley.edu * po box 9201, oakland, ca 94613 * (415) 430-2191
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Date: 25 Jan 90 21:19:00 GMT
From: Eliot Handelman <eliot%phoenix@edu.princeton>
Subject: Cognitive Musicology (from: Research Digest Vol. 5, #02)
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
;Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 08:22:49 GMT
;From: laske@cs
;Subject: Synopsis: Introduction to Cognitive Musicology
;To: music-research <music-research%uk.ac.oxford.prg@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay>
; The article is an introduction to the history and methodology of
;a new kind of systematic musicology that is emerging from "Artificial
;Intelligence and Music." It is shown how work with computers has revolu-
;tionized thinking about music (i.e., musicological thought), and that
;musicological thought itself is a topic of research in systematic music-
;ology, understood as a cognitive science.
; The major critique directed against traditional musicology and
;ethnomusicology is that they are practicing "knowledge engineering in
;reverse" (deriving knowledge bases from musical products instead of
;investigating musical activities empirically) which has been shown to
;be poor knowledge acquisition in theoretical as well as applied A.I.
;Ethnomusicology is seen as closest among the musicological fields to the
;cognitive thrust of systematic musicology, and a field of promise.
I have a few questions, Otto.
I've read, time and time again, about how you plan to ``investigate
musical activiies empirically,'' and especially about how you want to
study the compositional processes of living composers. But I have yet
to see this idea fleshed out somewhere. I have yet to see a story,
written by you, about how you sat down with a living composer and
studied his compositional processes. I have yet to see a story in
which you say what it is that you even plan to do with this composer.
What I want to know is, what exactly do you have in mind? Have you
decided what kind of composer you want, for example? Must this be a
composer of ``rule-based'' music, or will a composer of, say, rap
music do? And what exactly do you mean by ``rule-based'' music anyhow,
Otto? Do you mean ``serial music''? Are you trying to say that you
want to study the composition process of a serial composer? Let's say
you got some living composer (let's say me) to sit down with you, in
order for you to do your empirical investigation. Let's imagine the
scenario. Here we are, in my studio, you and me. And you can hook me
up to any device you like, and I'll answer any question you want to
ask me. What kind of devices would you use? Would you want me to
compose in a CAT scanner, for example? Would you monitor my breathing?
Would you want to hook me into a device that simply made a record of
all the changes that I made in my score? What sorts of questions
would you ask? Would you want to know why I erased a c#, or things
like that? Would it be helpful if I supplied you with sketches? Is
that the kind of data that you want? And given that, for example, Toop
has access to all the sketches of Stockhausen's early works, which
include comments to himself in which he says things like ``Ach du
lieber Augustine,'' is it really necessary to accumulate more boxes of
sketches in order to get on with the collation of your data? You see,
Otto, I'm most unclear about what it is that you actually plan to do
with all this information. And so I'd like to to explain what sort of
data it is that you're looking for, and what you plan to do with it.
I can sort of sense what it is that you're after, Otto. I've read your
critiques of ``composition tools,'' most recently right here on the
net. Now the fact is, I can't associate a definite meaning to the term
``composition tool.'' As best as I can tell, you're talking about
programs like ``M'' and ``Jam Factory.'' And you seem peeved because
the guys who wrote these programs didn't go and talk to a cognitive
musicologist, like you, before deciding what it was that they were
going to do. And I think you feel that you want to get in on the act,
because, even though you don't want to write these programs yourself,
you think that you have a lot to offer guys who are writing such
programs. Am I right about that? Well, what I'd like to know is, just
what is it that you think that you do have to offer? Let's take me,
for example. I'm writing a huge music application right now. So I'd
like to know, before this thing gets out of hand, just what advice it
is that you have to offer me. What kind of things should I be thinking
about, Otto, in order to do it right? Or are you saying that you don't
really know because you still haven't gotten around to studying the
composition processes of living composers? And that, until you do,
it's pretty hopeless trying to write a composition program?
You see, Otto, I can't really figure out why you're so hung up on
composition processes anyway. You talk about ``THE'' process of
composition, but you and I both know, Otto, that there's actually more
than one possible way of composing music. So why should there be only
one process? Or why should the process of one composer be relevant, or
even necessarily related to, the process of another composer?
Supposing you get some composer to agree to being empirically
investigated, do I have to admire his music, say, before allowing that
his process is relevant? Or is it ok if you just select the composer
and use this process as an archetype for all other possible processes?
Not very empirical, I would say. I think you should study the process
not of just one damned composer, but the processes of at least ten
composers, and see if they have anything in common, for starters. You
know, I don't think you're going to come up with anything. Because I
know hundreds of composers, and some of these people are very, very
complex. We're all sort of social outcasts anyway, because in the USA
there isn't too much status in being a composer. You don't really
become a composer unless you're a sort of weirdo. So you're taking all
of these weirdos and expecting that maybe, besides all being weirdos,
they all have some common composition process. Not a hell of a big
chance, Otto. Idiosyncracy is about the only law that prevails in
these circles. So I guess you're not really talking about my kind of
composer anyway. Maybe you're talking about the kind of composer who
sits down with a program like ``M'' and says to himself, ``hey, I'm
composing!'' But what kind of knowledge do you want to get out of
these guys, Otto? Knowledge about what features they like or don't
like? Why should their opinion count? We're the guys, Otto, who
inverted four part counterpoint in German conservatories. We're the
guys who can tell you something about composition, just in case you
really are serious about doing empirical investigations. And if you
don't want to talk to us, then you're not really talking about
composers at all. You're talking about consumers of composition
programs. Maybe your best bet is to drop the word ``composer''
altogether.
In short, Otto, it's really not too clear to me what it is that you
want to do. And this may be a good place to explain yourself.
Because if I don't understand something, I can just repost the the
sentence that I failed to understand and get an explanation.
Well, Otto, I wish you luck. I will, of course, continue to respond to
your postings here on the net, because this is a discussion forum, and
I think you're entitled to discussion. And, of course, should you
choose to reply to my posting, I'll be more than happy to address any
issues you may raise. Think of this as one way of getting cognitive
musicology promoted. More composers are reading this than you may
think. And let's keep this discussion on the net.
--Eliot Handelman
Music Dept.
Princeton U.
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End of Music-Research Digest