Italian Polka is an experiment that builds a bridge between Music and the field of Costume Design. It explores the new relationship of integration and artistic possibility between Music, Costume Design, Dance, and Digital Art. This is also an attempt to participate in a new form of performing art: a combination of a live concert and a costume show. / text

This dissertation is comprised of three recent original compositions- Dis Un Il Im Ir, In sin fin bin din bin fin sin in, and Percussion+Guitar. Each work has a unique approach to integrating instrumental performance with humans and computers. The essay component details unique computer-performer interactions I’ve developed to overcome complications in the concert presentation of previous acousmatic and mixed media works. The three works discussed here are related in their instrumentation and compositional style. Dis Un Il Im Ir (2013), for flute, piano, and MIDI keyboard, experiments with the limit of human virtuosity and attempts to extend its affect via sound synthesis and digital samples. In sin fin bin din bin fin sin in (2104), for four computer-controlled pianos with electronic sounds, focuses on repeated melodic and harmonic patterns explored in previous works contrasted with unruly mechanical spasms. Percussion+Guitar (2015), for two computer-controlled flutes (contrary to the title), features a specially designed instrument built at Columbia University’s Computer Music Center. This composition is a duet with a structure defined by heightened rhythmic angularity and blazing fast speeds demonstrating the computer's special skills as a performer. The essay part of this dissertation includes an analysis of the pitches, rhythms, and gestures where appropriate. I provide details about the artistic uses of software and hardware for each project. I trace my artistic inspirations for composing with and for computers and robots to my experiences in acousmatic music, pop production, and hands-on music making. I describe my process of organizing contrasting sounds into form-bearing elements- an approach inspired by Pierre Schaeffer’s typomorphology of sound objects later revisited by Lasse Thoresen. The paper concludes with a brief discussion about future works.

Detta arbete berör filmmusik, och hur den i olika former kan uppfattas samspela med en filmscen. Mitt syfte var att undersöka på vilka sätt olika typer av filmmusik fungerar i samspel med en filmscen, och hur de kompletterar bilden. Detta genomfördes genom att jag komponerade tre olika musikstycken till en och samma filmscen och lät sedan en fokusgrupp om 6 personer diskutera kring dem. Jag fick en djupare insikt i klassisk orkestrering, arrangering och hur man på olika sätt kan förmedla känslor genom musik för att förhöja en filmupplevelse. En insikt jag fått av detta arbetet är att endast en typ av filmmusik kan te sig enformig och otillräcklig i vissa fall och att instrumentering spelar en större roll i känsloförmedlingen, än jag tidigare anat. Jag har fördjupat mina kunskaper inom filmmusik och arrangering avsevärt och har fått en större förståelse för hur man med musik kan berätta, utan att använda ord.

<p>This study examines how to translate digitally composed symphonic music to note script and how it gets readable and playable. With the help of professional musicians from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, teachers from Kulturskolan in Norrköping as well as other musicians, I have learned how I can improve each individual stem in my composition. I also learned how to write for a real musician. My score have been analyzed by composers and a conductor which have given me a more in depth insight into composing symphonic music.</p><p>The theory section describes important MIDI aspects, score preparation and note editing techniques. Thereafter is a section about the symphony orchestra and its instruments’ history and how the situation is today. Furthermore the work process of the conductor and the choral conductor are described as well as the interpretation of the musician. The theory section concludes with a survey on musical factors in relation to experienced emotions.</p><p>The execution section describes how I first worked with the composition to adjust MIDI values in the sequencer program Nuendo 3, then how to write correct note script in the note script program Finale 2009. Thereafter the adjustments I needed to make after interviewing musicians as well as composers and a conductor are described and eventual problems that occurred meanwhile.</p><p>The result section sums up the thoughts and suggestions made by the professional musicians, composers and conductor about the individual parts’ playability and readability. It turned out that the stems were written in the wrong time signature and had a few graphical flaws. The result of the survey on the digital composition experienced by the musicians as well as the composers is described. Most people experienced the piece as warlike.</p><p>The discussion section and conclusion discuss what could have been done differently, what compromises had to be made and what were most difficult to execute. MIDI related issues are discussed that take place in composing digital music and during the translation to note script. Then my opinion regarding how well this method works in translating MIDI to note script is discussed as well as what I would do different in an upcoming project. Lastly I speak about suggested topics for future research.</p>

This study examines how to translate digitally composed symphonic music to note script and how it gets readable and playable. With the help of professional musicians from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, teachers from Kulturskolan in Norrköping as well as other musicians, I have learned how I can improve each individual stem in my composition. I also learned how to write for a real musician. My score have been analyzed by composers and a conductor which have given me a more in depth insight into composing symphonic music. The theory section describes important MIDI aspects, score preparation and note editing techniques. Thereafter is a section about the symphony orchestra and its instruments’ history and how the situation is today. Furthermore the work process of the conductor and the choral conductor are described as well as the interpretation of the musician. The theory section concludes with a survey on musical factors in relation to experienced emotions. The execution section describes how I first worked with the composition to adjust MIDI values in the sequencer program Nuendo 3, then how to write correct note script in the note script program Finale 2009. Thereafter the adjustments I needed to make after interviewing musicians as well as composers and a conductor are described and eventual problems that occurred meanwhile. The result section sums up the thoughts and suggestions made by the professional musicians, composers and conductor about the individual parts’ playability and readability. It turned out that the stems were written in the wrong time signature and had a few graphical flaws. The result of the survey on the digital composition experienced by the musicians as well as the composers is described. Most people experienced the piece as warlike. The discussion section and conclusion discuss what could have been done differently, what compromises had to be made and what were most difficult to execute. MIDI related issues are discussed that take place in composing digital music and during the translation to note script. Then my opinion regarding how well this method works in translating MIDI to note script is discussed as well as what I would do different in an upcoming project. Lastly I speak about suggested topics for future research.

A Laser Music System has been created, that combines a laser and light sensor system with an infrared distance sensing system that detects the position of a user’s hand when it intersects one or more of the individual laser beam. The laser beams, which are made visible by a small amount of smoke in a dark room, provide visual guidance to the user to reduce the difficulty of using a non-contact instrument as well as enhancing an appealing optical effect for the user. The system uses a number of Sharp distance sensors to map the position of the user’s hand to a variable like pitch. The user should move their hand to different heights to achieve a desired pitch. The laser beam should be broken to trigger the desired note.

Content-based MIDI Music Retrieval and Computer-aided Composition Based on Musical Whistling Hung-Cche Shen* Chung-Nan Lee+ ABSTRACT In this dissertation, we have focused on the research of content-based MIDI music retrieval and computer-aided composition based on musical whistling. For MIDI music retrieval, a prototype system called ¡§Whistle-for-Music¡¨ is developed. This system enables users to retrieve MIDI format music by whistling a melodic fragment. It consists of three essential components which are query processing, MIDI preprocessing and an approximate search engine. For query processing, we have achieved a real-time and robust whistle-to-MIDI converter. For MIDI preprocessing, the extracted features from MIDI files contain individual, local and global melodic descriptions. In order to match a querying pattern with target, we extend an existing search engine into a fast approximate melodic matching engine. There is a systematic evaluation of ¡§Whistle-for-Music¡¨ system. The performed experiments include ¡§Query turnaround time¡¨, ¡§Unique prefix searching¡¨, ¡§Error density vs. match rank percent¡¨ and ¡§Statistics of global descriptions¡¨. The results show that careful measurement and objective comparisons can lead us to know the scaling trend about query and target. For computer-aided composition, a system called ¡§Whistle-to- Music¡¨ is presented. The ¡§Whistle-to-Music¡¨ system can ease the melody input and musical composition. Firstly, our ¡§Whistle-to-MIDI¡¨ transformation is to translate a whistled tune into a sequence of notes, which are defined by onset, duration, velocity and note pitch. This ¡§Whistle-to-MIDI¡¨ is a relative melody transcription since we apply ¡§pitch templates¡¨ and ¡§rhythm templates¡¨. Based on the given melodic motives, we propose the templates of melodic forms and harmonic tables for the tasks of motive development and automatic harmonization. We demonstrate that the proposed melodic forms templates can successfully produce various formal songs from one or few bass motives. The harmonic tables allow us to produce classic-style harmonization based on three theories. The process of ¡§Whistle-to-Music¡¨ system is described by giving examples of melody transcription, motive development and demonstrating the resulting music from automatic harmonization. In automatic harmonization, we demonstrate that the proposed harmonic tables can successfully produce a piece of well-formed harmonization from a variety of whistled tunes. * Author +Advisor

Στη παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αναπτύσσεται ένα πρόγραμμα σε Java που εναρμονίζει μία μονοφωνική ή πολυφωνική μελωδία, η οποία θα εισάγεται στο σύστημα με τη μορφή MIDI αρχείων. Η βασική τεχνική που χρησιμοποιείται είναι τα κρυμμένα μοντέλα Markov. Εισάγονται διάφορες βελτιώσεις που ενσωματώνουν γνώσεις θεωρίας μουσική στα κρυμμένα μοντέλα Μαρκόφ. Τα πειραματικά αποτελέσματα έδειξαν ότι μπορούν να βελτιώσουν την συνολική απόδοση. / In this diploma dissertation an automatic melody harmonization program is developed, written in Java. It can harmonize either a monophonic or a polyphonic melody contained in a MIDI file using the power of hidden Markov Models. We introduce several methods which incorporate musical knowledge into hidden markov models. Experiment results show higher performance in chord recognition than the initial approach.

Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: color thresholding; video for Windows; center of mass calculation; contour extraction; area calculation; virtual orchestra; Broadway. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-63).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 142 p. : ill. (some col.) Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-78).