Category Archives: News

Prof. Geraint Wiggins’ Inaugural Lecture, QMUL

“Cognition, Information & Creativity”

16th March 2016, 6.30pm
The Octagon, Queens’ Building, Mile End Campus

A free drinks reception will follow for all ticket holders.

Lecture Synopsis
Creativity is often proposed as a feature of humanity that sets us apart from other species. In this lecture, I will deconstruct the concept of creativity, suggesting that the view we have inherited from the Romantics is unhelpfully narrow. Working from a more practical definition, I will propose a view of creativity as a property of advanced cognition, including, but not limited to, humans, that can in principle be implemented as a computer program. The lecture will end with a recorded performance of Geraint’s piece “from spiralling ecstatically this”, a setting* of E. E. Cummings’ poem, itself concerned with creation.

* “from spiralling ecstatically this” is performed by kind permission of the E. E. Cummings Trust.

Bio
Geraint A. Wiggins was educated at Brighton College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He holds PhDs in artificial intelligence (specifically, computational linguistics) and in musical composition from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently Professor of Computational Creativity at Queen Mary University of London. From 2000 to 2004, he chaired the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour, the UK learned society for AI and Cognitive Science. He was the founding chair of the international Association for Computational Creativity, and convened the first ever large conference on AI and creativity in 1999. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and chair of the trustees of the Dilys Trust, a charity that supports students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to attend high quality universities.

Ticket Information:
This event is free to attend but you must book online in advance.
Please visit Eventbrite to book your ticket.

Map & Directions: 
The Octagon, Queens’ Building, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS
View Map Here 

Numbers into Notes – Ada Lovelace and Music

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Emily Howard explaining “numbers into notes” (with permission of photographer Angela Guyton)

Ada Lovelace’s significant contributions were celebrated and discussed at the Ada Lovelace Symposium last week, marking the bicentennial of her birth on 10th December 1815.  Lovelace brought important early insights into mathematics and computation, especially in the context of the Analytical Engine proposed by her collaborator Charles Babbage. She also brought her vision and computational intuitions to music, asking whether “the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent”.

On 30th November we explored mathematics, computation, and music through a performance of “Ada sketches”, a short operatic work by composed by Emily Howard and part of her Lovelace Trilogy. More than a performance, this event with Emily Howard and musicians from the Northern Royal College of Music involved mathematical explanation and engaged the audience in composition, turning numbers into notes. We revisited this work at the Ada Lovelace Symposium through an interactive display and a conversation on stage between David De Roure and Emily Howard, herself a mathematician, computer scientist and musician.  This also featured an extract of Howard’s work “Mesmerism”, another part of the Trilogy, and illustrated numbers and notes by generating a number sequence on a simulator of the Analytical Engine and developing the output as a musical theme—an exercise inspired by discussions at a music hack day held at Goldsmiths in October. The evening saw world premières of  “An algorithmic study on ADA” and “ADA”, composed by James Whitbourn, performed by mixed-voice contemporary choir with violin and harp.

The event was supported by digital music research projects “Transforming Musicology” (AHRC, led by Goldsmiths, University of London) and FAST (EPSRC, led by Queen Mary University of London), and organized at University of Oxford by a partnership of the e-Research Centre, Centre for Digital Scholarship, and The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities, in collaboration with symposium organiser Prof Ursula Martin, the Mathematical Institute, and Department of Computer Science.  The performance was supported by the Northern Royal College of Music, Leverhulme Trust and University of Liverpool.

 

Computer Music! with Stephen Travis Pope

23 November 2016, Queen Mary University of London

Organised by: Bob L. Sturm with support from the C4DM Platform Grant

EECS lecturer Bob L. Sturm organised a concert at C4DM bringing together some local and international composers in the area of computer music. The evening was well attended by approximately 40 people in the C4DM performance lab.
concert bob sturm
The programme began with a piece entitled “Prelude to the Night”, by Kingston University-based composer, Oded Ben-Tal. He combined several recordings of a string section (tuning at the beginning of a rehearsal courtesy of the Royal College of Music student orchestra) with simulated string sounds using a bowed string physical model. This was followed by an interactive real-time metadata animation, “We need Us” by C4DM PhD student Julie Freeman (generated by Zooniverse participants). The guest composer, Steven Travis Pope, then provided a 15 minute survey of his musical output and computer tools from the past 30 years. The next piece, titled “You Slut! – Plural Sex (MCLD Remix)”, was by C4DM researcher Dan Stowell. This fun piece is a remix of a song by the mathrock band You Slut! The short but rich piece “Piquetitos” was next, which is composed by LA-based composer Jennifer Logan. The penultimate piece was by Bob L. Sturm, or rather his deep neural network, or something like that. The final piece of the evening was a 21 minute audiovisual work by Pope, which is excerpted from his feature length “Secrets, Dreams, Faith, and Wonder – A Mass for the New Millennium in Five Parts”. It can also be seen here: https://vimeo.com/120127660.

 

Mark Sandler presents keynote talk at ISMIR 2015

Mark Sandler gave a talk on “Integrating music information sources for music production and consumption” at this year’s International Society for Music information Retrieval conference in Malaga, Spain.

ISMIR is the leading conference in the field of music informatics, and is currently the top ranking publication in terms of h-index for Music & Musicology (source: Google Scholar).

ismir15_markMark’s keynote began with a thumbnail sketch of his early education and career, including the influences of Peter and the Wolf and Simmons Drums. This was followed by his 10 Commandments for MIR research, basically advice on good practice in research learned and accumulated by doing things right and wrong over the years. The final section of the talk was a run through the FAST Programme Grant covering the basic principles that led to the proposal, and finishing with some highlights of achievements to date.

Queen Mary University of London, and more specifically its Centre for Digital Music (C4DM), had as in previous years a strong presence in the conference, both in terms of numbers and overall impact. A number of papers, sessions and meetings were submitted, presented and (co-) organised by the members from C4DM, as reported in Emmanouil Benetos’s news item.

Finally, on the organisational side, the following C4DM members were members of the programme committee: Emmanouil Benetos, Simon Dixon, Sebastian Ewert, George Fazekas, Dorien Herremans, Matthias Mauch; and Bob Sturm chaired the oral session on Music Similarity.

 

 

Digital Music Research Network (DMRN+10) 2015

Tuesday 22 December, Queen Mary University of London, London
Call for abstracts deadline: Friday 20 November 2015

Digital music is an important and fast-moving research area. Sophisticated digital tools for the creation, generation and dissemination of music have established clear synergies between music and leisure industries, the use of technology within art, the creative industries and the creative economy. Digital music research is emerging as a “transdiscipline” across the usual
academic boundaries of computer science, electronic engineering and music. The Digital Music Researh Network (DMRN) aims to promote research in the area of Digital Music, by bringing together researchers from UK universities and industry in electronic engineering, computer science, and music.

The DMRN+10 workshop will include invited and contributed talks, and posters will be on display during the day, including during the lunch and coffee breaks. The workshop will be an ideal opportunity for networking with other people working in the area. There will also be an opportunity to continue discussions after the Workshop in a nearby Pub/Restaurant.

Keynote Speaker
Prof. Steve Benford (University of Nottingham), “Putting Music in Context”.

Call for Contributions
You are invited to submit a proposal for a talk and/or a poster to be presented at this event.

TALKS may range from the latest research, through research overviews or surveys, to opinion pieces or position statements, particularly those likely to be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience. Most talks will be 20 to 30 minutes, although there may be some flexibility to accommodate other lengths depending on the number of submissions. Short announcements about other items of interest (e.g. future events or other networks) are also welcome.

POSTERS can be on any research topic of interest to the members of the network. Posters (A0 portrait) will be on display through the day, including lunch break and coffee breaks.

The abstracts of presentations will be collated into a digest and distributed on the day, and authors will be encouraged to submit an electronic versions of posters (e.g. in PDF format) to allow the posters to be viewed after the event.

Submission
Please submit your talk or poster proposal in the form of an abstract (maximum 1 page of A4) in an email to dmrn@eecs.qmul.ac.uk giving the following information about your presentation:
* Authors
* Title
* Abstract
* Preference for talk or poster (or “no preference”).

Abstract submission deadline: Friday 20 November 2015.

Deadlines
* 20 Nov 2015: Abstract submission deadline
*   4 Dec 2015: Notification of acceptance
* 11 Dec 2015: Early Bird Registration deadline

For further details, including registration, visit:
http://c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/dmrn/events/dmrnp10/

For past events, visit:
DMRN+9, DMRN+8, DMRN+7,  DMRN+6,  DMRN+5,  DMRN+4,  DMRN+3,  DMRN+2, DMRN+1

Ada sketches by Emily Howard

Monday 30 November, 7 – 9 pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford

Registration for this event is now open. Tickets are available here.

A performance of ‘Ada sketches’ by Emily Howard, a short operatic work about the pioneering mathematician Ada Lovelace, performed by students from the Royal Northern College of Music. As well as the performance and presentation of the work given by composer Emily Howard (with mathematician Lasse Rempe-Gillen), audience members will be able to participate in the composition of mathematical music by working with the musicians to turn numbers into notes.

This event is part of the Ada Lovelace 200 celebration. For more details about the event, visit the page.

Sponsored by:

transforming_musicology

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Keynote talk by Geraint Wiggins, Computer Simulation of Musical Creativity

University of Huddersfield, Uk, Friday 17 to  Sunday 19 June 2016

Conference Website:  https://csmc2016.wordpress.com

Computational simulation of musical creativity is an emerging, exciting and significant area of research. In the last few years, numerous systems that compose, improvise and perform music have been developed. These systems pose several theoretical and technical challenges, and are the result of an interdisciplinary effort that encompasses the domains of  music, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and philosophy.

The main goal of this conference is to bring together scholars from different backgrounds, interested in virtual emulation of musical creativity, providing an interdisciplinary platform to promote, present and discuss their work.

Keynote speakers:
Professor Graeme Bailey, Cornell University
Professor Geraint Wiggins, Queen Mary University London

 Key Dates:
Deadline for paper submission: 15 March 2016
Notification of acceptance: 15 April 2016
Deadline for revisions and camera-ready copy: 30 April 2016

Submissions can cover both theoretical and/or practical aspects of the computer simulation of musical creativity. Interdisciplinary proposals at the intersection of music, computer science, psychology and philosophy are welcome. Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to:

Computer Systems:
* systems capable of generating music;
* systems capable of performing music;
* systems capable of (online) improvisation;
* systems capable of analysing music;
* music-robotic systems;
* systems implementing societies of virtual musicians;
* systems that foster and enhance the musical creativity of human users;
* music recommendation systems;
* systems implementing computational aesthetics, emotional responses,  novelty and originality;

Theory:
* surveys of state-of-the-art techniques in the area;
* validation methodologies;
* philosophical foundations of creative music systems;
* mathematical foundations of creative music systems;
* evolutionary models for creative music systems;
* cognitive models for creative music systems;
* studies on the applicability of music-creative techniques to other research areas;
* new models for improving creative music systems.

Peer-Review Process and Proceedings
All papers are double-blind peer reviewed by at least two specialists.

Proceedings will be published online. Extended versions of selected papers will be published in a special issue of the /Journal of Creative Music Systems/ <http://jcms.org.uk/>(http://jcms.org.uk//)./

 Paper Submission
Details of submission procedure and formatting can be found at https://csmc2016.wordpress.com/instructions-for-authors/.

 Further Information
For enquiries, please contact Valerio Velardo at valerio.velardo@hud.ac.uk.

Open Symphony selected to join Audience Labs

The Open Symphony project reimagines the music experience for a digital age, fostering alliances between performer and audience and our digital selves. It has been developped recently by Mathieu Barthet (QMUL) with musician Kate Hayes and QMUL Media and Art Technology (MAT) students Yongmeng Wu and Leshao Zhang.

We are glad to announce that the project has just been selected as one of six UK projects to join the Audience Labs programme which is an audience development programme designed to test new ways of communicating and presenting new music to audiences.

Open Symphony is also part of the FAST project (see Demonstrator description). It investigates how to embrace digital technology in the live music environment to engage both audience and performers and develop new platforms for music composition, performance and listening.

Twitter: @matdiffusion
Further information: http://isophonics.net/content/opensymphony
Watch video: Youtube
See photos: Flickr

Supported by:

SoundAndMusic_logo_black

ALabs_black_logo

v0_master arts logo

C4DM team present at Audio Mostly

At the recent Audio Mostly conference, the C4DM team presented their Moodplay experience project: “Moodplay: An Interactive Mood‐Based Musical Experience”.  (Paper reference: Barthet, M., Fazekas, G, Allik, A., Sandler, M., Moodplay: An Interactive Mood‐Based Musical Experience, Proc. ACM Audio Mostly, Greece, 2015).

The full conference programme can be viewed here.

QMUL team presenting at Audio Mostly conference, 7-9 October 2015, Greece.

QMUL team presenting at Audio Mostly conference, 7-9 October 2015, Greece.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Sound, Semantics and Social Interaction”. As the organisers explained in their Call for papers: “the conference aims at confronting issues related to audio design, semantic processing and interaction that can be part of enhanced multimodal HMI in the social media landscape. It also attempts to investigate their role and involvement in the deployment of innovative web and multimedia semantic services as part of the transition to the Web3.0 era. A representative theme example that can be drawn here is that audio content production, music clips recording, editing, and sound design processes can be collaboratively applied within the social media networking context, while registering content shares and tagging with user feedback for semantically enhanced interaction. Moreover, besides technology-oriented approaches to the conference theme, submissions that refer to interdisciplinary work in this domain are strongly encouraged, including i) psychological research on the influence of auditory cues in shaping human multimodal perception, semantic processing, emotional affect, and social interaction within rich context environments, and ii) presentation of new practices of using sound as a medium for enhancing social interaction in new media artworks, and soundscapes.”

The team’s research is also one of the FAST Demonstrator projects. Previously, the team presented Moodplay at the Digital Shoreditch Festival in May 2015. A one minute video can be viewed below:

 

 

Humanising music technology

Kingston University, Monday 16 November 2015, 13:30 to 20:00 hrs (GMT)

This event focuses on the role of technology in our engagement with music and the intricate relationship between technology and creativity. The event will cover a broad range of approaches ranging from art music to the fan-based Chiptune phenomena. Participants will also have the opportunity to make music using a ‘hackable’ electronic instrument.

Please note that the D-Box workshop is now fully booked. There are still places left for the main event starting at 4 pm.

Programme

13:30 – Musical Hacking with Andrew McPherson (QMUL) and Alan Chamberlain (Nottingham University)
16:00 – Opening
16:10 – TaCEM Project with Michael Clark, Frédéric Dufeu and Peter Manning
17:00 – Short presentations
17:40 –  Dinner break
19:00 – Concert with Torbjorn Hultmark and Matt Wright

A lecture-performance will be given by the turntablist Matt Wright and trumpeter/soprano-trombonist Torbjörn Hultmark, playing a mixture of purely acoustic sounds as well as sounds generated and processed electronically – from the subtly quiet and beautiful to the very powerful and highly energetic. A wide range of emotions, playing techniques and styles. Sometimes composed, sometimes improvised – always unpredictable

As a thread through this performance runs the very personal narrative of how these two musicians have individually, and now for the first time together, developed their work with music and technology. Their belief is that technology is part of humanity, and humanity part of the technological.

Further details and registration are available at:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/humanising-music-technology-tickets-18756264492

A flier can be downloaded here.