Workshop on Current Research Directions in Computer Music

Music Performance Panel


The central role of expressive music performance as an integral part of our musical culture and as a fundamental musical skill has led to increased research efforts in musicology in recent years.
Numerous more or less formal models of various sub-aspects of performance have been put forward. The time seems now ripe for a systematic comparison and synthesis of the various approaches.
The panel will attempt to contribute to this by discussing major current trends in expression research and trying to put them into perspective. Aspects to be discussed include

- Research Strategies:
what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of different research strategies (theory-driven vs. data-driven, oriented towards cognitive plausibility vs. computational simplicity, perception-oriented vs. production-oriented, etc.)? could there be more synergy between them?

- Functions of performance:
expressive music performance seems to fulfil several functions (e.g., expressing emotional content, but also clarifying structural aspects of a piece); how do these fit together? how do current models of performance take account of these functions?

- Evaluation:
given that expression is a subjective notion and that there is no such thing as the "correct" interpretation of a piece of music, can we nevertheless develop quantitative and scientifically rigorous procedures and standards for evaluating the quality/significance/validity of proposed models of expression? Would it be worthwhile to try to collect or construct 'benchmark problems' on which different models could be compared?

This and similar discussions should eventually provide a basis for more systematic and concerted research efforts and establish empirical performance research as a major area with well-understood problems and methods.

- Members:
The members of the Music Performance panel will be:

Giovanni De Poli (DEI-University of Padova, Italy)
Johan Sundberg (KTH-Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)
Henkjan Honing (NICI-University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
Gerhard Widmer (OFAI-Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Vienna, Austria)

Chair:
Xavier Serra (IUA-Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain)

 

 

Barcelona, Nov 15-16-17, 2001
Audiovisual Institute, Pompeu Fabra University