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Percussive spaces: Definition and use of percussive spaces for analysis and interaction

Title Percussive spaces: Definition and use of percussive spaces for analysis and interaction
Publication Type Master Thesis
Year of Publication 2014
Authors Gómez-Marín, D.
Abstract This text presents the technical details of a system used to generate new rhythms based on similarity metrics to a reference pattern. Several important steps were done before the realization of such a system. First a thorough revision of the music cognition scientific knowledge that backs up the perception of rhythm was carried out. Then the algorithms from the most developed theories, namely the edit distance and the syncopation distance, were implemented, and compared and tested in a music genre classification task. The experience drawn from these activities is used as raw material to build up an interactive application for rhythm generation. The application produces rhythmic variations of a reference pattern using distance metrics such as the edit distance and the syncopation distance. Throughout this work it is realized that the apparently simple question of similarity between rhythms is still an open subject under current research. This fact makes of a cognition driven percussive system an interesting topic for research and development. Some contributions resulting from this project are the compilation of up to date scientific literature on the topic, the comparison of existing models of similarity, the development of new open source tools for rhythm analysis, the proof of concept of this tools in a real life analysis task and finally a working system for rhythm production and performance. Results show that the rhythmic metrics used are useful to generate new rhythmic patterns based on perceptual distances to a reference pattern.