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Tutorial on Beijing Opera and computational tools for its analysis

13.11.2014

 

18 Nov 2014 - 20 Nov 2014

This is a 3 hours tutorial that we gave at ISMIR in Taipei and that now we are doing it again here:

Jingju music: concepts and computational tools for its analysis
Xavier Serra, Rafael Caro Repetto, Sankalp Gulati, Ajay Srinivasamurthy
Tuesday, Nov 18, & Thursday, Nov 20, 10:00am-12:00pm, Room 55.230

Abstract: Jingju (also known as Peking or Beijing opera) is one of the most representative genres of Chinese traditional music. From an MIR perspective, jingju music offers interesting research topics that challenge current MIR tools. The singing/acting characters in jingju are classified into predefined role-type categories with characteristic singing styles. Their singing is accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble, within which a high pitched fiddle, the jinghu, is the most prominent instrument within the characteristic heterophonic texture. The melodic conventions that form jingju modal systems, known as shengqiang, and the percussion patterns that signal important structural points in the performance offer interesting research questions. Also the overall rhythmic organization into pre-defined metrical patterns known as banshi makes tempo tracking and rhythmic analysis a challenging problem. Being Chinese a tonal language, the intelligibility of the text would require the expression of tonal categories in the melody, what offers an appealing scenario for the research of lyrics-melody relationship. The role of the performer as a core agent of the music creativity gives jingju music a notable space for improvisation. The lyrics and scores cannot be taken as authoritative sources, but as transcriptions of particular performances.

In this tutorial we will give an overview of Jingju music, of the relevant problems that can be studied from an MIR perspective and of the use of specific computational tools for its analysis. The tutorial will be organized in three parts. The first will be an introduction to Jingju from a musicological perspective, the second will cover diverse audio analysis tools of relevance to the study of Jingju (using http://essentia.upf.edu), and finally in the last part we will present and discuss specific examples of analyzing Jingju arias using those tools (work done in the context of http://compmusic.upf.edu).

Contents:
Tuesday, Nov 18, 10:00am-12:00pm, Room 55.230
1. Presentation (Xavier Serra)
2. Introduction to jingju music (Rafael Caro)
3. Computational framework (Xavier Serra)
4. Research problems (Xavier Serra, Rafael Caro)

Thursday, Nov 20, 10:00am-12:00pm, Room 55.230
5. Computational tools for melodic description of jingju music (Sankalp Gulati)
6. Computational tools for rhythm analysis of jingju music (Ajay Srinivasamurthy)
7. Conclusions (Xavier Serra)

Tutorial slides

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