~ICMC 2015 - Sept. 25 - Oct. 1, 2015 - CEMI, University of North Texas
his or her work, and the work is accepted by the conference,
the artist/composer then takes responsibility to provide
authorial metadata and media data. A camera-ready archival
submission can include scans of handwritten compositional
notes, computer code and various media files, detailed
documentation of technical setup, and any other relevant
information that directly or indirectly constitutes the piece.
To prevent the EAM metadata from being constrained by
the traditional music archiving format, we have tried to construct an extensive list of metadata categories to reflect the
current diversity of EAM, but have also allowed for selfdesignated categories and individualized additional comments to expand the list where appropriate. We hope that
such meticulous and exhaustive documentation will help
preserve the socio-historic essence of each individual piece.
Although we are just beginning to crowd-source EAM data,
the 2014 NYCEMF festival had a 95% EAMM participation
rate comprising 400-plus works.
Another main EAMM feature is the ease-of-access to the
collection of historical and contemporary EAM works. If we
are to take Adorno's assumption that there is no such thing
as aesthetic invariance, a constant offering of alternative
interpretative possibilities is an absolute necessity for anything new to be possible. Accordingly, we are developing a
variety of interfaces and visualizations to access, summarize, and display the collected data. For instance, our current
"hoverer" feature [9] can treat a "sound event" within a
piece [6] as a single object-visually represented as a single
point-by summarizing its timbral characteristics, while
also projecting myriad sound events to a user-defined number of timbral dimensions. The prototype interface allows
one to sonically explore by "hovering" across a musical
space populated by "sound pixels."
It should be noted, however, that EAMM is not a music
analysis tool, per se. Rather, it assists in EAM analysis in
that it automatically extracts quantitative sonic features via
MIR techniques and presents them via visualizations that
reflect measurable information enabled. Furthermore, by
providing annotation-and-tagging interfaces, EAMM allows
one to collect and share points of view of other musicians.
Essentially, the ultimate goal of EAMM is to help scholars theorize and formulate a convincing musical context
when interpreting a piece of EAM, and perhaps even foster
a model akin to the Adornian three-step analytical process
of technical analysis, sociological critique, and philosophical interpretation. If a process of finding a proper set of musical norms to constructively interpret a particular piece of
EAM is found to be successful, steps are then truly being
taken toward discovery of a "natural compositional grammar" (as introduced in Section 2) that leads to an understanding of the piece as a dynamic socio-historical process.
Once we create a sizeable database of EAM works via
EAMM filtered crowd-sourcing mechanisms (conferences,
festivals, and concerts), the potential for developing a global
collective whose members can engage in an ongoing dialogue and critique of EAM works may be realizable. This
may further lead to the development of a constellation of
EAM works through our own dialectic process of collective
understanding.
5. CONCLUSIONS
We employed an Adornian philosophy of social and artistic
advancement for EAM analysis as it offered a framework
for discussing its extreme socio-historical musical diversity
and its lack of a common, unified model/grammar to help in
its analysis beyond discussion of technical dimensions. We
found Adorno's three step analytical methodology of music
analysis, sociological critique and philosophical interpretation suggestive of an approach and discussed how the collaborative EAMM project could potentially address the first
step. We are hopeful that EAMM can contribute in capturing the notion of constellational EAM works-including
audio files, scores, computer code, EAM meta-data, technical performance details, and user annotations/labels-that
are needed for establishing a useful natural grammar that
accommodates the diverse socio-historical backgrounds of
EAM and allows for its better analysis and greater appreciation.
6. REFERENCES
[1] T. W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory. New York: Continuum,
1997.
[2] M. Paddison, Adorno's Aesthetics of Music. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
[3] T. W. Adorno, "The Aging of the New Music," Adorno:
Essays on Music. Los Angeles: University of California
Press, Ltd., pp. 181-202, 2002.
[4] T. W. Adorno, "On the Problem of Musical Analysis,"
Adorno: Essays on Music. Los Angeles: University of
California Press, Ltd., pp. 162-180, 2002.
[5] T. H. Park, Z. Li, and W. Wu, "EASY Does It: The ElectroAcoustic Music Analysis Toolbox," in International Society
for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR), 2009.
[6] T. H. Park, D. Hyman, P. Leonard, and P. Hermans,
"Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Electro-Acoustic
Music Analysis," in International Computer Music
Conference Proceedings (ICMC), 2011.
[7] F. Lerdahl, "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional
Systems," Contemporary Music Review, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 97 -121, 1992.
[8] T. H. Park, B. Miller, A. Marse, and J. Turner, "The ElectroAcoustic Music Mine (EAMM)," in Electroacoustic Music
Studies Network Proceedings (EMS), 2012.
[9] T. H. Park, J. H. Lee, J. You, M. J. Yoo, and J. Turner,
"Towards Soundscape Information Retrieval (SIR)," in
International Computer Music Conference Proceedings
(ICMC), 2014.
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