Alvise Vidolin

Note‐by‐note analysis of the influence of expressive intentions and musical structure in violin performance*

Abstract This paper describes an analysis of how the performance of a score differs when musicians are requested to play with differing expression. A professional violinist was asked to play short pieces of music in different versions expressing light, heavy, soft, hard, bright, and dark. For comparison, a normal, standard performance was recorded. Note‐by‐note analysis allowed us to identify the variations of the main acoustic parameters as a consequence of varying the expressive intentions. It was possible to identify two distinct expressive sources. The first refers the musical structure of the period, its division into phrases and the continuous alternation of tension and relaxation points. The second depends on the expressive intentions that the musician wants to convey to the listeners.

An Abstract Control Space for Communication of Sensory Expressive Intentions in Music Performance

Expressiveness is not an extravagance: instead, expressiveness plays a critical role in rational decision-making, in perception, in human interaction, in human emotions and in human intelligence. These facts, combined with the development of new informatics systems able to recognize and understand different kinds of signals, open new areas for research. A new model is suggested for computer understanding of sensory expressive intentions of a human performer and both theoretical and practical applications are described for human-computer interaction, perceptual information retrieval, creative arts and entertainment. Recent studies demonstrated that by opportunely modifying systematic deviations introduced by the musician it is possible to convey different sensitive contents, such as expressive intentions and/or emotions. We present an space, that can be used as a user interface. It represents, at an abstract level, the expressive content and the interaction between the performer and an expressive synthesizer.

Modeling and control of expressiveness in music performance

Expression is an important aspect of music performance. It is the added value of a performance and is part of the reason that music is interesting to listen to and sounds alive. Understanding and modeling expressive content communication is important for many engineering applications in information technology. For example, in multimedia products, textual information is enriched by means of graphical and audio objects. In this paper, we present an original approach to modify the expressive content of a performance in a gradual way, both at the symbolic and signal levels. To this purpose, we discuss a model that applies a smooth morphing among performances with different expressive content, adapting the audio expressive character to the users desires. Morphing can be realized with a wide range of graduality (from abrupt to very smooth), allowing adaptation of the system to different situations. The sound rendering is obtained by interfacing the expressiveness model with a dedicated postprocessing environment, which allows for the transformation of the event cues. The processing is based on the organized control of basic audio effects. Among the basic effects used, an original method for the spectral processing of audio is introduced.

Audio Morphing Different Expressive Intentions for Multimedia Systems

Web Extras: Sample audio files and view a demo of the audio authoring tool.Download Real Jukebox for listening to the mp3 filesSonatina in sol (by Beethoven) played neutral (without any expressive intentions)Expressive performance of Sonatina in sol generated by the model in a symbolic way (that is, as a MIDI file)Sonata K545 (by Mozart) played neutral (without any expressive intentions)Expressive performance of Sonata K545 generated by the model in a symbolic way (that is, as a MIDI file)Expressive performance of Sonata in A Major Op. V(by Corelli) generated by the audio authoring tool (using the audio postprocessing tool)

Sonological Analysis of Clarinet Expressivity

Seven different performances of a fragment of W. A. Mozarts Concert for Clarinet (K622) were recorded. Each performance was inspired giving the player a sensorial type adjective in order to suggest various kinds of expressive intentions. Certain particularly significant sonological parameters were then measured. These were linked to the time factor (correlated to variations in the amplitude and duration) and frequency (variations in the timbre). The principle aim was to identify which physical parameters, and how many of them, were subject to modifications when the expressive intention of the performer was varied. The sonological analysis shows how a performer changes the physical parameters of frequency and time in function of expressive performance of a score. The evaluation of a synthesized performance, based of the values of the parameters measured, confirms the validity of the procedure.

Music score interpretation using a multilevel knowledge base

Abstract The problem of interpretation of musical scores is a typical artificial intelligence problem. In fact it is poorly defined and not explicitly formalizable. Moreover it requires wide knowledge domains: cultural, stylistic, of instrumental technique, of sensitiveness etc. We focused our interest on the interpretation of computer music. An approach to build a rule system based on many sorted logic is presented. This approach allows to work with partial knowledge and to reply to a general query. This ability is obtained by a hierarchical organization of the knowledge domain. The organization of the knowledge base and the methodology employed to formulate the rules are described. Two different knowledge bases can be distinguished. The musical knowledge base codifies the experience and fantasy of the interpreter (e.g. conductor) and the sonologic one collects the competence of the performer (e.g. orchestral musician). Finally a prototypical system based on this approach is described.

Recognition of Musical Gestures in Known Pieces and in Improvisations

Understanding the content in musical gestures is an ambitious issue in scientific environment. Several studies demonstrated how different expressive intentions can be conveyed by a musical performance and correctly recognized by the listeners: several models for the synthesis can also be found in the literature. In this paper we draw an overview of the studies which have been done at the Center of Computational Sonology (CSC) during the last year on automatic recognition of musical gestures. These studies can be grouped in two main branches: analysis with the score knowledge and analysis without. A brief description of the implementations and validations is presented.

Sound Motion and Space Parameters on a Stereo CD

This paper presents a case study for domestic sound motion on stereo systems: the recording and post-processing of Orfeo cantando … tolse by Adriano Guarnieri, a piece for ensemble, solos and live-electronics. The above piece has been recorded with multi-track recording techniques and has been mastered on a production audio stereo CD after a lengthy off-line post-production session that added sound motion simulation. This paper gives an account of the problems encountered and the techniques used in this postproduction stage.

Yesterday Sounds Tomorrow. Preservation at CSC

In the realm of electronic music institutes, CSC’s activity goes back to digital prehistory and marks the birth of computer music production in Italy. This article briefly summarizes an historical overview of the centre showing technological advances and diverse musical works. Section 2 presents the status of preservation following a scheme which goes from general projects (cataloguing, re-recording), passing through the description of some material realised at the centre (musical pieces, software for performance) and finally describes specific research or projects in audio, software and instrument preservation and/or restoration. Section 3 is a consideration of the role of the CSC in the history of electronic music centres.

Adding expressiveness to musical messages

A system to add expressiveness to musical messages has been developed, starting from the results of acoustic and perceptual analyses. The system allows to obtain different performances, by modifying the acoustic parameters of a given neutral performance. The modification of the input performance is performed by a model that uses the hierarchical segmentation of the musical organization. For every hierarchical level, opportune curves are applied to the principal acoustic parameters. Levels self-similarity is the main criteria to construct the curves. The modular structure of the system defines an open architecture, where the rendering steps can be realized both with synthesis and post-processing techniques. Different synthesis techniques, like FM, physical models or wavetable have been explored.