Axel Berndt

The Functions of Music in Interactive Media

In this media theoretical and critical elaboration we intend to close the gap between music in static linear and non-linear interactive media. We will give a brief overview on media music perception and its historical development that enables us to recognize parallels between music in films and games and, thereby, uncover future perspectives of interactive media music. According to this, we will elaborate its narrative functions and potentials in order to widen the scope of the field where music meets interactivity.

Modelling musical dynamics

This paper deals with dynamics, i.e. loudness, in music. We developed models to describe and recreate dynamics properties of human musicians expressive performances within a performance system. Their diversity and variability bears a particular challenge to the flexibility of such models. Therefore, our approach is based on a multi-layered discrimination of different dynamics aspects. Each of which includes certain degrees of freedom to flexibly define different shapings. For evaluation we compare these models with human performed dynamics.

Adaptive Musical Expression from Automatic Realtime Orchestration and Performance

When scoring an interactive scene or narration music has to follow its events and development organically. Approaches toward musical nonlinearity are needed. Therefore, the means of orchestration and expressive performance provide a big potential that has not been tapped even a little yet. In this paper we will show how to translate them into the interactive context. But to change musical expression it is not feasible to simply switch hard between different instrumentations and performative styles. We introduce and discuss a new style-independent method for organic and musically believable transitions of compositional and performative expression characteristics.

Eighth-notes performances: kinds of inégalité

From a technical perspective the impression of inégalité in musical pulse mainly refers to aspects of timing, loudness, and duration. Musicians tend to model these performance parameters intuitively and listeners seem to perceive them, to a certain degree, unconsciously.n Expert musicians and non-experts were asked to interactively tune performance parameters in a short four-bar phrase. A recently developed performance synthesis tool furnished the technical base for this analysis. The results give insight into the relationships between performance parameters and give rise to discuss the role of expertise and skill in a slightly different light. Although the analysis of appropriate performance parameters is difficult, the need for it is still beyond question for the improvement of liveliness in synthetic performances.