Jörg Garbers

Modelling Folksong Melodies

Abstract In the second half of the twentieth century, ethnomusicologists assembled a collection of more than 7000 field recordings of Dutch ballads. Collectively known as Onder de groene linde, these recordings are preserved at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam. Because of its size, composition and quality of metadata, Onder de groene linde is a unique resource for studying the musical properties of folksongs. For such study, it would be essential to search and order the songs automatically, not just using the metadata, but especially their musical content. It is the aim of the WITCHCRAFT project to design and implement methods for processing the musical content of the songs. Such a project involves two disciplines, musicology and computer science, that have different goals and methodologies. Such differences can lead to unproductive tensions, but can also be exploited in order to attain new insights that could not have been attained by the separate disciplines.

On Pitch and Chord Stability in Folk Song Variation Retrieval

In this paper we develop methods for computer aided folk song variation research. We examine notions and examples of stability for pitches and implied chords for a group of melodic variants. To do this we employ metrical accent levels, simple alignment techniques and visualization techniques. We explore how one can use insight into stability of a known set of variants to query for additional variants.

Comparing Computational Approaches to Rhythmic and Melodic Similarity in Folksong Research

In this paper we compare computational approaches to rhythmic and melodic similarity in order to find relevant features characterizing similarity in a large collection of Dutch folksongs. Similarity rankings based on Transportation Distances are compared to an approach of rhythmic similarity based on Inner Metric Analysis proposed in this paper. The comparison between the two models demonstrates the important impact of rhythmic organization on melodic similarity.