Current Directions in Computer Music Research

Abstract

An expensive laboratory luxury just 25 years ago, computer music is now entering the public domain. Inexpensive digital keyboards and related hardware are more widely available than the piano. These 21 original contributions by composers, behavioral scientists, engineers, and other specialists from many of the international centers of research in computer music provide an inside report on the most sophisticated aspects of digital synthesis, control and understanding of musical sound, and related work on perception. The use of the computer to analyze and synthesize complex sounds has resulted in faster and more accurate experimental study of this key aspect of human perception. Many of the chapters in this book provide new insights into sounds and hearing. These include the investigation of loudness, masking, and binaural phenomena, and also an extensive study of the perceived pitch of sounds, many of which are remote from sounds ever heard in nature. Among the specific topics covered are speech songs, synthesis of the singing voice, spatial reverberation, Fourier-transform-based timbral manipulations, the simulation of bowed instruments, automatic counterpoint, and a conductor program utilizing a mechanical baton. A chapter authored jointly by Mathews and Pierce describes a new musical scale they have been working on over the past few years. Max V. Mathews and John R. Pierce are members of the music faculty at Stanford University. Both spent the major part of their professional lives at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where Mathews directed the Acoustical & Behavioral Research Center, and Pierce directed the Communication Sciences Division.Current Directions in Computer Music Research isincluded in the System Development Foundation Benchmark series. The System Development Foundation was one of the first major supporters of computer music research.