Music Technology Research Articles

String Teachers’ Perspectives of Nontraditional Music Courses and Ensembles in Public Schools

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine school string teachers’ beliefs about and practices of teaching nontraditional music courses. We surveyed middle and high school string teachers ( N = 42) about what nontraditional music courses and ensembles (NMCEs) they currently offer and would like to offer to their students. In addition, we examined the educational rationales that string teachers have for offering NMCEs. Our findings indicated that the most frequently offered NMCEs were guitar class, pit orchestra, and music technology. Participants expressed strongest interest in adding fiddle club, popular music, and mariachi ensemble. The participants explained that NMCEs provide opportunities to teach content that closely may more reflect students’ cultures and possibly attract a wider range of students. The participants used NMCEs to cultivate musical skills that are often overlooked in large-group setting, including improvisation, playing by ear, and collaborative arranging and composition.

Recurring patterns: An ethnographic study on the adoption of AI music tools by practitioners of electroacoustic, contemporary and popular musics

The intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and art has been a topic of great interest in recent times. Driven by greater visibility of accessible AI applications within mainstream media, artists have increased their uptake of such tools as means of exploring and expanding their creative expressions. With the music industry also displaying similar levels of curiosity for AI tools, practitioners and audiences voice diverging opinions on the topics of artistic authenticity, creative labour and the threats posed by thinking machines on the future of musicians’ careers. This article aims to explore these topics through an ethnographic study conducted through interviews with five composers active in the areas of electroacoustic music, contemporary composition and experimental electronic music. The discussions reveal some of the software and methodologies currently popular among composers, the challenges faced and avenues presented when adopting AI tools, as well as the attitudes and discourse that permeate the niche circles of AI-generated music. The findings point towards the swift uptake of new technologies by curious artists and the slow development of trust in AI applications by traditionalist makers and listeners, suggesting a continuation of the patterns of behaviour evident since the emergence of music technology.

Enhancing Audio Signal Quality and Learning Experience with Integrated Covariance Weiner Filtering in College Music Education

In recent years, computer music technology has become increasingly prevalent in college music education, offering new possibilities for creative expression and pedagogical approaches. This paper concentrated on the music education in the colleges with the application of integrated time and frequency filtering (ITFF) with Kalman integrated covariance Weiner filtering in college music education. The ITFF technique combines time and frequency domain analysis to enhance the quality and clarity of audio signals. By integrating the Kalman integrated covariance Weiner filtering, the ITFF method provides robust noise reduction and improved signal representation. This integrated approach enables music educators to effectively analyze and manipulate audio signals in real-time, fostering a more immersive and engaging learning environment for students. The findings of this study highlight the benefits and potential applications of ITFF with Kalman-integrated covariance Weiner filtering in college music education, including audio signal enhancement, sound synthesis, and interactive performance systems. The integration of computer music technology with advanced filtering techniques presents new opportunities for exploring sound, composition, and music production within an educational context.

Exploring the Opportunities of Haptic Technology in the Practice of Visually Impaired and Blind Sound Creatives

Visually impaired and blind (VIB) people as a community face several access barriers when using technology. For users of specialist technology, such as digital audio workstations (DAWs), these access barriers become increasingly complex—often stemming from a vision-centric approach to user interface design. Haptic technologies may present opportunities to leverage the sense of touch to address these access barriers. In this article, we describe a participant study involving interviews with twenty VIB sound creatives who work with DAWs. Through a combination of semi-structured interviews and a thematic analysis of the interview data, we identify key issues relating to haptic audio and accessibility from the perspective of VIB sound creatives. We introduce the technical and practical barriers that VIB sound creatives encounter, which haptic technology may be capable of addressing. We also discuss the social and cultural aspects contributing to VIB people’s uptake of new technology and access to the music technology industry.

Beat Box

Music Applications are connected to Human emotions that are not consistent and they are actually result of circumstances happening in individuals. Music is one of the best ways to relieve pressure in stressful modern society life. It unites us across markets, ages, backgrounds, languages, preference[1]. Youths are so obsessed that not only day chores even during rest time they prefer music. Music Application have a high demand as this can be used anytime, anywhere, and can be combined with daily activities, travelling, sports. With the rapid development of mobile network and digital music technologies, digital music has become the mainstream consumer content sought by many young people. Nowadays, the internet is growing fast and a large group of people has access to the internet, but people always prefer songs of offline.

Effects of music technology on language comprehension and self-control in children with developmental delays

This study explores musical technology widely used in special music education. Holistic music educational approach for young children (HMEAYC) is a two-decades-old innovative and local education model that combines modern science and technology, multi-sensory equipment, and traditional instruments with creative music in young children of the learning field in Taiwan. The educational benefits of HMEAYC with music technology for young children’s learning are increasingly well-documented. The opportunity to experience these benefits should be available to children in preschool education and special music education settings. Thus, we assessed the efficacy of music technology on the growth of language comprehension (LC) and self-control (SC), particularly investigating its effects on young children with developmental delays. The study examined the impact of LC and SC of music technology on young children with developmental delays. We conducted our research in one non-profit early intervention center using a pre-/post-test control group (CG) quasi-experimental research design. Teachers of the experimental group (EG) and CG used the method of the HMEAYC curriculum in the same research process. A qualitative approach was embedded in pre-/post-test CG to learn more about participants’ experiences when they accepted the intervention of music technology. Music technology was applied to EG, while CG was not provided any intervention related to equipment. EG included 252 students (64.8%) in total: 98 girls (38.9%) and 154 boys (61.1%). CG had 137 students (35.2%) in total: 65 girls (47.4%) and 72 boys (52.6%). An early childhood behavior evaluation system was used to collect quantitative information. At the same time, pre-tests were given to EG and CG participants before the practical intervention, and post-tests were given after the curriculum was finalized. The results indicated that EG’s LC and SC improved significantly compared to CG participants. The analyses of qualitative statistical findings provided positive changes that incorporating technology contributes to evidence in LC and enhanced SC among and between participants. The findings of this music technology study show that learning behavior of young children with developmental delays significantly improves with the inclusion of technology. Our findings match the results of previous studies. Consequently, the development of the research makes acceptable assumptions that implementing music technology in the educational learning environment will enable young children with developmental delays to integrate into the field of school education more positively and actively.

From Grinder to Nipper: Opera, Music Technology and Italian American (Self-)Representation

AbstractIn this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.

Prototype "Kendang Jaipong" Virtual Instrument as Music Creativity Tools

Numerous organological discoveries in the form of virtual instruments have surfaced as a result of the impact of developing digital music technology. To conserve and promote music based on local culture, organological innovations in the form of virtual instruments, such as the kendang jaipong, must be implemented. The goal of this work is to describe the development of the kendang jaipong virtual instrument from organological investigations through the realization of a marketable prototype. By sampling from the Kendang Jaipong’s actual instrument and converting it into a virtual instrument based on the KONTAKT Library, the technique utilized is practice-led research, also known as practice-based research. Pre-production, production, and post-production are the three stages of the design process. This prototype makes use of 137 samples that are based on a variety of chosen kendang sounds. To enable each type of kendang sound to function as a virtual instrument in DAW and Digital Music Notation programs, the audio samples are organized in a placement system on the keyboard keys included in the KONTAKT feature. The Kendang Jaipong prototype has been successfully tested on several music productions using DAW-cast and video score. The usage of the multi-round robin's function to have a more diversified sample, as well as the addition of the midi files capability, are things that need to be developed on this prototype product so that it may be used as a machine learning by users.

The development trend of music art based on content analysis method

Abstract In the Internet-mediated environment, and in the midst of the ongoing networking process, music art trends are changing accordingly. The purpose of this paper is to make an in-depth observation and reflection on this topic from a theoretical perspective. Therefore, the normalization algorithm is used as the theoretical basis to create a BN-content analysis model. Calculations show that the degree of impediment of the teaching environment to the development of row music art is 64%. And the most likely development trend of pop music is the development of pop music in the field of education, whose comprehensive development degree is 95%. This is followed by the pop music technology area, which has a combined development level of 91%. The calculation shows that music education in higher education has the highest impact with an impact factor of 1.05. This is because music education in universities and primary and secondary schools is gradually returning to the education and study of traditional Chinese music. The influence of the media sector on traditional music and art trends is 0.71. For example, the singers on the TV show “I’m a Singer” have been spreading folk music in their performances.

The influence of music technology on the academic behavior of preschool children with autism spectrum disorder

This study explored the effects of combining two music technology teaching approaches, holistic music educational approach for young children (HMEAYC) and multisensory musical activities (MSMAs), on children’s academic behavior performances. The venue was a nonprofit early intervention organization and private preschool. Purposive sampling was used to select six children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and six without ASD around the age of 40-63 months, and the course arrangement was a 40-minute class each week for 14 weeks. This study demonstrated that the MSMAs teaching method could improve children’s learning habits and performance without ASD. In addition, the intervention of HMEAYC teaching method can improve the academic behavior of both children with ASD, and without ASD, especially for children with ASD; it has more significant benefits on learning habits. In addition, through HMEAYC’s music therapy courses, children’s communication, emotional and social performance can also be improved.

The Pedagogy of Gear Touchers: Unearthing Modes of Teaching Within and Through DIY Venues

Background: Within the body of literature on do-it-yourself (DIY) music scenes, researchers have routinely placed an emphasis on the role of material space in shaping the sociocultural and musical practices of punk music and other related genres. Scholars have also examined the teaching and learning processes of these musical subcultures under the banner of “punk pedagogy” scholarship. However, investigations into the intersection between these two strands of research need to occur because theories of punk pedagogy have largely overlooked the role of physical space within the educative practices of DIY music. Research into the thematically related space of the maker movement amplifies this need, because maker education scholars have repeatedly shown the multiple ways that materials and space shape how individuals learn through DIY production. Research Questions: I use this paper to attend to the following questions: How do DIY music venues shape the pedagogical practices of DIY music scenes? And in what ways do those pedagogies align with the ideological and ethical aims of these communities? By focusing on learning within DIY venues, I consider multiple forms of musical production outside of the context of a specific genre (i.e., punk). This study therefore provides insight into the mechanisms through which individuals learn and how those mechanisms relate to the physical affordances of these spaces. Research Design: To address these questions, I conducted a year-long comparative case study into two intertwined music series centered on noise music (an experimental subgenre within DIY music’s broad umbrella) and located in two separate DIY venues. Although each of the 13 events in this series included both a workshop and a concert, I focus my analysis on the concert portion of the series to explore a common site of interaction within DIY scenes. Through open and iterative qualitative analyses of field notes generated from observations of concerts in the series and interviews with featured artists and audience members, I provide a nuanced understanding of learning within DIY music venues and the role that both material space and technologies play in shaping that process. Conclusions: Drawing on this analysis, I contend that the stageless design of DIY venues provides a physical affordance that allows “gear toucher conversations” to occur. These conversations involve audience members engaging performers in discussions about the music technologies they use mere seconds after they finish performing, thus linking this pedagogical moment to the material attributes of the venue. However, these conversations reinscribe masculine notions of technology and undermine DIY music’s egalitarian politics, a finding that mirrors critical research into maker education. This work therefore calls on both researchers and practitioners to contend with the pedagogies of place and the educative processes that emerge out of situated technologies to further the liberatory praxes that DIY production can produce.

Encountering disability in music: Exploring perceptions on inclusive music education in higher music education

This research study evaluated an Artist-in-Residence-project (AIR-project) at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, focusing on inclusive music education. For this project, the Conservatory invited the organization Drake Music Scotland to work with its students. The project’s aim was to provide students with practical skills regarding music technology, to discuss the social model of disability, and to play in an inclusive music ensemble with a musician with a severe physical disability. The perceived learning experiences of students, the experienced value of the project, and recommendations for its improvement were explored through online questionnaires with the students and online semistructured interviews with the AIR-project leader, the musician with a disability, and the two workshop leaders of Drake Music Scotland. Findings suggest that alongside learning practical skills regarding music technology, students changed or broadened their perceptions about people with disabilities and inclusive music-making in positive ways. Furthermore, participants valued that the project created a space in which “taking enough time” and “belonging” could be experienced; these values are important in inclusive music environments as they can empower musicians with disabilities. The main recommendation for similar projects was that students wanted to gain hands-on experience in inclusive music education.

A TPACK-Based Case Study of Music Technology Integration in Liberal Music Education at a Vocational College: Exploring Student Learning Outcomes and Engagement

Based on the TPACK theoretical framework, the purpose of this research is to investigate how the incorporation of music technology affects student learning outcomes and participation in liberal arts music education in vocational colleges. Data were gathered via questionnaires and classroom observations, and statistical analysis was performed to process the data. A case study approach was utilized, the participants were course participants, the research environment was a music classroom in a school. The findings demonstrate how incorporating music technology can greatly enhance student learning outcomes and engagement. In addition, the TPACK theoretical framework serves as a helpful resource and roadmap for instructors who want to teach integrated music technology.

Genre-Bending: A Discourse on Globalization and Culture with Implications for Music Therapy

Abstract Genre-bending is an evolving term that indicates the tendency for musical and cultural elements to interact with each other, often defying previously established genre distinctions. Evolutions of technology have expanded the way music is both created and consumed, and together with globalization, has shaped the development of a global music landscape. Hybrid elements and dynamics of music and culture have important implications for the development and exchange of musical identities outside of and within music therapy. In this article, there is a brief review of the digitalization of music technology related to consumers and curators. We highlight how digitalization and globalization have increased access through media democratization and afforded a global digital agency. This agency is explored with both the access and engagement of consumers, and the impact on curation by music creators. Those introductory elements are used for grounding the article’s main idea of genre-bending; including what it is, the ways it functions in popular music today, sociocultural and relational elements, and implications for music therapy. As part of this discourse, we highlight how the global music landscape has encouraged diverse music tastes and normalized inclusive engagement, and the subsequent importance of understanding individuals as being situated through multicultural music personhood. These shifts shape the intersubjective meaning making between therapist and client, impacting musical identities. The article concludes by delving into the ways these realities influence how music therapists hold space for curation, clients’ resources, and cultural assets through hybrid therapeutic dynamics.

Synthesizing Human Characteristics based on String Instruments

As music technology continues to evolve, new software enables us to digitally produce audio. Although plenty of progresses have been made in music genres (e.g., EDM or hip hop), many string instruments have yet to be thoroughly synthesized. Instruments, such as the cello, require incorporating human characteristics to evoke emotion. On this basis, Nyquist and Audacity are utilized in this paper to analyze and create the synthesized pitch of the cello. Some may argue that computers are incapable of human characteristics in music, but the results of this study clarify the feasibilities at some extent. Based on both visualizing and listening, the output creates a similar sound hardly indistinguishable from a human. It presents the possibility of expanding onto other string instruments including the violin, viola, etc. Instead of the necessity for an entire orchestra, anyone can have their own symphony at their fingertips. From movies, video games, or any form of entertainment, the advancements in this field of research could revolutionize the music industry. These results shed light on guiding further exploration of synthesizing human characteristics in context of string instruments.

The politics is in the drums: Producing and composing in the music classroom

Music technology courses are increasingly common offerings in university and secondary music programmes. Curriculum standards, subject matter and classroom practices of these courses are still very much in flux. The music education field therefore has a unique opportunity to shape and define music technology as a subject before it becomes fully standardized. Teaching this subject in the context of European-descended ‘art’ music traditions will perpetuate the white racial frame of school music. The author argues that educators should critically examine the racialized split between ‘art’ and ‘popular’ forms of electronic music, and should consciously centre ‘the Black Electronic’ in their curricula. This includes the techniques of beatmaking and sampling, as well as their cultural and political contexts and meanings. An example project drawing on hip hop methods and values is presented.

Listening with Elephant Ears

This article addresses Listening with Elephant Ears, a contemporary music composition and performance created by the author together with the Elefantöra (Elephant Ear) ensemble. Elefantöra is a norm-critical music ensemble that includes both disabled and non-disabled musicians. When musicians are defined as disabled, normative assumptions regarding the correct use of musical instruments and expert definitions of good sound generate rehabilitative approaches to music that perpetuate exclusions of ableism. This article examines the intersections that exist between exclusions of ableism and exclusions based on musical virtuosity. It focuses on the ways in which Elefantöra contests both exclusions of ableism and virtuosity in their creative reappropriations of sound technology. Composed in the fall of 2020 as a collaborative artistic research engagement, Listening with Elephant Ears was first performed at the Lund Contemporary Music Festival in Sweden, October 2021. The article draws on ethnographic and sound material generated from my artistic research engagement with Elefantöra. Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Listening with Elephant Ears actively reappropriates the Zoom video conference software as a music technology. The piece embraces Zoom’s limitations and emphasizes the aesthetic value of the audio distortions and digital interference that Zoom introduces into musical performance. Critiquing regimes of regulation that situate disabled musicians differently to non-disabled musicians, Listening with Elephant Ears applies care as a theoretical perspective from which to reflect critically on rehabilitative approaches to music and the associated exclusions of ableism and musical virtuosity.

Entering the Ambient

Since the 1980s, there has been an interest in the clinical benefits and challenges with the use of digital music technology in music therapy, yet there is still little information about the experiential potentialities of digital music technologies from relational, psychodynamic, and ecological frameworks. The ambient mode of being presents a heuristic approach to clinical listening when using digital music technology. Performative collaborative autoethnography was utilized by a group of four music therapy clinicians who wanted to understand their shared experience of entering the ambient while improvising using digital music technologies. Seven video excerpts from six different improvisation sessions were chosen to explore this topic and its implications for being a music therapy clinician. In keeping with the values of performative collaborative autoethnography, the results and discussion of this study are presented as a dialogue between the researchers. Each group members’ experience of entering the ambient was unique, but they shared a common reverence for how they were able to create an ambient space using digital music technology, which acted as a co-agent within their group process. The group members discuss clinical implications for this research including the benefits, challenges, and the role of gender/identity when using digital music technologies.

Спронк В. Испытание параметров музыки: Хальберштадтское исполнение ORGAN2/ASLSP Джона Кейджа как экспериментальная система

Is being performed at Halberstadt, Germany, by ORGAN2/ASL SP (1987), an organ piece by the American avant-garde composer, John Milton Cage (1912–1992), music theorist and pioneer in aleatorics, electronic music and the non-standard use of musical instruments, whom music critics have called one of the most influential American composers of the 20th, known for his radical attempts to subvert listeners’ conventional ideas of what music is and should be. With this performance, with a running time of 639 years and being the world’s longest performance of a piece of music that will reach its finale at 2640, with a break at 2319, the initiators of the ORGAN2/ASLSP organ piece at Halberstadt seek to explore in practice the direction of the musical movement set by the composer — “as slowly as possible” that Cage laid out for the work. ORGAN2/ASLSP invites listeners to reconsider what we mean by music: is something still music if the length of performance exceeds the length of human life? In essence, Organ2/ASLSP contains the idea of a paradigm shift stemming from the transformation of musical technology, presented by the composer as a transition from linear to complex thinking, from determinism to indeterminism, to the creation, instead of static art objects, of moving and changing artistic processes that predetermine a new technique and aesthetics of music performance. ORGAN2/ASLSP’s performance questions the boundaries of musical performance, from the role of the performer to the role of the listener, the material and temporal conditions of music, to articulate how slow is “as slow as possible”, prompting us to essentially reconsider the fundamental parameters of music.

Examination of Postgraduate Theses in the Field Of Music Technologies In Turkey Between 2018-2022

Examination of Postgraduate Theses in the Field Of Music Technologies In Turkey Between 2018-2022
 Elif Gülfem KISTIR *1 , Berna ÖZKUT 2 ,
 The development of technology affects human life and interests in many areas. This research was carried out to classify the postgraduate theses in the field of music technologies covering the years 2018-2022 in Turkey in order to reveal the effects of technological developments on music. Since the specified time period includes the Covid-19 pandemic period, it is among the sub-objectives of the research to determine the situation as a leading indicator of the effect on the thesis studies. The research is a descriptive study from qualitative research methods. The content and scope of the research consists of a total of 31 postgraduate theses that can be accessed on the thesis screening page of the Council of Higher Education between the years 2018-2022. In the thesis studies reached for the research, the concepts related to music technologies included in the keywords, subject headings and abstracts of the theses constitute the limitations of the research. Although these concepts include the expressions "Computer, technology, sound recording, digital, recording technologies, sound technologies, music technologies, studio, software", the ones related to the field of music have been scanned. The data obtained were classified according to academic degrees, years, universities, institutes, subjects, the language in which they were written and thesis titles, and were analyzed by making frequency/percentage distributions. Based on the data obtained, it was concluded that the master's theses in the field of music technology are in the majority, the studies are based in Istanbul and the Social Sciences Institutes are dominant on the basis of the institute. It is thought that the research is important in terms of creating a leading indicator for the studies to be done in the field of music technologies.
 
 TÜRKİYE’DE 2018-2022 YILLARI ARASINDA MÜZİK TEKNOLOJİLERİ ALANINDA YAPILMIŞ LİSANSÜSTÜ TEZLER
 Teknoloji gelişimi birçok alanda insan hayatına ve ilgi alanlarına etki etmektedir. Bu araştırma, teknolojik gelişmelerin müziğe olan etkilerini ortaya koyabilmek adına, Türkiye’de 2018-2022 yıllarını kapsayan, müzik teknolojileri alanındaki lisansüstü tezlerin sınıflandırılması amacıyla yapılmıştır. Belirtilen zaman periyodu Covid-19 pandemi dönemini de içerdiği için yapılan tez çalışmaları üzerinde etkisinin, öncü gösterge niteliğinde durum tespitini yapmak, araştırmanın alt amaçları arasındadır. Araştırma nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden betimsel bir çalışmadır. Araştırmanın içerik ve kapsamını; 2018-2022 yılları arasında YÖK tez tarama sayfasında erişilebilen toplam 31 lisansüstü tezleri oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma için ulaşılan tez çalışmalarında, tezlerin anahtar kelimelerinde, konu başlıklarında ve özet kısımlarında yer verilen müzik teknolojilerine ilişkin kavramlar, araştırmanın sınırlılıklarını oluşturmaktadır. Bu kavramlar ‘Bilgisayar, teknoloji, ses kayıt, dijital, kayıt teknolojileri, ses teknolojileri, müzik teknolojileri, stüdyo, yazılım’ ifadelerini içermekle birlikte, müzik alanı ile ilişkili olanlar üzerinden tarama yapılmıştır. Elde edilen veriler akademik derecelere, yıllara, üniversitelere, enstitülere, konulara, yazıldığı dile ve tez başlıklarına göre sınıflandırılmış, frekans/yüzde dağılımları yapılarak incelenmiştir. Elde edilen verilerden yola çıkılarak müzik teknolojisi alanında yüksek lisans tezlerinin çoğunlukta olduğu, çalışmaların İstanbul merkezli olduğu ve enstitü bazında Sosyal Bilimler Enstitülerinin ağırlıklı olduğu sonuçlarına ulaşılmıştır. Araştırmanın, müzik teknolojileri alanında yapılacak çalışmalara öncü gösterge oluşturma bakımından önemli olduğu düşünülmektedir.