Musical Patterns Research Articles

Towards Leitmotif Activity Detection in Opera Recordings

This paper approaches the automatic detection of musical patterns in audio recordings with a particular focus on leitmotifs, which are specific types of patterns associated with certain characters, places, items, or feelings occurring in an opera or movie soundtrack. The detection of such leitmotifs is particularly challenging since their appearance can change substantially over the course of a musical work. In our case study, we consider a self-contained yet comprehensive scenario comprising 16 recorded performances of Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is a prime example for the use of leitmotifs. Within this scenario, we introduce and formalize the novel task of leitmotif activity detection. Based on a dataset of 200 hours of audio with over 50 000 annotated leitmotif instances, we explore the benefits and limitations of deep-learning techniques for detecting leitmotifs. To this end, we adapt two common deep-learning strategies based on recurrent and convolutional neural networks, respectively. To investigate the robustness of the trained systems, we test their sensitivity to different modifications of the input. We find that our deep-learning systems work well in general but capture confounding factors, such as pitch distributions in leitmotif regions, instead of characteristic musical properties, such as rhythm and melody. Thus, our in-depth analysis demonstrates some challenges that may arise from applying deep-learning approaches for detecting complex musical patterns in audio recordings.

A geometric framework for pitch estimation on acoustic musical signals

This paper presents a geometric approach to pitch estimation (PE) – an important problem in music information retrieval (MIR), and a precursor to a variety of other problems in the field. Though there exist a number of highly accurate methods, both mono-pitch estimation and multi-pitch estimation (particularly with unspecified polyphonic timbre) prove computationally and conceptually challenging. A number of current techniques, while incredibly effective, are not targeted towards eliciting the underlying mathematical structures that underpin the complex musical patterns exhibited by acoustic musical signals. Tackling the approach from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, we present a novel framework, a basis for further work in the area, and results that (while not state of the art) demonstrate relative efficacy. The framework presented in this paper opens up a completely new way to tackle PE problems and may have uses both in traditional analytical approaches as well as in the emerging machine learning (ML) methods that currently dominate the literature.

Symmetry, Combinatorics, Artificial Intelligence, Music and Spectroscopy

Symmetry forms the foundation of combinatorial theories and algorithms of enumeration such as Möbius inversion, Euler totient functions, and the celebrated Pólya’s theory of enumeration under the symmetric group action. As machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques play increasingly important roles in the machine perception of music to image processing that are central to many disciplines, combinatorics, graph theory, and symmetry act as powerful bridges to the developments of algorithms for such varied applications. In this review, we bring together the confluence of music theory and spectroscopy as two primary disciplines to outline several interconnections of combinatorial and symmetry techniques in the development of algorithms for machine generation of musical patterns of the east and west and a variety of spectroscopic signatures of molecules. Combinatorial techniques in conjunction with group theory can be harnessed to generate the musical scales, intensity patterns in ESR spectra, multiple quantum NMR spectra, nuclear spin statistics of both fermions and bosons, colorings of hyperplanes of hypercubes, enumeration of chiral isomers, and vibrational modes of complex systems including supergiant fullerenes, as exemplified by our work on the golden fullerene C150,000. Combinatorial techniques are shown to yield algorithms for the enumeration and construction of musical chords and scales called ragas in music theory, as we exemplify by the machine construction of ragas and machine perception of musical patterns. We also outline the applications of Hadamard matrices and magic squares in the development of algorithms for the generation of balanced-pitch chords. Machine perception of musical, spectroscopic, and symmetry patterns are considered.

The Musical Language of Rock

The Musical Language of Rock

Neural plasticity for music processing in young adults: The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has increasingly been proposed and utilized as a unique approach to enhance various communicative, cognitive, and emotional functions. However, it is not clear whether, how, and to what extent, tDCS influences nonlinguistic processing such as music processing. The purpose of this study was to examine cortical responses to music as a result of noninvasive brain stimulation. We used a passive listening multiple oddball paradigm consisting of sixtypes of music pattern changes (rhythm, intensity, slide, location, pitch, and timbre) and recorded the event-related potentials (ERP) using 65-electrode sensor nets. Healthy young adults were tested before and after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). We hypothesized that short-duration one-session tDCS would enhance some aspect of music processing. Our results indicated that the differences between pre- and post-tDCS ERPs were only evident in some conditions. Noninvasive brain stimulation, including tDCS, has the potential to be used as a clinical tool for enhancing auditory processing, but further studies need to examine how experimental parameters (dosage, duration, frequency, etc) influence the neural responses for auditory processing.

Modal Intonation Features of Crowd Scenes in the Operetta “O olmasyn, bu olsun” (“Not that, so this”) by U. Hajibeyli

The article analyses the features of the crowd scenes’ structure in the operetta “O olmasyn, bu olsun” (1910) by the outstanding composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli (1885–1948), who founded the Azerbaijani professional composer school at the beginning of the 20th century. In this operetta rich in comic imagery, the composer’s style is reflected in choral scenes influenced by harmonious recitatives and musical patterns and analyzed as a philosophical sphere of reflection of events in the comical plane. He also interprets the development of the operetta genre as a genre of contemporary music in the professional traditions of Western European music in Azerbaijan, as well as the features of intonation that are relevant in Azerbaijani folk music in terms of its structure and thematic focus. The purpose of the research is to analyze the modal features of the operetta “O olmasyn, bu olsun”. For this, the variety of characters available in the work, the line of development of these characters as an issue to study the compatibility of the inner world of characters, given both emotionally and comically, come to the fore. It is also noteworthy that the comparison of moods and intonations in the events taking place in the crowd scenes is naturally reflected here. The research methodology draws attention to the comparative and historical analysis of music theory and history of music, axiological and cultural approaches. Here, the principle of using texts in musical scenes reflects the originality of the composer’s style. Our analysis made it important to consider the research of various researchers who adhere to the principle of secularism. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time in U. Hajibeyli's operetta “O olmasyn, bu olsun”, an extensive analysis of fret features in crowd scenes with different editions was carried out. The emergence of these features also serves as an example for musicians and composers working in the field of musical composition. Conclusions. The analysis of the modal intonations’ features of crowd scenes in the operetta by U. Hajibeyli “O olmasyn, boolsun” shows the clarity of the intonation principles in Azerbaijani folk music from the point of view of the correspondence of images. This aspect also shaped the composer’s intonation concept. Musical materials suitable for the composer’s comedy scene explain the different situations of the protagonist. The article draws attention to the combination of images and choral performance used in public scenes, for example, the combination of mood and intonation. The use of historical, musical theory, composition, modal intonation features on the public stage is more consistent with the fret concept created by the composer U. Hajibeyli.

Exploring annotations for musical pattern discovery gathered with digital annotation tools

The study of inter-annotator agreement in musical pattern annotations has gained increased attention over the past few years. While expert annotations are often taken as the reference for evaluating pattern discovery algorithms, relying on just one reference is not usually sufficient to capture the complex musical relations between patterns. In this paper, we address the potential of digital annotation tools to enable large-scale annotations of musical patterns, by comparing datasets gathered with two recently developed digital tools. We investigate the influence of the tools and different annotator backgrounds on the annotation process by performing inter-annotator agreement analysis and feature-based analysis on the annotated patterns. We discuss implications for further adaptation of annotation tools, and the potential for deriving reference data from such rich annotation datasets for the evaluation of automatic pattern discovery algorithms in the future.

Robert O. Gjerdingen: Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN 978–0–19–065359–0. 355 pp. €28.50.

Robert Gjerdingen scarcely needs any introduction. His 2007 book, Music in the Galant Style, has already become a classic, and his study of "schemas"—fixed, recognizable, and replicable musical patterns in the galant style—has had a profound influence on music-theoretical discourse. It has gained broad currency, and not just among music theorists and musicologists, for its holistic treatment of musical phrases attracts many non-specialists. The schemas discussed by Gjerdingen offer excellent tools for keyboard improvisation and are clearly recognizable from listening to eighteenth-century music in particular. […]

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ВИЗУАЛЬНОГО РЯДА МУЗЫКАЛЬНОЙ РЕКЛАМЫ И ЕГО ВОЗДЕЙСТВИЕ НА ПОТРЕБИТЕЛЯ

Before 1950s, advertising had a reputation as a not entirely reputable business. A fragment from A. Hitchcock’ film may serve as an approval of it, where a hero states that in the world of advertising, there is no such thing as a lie, but there is only the expedient exaggeration. With the advent of the TV, the musical functions of transferring and evoking the emotions are generated. Since 1990s, music in advertising refers to music integrated in the media advertisement in order to enhance its success. The novelty of the research concerns the visual and music-visual modalities in the advertisement video contributing to the commercial interest from the consumers, which have been analyzed based on the aesthetic appeal to the screen images. Music is a crucial part of advertising. Thus, the Race of Parts musical content of the advertisement for 2008 featuring the Renault Megane, accompanied by the music from Vivaldi’s the Four Seasons, Summer, Part 3, is closely associated with formation of a product itself. It is expressed by the attractive interactions between the car parts and the rising tessitura, while the color gamut is in contradiction to the general associative perception. The musical score expressing a product olfactory perception is more rhythmic and airy. Thus, the advertisement of the Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gioia perfume uses the audio-visual modality of the water element including rain, sea waves, and waterfall. Constructing the visual perception is supported by the dominant in music with a tendency to the gradually developing variation set. Unreasonable music used in advertising can result in decreasing the interest to the made brand. This fact has caused a strong activity in finding the new ways to attract the interest of the audience to the commercial product. Animation is one of them (for instance, the animated Coca-Cola Polar Bears Commercial, 2012). The music is written in the classical style by Glenn Rueger. Music supplements expand the imagery of the main heroes, attracting the potential consumers. In the clip of political advertising, the music may play a significant role. The music sounding as a patriotic call can help the audience perception of the essence of the challenge images in the clip and the opportunities to overcome them. The clip from the I am Shapovalov film (1973) with the Let’s Raise the Cavalry Swords song (Composer E. N. Ptichkin and Lyricist E. E. Karelov) performed by V. Mulerman contains a sustaining calmer rhythm. With respect to the same song performed by A. Chuprin, the constants of the march precise in rhythm sound against the reference history of creating and developing the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and modern Russia. The musical content in advertising is shown to increase the psychological impact on the audience and its emotional arousal, enhancing the attractiveness of a commercial product. Therefore, careful selection of the music material and the method of its use may contribute to creating the rhythmically charged imagery of the clip itself, providing insight into imagery and forming an appropriate language content with the use of cinematographic techniques (editing, color grading, etc.). In addition, the ideological dimension of the musical rhythmic pattern in advertising may contribute to determining the genres of the clip itself.

МУЗЫКАЛЬНЫЕ И ВЕРБАЛЬНЫЕ КОМПОНЕНТЫ В МУСУЛЬМАНСКОМ БОГОСЛУЖЕНИИ

To begin with that is well known fact that any traditional culture (including Islamic culture) is variable in its nature. The regional component of divine service (Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Moscow) is a specific factor of modification in this article. Moreover, it is assumed that the objective reason of the appearance of regional features of the researched musical material could be the vastness of the Russian territory and the relative distance of mosques in provincial cities from the Kazan center. By the way, despite the different ways of musical intoning, the sacred word of the Koran remains unchanged, and variability is the universal principle of any traditional culture. The ritual-plastic side introduces a special feature in the chanting of juma-namaz, the Friday prayer, that is prescribed by the Koran (obligatory collective prayer of Muslims is performed on Friday during the noon prayers in mosques). Actually in any religious cult prayer practice is associated with certain bodily movements that are determined not only the nature of vocal intonation, but often with the direction of the melodic movement. Moreover, this interconnection of musical and plastic intonations in chanting of juma-namaz deserves a separate consideration. The ritual gestures are strictly defined. They are canonized not only by gestures and movements, but also with what verbal formula they must be coincided. The main complex of ritual movements in juma-namaz is concentrated in “dramatic heart” of worship. It is concentrated two rak’ahat-standing (the canonized order of words and actions that constitute the Muslim prayer). The supreme variety of movements is “Takbir” (exaltation of God), which includes a waist-bow and straightening, two earthly bows and seats, a waist-bow and straightening after a bow. The gestures can be changed during one chant or in the transition between two chants. The special cohesion of bodily and melodic movements is singled out the hymns of rak'ah in general. By the way, if in the first two chants attention is focused on intense melodic movement in a relatively unfolded vocal form, in “Takbir”, on the contrary, the relative “low mobility” and shortness of melodic structures “the score” of body movements is richer. Taking everything into account, the body movement is not an end in itself. It is just one of the ways of expressing the prayer state of the soul, which is in some way consistent with other methods – words and melodies. In this case, the art of the singing also acts as one of the methods of prayer and it determines not only by the proper musical patterns (it is secondary), but it mostly determines be the tajwid (the rules of reading the Koran).

Retracted] Optimization of Music Feature Recognition System for Internet of Things Environment Based on Dynamic Time Regularization Algorithm

Because of the difficulty of music feature recognition due to the complex and varied music theory knowledge influenced by music specialization, we designed a music feature recognition system based on Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The physical sensing layer of the system places sound sensors at different locations to collect the original music signals and uses a digital signal processor to carry out music signal analysis and processing. The network transmission layer transmits the completed music signals to the music signal database in the application layer of the system. The music feature analysis module of the application layer uses a dynamic time regularization algorithm to obtain the maximum similarity between the test template and the reference. The music feature analysis module of the application layer uses the dynamic time regularization algorithm to obtain the maximum similarity between the test template and the reference template to realize the feature recognition of the music signal and determine the music pattern and music emotion corresponding to the music feature content according to the recognition result. The experimental results show that the system operates stably, can capture high‐quality music signals, and can correctly identify music style features and emotion features. The results of this study can meet the needs of composers’ assisted creation and music researchers’ analysis of a large amount of music data, and the results can be further transferred to deep music learning research, human‐computer interaction music creation, application‐based music creation, and other fields for expansion.

ПСАЛМОВІ ЦИКЛИ В ХОРОВІЙ ТВОРЧОСТІ ГЕНРІХА ШЮТЦА

The purpose of the article is to consider options for the embodiment of The Psalms’ texts in the choral work by Heinrich Schutz. The research methodology consists of the application of comparative, historical-logical, and semantic methods. This approach allows us to reveal the peculiarities of the composer’s work with the texts of The Psalms in the context of the main tendencies of the era, to examine the degree of spreading into the original source, identify the primary means of reading verbal text via music. Scientific novelty. Heinrich Schutz’s work is considered for the first time in domestic music studies from the point of view of the importance of the most common texts in the music of the early Baroque psalms. Psalm texts are the basis for almost half of all the vocal work of the composer. The interest in the music of H. Schut is due to the activation of performing interest in Baroque sacred music and the practical need for training courses in the history of music, the history of choral literature and others to update the material. Conclusions. The article has outlined the main tendencies of The Psalms’ texts implementation within the choral work by Heinrich Schut, which were the 16th – 18th-century music patterns. They are 1) motet/concert compositions’ settings to psalms; 2) poetic psalms melodies witting and adaptation. The author analyses the composer’s hermeneutical approach to verbal texts when creating motets. The critical factor in the formation of semantic fields in the motet is music. It was learned that motets are mostly written on the full texts of the psalms without significant interference; concerts written on compiled texts; texts’ reduction are less common. The article emphasises that in the process of a choral interpretation of the psalms, the composer took into consideration the peculiarities of the poetics of the original source, syntactic features of the verbal text, performance and practical needs, used rhetorical figures.

Authentic Voices in Supervision

Analytic thinkers incorporated the significance of authenticity for human development and therapeutic processes into their theories. I suggest that, consequently, supervisors search for the supervisees’ authentic voices, often masked by unconscious rhetorical devices, and for the patients’ authentic voices hidden in the supervisees’ voices. Assuming a poetic stance for listening, which highlights the speakers’ unique use of language, beyond the lexical and the prosaic, enables supervisors to perceive and construct implicit musical patterns and symbols woven into the supervisees’ communications. This stance allows the supervisors to perceive the supervisees’ authentic voices, free from their distracting rhetoric, and to imagine the patients’ voices in the supervisees’ heads. When supervisors differentiate and integrate various perceiving and reflective modes that characterize the poetic stance, they function as identification models for the supervisees in their development as analytic therapists.

The Impact of Vocal Features on Song Success

The rise of popular music on a global scale has prompted researchers to predict standard features for creating the next hit songs. Previous studies have explored various acoustical/audio features and their relations to top-charting songs but fail to include the artists' voice in determining popular music patterns. As a result, this study had used a trend analysis to find consistent patterns over the selected period (1980-2019) by analyzing five distinct vocal features: vowel corruption, pitch, intensity, number of pulses, and voicing. Upon analyzation, a general increase in vowel corruption and a formant difference in vowels were observed. A stagnant level in intensity and extreme variation in pitch was also noted. Overall, this study was one of the first to find accurate trends, including vocal features in hit song prediction research. Among various implications, one would be introducing a new area of study regarding singing in contemporary music.

Subjective quantification of music instrument practice disturbances: A machine audition based approach

Music instrument practice usually causes disturbance to neighbors, especially at tight living spaces with common walls or building structural transmissions. However, the severity of disturbance is difficult to quantify because of the varieties of musical sound, music content, and many subjective factors. We present three studies on the quantification of such disturbances using machine audition tools. In the first study, musical sound at a music practice room and an adjacent room is recorded and analyzed for quantifying the disturbance caused to adjacent rooms. This study builds a quantification framework for disturbance by applying musical pattern recognition tools such as pitch tracking and onset detection to imitate humans' musical perceptions. The machine audition results are correlated with subjective rating results for calibrating the disturbance scales. The second study explores the frequency-selective transmission profiles and ambient noise patterns and their correlations to machine-rated disturbance levels and subjectively rated disturbance levels. The third study explores the effect of acoustical environment on musicians. A professional musician can adapt to the acoustical environment by making adjustments to the performance he has prepared for and these adjustments form a feedback loop that affects both the practice experience and the perceived disturbance level.

L’Opéra-comique sous l’Empire: un spectacle apolitique? Le cas des “Deux journées” de Bouilly et Cherubini

During the First Empire, opera-comique is often regarded as a non-political genre. Its function is mainly seen as purely entertaining, as confirmed by the great success of Louis-Benoit Picard comic plays. In their common work Les Deux journees, Cherubini and Bouilly do not seem to respect entirely this dramatic and musical pattern, since they tend to use several aesthetic features of serious opera. Even though the play does not deal directly with contemporary politics, Les Deux journees can hardly be considered as “apolitical”. By using dramatic devices typical of opera-comique, such as the transposition of the characters in the idealized world of the shepherd Semos, the play approaches universal social problems like the use of power and authority and the relationships between different social categories which go far beyond the socio-political hic et nunc.

Te.M.P.O., an app for using temporal musical mismatch in post-stroke neurorehabilitation: A preliminary randomized controlled study.

Recently, the potential rehabilitation value of music has been examined and music-based interventions and techniques such as the Negative Mismatch (MMN) have been increasingly investigated in the neurological rehabilitation context. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a negative mismatch-based therapy on the disability and quality of life in patients with stroke in sub-acute phase. Thirty patients with a stroke diagnosis in sub-acute phase were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Mismatch (Mg) or Control (CTRLg) group. Both groups used an innovative Android application: Temporal Musical Patterns Organisation (Te.M.P.O). The Disability Rating Scale (DRS), the Modified Barthel Index (MBI) and the Stroke Specific Quality of Life scale (SSQoL) were used at the baseline (T0) and after four weeks of training (T1), in order to assess changes over time. Statistical analysis was performed using the data of 24 (Mg = 12, CTRLg = 12) subjects. The results show a major improvement of the Mg with respect to the CTRLg in all clinical scales score. The temporal negative mismatch-based therapy performed with the Te.M.P.O. application could be useful in improving the disability and the quality of life in stroke survivors in a sub-acute phase.

Application and Research of Folk Music Composition Based on Artificial Intelligence Technology

Music is one of the important forms of human emotion expression. Using artificial methods and technologies to allow the machine to quickly identify optical scores and real-time music sounds, through the inference and optimization of music emotion models, obtain human music emotion expression patterns, and actively complete human-machine collaboration with intelligent composition, and other related services. The development of multi-source perception of affective artificial intelligence has important research value and practical significance. This article mainly integrates multiple models of existing artificial intelligence models (typed music models, Markov chain models, genetic algorithm models, neural network models, etc.) to improve the rule knowledge to form a practical and effective hybrid model. Its innovation lies in combining formulas and matrix data combinations to intelligently compose non-note units (reproducing structures) in automatic composition, so as to achieve harmony, audibility and intelligence of music.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PROFESSIONAL CHRISTIAN MUSIC IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL TIME

The article deals with the formation of sacred music by Christians in the early Middle Ages. Basing on the historical sources and scientific literature, the authors show a connection between the musical traditions of Rome, the Western Goths of Spain and the empire of Charlemagne. The teaching of professional church singers, the birth of Mass, the complexity of the musical pattern of Christian singing, the educational ideas of Isidore of Seville and Alcuin of York, the metriz school timely opened by Christian mentors – all of it contributed to the formation of the early medieval educational process. Alcuin is the author of many (about 380) Latin instructive, panegyric, hagiographic, and liturgical poems (among the most famous are The Cuckoo (lat. De cuculo) and The Primate and Saints of the York Church (lat. De pontificibus et sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis )). Alcuin also wrote puzzles in poetry and prose. Alkuin conducted the extensive correspondence (with Charles the Great, Anguilbert, Pope Leo III and many others, a total of 232 letters to various people); Alcuin's letters are an important source on the history of the Carolingian society. At the Palace Academy, Alquin taught trivium and quadrivia elements; in his work On True Philosophy, he restored the scheme of the seven liberal arts, following Kassiodor’s parallel between the seven arts and the seven pillars of the temple of Wisdom of Solomon. He compiled textbooks on various subjects (some in a dialogical form). The Art of Grammar (lat. Ars grammatica) and the Slovene of the Most Noble Young Man Pipin with Albin Scholastic (Lat. Disputatio regalis et nobilissimi juvenis Pippini cum Albino scholastico) became very famous. Alcuin’s textbooks on dialectics, dogmatics, rhetoric, and liturgy are also known.

Predictability of higher-order temporal structure of musical stimuli is associated with auditory evoked response

Sound predictability resulting from repetitive patterns can be implicitly learned and often neither requires nor captures our conscious attention. Recently, predictive coding theory has been used as a framework to explain how predictable or expected stimuli evoke and gradually attenuate obligatory neural responses over time compared to those elicited by unpredictable events. However, these results were obtained using the repetition of simple auditory objects such as pairs of tones or phonemes. Here we examined whether the same principle would hold for more abstract temporal structures of sounds. If this is the case, we hypothesized that a regular repetition schedule of a set of musical patterns would reduce neural processing over the course of listening compared to stimuli with an irregular repetition schedule (and the same set of musical patterns). Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded while participants passively listened to 6–8 min stimulus sequences in which five different four-tone patterns with temporally regular or irregular repetition were presented successively in a randomized order. N1 amplitudes in response to the first tone of each musical pattern were significantly less negative at the end of the regular sequence compared to the beginning, while such reduction was absent in the irregular sequence. These results extend previous findings by showing that N1 reflects automatic learning of the predictable higher-order structure of sound sequences, while continuous engagement of preattentive auditory processing is necessary for the unpredictable structure.