Sound events are proven to have an impact on the emotions of the listener. Recent works on the fi... more Sound events are proven to have an impact on the emotions of the listener. Recent works on the field of emotion recognition from sound events show, on one hand, the possibility of automatic emotional information retrieval from sound events and, on the other hand, the need for deeper understanding of the significance of the sound events’ semantic content on listener’s affective state. In this work we present a first, to the best
of authors’ knowledge, investigation of the relation between the semantic similarity of the sound events and the elicited emotion. For that cause we use two emotionally annotated sound datasets and the Wu-Palmer semantic similarity measure according to WordNet. Results indicate that the semantic content seems to have a limited role in the conformation of the listener’s affective states. On the contrary, when the semantic content is matched to specific areas in the Arousal - Valence space or also the source’s spatial position is taken into account, it is exhibited that the importance of the semantic content effect is higher, especially for the cases with medium to low valence and medium to high arousal or when the sound source is at the lateral positions of the listener’s head, respectively.
Conceptual blending is a cognitive theory whereby ele- ments from diverse, but structurally-relat... more Conceptual blending is a cognitive theory whereby ele- ments from diverse, but structurally-related, mental spaces are ‘blended’ giving rise to new conceptual spaces. This study focuses on structural blending utilising an algorith- mic formalisation for conceptual blending applied to har- monic concepts. More specifically, it investigates the ability of the system to produce meaningful blends between harmonic cadences, which arguably constitute the most fun- damental harmonic concept. The system creates a variety of blends combining elements of the penultimate chords of two input cadences and it further estimates the expected relationships between the produced blends. Then, a preliminary subjective evaluation of the proposed blending system is presented. A pairwise dissimilarity listening test was conducted using original and blended cadences as stimuli. Subsequent multidimensional scaling analysis produced spatial configurations for both behavioural data and dissimilarity estimations by the algorithm. Comparison of the two configurations showed that the system is capable of making fair predictions of the perceived dissimilarities between the blended cadences. This implies that this conceptual blending approach is able to create perceptually meaningful blends based on self-evaluation of its outcome.
Probabilistic methodologies provide successful tools for automated music composition, such as mel... more Probabilistic methodologies provide successful tools for automated music composition, such as melodic harmoni- sation, since they capture statistical rules of the music idioms they are trained with. Proposed methodologies focus either on specific aspects of harmony (e.g., generating abstract chord symbols) or incorporate the determina- tion of many harmonic characteristics in a single proba- bilistic generative scheme. This paper addresses the prob- lem of assigning voice leading focussing on the bass voice, i.e., the realisation of the actual bass pitches of an abstract chord sequence, under the scope of a modular melodic harmonisation system where different aspects of the generative process are arranged by different modules. The pro- posed technique defines the motion of the bass voice ac- cording to several statistical aspects: melody voice con- tour, previous bass line motion, bass-to-melody distances and statistics regarding inversions and note doublings in chords. The aforementioned aspects of voicing are mod- ular, i.e., each criterion is defined by independent statistical learning tools. Experimental results on diverse music idioms indicate that the proposed methodology captures efficiently the voice layout characteristics of each idiom, whilst additional analyses on separate statistically trained modules reveal distinctive aspects of each idiom. The proposed system is designed to be flexible and adaptable (for instance, for the generation of novel blended melodic harmonisations).
The General Chord Type (GCT) representation is appropriate for encoding tone simultaneities in an... more The General Chord Type (GCT) representation is appropriate for encoding tone simultaneities in any harmonic context (such as tonal, modal, jazz, octatonic, atonal). The GCT allows the re-arrangement of the notes of a harmonic sonority such that abstract idiom-specific types of chords may be derived. This encoding is inspired by the standard roman numeral chord type labelling and is, therefore, ideal for hierarchic harmonic systems such as the tonal system and its many variations; at the same time, it adjusts to any other harmonic system such as post-tonal, atonal music, or traditional polyphonic systems. In this paper the descrip- tive potential of the GCT is assessed in the tonal idiom by comparing GCT harmonic labels with human expert an- notations (Kostka & Payne harmonic dataset). Addition- ally, novel methods for grouping and clustering chords, ac- cording to their GCT encoding and their functional role in chord sequences, are introduced. The results of both har- monic labelling and functional clustering indicate that the GCT representation constitutes a suitable scheme for representing effectively harmony in computational systems.
This research focuses on concept invention processes and suggests that structural blending is a p... more This research focuses on concept invention processes and suggests that structural blending is a powerful mechanism that gives rise to novel musical concepts. Structural blending is omnipresent across several formal musical levels, from individual pieces harmoniously combining music characteristics of different pieces/styles, to entire musical styles having emerged as a result of blending between diverse music idioms. In this paper, we focus on conceptual blending in the domain of musical harmony and present primarily computational examples in the following harmonic domains: chord-level blending, chord sequence blending, scale blending, harmonic structure level blending, melody-harmony level blending. Structural blending can be used not only for music analysis and music understanding, but more so it may form the basis for creative / generative music systems; processes of conceptual blending can be incorporated in computational compositional systems, facilitating the creation of original music structures/pieces/styles and contributing to a richer comprehension / experience of music.
Melodic harmonisation deals with the assignment of harmony (chords) over a given melody. Probabil... more Melodic harmonisation deals with the assignment of harmony (chords) over a given melody. Probabilistic approaches to melodic harmonisation utilise statistical information derived from a training dataset to harmonise a melody. This paper proposes a probabilistic approach for the automatic generation of voice leading for the bass note on a set of given chords from different musical idioms; the chord sequences are assumed to be generated by another system. The proposed bass voice leading (BVL) probabilistic model is part of ongoing work, it is based on the hidden Markov model (HMM) and it determines the bass voice contour by observing the contour of the melodic line. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed BVL method indeed efficiently captures (in a statistical sense) the characteristic BVL features of the examined musical idioms.
During the last decades, several methodologies have been proposed for the harmonization of a give... more During the last decades, several methodologies have been proposed for the harmonization of a given melody with al-gorithmic means. Among the most successful are method-ologies that incorporate probabilistic mechanisms and sta-tistical learning, since they have the ability to generate har-monies that statistically adhere to the harmonic character-istics of the idiom that the training pieces belong to. The current paper discusses the utilization of a well–studied probabilistic methodology, the hidden Markov model (HMM), in combination with additional constraints that incorporate intermediate fixed–chord constraints. This work is moti-vated by the fact that some parts of a phrase (like the ca-dence) or a piece (e.g. points of modulation, peaks of ten-sion, intermediate cadences etc.) are characteristic about the phrase's or piece's idiomatic identity. The presented methodology allows to define and isolate such important parts/functions and include them as constraints in a proba...
We present a computational framework for chord invention based on a cognitive-theoretic perspecti... more We present a computational framework for chord invention based on a cognitive-theoretic perspective on conceptual blending. The framework builds on algebraic specifications, and solves two musicological problems. It automatically finds transitions between chord progressions of different keys or idioms, and it substitutes chords in a chord progression by other chords of a similar function , as a means to create novel variations. The approach is demonstrated with several examples where jazz cadences are invented by blending chords in cadences from earlier idioms, and where novel chord progressions are generated by inventing transition chords.
With the advances of technology, multimedia tend to be a recurring and prominent component in alm... more With the advances of technology, multimedia tend to be a recurring and prominent component in almost all forms of communication. Although their content spans in various categories, there are two protuber- ant channels that are used for information conveyance, i.e. audio and visual. The former can transfer numerous content, ranging from low-level characteristics (e.g. spatial location of source and type of sound producing mechanism) to high and contextual (e.g. emotion). Additionally, recent results of published works depict the possibility for automated synthesis of sounds, e.g. music and sound events. Based on the above, in this chapter the authors propose the integration of emotion recognition from sound with automated synthesis techniques. Such a task will enhance, on one hand, the process of computer driven creation of sound content by adding an anthropocentric factor (i.e. emotion) and, on the other, the experience of the multimedia user by offering an extra constituent that will intensify the immersion and the overall user experience level.
Music composition from nonlinear dynamics has been a subject of thorough research, producing inte... more Music composition from nonlinear dynamics has been a subject of thorough research, producing interesting music tracks. Simple chaotic maps or even more complex iterative schemes have been proposed, taking advantage of the “structured spontaneity” of nonlinear dynamics by directly transforming the mathematical objects to musical entities. In this work we examine the music compositions produced by two nonlinear systems in terms of complexity, expressed through the Shannon Information Entropy of their Pitch Class ...
Orchestration of computer-aided music composition aims to approximate musical expression using ve... more Orchestration of computer-aided music composition aims to approximate musical expression using vertical instrument sound combinations, ie through finding appropriate sets of instruments to replicate synthesized sound samples. In this work, we focus on horizontal ...
Sound events are proven to have an impact on the emotions of the listener. Recent works on the fi... more Sound events are proven to have an impact on the emotions of the listener. Recent works on the field of emotion recognition from sound events show, on one hand, the possibility of automatic emotional information retrieval from sound events and, on the other hand, the need for deeper understanding of the significance of the sound events’ semantic content on listener’s affective state. In this work we present a first, to the best
of authors’ knowledge, investigation of the relation between the semantic similarity of the sound events and the elicited emotion. For that cause we use two emotionally annotated sound datasets and the Wu-Palmer semantic similarity measure according to WordNet. Results indicate that the semantic content seems to have a limited role in the conformation of the listener’s affective states. On the contrary, when the semantic content is matched to specific areas in the Arousal - Valence space or also the source’s spatial position is taken into account, it is exhibited that the importance of the semantic content effect is higher, especially for the cases with medium to low valence and medium to high arousal or when the sound source is at the lateral positions of the listener’s head, respectively.
Conceptual blending is a cognitive theory whereby ele- ments from diverse, but structurally-relat... more Conceptual blending is a cognitive theory whereby ele- ments from diverse, but structurally-related, mental spaces are ‘blended’ giving rise to new conceptual spaces. This study focuses on structural blending utilising an algorith- mic formalisation for conceptual blending applied to har- monic concepts. More specifically, it investigates the ability of the system to produce meaningful blends between harmonic cadences, which arguably constitute the most fun- damental harmonic concept. The system creates a variety of blends combining elements of the penultimate chords of two input cadences and it further estimates the expected relationships between the produced blends. Then, a preliminary subjective evaluation of the proposed blending system is presented. A pairwise dissimilarity listening test was conducted using original and blended cadences as stimuli. Subsequent multidimensional scaling analysis produced spatial configurations for both behavioural data and dissimilarity estimations by the algorithm. Comparison of the two configurations showed that the system is capable of making fair predictions of the perceived dissimilarities between the blended cadences. This implies that this conceptual blending approach is able to create perceptually meaningful blends based on self-evaluation of its outcome.
Probabilistic methodologies provide successful tools for automated music composition, such as mel... more Probabilistic methodologies provide successful tools for automated music composition, such as melodic harmoni- sation, since they capture statistical rules of the music idioms they are trained with. Proposed methodologies focus either on specific aspects of harmony (e.g., generating abstract chord symbols) or incorporate the determina- tion of many harmonic characteristics in a single proba- bilistic generative scheme. This paper addresses the prob- lem of assigning voice leading focussing on the bass voice, i.e., the realisation of the actual bass pitches of an abstract chord sequence, under the scope of a modular melodic harmonisation system where different aspects of the generative process are arranged by different modules. The pro- posed technique defines the motion of the bass voice ac- cording to several statistical aspects: melody voice con- tour, previous bass line motion, bass-to-melody distances and statistics regarding inversions and note doublings in chords. The aforementioned aspects of voicing are mod- ular, i.e., each criterion is defined by independent statistical learning tools. Experimental results on diverse music idioms indicate that the proposed methodology captures efficiently the voice layout characteristics of each idiom, whilst additional analyses on separate statistically trained modules reveal distinctive aspects of each idiom. The proposed system is designed to be flexible and adaptable (for instance, for the generation of novel blended melodic harmonisations).
The General Chord Type (GCT) representation is appropriate for encoding tone simultaneities in an... more The General Chord Type (GCT) representation is appropriate for encoding tone simultaneities in any harmonic context (such as tonal, modal, jazz, octatonic, atonal). The GCT allows the re-arrangement of the notes of a harmonic sonority such that abstract idiom-specific types of chords may be derived. This encoding is inspired by the standard roman numeral chord type labelling and is, therefore, ideal for hierarchic harmonic systems such as the tonal system and its many variations; at the same time, it adjusts to any other harmonic system such as post-tonal, atonal music, or traditional polyphonic systems. In this paper the descrip- tive potential of the GCT is assessed in the tonal idiom by comparing GCT harmonic labels with human expert an- notations (Kostka & Payne harmonic dataset). Addition- ally, novel methods for grouping and clustering chords, ac- cording to their GCT encoding and their functional role in chord sequences, are introduced. The results of both har- monic labelling and functional clustering indicate that the GCT representation constitutes a suitable scheme for representing effectively harmony in computational systems.
This research focuses on concept invention processes and suggests that structural blending is a p... more This research focuses on concept invention processes and suggests that structural blending is a powerful mechanism that gives rise to novel musical concepts. Structural blending is omnipresent across several formal musical levels, from individual pieces harmoniously combining music characteristics of different pieces/styles, to entire musical styles having emerged as a result of blending between diverse music idioms. In this paper, we focus on conceptual blending in the domain of musical harmony and present primarily computational examples in the following harmonic domains: chord-level blending, chord sequence blending, scale blending, harmonic structure level blending, melody-harmony level blending. Structural blending can be used not only for music analysis and music understanding, but more so it may form the basis for creative / generative music systems; processes of conceptual blending can be incorporated in computational compositional systems, facilitating the creation of original music structures/pieces/styles and contributing to a richer comprehension / experience of music.
Melodic harmonisation deals with the assignment of harmony (chords) over a given melody. Probabil... more Melodic harmonisation deals with the assignment of harmony (chords) over a given melody. Probabilistic approaches to melodic harmonisation utilise statistical information derived from a training dataset to harmonise a melody. This paper proposes a probabilistic approach for the automatic generation of voice leading for the bass note on a set of given chords from different musical idioms; the chord sequences are assumed to be generated by another system. The proposed bass voice leading (BVL) probabilistic model is part of ongoing work, it is based on the hidden Markov model (HMM) and it determines the bass voice contour by observing the contour of the melodic line. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed BVL method indeed efficiently captures (in a statistical sense) the characteristic BVL features of the examined musical idioms.
During the last decades, several methodologies have been proposed for the harmonization of a give... more During the last decades, several methodologies have been proposed for the harmonization of a given melody with al-gorithmic means. Among the most successful are method-ologies that incorporate probabilistic mechanisms and sta-tistical learning, since they have the ability to generate har-monies that statistically adhere to the harmonic character-istics of the idiom that the training pieces belong to. The current paper discusses the utilization of a well–studied probabilistic methodology, the hidden Markov model (HMM), in combination with additional constraints that incorporate intermediate fixed–chord constraints. This work is moti-vated by the fact that some parts of a phrase (like the ca-dence) or a piece (e.g. points of modulation, peaks of ten-sion, intermediate cadences etc.) are characteristic about the phrase's or piece's idiomatic identity. The presented methodology allows to define and isolate such important parts/functions and include them as constraints in a proba...
We present a computational framework for chord invention based on a cognitive-theoretic perspecti... more We present a computational framework for chord invention based on a cognitive-theoretic perspective on conceptual blending. The framework builds on algebraic specifications, and solves two musicological problems. It automatically finds transitions between chord progressions of different keys or idioms, and it substitutes chords in a chord progression by other chords of a similar function , as a means to create novel variations. The approach is demonstrated with several examples where jazz cadences are invented by blending chords in cadences from earlier idioms, and where novel chord progressions are generated by inventing transition chords.
With the advances of technology, multimedia tend to be a recurring and prominent component in alm... more With the advances of technology, multimedia tend to be a recurring and prominent component in almost all forms of communication. Although their content spans in various categories, there are two protuber- ant channels that are used for information conveyance, i.e. audio and visual. The former can transfer numerous content, ranging from low-level characteristics (e.g. spatial location of source and type of sound producing mechanism) to high and contextual (e.g. emotion). Additionally, recent results of published works depict the possibility for automated synthesis of sounds, e.g. music and sound events. Based on the above, in this chapter the authors propose the integration of emotion recognition from sound with automated synthesis techniques. Such a task will enhance, on one hand, the process of computer driven creation of sound content by adding an anthropocentric factor (i.e. emotion) and, on the other, the experience of the multimedia user by offering an extra constituent that will intensify the immersion and the overall user experience level.
Music composition from nonlinear dynamics has been a subject of thorough research, producing inte... more Music composition from nonlinear dynamics has been a subject of thorough research, producing interesting music tracks. Simple chaotic maps or even more complex iterative schemes have been proposed, taking advantage of the “structured spontaneity” of nonlinear dynamics by directly transforming the mathematical objects to musical entities. In this work we examine the music compositions produced by two nonlinear systems in terms of complexity, expressed through the Shannon Information Entropy of their Pitch Class ...
Orchestration of computer-aided music composition aims to approximate musical expression using ve... more Orchestration of computer-aided music composition aims to approximate musical expression using vertical instrument sound combinations, ie through finding appropriate sets of instruments to replicate synthesized sound samples. In this work, we focus on horizontal ...
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Papers by Maximos Kaliakatsos-Papakostas
of authors’ knowledge, investigation of the relation between the semantic similarity of the sound events and the elicited emotion. For that cause we use two emotionally annotated sound datasets and the Wu-Palmer semantic similarity measure according to WordNet. Results indicate that the semantic content seems to have a limited role in the conformation of the listener’s affective states. On the contrary, when the semantic content is matched to specific areas in the Arousal - Valence space or also the source’s spatial position is taken into account, it is exhibited that the importance of the semantic content effect is higher, especially for the cases with medium to low valence and medium to high arousal or when the sound source is at the lateral positions of the listener’s head, respectively.
of authors’ knowledge, investigation of the relation between the semantic similarity of the sound events and the elicited emotion. For that cause we use two emotionally annotated sound datasets and the Wu-Palmer semantic similarity measure according to WordNet. Results indicate that the semantic content seems to have a limited role in the conformation of the listener’s affective states. On the contrary, when the semantic content is matched to specific areas in the Arousal - Valence space or also the source’s spatial position is taken into account, it is exhibited that the importance of the semantic content effect is higher, especially for the cases with medium to low valence and medium to high arousal or when the sound source is at the lateral positions of the listener’s head, respectively.