Quiver
June 7th, 2009, 06:50 PM
Hello, I'm not sure the best forum to post this in, so I figure this is a good place to start. For a psychology class, I am reviewing an article about a computer program that helps musicians express emotion in their music. I am curious about an open source version of the program.
The program is able to distinguish different acoustic properties of a musical piece: tempo, loudness, timbre, articulation, attack. The program 'listens' to versions of a song that are known to convey a certain emotion to the listener. For example: in the study they used 'When the Saints', which can be played happy, sad, or angry. The program learns which acoustic properties are stronger in the different emotional versions. It can then tell a musician that he need to articulate more staccato or a play a faster tempo to convey the emotion he's after.
During the study they found that students that used the program for two hours improved more -- as far as conveying the desired emotion -- than students that worked with an instructor for two hours. Of course, a computer program may not be able to replace the human touch completely, but it may be a great aid to an instructor or student.
Their program was based on MatLab. It used an algorithm (CUEX) written by the authors that first segmented tone boundries through analysis of sound level and pitch. It then analyzed the known happy versions of When the Saints and compared them with the attempted happy versions played by the music student.
One of the questions the researchers still have is whether the program would be cost effective. I am excited about the idea of such a program and I wonder about an open source version (I imagine the authors of this would be also, but I haven't checked with them yet). First, I'd like to see every program open source. Second, this program in particular seems like it would work best with community support. The program can analyze the acoustic properties of songs, but can't judge the emotion until it has a baseline. A large community judging the emotion conveyed in different versions of different songs would make this program much more useful.
This is the first computer program designed to teach emotion in music. I find this very exciting and would like to see this become an open source thing.
I have no real programming experience. Please give me feedback. Please ask me questions if I haven't explained something well.
Thank you.
The article: Play It Again With Feeling: Computer Feedback in Musical Communication of Emotions, Patrik N. Juslin et. al; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied; 2006, Vol.12, No. 2, 79-95
The program is able to distinguish different acoustic properties of a musical piece: tempo, loudness, timbre, articulation, attack. The program 'listens' to versions of a song that are known to convey a certain emotion to the listener. For example: in the study they used 'When the Saints', which can be played happy, sad, or angry. The program learns which acoustic properties are stronger in the different emotional versions. It can then tell a musician that he need to articulate more staccato or a play a faster tempo to convey the emotion he's after.
During the study they found that students that used the program for two hours improved more -- as far as conveying the desired emotion -- than students that worked with an instructor for two hours. Of course, a computer program may not be able to replace the human touch completely, but it may be a great aid to an instructor or student.
Their program was based on MatLab. It used an algorithm (CUEX) written by the authors that first segmented tone boundries through analysis of sound level and pitch. It then analyzed the known happy versions of When the Saints and compared them with the attempted happy versions played by the music student.
One of the questions the researchers still have is whether the program would be cost effective. I am excited about the idea of such a program and I wonder about an open source version (I imagine the authors of this would be also, but I haven't checked with them yet). First, I'd like to see every program open source. Second, this program in particular seems like it would work best with community support. The program can analyze the acoustic properties of songs, but can't judge the emotion until it has a baseline. A large community judging the emotion conveyed in different versions of different songs would make this program much more useful.
This is the first computer program designed to teach emotion in music. I find this very exciting and would like to see this become an open source thing.
I have no real programming experience. Please give me feedback. Please ask me questions if I haven't explained something well.
Thank you.
The article: Play It Again With Feeling: Computer Feedback in Musical Communication of Emotions, Patrik N. Juslin et. al; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied; 2006, Vol.12, No. 2, 79-95