I am very happy to announce that the embargo on the book ran out today, which means that a pre-print version of my chapter is finally freely available in UiO’s digital repository. This chapter is a summary of my experiences with music-related motion analysis, and I often recommend it to students. Therefore it is great that it is finally available to download from everywhere.
Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of some methodological approaches and technologies that can be used in the study of music-related body motion. The aim is not to cover all possible approaches, but rather to highlight some of the ones that are more relevant from a musicological point of view. This includes methods for video-based and sensor-based motion analyses, both qualitative and quantitative. It also includes discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods, and reflections on how the methods can be used in connection to other data in question, such as physiological or neurological data, symbolic notation, sound recordings and contextual data.
We have done several sound-tracing studies before at University of Oslo, and here is a new one focusing on free-hand sound-tracings of melodies. I am happy to say that this is a gold open access publication, and that all the data are also available. So it is both free and “free”!
Kelkar, Tesjaswinee; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum Analyzing Free-Hand Sound-Tracings of Melodic Phrases Applied Sciences 2018, 8, 135. (Special Issue Sound and Music Computing) View Full-Text | Download PDF|
In this paper, we report on a free-hand motion capture study in which 32 participants ‘traced’ 16 melodic vocal phrases with their hands in the air in two experimental conditions. Melodic contours are often thought of as correlated with vertical movement (up and down) in time, and this was also our initial expectation. We did find an arch shape for most of the tracings, although this did not correspond directly to the melodic contours. Furthermore, representation of pitch in the vertical dimension was but one of a diverse range of movement strategies used to trace the melodies. Six different mapping strategies were observed, and these strategies have been quantified and statistically tested. The conclusion is that metaphorical representation is much more common than a ‘graph-like’ rendering for such a melodic sound-tracing task. Other findings include a clear gender difference for some of the tracing strategies and an unexpected representation of melodies in terms of a small object for some of the Hindustani music examples. The data also show a tendency of participants moving within a shared ‘social box’.
I recently mentioned that I have been busy setting up the new MCT master’s programme. But I have been even more busy with preparing the startup of our new Centre of Excellence RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion. This is a large undertaking, and a collaboration between researchers from musicology, psychology and informatics. A visual “abstract” of the centre can be seen in the figure to the right.
Now we are recruiting lots of new people for the centre, so please apply or forward to people you think may be interested:
Even though we have formally taken off, this mainly means that the management group has started to work. Establishing a centre with 50-60 researchers is not done in a few days, so we will more or less spend the coming year to get up to speed. The plan is that the faculty group will begin working together from January, while in parallel recruiting PhD and postdoctoral fellows. We aim at moving into our new spaces and having most of the people in place by August 2018, and that is also when we will have the kick-off party.
At least we now have a small web page up and running, and more content will be added as we move along. Here is a short summary of what we will be working on:
RITMO is an interdisciplinary research centre focused on rhythm as a structuring mechanism for the temporal dimensions of human life.
The research will be highly interdisciplinary, combining methods from musicology, psychology and informatics to study rhythm as a fundamental property that shapes and underpins human cognition, behaviour and culture.
Rhythm is omnipresent in human life, as we walk, talk, dance and play; as we tell stories about our past; and as we predict the future. Rhythm is also central to human biology, from the oscillations of our nervous system to our heartbeats, breathing patterns and longer chronobiological cycles. As such, it is a key aspect of human action and perception that is in complex interplay with the various cultural, biological and mechanical rhythms of the world.
RITMO will undertake research on rhythm in human action and perception, using music, motion and audio-visual media as empirical points of departure. Our core idea is that the human ability to experience the world and our actions as rhythmic, points to a basic cognitive mechanism that is in itself rhythmic in nature. The vision of RITMO is to understand more about this cognitive mechanism, and through this generate ground-breaking knowledge about the ways in which humans structure and understand the temporal dimensions of their life.
The centre is interdisciplinary and will combine perspectives and methods from music and media studies, philosophy and aesthetics, cognitive neuroscience, and informatics, using state-of-the-art technologies for motion capture, neuroimaging, pupillometry and robotics.
RITMO is to reveal the basic cognitive mechanism(s) underlying human rhythm, using music, motion and audiovisual media as empirical points of departure.
The research will be highly interdisciplinary, combining methods from musicology, psychology and informatics to study rhythm as a fundamental property that shapes and underpins human cognition, behaviour and culture.
I am happy to announce the opening of our new interactive art installation at the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival 2017: Sverm-resonans.
Time and place: Sep. 12, 2017 12:30 PM – Sep. 14, 2017 3:30 PM, Sentralen
Conceptual information
The installation is as much haptic as audible.
An installation that gives you access to heightened sensations of stillness, sound and vibration.
Stand still. Listen. Locate the sound. Move. Stand still. Listen. Hear the tension. Feel your movements. Relax. Stand stiller. Listen deeper. Feel the boundary between the known and the unknown, the controllable and the uncontrollable. How does the body meet the sound? How does the sound meet the body? What do you hear?
Approach one of the guitars. Place yourself in front of it and connect to your standstill. Feel free to put your hands on the body of the instrument. Try closing your eyes. From there, allow yourself to open up to the sound-vibrations through the resting touch and listening. Stay as long as you like and follow the development of the sound, and your inner sensations, experience, images, and associations as the sound meets you. As opposed to a traditional instrument, these guitars are “played” by (you) trying to stand still. The living body interacts with an electronic sound system played through the acoustic instrument. In this way, Sverm-Resonans explores the meeting points between the tactile and the kinesthetic, the body and the mind, and between motion and sound.
Technical information
The technical setup of Sverm-Resonans is focused on the meeting point between digital and acoustic sound making. Each of the guitars is equipped with a Bela micro-computer, which produces electronic sound through an actuator placed on the back of the guitars. There are no external speakers, all the sound generation is coming the vibration of the acoustic guitar. Each of the guitars produce a slowly pulsing sound – based on an additive synthesis with a slight randomness on the sine tones – that breathes and gives life to the soundscape. The guitars are also equipped with an infrared sensor that detects the presence of a person standing in front of the guitar, and which inversely controls the amplitude of a pulsating noise signal. That is, the longer you stand still, the more sound you will get.
About the installation
Sverm-Resonans at Sentralen
Sverm-Resonans is a new sound installation by Alexander Refsum Jensenius, Kari Anne Vadstensvik Bjerkestrand, Victoria Johnson, Victor Gonzalez Sanchez, Agata Zelechowska, and Charles Martin.
The installation is the result of the ongoing art/science research projects Sverm, MICRO and AAAI, three projects which in different ways explore human micromotion and musical microsound. Supported by University of Oslo, Research Council of Norway, Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Performing Artists, The Audio and Visual Fund, and The Nordic Culture Fund.
