One month has passed of the year and my sound action project. I didn’t know how it would develop when I started and have found it both challenging and inspiring. It has also engaged people around me more than I had expected. Each day I upload one new video recording to YouTube and post a link on Twitter. If you want to look at the whole collection, it is probably better to check out this playlist: ...
After two years in the making, I am happy to finally introduce our new online course: Motion Capture: The art of studying human activity. The course will run on the FutureLearn platform and is for everyone interested in the art of studying human movement. It has been developed by a team of RITMO researchers in close collaboration with the pedagogical team and production staff at LINK – Centre for Learning, Innovation & Academic Development. ...
I recently came across a video of the so-called Try not to headbang challenge, where the idea is to, well, not to headbang while listening to music. This immediately caught my attention. After all, I have been researching music-related micromotion over the last years and have run the Norwegian Championship of Standstill since 2012. Here is an example of Nath & Johnny trying the challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I4CBsDT37I As seen in the video, they are doing ok, although they are far from sitting still. Running the video through the Musical Gestures Toolbox for Python, it is possible to see when and how much they moved clearly. ...
I continue my testing of the new Musical Gestures Toolbox for Python. One thing is to use the toolbox on controlled recordings with stationary cameras and non-moving backgrounds (see examples of visualizations of AIST videos). But it is also interesting to explore “real world” videos (such as the Bergensbanen train journey). I came across a great video of flamenco dancer Selene Muñoz, and wondered how I could visualize what is going on there: ...
Like many others, I bought a kayak during the pandemic, and I have had many nice trips in the Oslo fiord over the last year. Working at RITMO, I think a lot about rhythm these days, and the rhythmic nature of kayaking made me curious to investigate the pattern a little more. Capturing kayaking motion My spontaneous investigations into kayak motion began with simply recording a short video of myself kayaking. This was done by placing an action camera (a GoPro Hero 8, to be precise) on my life vest. The result looks like this: ...
I am happy to announce that Cagri Erdem and I have written a chapter titled “Gestures in ensemble performance” in the new book Together in Music: Coordination, Expression, Participation edited by Renee Timmers Freya Bailes, and Helena Daffern. Video Teaser For the book launch, Cagri and I recorded a short video teaser: Abstract The topic of gesture has received growing attention among music researchers over recent decades. Some of this research has been summarized in anthologies on “musical gestures”, such as those by Gritten and King (2006), Godøy and Leman (2010), and Gritten and King (2011). There have also been a couple of articles reviewing how the term gesture has been used in various music-related disciplines (and beyond), including those by Cadoz and Wanderley (2000) and Jensenius et al. (2010). Much empirical work has been performed since these reviews were written, aided by better motion capture technologies, new machine learning techniques, and a heightened awareness of the topic. Still there are a number of open questions as to the role of gestures in music performance in general, and in ensemble performance in particular. This chapter aims to clarify some of the basic terminology of music-related body motion, and draw up some perspectives of how one can think about gestures in ensemble performance. This is, obviously, only one way of looking at the very multifaceted concept of gesture, but it may lead to further interest in this exciting and complex research domain. ...
After nearly three years of planning, we can finally welcome people to MusicLab Copenhagen. This is a unique “science concert” involving the Danish String Quartet, one of the world’s leading classical ensembles. Tonight, they will perform pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Schnittke and folk music in a normal concert setting at Musikhuset in Copenhagen. However, the concert is nothing but normal. Live music research During the concert, about twenty researchers from RITMO and partner institutions will conduct investigations and experiments informed by phenomenology, music psychology, complex systems analysis, and music technology. The aim is to answer some big research questions, like: ...
Earlier today, I presented at the national open research conference Hvordan endres forskningshverdagen når åpen forskning blir den nye normalen? The conference is organized by the Norwegian Forum for Open Research and is coordinated by Universities Norway. It has been great to follow the various discussions at the conference. One observation is that very few questions the transition to Open Research. We have, finally, come to a point where openness is the new normal. Instead, the discussions have focused on how we can move forwards. Having many active researchers in the panels also led to focus on solutions instead of policy. ...
This year’s Sound and Music Computing (SMC) Conference has opened for virtual lab tours. When we cannot travel to visit each other, this is a great way to showcase how things look and what we are working on. Stefano Fasciani and I teamed up a couple of weeks ago to walk around some of the labs and studios at the Department of Musicology and RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion. We started in the Portal used for the Music, Communication & Technology master’s programme and ended up in the fourMs Lab. ...
What is the future of academic career assessment? How can open research practices be included as part of a research evaluation? These were some of the questions we asked ourselves in a working group set up by Universities Norway. Almost two years later, the report is ready. Here I will share some of the ideas behind the suggested Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM) and some of the other recommendations coming out of the workgroup. ...