Music Technology

One of my main goals while teaching MUS2640 – Sensing Sound and Music last semester was the integration of perspectives from musicology, psychology, and technology. The main point is to introduce the basics of music psychology and music technology, two disciplines that are quite distinct in most places, but which we at the University of Oslo have a tradition of combining. In this post, I explain the rationale. Three “logies” One of my main arguments is that we should consider the three “logies” involved in this course: ...

Since I am on a roll with cleaning up my Hugo-based blog, adding alt text, and supporting math writing, I also had to experiment with adding support for musical scores. For the Sensing Sound and Music book, I used music21 in Python after struggling to set up LilyPond. Both LilyPond (professional engraving) and music21 (symbolic analysis and MIDI generation) are powerful and could be integrated into a blog, but they usually require a server-side toolchain or extra installation. However, with the help of CoPilot, I discovered ABCjs, a lightweight client‑side library that provides rendering, playback, and MIDI export, which work well for static sites. ...

This semester, I have written a book with AI. I should emphasize the with in the previous sentence, because this has been an experience of co-creation between various large language models (LLMs) and me. This post details my approach to co-writing Sensing Sound and Music and reflects on the process. The need for a book The reason for my AI-based writing experiment was the need for a textbook for the course MUS2640 – Sensing Sound and Music at the University of Oslo. This is an introductory course for the bachelor’s students in our musicology program who want to major in music psychology and/or music technology. These are two distinct directions that are usually taught separately. However, at UiO, we have a strong tradition of combining psychological and technological perspectives on and with music (in the fourMs Lab and at RITMO), so I have argued that we need a foundation course showing the connections between the two disciplines. ...

I am supervising several last-year PhD students this year, and they all have to write a methodology chapter for their thesis. Remember that a methodology chapter is not a methods chapter. While “method” is how you do something, “methodology” is the knowledge (“logy”) of the methods. Still, that requires that you can name your methods and reflect on them. Given that music technologists often work on method development (and related tools) as their core research activity, I see many struggle to describe and reflect on the methods they use. Hence, this little blog post to help people along the way. ...

I have previously written about the MishMash name. Some have also asked about the story behind the MishMash “emblem”: The MishMash Bubble Diagram It was created by designers from Appex based on a rough sketch I had made for presentations held before we wrote the application: This was again inspired by a figure I have used in several previous lectures on musical AI: However, for the final application document, we wanted something more professional-looking, so I reached out to the design company that had created the RITMO emblem. ...

We are fortunate to have received funding from UiO’s infrastructure board to purchase a new Yamaha Disklavier grand piano for the Department of Musicology. We have applied for this several times and are grateful to the university for making such an investment. To celebrate the new instrument, we organized the seminar New Horizons in Piano Performance Research during which I did a “lecture-recital” talking a little about the history of piano research in the department and stress-testing the new instrument. ...

Meeting some new bachelor’s students today, I had to explain that “music technology” is not a thing, it is a scientific discipline. Although many people think of a synthesizer as “a” music technology, I am trying to explain that it is based on music technology. Here, I briefly support this claim. Defining “technology” The word “technology” originates from the Greek techne (art, craft, skill) and logia (study). The term thus refers to tools, techniques, and systems humans create to solve problems or enhance capabilities. Technological development has been a cornerstone of human development since the beginning. This has been driven by the continuous development of knowledge in addition to the “things”. The invention of the wheel—to use a classic innovation example—wasn’t bound by the specific, physical wheel. The revolutionary aspect was figuring out how that physical, round object would enable faster transport. ...

One of the conclusions in my book Sound Actions is that the future of music technologies lie in musicking technologies. The term “music technology” is typically used to describe tools, instruments, and systems used to create, produce, record, and distribute music. This includes everything from microphones, digital audio workstations (DAWs), and synthesizers to streaming services and analysis tools. I think of “musicking technology” as a wider term than music technology. It builds on Christopher Small’s concept of “musicking” as the act of taking part in music-making of any kind. It also focuses on music as an active process, not a thing. ...

I am happy to announce that my book Sound Actions - Conceptualizing Musical Instruments is now published! I am also thrilled that this is an open access book, meaning that is free to download and read. You are, of course, also welcome to pick up a paper copy! Here is a quick video summary of the book’s content: In the book, I combine perspectives from embodied music cognition and interactive music technology. The approach is what I call “embodied music technology”. ...

What are the digital competencies needed in the future? Our head of department has challenged me to talk about this topic at an internal seminar today. Here is a summary of what I said. Competencies vs skills First, I think it is crucial to separate competencies from skills. The latter relates to how you do something. There has been much focus on teaching skills, mainly teaching people how to use various software or hardware. This is not necessarily bad, but it is not the most productive thing in higher education, in my opinion. Developing competency goes beyond learning new skills. ...