MUSICAL REPRESENTATIONS

Activities

The Musical Representations Team conducts research and development on the symbolic representation of musical structures, and on computer languages and paradigms adapted to music. This work has particular applications for computer-aided composition, and for computational musicology.

Reflections on high-level representations of musical concepts and structure, based on computer languages developed by the team, lead to the implantation of models which are as useful for creating as they are for musical analysis.

As far as the creative applications of this work are concerned, the software in question has been distributed to a sizeable community of musicians, and new ways of thinking have developed, related to this particular characteristic of the computer devices : they can represent (and execute) the final score, its various levels of formal elaboration, and its algorithmic generators. In a manner of thinking, the creative works constructed in this way contain their own structural analysis. As far as the musicological applications of this work are concerned, the modelling and representational tools allow an experimental approach which significantly dynamises the discipline. Thus, hypotheses can be tested and validated, which otherwise - without the power of these symbolic and combinatory calculations - would rely only on faith.

Areas of Expertise

Computer-aided composition, computational musicology, artificial intelligence, computer languages, automatic learning.

Team Members

 Head of research : Gérard Assayag
 Engineer and researcher : Carlos Augusto Agon Amado
 Guest Researcher : Killian Sprotte
 Doctoral students : Moreno Andreatta, Olivier Lartillot, Benoit Meudic, Charlotte Truchet

Collaborations

Coda Music Technology (USA), Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, LIP6 - Université de Paris 6, Sony-CSL, T.U. Berlin, Université de Caen, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), Zürich University.