Jim Kippen’s research while affiliated with University of Toronto and other places

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Publications (4)


Computers, Composition, and the Challenge of "New Music" in Modern India
  • Article
  • Full-text available

January 1994

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89 Reads

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9 Citations

Leonardo Music Journal

Jim Kippen

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The use of sophisticated computer systems in the design and performance of music has taken place in the context of a society that demands novelty and expects technology to play a leading role in extending the boundaries of what is musically possible. This article describes a different approach to the use of technology in composition and an alternative technology that grew out of research into the complex rhythmic intricacies of Indian drum music. The authors present the new version of their Bol Processor and explain its time accuracy, flexibility and capacity to manipulate highly complex polymetric symbols. The authors’ work has inspired further developments by Indian researchers who are rising to the challenge of developing a technology built around concepts familiar to the Indian musical mind as an alternative to models dependent upon Western concepts.

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Music and the computer: Some anthropological considerations

January 1992

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8 Reads

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2 Citations

Interface

To outsiders it can often appear, with some justification, that those of us working in the field of computers and music are less interested in making discoveries about music itself and much more interested in the programming and internal workings of that ever more conspicuous electronic box of tricks. It would therefore seem appropriate to examine momentarily our directions and objectives, for if that criticism is even only partly true then we risk losing the power to communicate about general issues amongst ourselves, let alone with sceptics who view computational approaches with unease and suspicion. The anthropological approach to studying music as a human cognitive phenomenon reminds us of two things: one, that music is not an acoustical fact, but a social one; and two, that the investigative process is one that sheds as much if not more light on our own knowledge and expectations than it does on our subject. So, simply, do we pay enough attention to social factors in the construction of our computer models of music, and are we aware of the specific effects our methodologies have on the results we obtain? Or is our fascination with the computer as a toy likely to obscure these issues and relegate them to insignificance? The computer has the potential to be that third brain that can help bridge the gap in knowledge and perception between ourselves and the objects of our study. If we ignore these central questions of social meaning and methodology, then we risk developing a machine that is a fast and efficient processor, but ultimately of little more practical use than other modem machines like the typewriter or the phonogram with which we used to be equally fascinated.


Modelling music with grammars: formal language representation in the Bol Processor

January 1992

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131 Reads

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41 Citations

Improvisation in North Indian tabla drumming is similar to speech insofar as it is bound to an underlying system of rules determining correct sequences. The parallel is further reinforced by the fact that tabla music may be represented with an oral notation system used for its transmission and, occasionally, performance. Yet the rules are implicit and available only through the musicians' ability to play correct sequences and recognise incorrect ones. A linguistic model of tabla improvisation and evaluation derived from pattern languages and formal grammars has been implemented in the Bol Processor, a software system used in interactive fieldwork with expert musicians. The paper demonstrates the ability of the model to handle complex structures by taking real examples from the repertoire. It also questions the relevance of attempting to model irregularities encountered in actual performance.


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The identification and modelling of a percussion ‘language,’ and the Emergence of Musical Concepts in a machine-learning experimental set-up

June 1989

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158 Reads

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25 Citations

Computers and the Humanities

In experimental research into percussion languages, an interactive computer system, the Bol Processor, has been developed by the authors to analyse the performances of expert musicians and generate its own musical items that were assessed for quality and accuracy by the informants. The problem of transferring knowledge from a human expert to a machine in this context is the focus of this paper. A prototypical grammatical inferencer named QAVAID (Question Answer Validated Analytical Inference Device, an acronym also meaning grammar in Arabic/Urdu) is described and its operation in a real experimental situation is demonstrated. The paper concludes on the nature of the knowledge acquired and the scope and limitations of a cognitive-computational approach to music.Bernard Bel is an electronics and computer engineer. A founder member of the International Society for Traditional Arts Research (ISTAR) he has for many years collaborated with ethnomusicologists and musicians on projects aimed at a scientific study of North Indian melodic and rhythmic systems. In 1981 he designed and constructed an accurate melodic movement analyser, and he subsequently developed software for the analysis of raga intonation. He went on to develop software for rhythmic analysis/synthesis in collaboration with Jim Kippen. Bernard Bel is now a member of the Groupe Reprsentation et Traitement des Connaissances, an AI laboratory at the CNRS, Marseille.

Citations (3)


... He characterized the Bol Processor grammar in terms of string repetitions and homomorphism. Bel and Kippen (1992a) proposed a model for North Indian tabla drumming improvisation and its evaluation with the capability to handle complex structure. Bel and Kippen (1992b) introduced the concept of Bol Processor grammar for representing patterns for repetitions and homomorphic transformations. ...

Reference:

Mathematical modeling of Indian Tala’s Kaidas and Paltas using formal grammar
Modelling music with grammars: formal language representation in the Bol Processor

... This means that the almost infinite combinations of sounds obtainable with a musical instrument can be reduced, through the rules of musical grammar, to a finite subset that our education (or perhaps our nature) considers pleasant (to listen). Precisely with regard to grammar, attempts at formalization appear in the 1970s [9][10], and continue in subsequent years [11][12]. The problem of the form to be given to the set of rules always arises in research dedicated to the production of music programmed via computer: see for example the studies of Cope [13][14], of West-Howel-Cross [15] or even those of by Khalifa [16] who apply principles derived from the theory of Markov chains to music production. ...

Computers, Composition, and the Challenge of "New Music" in Modern India

Leonardo Music Journal

... Taking inspiration from the studies conducted by Bel and Kippen (1989) and Nierhaus (2015), I applied a recursive research design. Spending another three months in Bali, I revisited the recorded drummers to analyze their previously transcribed patterns alongside them and saving the analysis results in my program. ...

The identification and modelling of a percussion ‘language,’ and the Emergence of Musical Concepts in a machine-learning experimental set-up

Computers and the Humanities