Category Archives: EAnalysis

Nouvelles méthodes et nouveaux outils pour l’analyse des musiques électroacoustiques ?

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

ElephantParticipation au séminaire De l’idée à l’œuvre, des sources au concert du MINT organisé par Marc Battier et Daniel Teruggi

Lieu et horaire : Maison de Radio France, studio 116, 17h00 – 20h00

Résumé de l’intervention

Les recherches sur la morphologie de l’objet sonore initiées par Pierre Schaeffer au début des années 60 ont donné naissance à des outils analytiques assez variés. Ils ont permis d’étendre le concept d’objet sonore afin d’intégrer les manipulations toujours plus détaillées et complexes opérées par les compositeurs et des recherches sur la perception musicale. Toutefois, malgré cette ouverture, l’utilisation de ces outils se limite bien souvent à des œuvres « standardisées » ou à des fragments « bien choisis ». Parallèlement, le corpus des musiques électroacoustiques s’est enrichi au point qu’une part très importante de la création contemporaine ne relève plus de la musique de support. Ainsi, l’interactivité, l’improvisation, l’hybridation entre plusieurs formes artistiques sont devenues des pratiques courantes. Le musicologue se trouve alors en face de nouveaux enjeux qui nécessitent de repenser les méthodes d’analyse en fonction de ces objets d’étude émergents et d’intégrer de nouvelles pratiques liées au numérique. Cette présentation permettra de faire le point sur les pratiques analytiques de ces vingt dernières années, de les confronter à ces nouvelles formes de créations numériques et d’esquisser quelques propositions pour l’étude des musiques électroacoustiques.

Voici une liste des œuvres dont seront tirés les extraits analysés :
- Denis Smalley (Wind Chimes) : autour du travail d’aural analysis réalisé par Michael Clarke et notamment des nouveaux modes de représentations
- Kaija Saariaho (Noanoa) : analyser une œuvre temps-réel
- Roland Cahen (Topophonie) : analyser une installation virtuelle
- Eduard Artemiev (musique de Solaris d’Andrei Tarkovsky) et Hildegard Westerkamp (musique de Elephant de Gus van Sant) : analyser une musique de film
- Georges Aperghis (Avis de tempête) & Philippe Leroux (Voi(rex)) : analyse génétique, autour du travail réalisé par l’équipe Analyse des pratiques musicales de l’Ircam

La représentation du son dans l’analyse musicale : de la publication interactive au développement de logiciels

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

a5fb9f53e125378f6c8c5bf55956e198.media.900x508Présentation durant le séminaire MaMux du 1er février 2013 consacré à la Représentation des signaux sonores numériques : perspectives pour l’interprétation et la manipulation musicale.

Renseignements : http://repmus.ircam.fr/mamux/saisons/saison12-2012-2013/2013-02-01

Résumé de ma présentation

Les publications d’analyse musicale utilisent couramment différents types de représentations du son. De la forme d’onde au sonagramme enrichi d’annotations, ces représentations sont généralement pensées en complément d’un discours, de fragments de partitions et sont associées aux fichiers audio ou vidéo. Certaines publications ont commencé à explorer le domaine de l’interactivité afin d’enrichir l’expérience du lecteur. Mais force est de constater que la réalisation de telles représentations n’est pas toujours aisée pour le musicologue. C’est la raison pour laquelle j’ai développé les logiciels iAnalyse pour la musique écrite et EAnalysis pour la musique électroacoustique.
Après un rapide état des lieux sur les publications musicologiques utilisant les représentations physiques du son, je montrerai les avancées de ces deux logiciels tant sur le plan de l’interface que des réalisations qu’ils permettent.

Symposium 3: Analysis: application, workshop, discussion

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

 

As part of the AHRC funded project ‘New Multimedia Tools for Electroacoustic Music Analysis’ directed by Simon Emmerson and Leigh Landy (Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester) – and hosted by the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at DMU.

Symposium 3: Wednesday 20th June 2012
Theme: ‘Analysis: application, workshop, discussion’

Location: Clephan Building, Bonners Lane, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH (Room 0.01)
Time: 10.30-13.00 and 14.00-17.00
Chair: Simon Emmerson
Invited participant observer: Gary Kendall (Queens Belfast)

10.30-13.00 Application Contributions from:

  • Leigh Landy (DMU) – The Next Step
  • David Hirst (La Trobe, via Skype) – The SIAM Framework: Segregation, Integration, Assimilation and Meaning
  • John Ferguson (Kingston) – Some initial thoughts on ‘Wig Wag’ (Waisvisz/Sehnaoui)
  • Simon Emmerson (DMU) – Capturing interaction and response
  • Andrew Hugill (DMU) – Towards an analysis of Papa Sangre, an audio-only game for the iPhone/iPad
  • Mike Gatt (DMU) – The future of OREMA

14.00-16.00 Workshop

16.00-17.00 Discussion

  • Project summary, critique and future developments.

EAnalysis: A New Electroacoustic Music Analysis piece of Software

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

I will present a paper on my last piece of software EAnalysis during the next EMS 2012 (Electroacoustic Music Studies Network) at Stockholm on June 12.

More informations: http://www.ems-network.org/ems12/

Here is my abstract

Electroacoustic music practices are changing so rapidly that defining the field is a real challenge. Thus, acousmatic music, soundscape, glitch, mixed music, interactive music, algorithmic music, audiovisual improvisation, electronica, sound installation or music created using hacked machines, all of these artistic experiences belong to the same field. This musical field being very new and extremely mobile, the researcher has to analyse it differently from instrumental music. Indeed, the lack of support, the complexity of sound material, the use of internal and external spaces, the close link between tools and musical results, the role of place in the creative process, the blurred border between sound and music, the mix with other forms of art are altering musicology in depth. These changes require not only new theories, but also new tools for analysis.

The development of EAnalysis is part of the research project entitled ‘New multimedia tools for electroacoustic music analysis’ at the MTI Research Centre of De Montfort University (Leicester, UK). This piece of software aims at experimenting new types of graphic representations and new analytical methods with an intuitive interface and adapted tools for analysis purposes. The release version will be available at the end of 2013. This piece of software runs on Macintosh OS10.6 or later and a beta version has been available since April 2012 (http://eanalysis.pierrecouprie.fr).

For several years, my research work has been centered on the use of musical representations for musical analysis. In several conferences, I have presented new modes of representation to go beyond the traditional time-­‐frequency view. The time-­‐ frequency view is very useful to edit the various graphic shapes or to synchronise the analytical objects on a timeline. But, if the researcher wants to demonstrate complex analysis with different analytical parameters or parameters in different layers, this type of view is very limited. EAnalysis offers various possibilities the researcher can choose from so as to meet his research objective. He can thus select the most adapted types of view for his analytical strategies. He can for instance use a traditional type of view and create iconic representations or complex symbolic representations with many analytical parameters in one or several views. Moreover, EAnalysis provides tools for analysis adapted to different types of audience: specialists, musicians, teachers, children, etc.

My work in the field of graphic representations of electroacoustic music has enabled me to experiment different software (Acousmographe, Audiosculpt, Adobe Illustrator, etc.).

Each one is very effective with regard to the purpose it was developed for, but turns out to be limited when I want to work in different ways or when I want to have the best features of 2 software at the same time. Hence the second objective of EAnalysis: fewer tools but tools that are developed to be useful for the analyst. Of course this piece software cannot be considered as panacea but it will propose new tools to work with drawing and analysis.

Traditional software propose various drawing tools and sometimes some shapes that refer to analytical units but they do not offer any help to use them. The people who analyse electroacoustic music are varied. They may be musicians who want to create an analysis of mixed music interpretation, specialists of electroacoustic music who want to create their own analytical method, students who use such software to learn how music is organised or structured, or teachers who want to use them to work on listening with their students. These different types of people need intuitive software to work in different ways.

Based on that, I imagined a new piece of software that can be used in different ways. Here are some of its features:

  1. You can work with different types of views: time/frequency, animation (e.g. to represent motions in space, installations, or soundwalk), map of sounds/representations (e.g. to create a mind map with sounds, or a paradigmatic table), image view (to show score of mixed music or any image), chart view (to represent the variation of some parameters from various data).
  2. You can analyse one or several audio or video files in each project, thus allowing multitracks works or comparative analysis.
  3. You have at your disposal all the drawing tools that you need to create representations or to modify all shapes without having to redraw your whole representation.
  4. You have access to 4 work modes: “normal mode” to add graphic shapes like in any other software or analytical events, “text mode” to annotate while listening to music, “drawing mode” to use a graphic tablet or an interactive whiteboard to draw your ideas, and “play mode” to use during a presentation of your analysis with interactive events.
  5. You can add graphic events or analytic events. Graphic events are very common shapes like text, rectangle, ellipse, line, polygon, etc. Analytic events are graphic events with analytic parameters to analyse music with different methods like sound objects, spectromorphologies, functions, temporal semiotic units, etc. Each analytic event contains a help file (text, sound examples, web page) to guide your analyse work.
  6. You can attach analytic parameters to any event to analyse specific criteria like gain, gait, morphology, space position or motion, etc. Analytic parameters can modify the representation like with a style sheet. This system allows the user to try various types of representations.
  7. The release version will contain an expert system to guide the user through the various types of analytic events.
  8. You can edit your own analytic events and share them with other users.
  9. Of course, you can export your work in different formats: image, PDF, movie with one or several views, text file, XML file. You also can export in EAnalysis format without audio/video files and sonogram images if you do not own the rights of the media.
  10. Links to other software like Audiosculpt, Acousmographe, or Sonic Visualiser are also planned.

These features will be progressively added to EAnalysis during the development.

This presentation will account for the use of EAnalysis in analytical projects with various levels of complexity for different genres of electroacoustic music: acousmatic, audiovisual performance, soundwalk, etc.

EAnalysis public beta is available

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

My new application, EAnalysis, is available for free as a beta version.

The development of EAnalysis is part of the research project entitled ‘New multimedia tools for electroacoustic music analysis’ at the MTI Research Centre of De Montfort University (Leicester, UK). The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

This piece of software aims at experimenting new types of graphic representations and new analytical methods with an intuitive interface and adapted tools for analysis purposes.

Informations and download

Journées d’Informatique Musicale 2012

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

 

Les prochaines Journées d’Informatique Musicale (JIM) auront lieu à l’Université de Mons en Belgique du 9 au 11 mai 2012.

Le 11 mai à 9h00, j’y présenterai une conférence sur EAnalysis, le projet de recherche que je mène avec l’Université De Montfort de Leicester. Il s’agit d’un logiciel d’aide à l’analyse des musiques électroacoustiques.

Renseignements : http://www.jim2012.be

Résumé de ma conférence

Cet article présente le logiciel EAnalysis, logiciel d’aide à l’analyse musicale dans le domaine de la musique électroacoustique. Le développement, qui est en cours de réalisation et ce poursuivra jusqu’à fin 2013, s’inscrit dans le projet de création d’une boîte à outils pour l’analyse de la musique électroacoustique à l’Université De Montfort de Leicester (Grande-Bretagne). EAnalysis a pour objectif d’expérimenter de nouvelles formes de représentations graphiques et d’analyse musicale ainsi que de nouvelles méthodes pour un art encore très jeune et dont les pratiques ne cessent de s’enrichir de jours en jours. A terme, il permettra de manipuler des sources variées (audio, vidéo, image, données extraites d’autres logiciels, etc.) à travers une interface simple, modulaire et intuitive. Il offrira aussi la possibilité de partager facilement ses analyses et de développer ses propres outils analytiques.

Rencontre au GRAME (Lyon)

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

Le GRAME à Lyon organise une rencontre sur Les nouveaux espaces de la notation musicale le 24 avril 2012.

J’y présenterai mes travaux sur la représentation graphique et l’analyse musicale.

Renseignements : http://www.grame.fr/Recherche/Conferences/Notation/

La notation de la musique sert les besoins de la représentation, de l’écriture et de la création artistique. Confrontée aux nouvelles formes musicales, comme les oeuvres interactives par exemple, la partition contemporaine est souvent étendue, éclatée sur des supports différents, revisitée à travers de nouvelles formes d’écriture. Ce sont tous ces aspects de la représentation musicale, en lien avec les outils informatiques, qui seront abordés lors de cette journée.

What do we want from analysis of electroacoustic music and how might we get it?

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

The videos of the first Symposium at De Montfort University are online.

Schedule

10.00-10.30 – assemble & refreshments

Session 1 (10.30-12.30) – invited presentations (see below)

Session 2 (12.30-13.30) – discussion

Lunch: 13.30-14.30

Session 3 (14.30-15.00) – Mike Gatt introduces OREMA – Online Repository for Electroacoustic Music Analysis – www.orema.dmu.ac.uk

Session 4 (15.00-16.00) – Pierre Couprie demonstrates the ‘private beta’ version of EAnalysis software

Session 5 (16.00-17.00) – discussion

Session 6 (17.00-17.30) – the invited ‘unkeynote’ speaker Prof Michael Clarke will summarise and comment, with additional thoughts from the project directors Simon Emmerson and Leigh Landy to conclude.

Vidéos

You can view the videos on OREMA website: http://www.orema.dmu.ac.uk/?q=content/what-do-we-want-analysis-electroacoustic-music-and-how-might-we-get-it

or on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/theOREMAproject

First screenshots of EAnalysis

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

Here are the first screenshots of my new software EAnalysis. The development of this software is a part of the research project ‘New multimedia tools for electroacoustic music analysis’ at the MTI Research Centre of De Montfort University (Leicester, UK). This project is directed by professors Simon Emmerson and Leigh Landy. EAnalysis is currently in private beta state, the first public beta will be available for the first quarter of 2012.

The analytic representation of L’oiseau moqueur (François Bayle) that I realised on Acousmographe in 1998 and recreate in EAnalysis.

A sound object analyse of Etude aux chemins de fer (Pierre Schaeffer) realised by Mike Gatt.

A part of the interface to add analytic events: the sound objects by Pierre Schaeffer (translated by John Dack).

An other part of the interface to add analytic events: the functions by Stéphane Roy.

First public presentation of EAnalysis, a software for ElectroAcoustic music analysis

Posted on by Pierre Couprie

Symposium1: What do we want from analysis of electroacoustic music and how might we get it?

Location: Institute of Creative Technologies, Gateway Street, Leicester
http://www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk/info/contact.html
Time: 10.30-17.30
Chair: Simon Emmerson
Keynote: Michael Clarke (University of Huddersfield)

This is no ordinary Symposium. Invited speakers will give 10 minute (max) presentations with one slide (if needed); there will be much more time for discussion – the field has been divided into arbitrary cliché genres – we must start somewhere and these may well be critiqued – such as – post-concrète and the acousmatics; soundscape and real world reference; glitch, hacking, failure aesthetics; sound art, installation and the site-specific; algorithmic and interactive; live instrumental (mixed and live electronics); live post-instrumental (hardware hacking, found and constructed instruments); electronica/IDM related; audio in computer games; discourse analysis … any others?

Contributors include: Simon Emmerson, Leigh Landy, Pierre Couprie, Mike Gatt, John Dack, Katharine Norman, Owen Green, Manuella Blackburn, Andrew Hugill, John Young, Pete Batchelor, John Richards, Bret Battey, Neal Spowage, Ben Ramsay, Panos Amelides, Katerina Tzedaki, Simon Atkinson … and more …

In an afternoon session Pierre Couprie will give a demonstration of the first beta version of the project software ‘EAnalysis’ and Mike Gatt will report on the wiki OREMA project he has created.

While entry is free and open, spaces are limited and should be booked – please email s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk to register (not the IOCT please). Your participation assumes you are happy to be recorded.

Further details will be available one week before the symposium.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=156015151155861

News

Ola Nordal wrote a good report on this journey: http://olanordal.blogspot.com/2011/11/symposium-report-analysis-of-electronic.html.