Videos

Throughout the CORE project, the creative processes of exploration, orchestrational problemsolving, and the realization of new music were recorded, documented, and archived for consideration. This presentation will describe the project’s goals, aims and methodological approaches at the five partner institutions, certain facets of which will be detailed in other presentations.

Through score and audio analysis using a perceptually based taxonomy of orchestrational effects, we studied three compositions written by McGill University graduate students in collaboration with the ensemble’s performers. Our analytical approach considered perceptual issues of auditory fusion, segregation, integration, and stratification, focusing largely on the strategies developed by each composer to achieve their desired textural effects.

This paper discusses preliminary analyses of the data collected during the initiation phase in the Fall of 2019. Verbatim extracts from the interviews were manually coded on the basis of a qualitative research method inspired by grounded theory. The analyst assigns a “code” to each verbatim segment, thus attributing a significant evocative attribute to each portion of the verbal data.

E-Rock is a composition for violin, bass clarinet, trombone, and vibraphone/small percussion that explores klezmer-inspired music while complexifying it and imitating different instruments and musical styles.

To provide a tool for researching the role of auditory grouping effects in orchestration practice and thereby the role of timbre as a structuring force in music, a first-of-its-kind online database was created, and an analysis taxonomy and methodology were established.

We present an interdisciplinary collaboration between McGill, Audiotopie and Plateau-Mont-Royal borough around the design and evaluation of spatial sound installations in Montreal.

Orchestration is defined by Stephen McAdams as “the choice, combination or juxtaposition of sounds to achieve a musical end.” This typically invokes a palette of heterogeneous sounds, especially those of the instruments of the symphony orchestra, but McAdams’ definition equally applies to homogeneous sound palettes encountered in ensembles of uniform composition, such as the guitar orchestra.

In this presentation concentrating on my latest two works from 2019, I will discuss my extended use of Orchidea, the latest assisted orchestration platform in the Orch* tools lineage, and spatialization using OpenMusic and the Ircam Spat~ package for Max.

Recent developments in the field of computer-aided orchestration have provided interesting approaches for addressing some of the many orchestration challenges, supported by advances in computational capacities and artificial intelligence methods. Nevertheless, harnessing the many sides of this musical art, which involves combining the acoustic properties of a large ensemble of varied instruments, has not yet been achieved.

Human acquisition of skills and knowledge about the spaces they inhabit is linked to our development of proprioceptive skills from the earliest moments of physical and psychological negotiation with the world around us. The acquisition of “spatial intelligence” extends to the development of skills in comprehending the acoustic spaces through which we move, unconsciously and consciously measuring, comparing and committing to memory the sound signals and sources fleetingly inhabiting these spaces while building a library of sounding spaces to which we return and reference.

Computational musicology is emerging out of the necessity of finding methods to deal with music (both art and popular) that escapes conventional Western notation. To better understand this music, we use computational methods to decompose recordings of performances of contemporary music into digital musical objects.

Timbre has been identified by music perception scholars as an important component in the communication of affect in music. While its function as a carrier of perceptually useful information about sound source mechanics has been established, studies of whether and how it functions as a carrier of information for communicating affect in music are still in their infancy.

Depuis 2008, le groupe de recherche en immersion spatiale (GRIS) de la Faculté de musique de l'Université de Montréal développe des outils de spatialisation destinés à des environnements immersifs de multiples haut-parleurs.

Videos of the Opening Address and Keynote presentations

This paper is in ternary A-B-A form; that is, it has two themes and three sections. The A-theme consists of thoughts on the treatment of timbre in ethnomusicology, historically, at present, and in an ideal future. It reviews the infamous problems timbre presents to all scholars of music, and then discusses the special problems of timbre for ethnomusicologists.

Timbre, in its very nature, is abstract. The brain, as we all know, is the most complex system that exists. So, one can only imagine the challenges that can be encountered while investigating timbre processing in the brain. The central focus of timbre research from a neuroscientific point of view, until recently, has been typically on brain responses to changes in acoustic structure or related to sound source categorization (ex: violin vs piano)

In this talk, I first reflect on the “timbral litany” in today’s scholarship: timbre has no standardized language; it lacks a systematic theory; timbre is defined negatively, and so forth. In particular, I focus on the tension between the many claims of timbre’s central important to musical experience, on the one hand, with the reality that we often, on the other hand, talk over and past timbre, abstracting music from timbre’s specificities.

A glance through these proceedings testifies to a rising interest in musical timbre across a multitude of fields, as well as to its under-explored richness, at least until very recently. It also makes evident that timbre is many things to many people and has many functions.

Finding Consilience in The Vibrato Wars: Hearing, Seeing, & Analyzing the Spectrum of Variability Across Genres.

The Analysis, Creation and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project and the Schulich School of Music invite you to a lecture about the the Composer-performer Orchestration Research Ensemble (CORE) project presented by Professors Stephen McAdams (Music Technology) and Guillaume Bourgogne (Orchestral Conducting) on April 8 at 5:00pm EDT as part of the Research Alive Series.

We often reach for crossmodal metaphor to describe music--it sounds warm, or velvety, or rough, spiky, jagged, smooth, glassy, or bright, etc. What if these metaphors were not as subjective as we might think, but had a scientific, neurological basis?

Step into the mysterious world of composition as John Rea unveils secrets in the art of writing music, how these secrets may lead to lies, and what happens when a composer’s memory starts playing tricks… The presentation will also include a live performance by pianist Stéphane Lémelin.

Lena Heng is currently a PhD student in the interdisciplinary stream, and their research addresses how people perceive and make sense of music. Lena’s research interests include music perception and cognition, timbral functions in musical communication, and musical semiology and hermeneutics. Originally from Singapore, Heng plays erhu with the Ding Yi Music Company in Singapore. Lena will illustrate their research to the audience during this presentation with a live performance on the Chinese erhu.

In this presentation the audience will experience in real time how the analysis of a musical score can enrich a performance, explored through a movement of Brahms' first clarinet sonata, performed live by Edward and Nicole on viola and piano.

Having recorded great pianists for over 30 years as a record producer, Martha de Francisco is in a unique position to offer insight into what makes a beautiful piano recording. Join her for the first Research Alive event of the season, where she'll guide you through many audio and video examples of her work.

Jason Noble (Ph.D in Composition) and Steven Cowan (D.Mus in Guitar Performance), winners of the Research Alive student competition, describe the project that they've been working on back in their home province of Newfoundland.

An in-depth presentation of his research in music theory focusing on pieces written by George Benjamin. Live piano excerpts and performances are played by pianists Chris Goddard and Zhenni Li.

Music psychologist Stephen McAdams talks about the role of perception in orchestration practice. He is joined on stage by conductor Alain Cazes and the full McGill Wind Symphony.