week 69: ISMIR

November 12, 2013 · by · in , , ,

I went to ISMIR, and presented a paper about how DJs select and order tracks, which went pretty well.  Ryan Groves and I also ‘performed’ two Elvis Costello songs, with backing chords from Elvis Presely songs.  We probably should have cut it at one, but the first song (Alison, since you asked) was a big hit.  I’ll have a detailed post about it soon, with audio and hopefully video.

Other ISMIR / Curitiba highlights include:

  • Learning about 72-note-to-the-octave Byzantine chant.  (Maria Pantelli, U Cyprus)
  • Learning about ragtime, Andalusian, Turkish, Carnatic / Hindi, Chilean music from a data perspective.  (Anja Volk, Alastair Porter, Sertan Senturk, Monojit Choudhury, Gabriel Vigliensoni, and many more)
  • Learning about Francois Pachet’s work with “style” and for systems that encourage flow.
  • David Hauger’s Million Musical Tweet Database has potential.
  • I am over trying to machine-learn emotional music.  Just done with it.  The only possible answer is to build a constantly updating neural network for every single person in the world.
  • Some neat stuff on automashups by I-Ting Liu, also by Matthew Davies
  • The band at the reception, Caracoarco, can play.  Likewise the quasi-Celtic band we saw at a random pub.
  • Arne Eigenfeldt’s procedural techno machine is really, really good at drums and bass.  The leads are not there, but it is close
  • Cachaca is delicious and covers far more ground than I thought:  I had apple ones, smoked variations, and so on.
  • Academia is fun, but man, it moves slowly and has too many dudes in it.

 

Much more importantly, I also saw two dear friends get married in Toronto.  All the love to them.