The UMR STMS is an interdisciplinary center for sound and music science and technology in accordance with IRCAM’s missions under the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The laboratory is primarily connected with the CNRS Institute for Information Sciences and Technologies (INS2I) and secondly with the CNRS Institutes for Engineering and Systems Sciences (INSIS), for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS), and of Biological Sciences (INSB). At UPMC, the UMR is associated with the Engineering Faculty (UFR919) in the Modeling and Engineering Pole.

This interdisciplinary aspect, an integral element of the singularity of an institution such as IRCAM on an international scale, can now be seen in several aspects of the laboratory.

I. A scientific meaning for interdisciplinary: the relationship among different disciplines provides a broad range of complementary perspectives on a single subject: musical creation and, more generally, the study of sound and musical phenomena as well as the technologies for processing the corresponding information. This interdisciplinary dimension is apparent in IRCAM’s coordination of the ATIAM Master's program (Acoustics, Signal Processing, and Information Technology applied to Music) in collaboration with a selection of universities and laboratories (Université Paris 6). This activity is organized at IRCAM via the following approaches:

• Studying physical phenomena of the production and propagation of sound (acoustic), and their application to simulation (sound synthesis via physical modeling, spatialization, and virtual and augmented acoustics).
• Studying procedures for the analysis, synthesis, and processing of sound signals.
• The digital formalization of musical structures and their manipulation, as software environments and specialized computer languages for the processing of musical information.
• Studying the issues surrounding human-machine interaction in the manipulation of sound artifacts in a variety of performing arts situations (music, dance, theater, etc.), virtual reality, and more.
• Perception (psychoacoustics) and human cognition in the context of perception and manipulation of musical, sound, or multi-modal processes and their applications to sound design.
• Studying musical works, and more generally, musical knowledge: musicology, cognitive anthropology, and the sociology of music.

The coordination of these dissimilar disciplines is carried out in the laboratory via transversal themes that federate the activities of different teams around common subjects. The research during the 2011-2012 period touched on one, or several, of the four following subjects:

1. Sound Analysis, Processing, and Synthesis. Audio signal analysis and processing, voice processing, musical indexation, musical acoustics and synthesis via physical modeling, spatialization techniques.
2. Representations and Languages. Representations and symbolic treatments, synthesis and spatialization control, languages, programming models and paradigms.
3. Musical, Sound, and Multimodal Interaction. Gesture: modeling, analysis, gestural interaction and techniques for synchronization, interaction from symbolic treatments.
4. Cognitive, Theoretical, and Musicological Foundations. Cognition: cognitive psychology of listening, experimental studies on sound interaction and multimodal interaction, situated cognition of musical practices, underlying theories - music and mathematics, musicology, applications for sound design, and the documentation of works.

II. Interdisciplinary, as conforming to IRCAM's original mission, can be seen as a venue for dialogues and collaborations among scientists and musicians for their mutual benefit; on one hand technological and scientific advances are imagined in terms of their possible contribution to the renewal of artistic expression and dissemination; on the other hand, the coupling of research and creation gives rise to the installation of a dynamic of original research focused on scientific issues raised by the very problems surrounding musical creation and practices. This connection between research and creation is carried out in the development of software for musical creation, based on models from the findings of the UMR’s research work. Additionally, numerous industrial collaborations and French and European research programs carried out by IRCAM illustrate the variety of domains of applications concerned by the expertise developed by the UMR. These domains go well beyond the domain of musical creation, touching the fields of musical, sound, and audiovisual production and diffusion, education, automotive and transportation, telecommunication, games, and more.

III. Interdisciplinary in an artistic sense, aims to promote the adaptation of technologies designed for music to productions that associate other performing arts such as dance, opera, theater, and film.

Within the CNRS, and more broadly, in French, European, and international settings, this laboratory positions itself according to the following unique elements:

• A vast interdisciplinary pole that federates several communities around a central subject;
• State of the art expertise in technologies for sound and music;
• Inclusion of a research activity in the heart of a cultural institution, that confers a privileged situation on IRCAM to address the current changes in the production and dissemination of music and sound in relation to the generalization of digital technologies;
• The systematic application of the research carried out in the framework of the UMR in the development of software, focusing on the realization of computer environments for artistic and sound creation;
• Considerable activity to valorize the work carried out in the framework of collaborative research and development projects on a regional, national, or European scale, and of industrial collaborations and license transfers.