COSMOS
That music performance is a creative act is no longer a disputed fact, but the very nature of this creative work remains elusive. Taking the view that the creative work of performance is the making and shaping of music structures,
and that this creative thinking is a form of problem solving, COSMOS proposes an integrated program of research to transform our understanding of the human experience of performed music, which is almost all music that we hear, and of the creativity of music performance, which addresses how music is made. COSMOS uses data science, optimization, and analysis as well as citizen science to study musical structures as they are experienced and created in
performance. The project investigates unusual sources such as arrhythmic cardiac data.
The research themes are as follows: i) to find new ways to represent, explore, and talk about performance; ii) to harness volunteer thinking (citizen science) for music performance research by focusing on structures experienced and problem solving; iii) to create sandbox environments to experiment with making performed structures; iv) to create theoretical frameworks to discover the reasoning behind the structures perceived and made; and, v) to foster community engagement by training experts to provide feedback on structure solutions so as to increase public understanding of the creative work in music performance.
The citizen science platform developed in COSMOS enables the general public to annotate and deconstruct the structures created in musical performances, and to explore the space of possible musical interpretations.
Mathematical tools and techniques to characterize variations and patterns in interpreted music and electrocardiographic sequences will expand the tools available to music information researchers, mathematicians, musicologists, music educators, music psychologists, and music therapists.
Applications of the COSMOS platform and tools will include artistic projects, public engagement events and music science communication.
IRCAM team: Musical Representations
Project details
