Mathematics and Music
The SMIR (Structural Music Information Research) project is an extension of the project selected by the CNRS at the time of the creation of a research director’s position in the Musical Representations team by expanding the range of mathematical tools at the disposal of the computational musicologist (tools derived not only from algebra but also from topology and category theory). At the same time, it tackles the articulations between scholarly and popular music (rock, pop, jazz and chanson), in a dimension that is both theoretical but also practical and open to the dissemination of knowledge. The project benefits from the support of 4 institutions within the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music (an international society whose activity has been federated by the Journal of Mathematics and Music): a partnership with the University of Strasbourg (in particular IRMA, the Labex GREAM, the Idex .University and City. and the Garden of Sciences), a collaboration with the Pasteur Institute (in the framework of the .Challenge - Learning Processes and Techniques 2020. financed by the Mission for Transversal and Interdisciplinary Initiatives of the CNRS), and with the University of Padua (creation of a Chair of Visiting Professor for the new doctoral scholarship .Mathematics and Music., 2020-2021). In addition, this project feeds the MaMuPhi (Mathematics, Music and Philosophy) seminar, co-organized with the .cole normale sup.rieure and the book collections: Musique/Sciences (Delatour France) and Computational Music Sciences (Springer).
The project is based on an experimental environment for computational music analysis called The Tonnetz, which relies on the functionalities of HexaChord software. Tonnetz is a web environment that makes it possible to construct spatial representations associated with harmonic progressions and to analyze them across several geometric spaces (called the Tonnetze). The environment is commonly used in schools and workshops for the general public as well as in projects for promoting knowledge such as the show .Math’n Pop.
IRCAM's Team : Musical Representations