Newsletter no. 3

Written By ACTOR Research Team

EN / FR

Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project

Newsletter #3, October 2020

Editor’s Note

Hello, all! We’ve got a lot to catch up on! Congratulations to all for your accomplishments in 2020, especially despite the obstacles. 

Moving forward, our aim is to get ACTOR news out every month. Submission deadlines for your news on publications, concerts, presentations, workshops, etc. will always be the last day of the month, starting November 30. Any late submissions will be included in the next month’s news update. As before, you can submit news through the website form or by emailing actor-project.music@mcgill.ca. If there’s something recent you’ve done that you’d like to see included, send it in for the next newsletter! We’d love to hear from everyone, students or profs, new or seasoned members, and we’d especially like to encourage submissions from members who identify as women and/or as belonging to a minority group.

Nominations for the ACTOR Knowledge Mobilization Committee (KMC), Training and Mentoring Committee (TMC), and Executive Committee are due October 15. Student terms are for one year; all other elected terms are for two years. Self nominations are welcome. For more information, consult the email sent out Sept. 24 or email actor-project.music@mcgill.ca.

We’ve got two new ACTOR postdocs at McGill in the mix; former postdocs Jason Noble and Julie Delisle passed the batons to Matthew Zeller, from Duke University, and Lindsey Reymore, from Ohio State University. Many thanks to Jason and Julie for their amazing work over the past two years! In addition, Kit Soden is now working as ACTOR’s webmaster.

This past summer saw a successful virtual ACTOR Year 2 workshop with members joining from all over the world. The plenary session included presentations from the two new postdocs as well as from student members Yuval Adler (McGill University), Eliazer Kramer (Université de Montréal), Ioannis Mitsialis (University of California, San Diego), Victor Rosi (IRCAM/Sorbonne Université), and Jithin Thilakan (Hochschule für Musik Detmold). Over the four days of the workshop, eight working group sessions took place: Timbre & orchestration analysis, Acoustics of musical performance rooms, Composer-performer orchestration research ensembles (CORE), Timbre and orchestration resource (TOR), Timbre semantics, Computer-aided target-based orchestration, OrchView & the perceptual grouping taxonomy, and Computational tools & AI for orchestration. Final reports on the workgroup meetings will be available soon online.

Below you’ll find a list of accomplishments ACTOR members have shared with us so far in 2020. ACTOR member names are bolded for identification in citations.

Thank you for reading! We look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Best,

Lindsey Reymore, ACTOR Analysis Postdoc

Publications

Emily Dolan and Alex Rehding have published online their chapter in their edited volume, The Oxford Handbook of Timbre; the complete handbook will be published in print in early 2021. Also, check out several other recent articles from ACTOR members:

  • Dolan, E.I., & Rehding, A. "Timbre: Alternative Histories and Possible Futures for the Study of Music" in The Oxford Handbook of Timbre, ed. Emily Dolan and Alex Rehding. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190637224.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190637224-e-36 

  • LeBlanc, J. (2020). Movimento, gesto e espaço no Quatour à Cordes. In Armando Santiago, directed by Pedro Junqueira Maia. EDIÇÕES DO ATELIER DE COMPOSIÇÃO. ISBN 978-97-98846-7-2.

  • Noble, J., Thoret, E., Henry, E. & McAdams, S. (in press, accepted 07/2020). Semantic dimensions of sound mass music: Mappings between perceptual and acoustic domains. Music Perception. 

  • Noble, J., Bonin, T. & McAdams, S. (2020). Time and timelessness in electroacoustic music. Organised Sound, 25(2), 232-247. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135577182000014X

  • Noble, J. & McAdams, S. (2020). Sound mass, auditory perception, and ‘post-tone’ music. Journal of New Music Research, 49(3), 231-251. https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2020.1749673

  • Reymore, L., & Huron, D. (2020). Using auditory imagery tasks to map the cognitive linguistic dimensions of musical instrument timbre qualia. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 30(3), 124–144. https://doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000263

  • Thoret, E., Caramiaux, B., Depalle, P. & McAdams, S. (in press, accepted 09/2020). Learning metrics on spectrotemporal modulations reveals the perception of musical instrument timbre. Nature Human Behaviour.

  • Wallmark, Z., & Allen, S. E. (2020). Preschoolers’ crossmodal mappings of timbre. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 82(5), 2230–2236. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02015-0

Editorial Work

Dissertations

New ACTOR postdocs Lindsey Reymore and Matthew Zeller both completed their dissertations in Spring 2020.

Timbre 2020

The 2nd International Conference on Timbre (Timbre 2020) saw many contributions from ACTOR members, with special thanks to ACTOR member Charis Saitis for his role in organizing the conference. The complete proceedings can be downloaded at https://timbre2020.mus.auth.gr/, and the site also contains video recordings of the oral presentations. ACTOR member presentations are listed below with corresponding page numbers from the proceedings.

  • Antoine Caillon, Adrien Bitton, Brice Gatinet, & Phillipe Esling, “Timbre latent space: exploration and creative aspects,” (poster), pp. 114–117.

  • Alejandro Delgado, Charalampos Saitis, & Mark Sandler, “Spectral and temporal timbral cues of vocal imitations of drum sounds,” (poster), pp. 98–99.

  • Christos Drouzas & Charalampos Saitis, “Verbal description of musical brightness,” (poster), pp. 42–45.

  • Ben Hayes & Charalampos Saitis, “There’s more to timbre than musical instruments: semantic dimensions of FM sounds,” (presentation), pp. 69–72.

  • Erica Huynh, Joel Bensoam, & Stephen McAdams, “Perception of action and object categories in typical and atypical excitation-resonator interactions of musical instruments,” (poster), pp. 106–109.

  • Lena Heng & Stephen McAdams, “Timbre’s function within a musical phrase in the perception of affective intents,” (presentation), pp. 17–20.

  • Nathalie Hérold, “Towards a Theory and Analysis of Timbre based on Auditory Scene Analysis Principles: A Case Study of Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op. 106, Third Movement,” (presentation), pp. 146–148. 

  • Savvas Kazazis, Philippe Depalle, & Stephen McAdams, “Perceptual ratio scales of timbre-related audio descriptors,” (presentation), pp. 95–97.

  • Jason Noble, Kit Soden, & Zachary Wallmark, “The semantics of orchestration: A corpus analysis,” (presentation), pp. 142–145.

  • Lindsey Reymore, “Timbre Trait Analysis: The Semantics of Instrumentation,” (poster), pp. 38–41.

  • Victor Rosi, Olivier Houix, Nicolas Misdariis, & Patrick Susini, “Uncovering the meaning of four semantic attributes of sound: Bright, rough, round, and warm,” (poster), pp. 118–120.

  • Moe Touizrar & Kai Siedenburg, “The medium is the message: Questioning the necessity of a syntax for timbre,” (presentation), pp. 137–139.

  • Cyrus Vahidi, George Fazekas, Charalampos Saitis, & Alessandro Palladini. “Timbre space representation of a subtractive synthesizer,” (poster), pp. 30–33.

  • Asterios Zacharakis, Ben Hayes, Charalampos Saitis, & Konstantinos Pastiadis, “Evidence for timbre space robustness to an uncontrolled online stimulus presentation,” (poster), pp. 129–132.

  • Matthew Zeller, “Klangfarbenmelodie in 1911: Anton Webern’s Opp. 9 and 10,” (presentation), pp. 149–152.

Conference Participation

Nathalie Hérold, Lindsey Reymore, Jimmie Leblanc and Martin Daigle presented research at conferences; Lindsey’s video presentation is linked below, and Martin’s entry includes links to the proceedings and a demo video. 

  • Hérold, N. "A Beethovenian Sound Colour? Timbre and Orchestration Strategies in Beethoven's Last Piano Sonatas", International Conference Beethoven 2020: Analytical and Performative Perspectives, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Amsterdam (Netherlands), 29 February 2020.

  • Leblanc, J. (November 18-20) “Principles of Music Composing. Phenomenon of Teleology,” 20th International Music Theory Conference, hosted by Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius, Lituania.

  • Reymore, L. “Timbre semantics, orchestration, and musical analysis,” Music Theory Midwest (online, Summer 2020)

  • Tom, A., Singh, A., Daigle, M., Marandola, F., Wanderley, M.M. “Haptic Tutor – A haptics-based music education tool for beginners,” International Workshop on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design (HAID). Demo here:

 

Haptic Tutor is a wearable haptic system that triggers vibrations on limbs of a student drummer, aimed to help develop multi-limb independence. The system us...

 

Awards & Honours

Student member Jorge Ramos from The Royal College of Music, London, has had many compositional successes this year, including:

  • November 2019: Honourable Mention at the Francisco Martins Composition Prize 3rd Edition by Orquestra Clássica do Centro, “Moving Sources” for classical symphony orchestra 

“In this work, I explore the role of spatialization and timbre blending as the main driving force to influence my orchestration approach. My departure point was to translate the concept of wind-chimes as a physical instrument and its properties to orchestral music. All of the pitch material was extracted from a sample recording of this instrument and then laid out in order to achieve a flowing harmonic progression that would take over the pitch development throughout the piece. Furthermore, wind-chimes is an instrument that if left alone can be played by itself (with the natural stimulus of the wind) in a constant and almost generative, ambient-like style. In addition, there is also a very important spatial property where each bell/chime is in constant movement and also in a whole, all the bells move between themselves. In the end, this resulting harmonic progression and the idea of the movement of parts but also as a whole had a huge impact on my writing of this specific work.”

  • June 2020: Honourable Mention at the II International Composition Award "Pedro de Araújo" (in Braga, Portugal, 2020) with the work “Flux” for the two historical organs of Sé Catedral in Braga. 

“In this work, I try to explore the correlation between orchestration and spatialization while bearing in mind the fixed disposition of the organs.”

  • August 2020: Winning work of Prémio de Composição SPA / Antena 2 – 9ª Edição 2020. 

“This was my first work ever assisted by the computer in the orchestration domain. For this, I adopted the newly released computer-assisted orchestration software © Orchidea v0.6.1 standalone application for macOS 10.15.6 loaded with the IRCAM FullSOL2020 database to assist in my orchestration practice. I consider this symphonic piece to be a further exploration of the traditional spectral music techniques that informed the creation of my previous work for classical orchestra Moving Sources (2019)—manual spectral analysis and static orchestration. Furthermore, my main aim was to inform both my compositional and orchestration approach from my previous stereo acousmatic work—Project 2 (2012-2013). Therefore, a priori, my goal was to use this software as a tool to aid me in the transcription of a pure acousmatic (electronic) work into an instrumental (orchestral) domain.”

  • September 2020: 1st Prize at the SPA / Antena 2 Composition Prize 2020 9th Edition, “Point of Departure” for symphony orchestra. 

“Premiered on the 26th of September by the Calouste Gulbenkian Orchestra, conducted by José Eduardo Gomes at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. This was my first work using the newly released Orchidea to assist in my orchestration practice.”

Compositions

Former ACTOR postdoc Jason Noble used musical storytelling to introduce young audiences to the art of orchestration in his new piece for chamber orchestra and narrator, “Cameron Chameleon” (2020). Following in the tradition of pieces such as Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” and Benjamin Britten’s “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” “Cameron Chameleon” uses narrative and theatrics to entertain children while clandestinely educating them about different ways that musical sounds can be combined. The chameleon’s changing colours provide a natural analogy for orchestral timbres, and the other characters, events, and scenes in the story were chosen for their potential to illustrate various orchestral effects, as catalogued in the Taxonomy of Orchestral Grouping Effects developed by Stephen McAdams and colleagues. As the story evolved, it also developed a moral message for children, about not being afraid to show your true colours and standing up to bullies. The piece was premiered to an audience of children and adults in February, just before in-person concerts were prohibited in Canada due to the pandemic. It was performed by the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by ACTOR member Guillaume Bourgogne, and Canadian actress Florence Blain Mbaye. See the full video here

Cameron Chameleon by Jason Noble (1980 - ) Contemporary Music Ensemble - Guillaume Bourgogne, artistic director Florence Blain-Mbaye, narrator Recorded Febru...

From ACTOR member Jimmie Leblanc:

October 6, 19h30

  • Premiere of Falling Man, a piece for solo cello written for Émilie Girard-Charest, with CALQ support. Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Salle de concert, webdiffusion

November 16, 19h30

  • Premiere of Excursions intérieures I : Désir de verre, composed for Marie-Annick Béliveau (mezzo-soprano) and Ensemble Paramirabo, on a text by Michaël Trahan, with CALQ support. Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Salle de concert, (most probably) webdiffusion, but may have reopened the doors for some attendance at that time…

Project Updates

  • Axel Berndt reports that in September 2019, a new project was started at cemfi, "Music Performance Markup: Infrastructure for a Data Standard for Musical Performance Modelling". Throughout the next 3 years they will develop the Music Performance Markup format (MPM), comprehensive schema definition, documentation, and several software tools to work with this format, make performance analyses and create expressive MIDI/audio renderings. The project is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
    This year's virtual edition of the Edirom Summer School took place from August 31 to September 4. The course program featured a half-day workshop dedicated to the introduction to the Music Performance Markup format (MPM) held by Axel Berndt. The participants were given an overview of MPM's rich toolbox for modelling musical performances, including tempo, rubato, asynchrony, dynamics, metrical accentuation, articulation, and randomization/humanizing. Through practical demonstrations and a hands-on session, they were able to experiment on their own and gain initial experiences in creating and editing performances with MPM and rendering them to audio via the meico software. The interplay with MEI documents is also covered, as application scenarios of MPM include not only creative and analytical tasks but also digital music editions. In the concluding discussion round, the participants provided valuable input for the further development of MPM and its infrastructure of software tools.

  • Nathalie Hérold organised a workshop, “Étudier le timbre et l'orchestration: rencontre de présentation du partenariat ACTOR,” Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l'Homme Alsace, Strasbourg, 2 December 2019.

  • Jason Noble, Lindsey Reymore, Charalampos Saitis, Caroline Traube, and Zach Wallmark are at work on the strategic project “Orchestral timbre semantics validation study and database.” The first experiment, which explores semantic variation in response to registral change across a variety of instruments, has been designed and will be running online soon.

ORchPlay and Orchview

Version 1.5 of OrchPlay Released for ACTOR Members and Partner Institutions

The OrchPlay development team has recently made available a new version of OrchPlay which includes a score follower, improved library management and the ability to create OrchPlay content for Naxos Music Library recordings (synchronized scores, bookmark lists, metadata).

This version is free for all students and teachers at partner institutions (Université de Montréal and McGill University) as well as for the ACTOR community. You may download the new version of OrchPlay on our new OrchPlay Institutions Website.

  Please note that this version of OrchPlay is still in development and is not yet available to the public. The connection to the Naxos Music Library is a beta feature. If you wish for your institution to be added to the list of supported institutions you may contact us at info@orchplaymusic.com.

 OrchView Developments

Baptiste Bohelay and Félix Frédéric Baril are currently implementing the main functions suggested or requested during the first testing phase for Orchestral Grouping Effects annotations. A full summary of OrchView developments was presented at the Year 2 Actor Workshop and can be found in the following PowerPoint (internal link for ACTOR members). 

  Simultaneously we’ve been working in parallel with Stephen McAdams, Alfa Barri and Michael Li on the construction of the new data-model for OrchARD. The OrchARD team is converting the old data-model for the Orchestral Grouping Effects to the new format.

  When our code is ready, it will be possible to build the OrchARD database using OrchView analysis data.xml files (without data conversion).

  We will soon start the programming of the first version of the Orchestration Techniques analysis tools in OrchView (designed by Denys Bouliane, Dominique Lafortune and Félix Frédéric Baril). 

Orchestration Techniques Taxonomies Update

Denys Bouliane has updated the reference document pertaining to the Orchestration Techniques Taxonomy. The latest version contains musical analyses examples for each orchestration technique.

  You may find the new version of his work and research in the following PowerPoint (internal link for ACTOR members). 

A multidisciplinary team in Montreal and Strasbourg is working on validating and refining the Taxonomy of Orchestral Grouping Effects as implemented in the OrchView score-annotation platform developed by Félix Frédéric Baril and Baptiste Bohelay. The team includes Olivier Class, Nathalie Hérold, Dominique Lafortune, Stephen McAdams, Lindsey Reymore, Jade Roth, Kit Soden, and Matthew Zeller. The pieces being analyzed include ones by Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Vaughan Williams. OrchView is slated for public release at the end of 2020.

Upcoming Events

Nathalie Hérold has organised two events happening this October:

Lindsey Reymore is co-chair of the event “Future Directions of Music Cognition,” which was originally going to be hosted in May 2020 at Ohio State but was rescheduled due to the pandemic. We are looking forward to a virtual reboot in Spring 2021 which will consist of two parts: (1) an open-access online speaker series with 15 speakers, including our own Stephen McAdams and Zachary Wallmark, and (2) an online, 1-2 day symposium where conference participants can connect and answer questions about their projects. Previously accepted conference talks and posters will be published in conference proceedings. Stay tuned for more detail!

ACTOR Research Team
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