Footwork is a style of electronic dance music that emerged in Chicago in the late 1990s. Originally produced as the accompaniment for a distinctive mode of dance—also called footwork or footworking—Footwork is a highly kinetic genre that thrives in a liminal space of perception.

Our project seeks to explore the capabilities of cutting-edge machine learning (ML) techniques for real-time sound analysis in the context of a new composition. Led by Martin Daigle, Pauline Patie, and Emmanuel Lacopo, the project features software such as Rodrigo Constanzo’s SP-Tools to provide real-time instrumental augmentation for the percussion and guitars. Furthermore, it will be used to control real-time interactive visual projections

Amongst Luvale communities in Zambia, drummers tune their instruments by applying ulezo (tuning paste) and heat. In addition to adjusting pitch, this two-step process dramatically impacts timbre. The purposes of this project are to (1) explore the timbral effects of tuning by analyzing audio descriptors generated in the Timbre Toolbox and (2) map these acoustic descriptors onto Luvale timbre descriptors. A data set of individual notes was obtained from field recordings of multiple dance troupes at various stages of the tuning process.

There exists an abyss on the subject of the history of orchestration pedagogy, and this project proposes a first step in approaching this topic through the orchestration exams from initiation and end-of-curriculum classes at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP). Many student orchestration exams have been destroyed at the National Archives since the orchestration classes were introduced at the Conservatory in 1977. However, a significant number of scores remain to be collected. The recordings of these scores by the Conservatory orchestra have largely been preserved on various supports according to the audiovisual service at the Conservatory.

Evoking the human voice through instrumental music has been a perennial goal for composers, appearing in traditional performance instructions such as cantabile and contemporary practices such as formant modeling. Performers also make extensive use of vocal metaphors in their discourse. But do general listeners perceive instrumental music in terms of vocal qualities or metaphors? We will address this question by asking listeners to rate their perceptions of vocality in music intended to emulate it, followed by a proof-of-concept composition and performance.

In this research-creation project we wish to use experimental designs from timbre perception research to generate data models that will inform the creation of new compositions for an atypical instrumental duo. We wish to test whether research methodologies can be adopted for use in perceptually informed orchestration/composition practice.

This idea arose from the participants seed idea presented during the CORE Ensemble Project 2021-2022. While one was interested in timbral imitation and emergent timbre, the other used the inflections of Cantonese language to derive musical material. The proposed project aims at combining these two ideas into one, using a more science-supported approach this time.

On a fundamental level, we ask what differentiated a “French” from a “Viennese” sound; but taking into account the skills of both builder and player, along with the complex affordances of a particular type of instrument, we also ask what made Beethoven a “fast learner” on a new instrument and his Paris-based rival Steibelt an “expert” of a familiar one—one that lent itself well to what in France was known as son continu, or the skill of sustaining or “spinning” sound.

The DATE project will expand on the combined composed and improvisatory environments by providing a dancer/choreographer with the tools to blend and process the sounds of two musicians in real time using physical gestures. This project will make use of the Kinect Controlled Artistic Sensing System (KiCASS), a UBC-developed motion capture system which uses infra-red tracking to generate data from 20 points on multiple dancers.

The purpose of the Space As Timbre (SAT) project, is to collect qualitative data in order to analyze and understand the perceptual effect of timbre in composing new spaces for an acoustic ensemble, thereby creating the opportunity to treat space as a form bearing element in music.

Computer-assisted orchestration can be thought of as the process of searching for the best combinations of orchestral sounds to match a target sound under specified metrics and constraints. Although a solution to this problem has been a long-standing request from many composers, it remains relatively unexplored because of its high complexity, requiring knowledge and understanding of both mathematical formalization and musical writing.

This project develops a streamlined resource for emerging composers seeking to introduce live electronics into their instrumental orchestration practice. It focuses on two topics. 1. Accessible and stable performance frameworks 2. Straightforward strategies for orchestrating with electronics in chamber and orchestral context.

Compositions for a solo Chinese instrument with the Western orchestra require the composer to consider ways in which orchestration techniques might function in different ways so as to either bring out the solo instrument or to have it blend with the orchestra.

By exploring the relationship between spatial distance and choral blend, this project aims to be the initial step in creating a body of research within ACTOR to evaluate choral blend from the perspectives of both singers and listeners.The results of these studies could be compared in order to understand similarities and differences between two types of sectional performers.

Our research-creation project aims to integrate acoustic drums and various electronics in a semi-structured unconventional composition process. The bottom-up approach will allow both parties to be curious and create a novel piece featuring new timbres and new orchestration applications for the drum kit with electronics. The tools used for this research creation are standard drum kit, microphones, percussion sampling pads, and computer with Max MSP.

We propose an album of music for guitar and electronics composed by Noble and performed by Cowan, culminating their longstanding collaboration which has been presented in many contexts. Traube and de Francisco will oversee the project, Martin will be the recording engineer, and Rouhier will be the multimedia artist.

This project is a special composition for a place, or rather the sound composition of a particular place, in the sense that it is the place that physically composes the piece. The place is the Ariana Museum, Swiss Museum of Ceramics and Glass, in Geneva. The composition is that of the place and its objects. It reveals the space of the building, its geometries, its volumes, it is sensitive to the objects that are placed there because they will influence the listening as much as the walls of the rooms.

Timbre is an important stylistic and structural parameter in popular music, yet its specific functional roles in this repertoire have not yet been theorized. Most music-analytical scholarship on timbre in popular music to date consists of case studies of individual artists, bands, studios, or genres. There have been no broad corpus studies establishing timbral norms for genres or eras of popular music.

Brightness is among the most studied aspects of music perception, and arguably among the most important timbral cues actively shaped by performers, composers, and audio engineers.

The purpose of the Musician Auditory Perception (MAP) project is to collect quantitative data via sonic ethnography in order to promote and analyze, both literally and metaphorically, (a) sonic collaboration between auditory learners, (b) modes of sound information gathering, and (c) the creative expression of musicians, while disrupting common pedagogic practices that reinforce hierarchical education.