V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Presented by Vinoth Kulaveerasingam QMUL ELE021/ELED021/ELEM021 5 Mar 2012 Paper by Jorg Langner and Werner Goebl

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE What is the aim? How is it done? How is it tested?

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Data gathering and Processing: Method to take the reading Data Reduction Timing Loudness

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Method to take the reading: Special recording Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), It is a system which records music. Audio recording (AR) Original piece of music. Data Reduction: Windowing (smoothed) Take section of music (in this case very close to one bar of played music), smoothed using the Gaussian window.

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Timing: Special recording Midi has a built onset recognizer. AR: Interactive software tool for automatic beat detection. Detect as many onset as possible then compute the beat. The beat can be corrected manually. Loudness: Zwicker’s loudness model Measured in sones.

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Display: After all the data has been gathered, it is been is played into a two dimension space of tempo (on the x axis) and loudness (on the y axis):

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Case Study 1 : Chopin’s E-Major Etude 3 samples of music Pianist 9 Pianist 18 Maurizio Pollini The first two pianists (Pianist 9 and 18) has been asked to play until bar 21 of the “Chopin’ s Etude” on a Bosendorfer SE290 The aim is to see the correlation between Tempo and Loudness in a visual way.

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Pianist 9:

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Pianist 18:

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Maurizio Pollini:

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Case Study 2 : Schubert’s G-Flat-Major Impromptu 2 samples of music Alfred Brendel (1997) Todd Hybrid Model The aim of this study is to see if Neil Todd’ s model about Tempo and Loudness is true. He stated that : “The faster the louder, slower the softer”

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Comparison of the two samples:

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Analysis of each sample: Alfred Brendel (1997) Todd Hybrid Model It is not perfect “faster-louder” model. Different parameter for timing and intensity were chosen. The loudness unit is in sone. Comparison: Difference is huge.

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Analysis of the experiment: Increase in tempo then loudness Counter clockwise movement of the Tempo-loudness graph To be proven by future experiments: Increase loudness at maximum tempo Decrease tempo at maximum loudness Decrease loudness at minimum tempo Increase tempo at loudness minimum

V ISUALIZING E XPRESSIVE P ERFORMANCE IN T EMPO -L OUDNESS S PACE Future: Many future application Help musician to understand better. Can be used to teach music

S OURCE Langner J. & Goebl W. (2003). Visualizing Expressive Performance in Tempo-Loudness Space. Computer Music Journal, 27(4):