Characterizing and Interpreting Music Expressivity through Rhythm and Loudness Simplices

TY - CHAP

T1 - Characterizing and Interpreting Music Expressivity through Rhythm and Loudness Simplices

AU - Lascabettes, Paul

AU - Chew, Elaine

AU - Bloch, Isabelle

N1 - Conference code: 47

PY - 2023/10

Y1 - 2023/10

N2 - Characterizing and interpreting expressivity in performed music remains an open problem. In this paper, we ex- plore the novel representation of recorded performances of triple time music using a 2-simplex, a graphical rep- resentation used to visualize three-interval rhythms. We analyze the MazurkaBL dataset, which contains beat-level tempo and loudness data of over 2000 recorded perfor- mances of 46 Chopin Mazurkas. Mazurkas’ triple time lends themselves well to the 2-simplex; the expressive fea- tures of each three-beat bar map directly to unique points in the 2-simplex. We extend the rhythm simplex designed for beat durations to the representation of loudness. Each recorded performance is thus reduced to a set of points in 2-simplices based on beat-level duration or loudness. We provide the transformation to convert three-interval in- formation to points in the 2-simplex; prove that inter-beat intervals and tempo representations in the 2-simplex are equivalent when timing variations are small; and, explain how smoothing the data impacts the coordinates of the points in the simplex. We demonstrate that the use of sim- plices can facilitate the analysis and interpretation of ex- pressive music features; the method enables the identifying of bars with notable expressive variations such as temporal suspensions that form tipping points, and characterizing of performance regularity.

AB - Characterizing and interpreting expressivity in performed music remains an open problem. In this paper, we ex- plore the novel representation of recorded performances of triple time music using a 2-simplex, a graphical rep- resentation used to visualize three-interval rhythms. We analyze the MazurkaBL dataset, which contains beat-level tempo and loudness data of over 2000 recorded perfor- mances of 46 Chopin Mazurkas. Mazurkas’ triple time lends themselves well to the 2-simplex; the expressive fea- tures of each three-beat bar map directly to unique points in the 2-simplex. We extend the rhythm simplex designed for beat durations to the representation of loudness. Each recorded performance is thus reduced to a set of points in 2-simplices based on beat-level duration or loudness. We provide the transformation to convert three-interval in- formation to points in the 2-simplex; prove that inter-beat intervals and tempo representations in the 2-simplex are equivalent when timing variations are small; and, explain how smoothing the data impacts the coordinates of the points in the simplex. We demonstrate that the use of sim- plices can facilitate the analysis and interpretation of ex- pressive music features; the method enables the identifying of bars with notable expressive variations such as temporal suspensions that form tipping points, and characterizing of performance regularity.

KW - music representation

KW - expressivity

KW - expressive music performance

KW - computational analysis

KW - rhythm simplex

KW - chronotopological map

UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85182922519&origin=inward&txGid=dc2754f75efd3a90433c067d7fd4a894

M3 - Conference paper

SN - 978-171388477-4

VL - 2023

T3 - International Computer Music Conference, ICMC Proceedings

SP - 110

EP - 117

BT - International Computer Music Conference, ICMC Proceedings

CY - Shenzhen, China

T2 - International Computer Music Conference

Y2 - 15 October 2023 through 20 October 2023

ER -