27/03/2020 · 19:25

Música y tecnología para el confinamiento

Gracias a la sugerencia de mi tocayo Emilio, he empezado ésta entrada con algunas propuestas de tecnología musical para ésta época en que nos toca estar confinados o aislados de nuestra familia y amigos. La iré actualizando con ideas y propuestas y si queréis contribuir, por favor contactadme o comentar en éste post.

Música clásica

Muchos de los contenidos que éstos días están disponibles vienen de óperas y otros espectáculos de música clásica.

La Metropolitan Opera ofrece acceso libre a sus óperas a través de su web. La semana pasada la dedicaron a Wagner https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/ 

La Berliner Philharmoniker también proporciona sus conciertos de manera gratuita desde el ordenador, tablet o móvil en su  Digital Concert Hall, que se puede descargar desde, por ejemplo el Appstore, y acceder gratis durante 30 días con el código BERLINPHIL.

El Teatro Real permite en éstos días el acceso gratuito a su plataforma de vídeo “My Opera Player”, para poder disfrutar de todos los títulos de ópera, danza y conciertos que ya ofrece en su catálogo y de los que se están incorporando estos días. Para acceder hay que registrarse en la página web y utilizar el código OperaEnCasa. Además de las obras del teatro real hay espectáculos de diferentes teatros en abierto desde ésta web.

El Gran Teatre del Liceu también ha puesto a disposición en su web una serie de títulos y éxitos de temporadas recientes a la web #theliceuathome.

    • Gracias a la colaboración con el Teatro Real además las óperas Norma y Rigoletto estarán disponibles de forma gratuita a la plataforma My Opera Player con el código OperaEnCasa.
    • En la web del canal ARTE podemos disfrutar de forma gratuita de su producción en alta tecnología de la ópera  Turandot de Puccini que abrió la temporada 2019-20 del Liceu.

L´Auditori de Barcelona ha habilitado una serie de contenidos digitales en abierto en su web,  en su página web titulada l’Auditori en tu casa. Se incluyen una serie de libros que tienen la música como temática, recomendaciones de series y películas, un directo en su Facebook cada día a las 20 con los conciertos de diferentes salas europeas, una lista de reproducción de Spotify, un ejercicio didáctico de regulación de emociones con la música, y una serie de conciertos como uno que hizo la Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña (OBC) en playa de Barcelona donde podemos escuchar el murmullo del mar.

La Ópera de Viena está publicando cada día una de las óperas de su archivo. En su calendario podemos encontrar diversas óperas programadas hasta final del mes de junio.

Para niños

El Gran Teatre del Liceu también ha habilitado en su canal de  Youtube varios de los espectáculos con más éxito de El Petit Liceu pensados para los pequeños de la casa, que están en catalán: La petita flauta màgica, La ventafocs y Pere i el Llop. 

Música pop

    • Podéis aprovechar éstos días para crear vuestra propia banda sonora a través de nuestra web. 
    • Además, hemos elaborado las listas que se han ido creando en el proyecto para construir una lista con las 157 canciones, unas 7 horas de música, ordenadas de mayor éxito a menor,. Podría ser algo que las personas mayores que están confinadas éstos días pueden agradecer. Incluye éxitos de Antonio Molina, Marisol, Paloma Sanbasilio o Rocío Jurado. La lista está pública en éste enlace: http://bit.ly/bandasonoravital 

Y aquí en España se han creado festivales virtuales como el Festival me quedo en casa  o la Cuarentena fest donde muchos artistas independientes, a través de sus perfiles de instagram están haciendo directos de unos 30 minutos como si de un concierto acústico privado se tratase. Los horarios están en las páginas que hemos enlazado.

Flamenco, rock, jazz

Durante éstos días también podéis aprender a cantar flamenco gracias a la tecnología y a nuestro curso online CanteFlamencoTech, disponible en la plataforma Miriadax. Está pensado para una duración de 4 semanas y se inició el pasado día 16 pero los contenidos están abiertos aún para poder seguir el curso.

El festival de jazz de Montreaux ofrece acceso abierto a 50 de sus conciertos mediante su plataforma de streaming. Éstos incluyen interpretaciones de  Ray Charles, Wu-Tang Clan, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Deep Purple, Carlos Santana, y muchos más artistas. La información (en inglés) de cómo acceder se puede encontrar en su web, que consiste en entrar en la plataforma y utilizar un código de descuento.

 

Acknowledgements: gracias a las aportaciones de Emilio Gómez-González, Jesús Crespo-Cuaresma

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28/02/2020 · 10:15

Research on child-robot interaction

In the context of the HUMAINT (Human behaviour and machine intelligence) project, we research on the impact that social robots have on children. In this context, I have had the chance to carry out my first research on the amazing field of child-robot interaction, thanks to the collaboration with Vicky Charisi, Luis Merino and their lab at Universidad Pablo Olavide and Honda Research Institute Japan.

Running a user study with children and robots is very challenging from a technical perspective, and  analysing their data is challenging as well.  We just published in frontiers the result of our first study, where we experimented with two strategies for child-robot interaction in a problem solving task: turn taking and child-initiated interaction, and we showed the need for this voluntary interaction. You can check the details below. It is amazing to learn and contribute to research on this topic!

Child-Robot Collaborative Problem-Solving and the Importance of Child’s Voluntary Interaction: A Developmental Perspective

Vicky Charisi, Emilia Gomez, Gonzalo Mier, Luis Merino and Randy Gomez

Abstract: The emergence and development of cognitive strategies for the transition from exploratory actions towards intentional problem-solving in children is a key question for the understanding of the development of human cognition. Researchers in developmental psychology have studied cognitive strategies and have highlighted the catalytic role of the social environment. However, it is not yet adequately understood how this capacity emerges and develops in biological systems when they perform a problem-solving task in collaboration with a robotic social agent. This paper presents an empirical study in a human-robot interaction (HRI) setting which investigates children’s problem-solving from a developmental perspective. In order to theoretically conceptualize children’s developmental process of problem-solving in HRI context, we use principles based on the intuitive theory and we take into consideration existing research on executive functions with a focus on inhibitory control. We considered the paradigm of the Tower of Hanoi and we conducted an HRI behavioral experiment to evaluate task performance. We designed two types of robot interventions, “voluntary” and “turn-taking”—manipulating exclusively the timing of the intervention. Our results indicate that the children who participated in the voluntary interaction setting showed a better performance in the problem solving activity during the evaluation session despite their large variability in the frequency of self-initiated interactions with the robot. Additionally, we present a detailed description of the problem-solving trajectory for a representative single case-study, which reveals specific developmental patterns in the context of the specific task. Implications and future work are discussed regarding the development of intelligent robotic systems that allow child-initiated interaction as well as targeted and not constant robot interventions.

 

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31/12/2019 · 11:46

My last day as ISMIR president

This is my last day as ISMIR president. I am very proud of how our community has managed to establish ISMIR as a leading forum for music information research. I joined the board in 2014, became president-elect in 2016 and president in 2018. My main motivations have always been to contribute to strengthen scientific quality, inclusive spirit and diversity. During these years, I have witnessed the origins and impulse of TISMIR and WiMIR, the consolidation of ISMIR location alternating between Europe, America and Asia, and the evolution of the MIR field including the involvement of industry in our community, changes of on topics and MIR-related disciplines, as reflected in its 20th anniversary edition.

But, among all, I have had the privilege to meet great researchers and people in a community I now considered a bit as my family. I want to thank all excellent board members and colleagues I had the chance to work with. I do not have enough space to express my gratefulness.

Now it is my time to take a break from scientific service, which is sometimes exhausting and no so well recognised. However, I will keep my compromise as TISMIR co-editor in chief, WiMIR mentor and PC member, and hopefully as an ISMIR author for many years. I am sure the next president and board will do a great job and I wish them all the best to face the main challenge I foresee: how to keep ISMIR spirit (single track conference), scientific insights, inclusion and diversity in a deep learning world.

 

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09/09/2019 · 16:45

Journal paper on AI and Music: Open Questions of Copyright Law and Engineering Praxis

I am very happy to share with you the publication of a truly interdisciplinary study on the impact of AI on music, including considerations from copyright and engineering praxis. It has been an amazing experience to collaborate with scholars in the field of creative practices, engineering and law, and I hope the paper will serve to start discussing some relevant aspects related to the use of AI in music production.

paper by Bob L. T. Sturm,Maria Iglesias,Oded Ben-Tal,Marius Miron and Emilia Gómez

Abstract

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to music stretches back many decades, and presents numerous unique opportunities for a variety of uses, such as the recommendation of recorded music from massive commercial archives, or the (semi-)automated creation of music. Due to unparalleled access to music data and effective learning algorithms running on high-powered computational hardware, AI is now producing surprising outcomes in a domain fully entrenched in human creativity—not to mention a revenue source around the globe. These developments call for a close inspection of what is occurring, and consideration of how it is changing and can change our relationship with music for better and for worse. This article looks at AI applied to music from two perspectives: copyright law and engineering praxis. It grounds its discussion in the development and use of a specific application of AI in music creation, which raises further and unanticipated questions. Most of the questions collected in this article are open as their answers are not yet clear at this time, but they are nonetheless important to consider as AI technologies develop and are applied more widely to music, not to mention other domains centred on human creativity.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; music; copyright; engineering; ethics

 

Paper available in open access at Arts journal.

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09/09/2019 · 16:37

OpenBMAT: a new open dataset for music detection with loudness annotations

Last week we announced the publication of OpenBMAT, an open dataset for the tasks of music detection and relative music loudness estimation. The dataset contains 27.4 hours of audio from 8 different TV program types at 4 different countries, cross-annotated by 3 people using 6 different classes. It has been published as a dataset paper at Transaction of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval, the open journal of ISMIR. This research has been carried out as a collaboration between the MTG and BMAT in the context of the industrial Doctorates program of the Catalan Government.

For more information you can read the related news at MTG web site: https://www.upf.edu/web/mtg/home/-/asset_publisher/sWCQhjdDLWwE/content/id/227864284/maximized#.XXZ_IZMzab8

 

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29/05/2019 · 08:15

Help us in our study on perceived emotions of pop/rock music by English, Spanish, German, and Mandarin speakers

En castellano debajo! 

Juan Sebastian Gómez-Cañón, one of the PhD students working with me at the Music Information Research Lab of the MTG, is leading a study on the relation between the emotions perceived in pop and rock music and the language the listener speaks. To participate, please visit the following links depending on your mother tongue: English, Spanish, German, and Mandarin. In case that none of these languages is native to you, you can still participate by filling the English version (it takes around 20-25 minutes to complete it). Please follow the instructions carefully to guarantee your comprehension, correctness, and overall enjoyment! You can stop at any time and continue later as long as you keep the volume at the same level.

At the end of this survey and as a small thank you for your time, we will provide your Music Sophistication Index, which measures your ability to engage with music, as defined by Müllensiefen et al. (2014). The results of this research will also be available to you in our project website.

Thank you!

——

Juan Gómez-Canón, con el  cual trabajo en el laboratorio de Music Information Research del MTG (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) está llevando a cabo un estudio sobre la relación entre las emociones percibidas en música pop/rock y el lenguaje. Agradeceríamos mucho vuestra participación rellenando un formulario que requiere entre 20-25 minutos y que se basa, fundamentalmente, en escuchar música e indicar la emoción percibida en cada caso. El formulario está disponible en Inglés, Español, Alemán y Mandarín (en caso que vuestra lengua materna no sea ninguna de esas podéis participar usando la versión en inglés). Es importante seguir las instrucciones cuidadosamente para garantizar la correcta comprensión de los ítems planteados. Podéis parar en cualquier momento y continuar después, siempre y cuando se mantenga el mismo volumen al escuchar la música .

Al final de esta encuesta y como una pequeña muestra de agradecimiento por vuestro tiempo, os entregaremos vuestro Music Sophistication Index, que mide la habilidad de involucrarse con la música, tal y como se definió en Müllensiefen et al. (2014). Los resultados de esta investigación también estarán disponibles para la página web del proyecto.

 

¡Muchas gracias!

v—-

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13/03/2019 · 08:46

Women in AI: mitigating the gender bias

Last Friday March 8th I was invited to speak at a lunch event of the European Commission intended to provide a scientific perspective to the challenges of gender equality. I gave a talk titled “Women in Artificial Intelligence: mitigating the gender bias”, that is summarized here.

In this context today my colleague Ana Freire and I are launching the divinAI initative to monitor the presence of women in AI events. Please come to our HACKFEST event in Barcelona in June 1st! 

 

Hackathon.png

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El papel que juega la intuición en la interpretación musical

Una investigación realizada por Álvaro Sarasúa, Julián Urban y una servidora en el Grupo de Investigación en Tecnología Musical, dentro del proyecto europeo Phenicx,  describe las ventajas de usabilidad de un sistema personalizado que aprovecha la intuición de los usuarios al interpretar música.

 

Intuición que por cierto no tienen aún los sistemas automáticos a los que tenemos que entrenar desde 0.

Podéis leer la noticia en la web de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra. 

 

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27/02/2019 · 14:53
26/02/2019 · 15:01

El dilema de la tecnología ética – The dilemma of ethical technologies

Article in Spanish about ethics of technology written by Esther Paniagua in the context of the HUMAINT winter school that took place this month at JRC Seville. The article is also available online.

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25/02/2019 · 08:23

A new paper on Frontiers journal on Music Conducting

I am very happy to publish this work with Alvaro Sarasúa and Julián Urbano on Frontiers in Digital Humanities about Music Conducting.

The paper, titled “Mapping by Observation: Building a User-Tailored Conducting System From Spontaneous Movements” presents a music interaction system based on the conductor-orchestra metaphor, where the orchestra is considered as an instrument controlled by the movements of the conductor. In the system we proposed the user can control tempo and dynamics and it adapts its mapping to the user by observing spontaneous conducting movements on top of a fixed music. In this respect, we analyze the tendency of people to anticipate or fall behind the beat and the gestures mapped to loudness. The system was evaluated with 24 participants in a discover-by-playing scenario.
Our work was developed in the context of the PHENICX and CASAS research projects and opens interesting directions for creating more intuitive and expressive DMIs, particularly in public installations.
You can access the open publication here.
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