Classical Western music theory concerned itself primarily with tonal relationships between notes, while serialism focused instead on temporal relationships of sound events. This work considers the nature of spatially organized music and how a theoretical basis might be formed for understanding the underlying concepts and expectations inherent in spatial composition. Previous examples of spatial organization are considered, and theoretical concepts such as dissonance, consonance, position, inertia, gravitation, and context are applied to spatial music. Practical considerations in achieving such motives are also discussed for real-world rooms and audio formats.

This paper presents the work, development, and initial findings of a move in the Sonic Spaces Project away from single-computer based systems towards an interac-tive, musical metacreation system comprised of distribut-ed, physically-distinct agents built from single-board computers. In addition to discussing the technical specif-ics of how this system was developed, the article also takes time to discuss the implications towards the per-ception of “agents” and “agency” by human-participants. As well as the specific role of agents in computational systems such as this one.

Interactive music systems are an ideal exploration ground for the testing and incorporation of decision-making algorithms and music informatics techniques into real-time applications. The interactive music system, ‘The Harmonically Ecosystemic Machine; Sonic Space No. 7’, is the compositional result of such a collaboration between music technologyresearchersfocusedonharmonicaccompanimentgenerating finite state transducers and sonic ecosystems as interactive music systems. This installation-based system interprets music that occurs in the physical space of a room, from a harmonic perspective, played by both the system itself and any human performers. The resulting data is used by the system to drive the ongoing, generative, interactive composition. The technical details of the system, including an overview of and motivation for the use of finite state transducers (FSTs), the process of integrating FSTs into real-time interactive music systems, the interaction paradigms established, and the experience design for the composition are presented.

This studio report introduces recent activities in the Music Technology program of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions (MPAP) at New York University (NYU) Steinhardt. We first provide an overview of the program – faculty, curriculum, and facilities – and then discuss recent and ongoing research in five main areas: Computer Music, Immersive Audio, Music Cognition, Music Experience Design and Music Informatics Research (MIR). We also summarize ongoing and recent events held at NYU.

A common area of research within music technology is the automatic generation of musical accompaniment. Of particular interest is the generation of harmonic accompaniment to melody. While there are many approaches to solving this problem, the use of various types of finite state machines is popular. One such finite state machine, the finite state transducer (FST), has been used in a few accompaniment generation systems. Although the FST is widely used in speech recognition, its application in accompaniment generation systems has been relatively unsophisticated. In this paper, we introduce an improved approach to generating harmonic accompaniment to melody based on techniques used in speech recognition. In addition, we describe how we extend this method to the generation of rhythmic accompaniment. Finally, we discuss the integration of these offline accompaniment systems into a real-time system.

This paper presents two possible approaches used in analyzing electroacoustic music works as applied to a special type of interactive performance system: the dynamical sonic ecosystem, which can be considered ‘ecosystemic’. These theories of analysis are then examined in relation to Matthew Brown’s ‘six criterion for evaluating theories’ and their usefulness for analysis, in regards to their ability to qualify a work as ecosystemic. Although both approaches are shown to have merit in their ability to increase understanding of a particular work, only the technique that analyzes the process of composing interactions is found to be capable of the necessary requirements needed to work towards building a theory of ecosystemics, in the same way that there exists a theory of tonality.

Citygram is a multidisciplinary project that seeks to measure, stream, archive, analyze, and visualize spatiotemporal soundscapes. The infrastructure is built on a cyber-physical system that captures spatio-acoustic data via deployment of a flexible and scalable sensor network. This paper outlines recent project developments which includes updates on our sensor network comprised of crowd-sourced remote sensing, as well as inexpensive and high quality outdoor remote sensing solutions; development of a number of software tools for analysis, visualization, and development of machine learning; and an updated web-based exploration portal with real-time animation overlays for Google Maps. This paper also includes a summary of technologies and strategies that engage citizen scientist initiatives to measure New York City’s spatio-acoustic noise pollution in collaboration with the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).

Noise pollution is one of the most serious quality-of-life issues in urban environments. In New York City (NYC), for example, more than 80% of complaints1 registered with NYC’s 311 phone line2 are noise complaints. Noise is not just a nuisance to city dwellers as its negative implications go far beyond the issue of quality-of-life; it contributes to cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbance, and tinnitus3, while also interfering with learning activities [21]. One of the greatest issues in measuring noise lies in two of the core characteristics of acoustic noise itself — transiency and structural multidimensionality. Common noise measurement practices based on average noise levels are severely inadequate in capturing the essence of noise and sound characteristics in general. Noise changes throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year, and changes with respect to its frequency characteristics, energy levels, and the context in which it is heard. This paper outlines a collaborative project that addresses critical components for understanding spatiotemporal acoustics: measuring, streaming, archiving, analyzing, and visualizing urban soundscapes [28] with a focus on noise rendered through a cyber-physical sensor network system built on Citygram [23, 24].

Timbral Hauntings (2014) is an interactive installation system created by Michael Musick that considers the impact of echoes from the past on the perception of the present and their capacity to induce future sonic expectancy. This paper discusses details in producing Timbral Hauntings including motivation, core concepts, and technical particulars. It specifically discusses the compositional processes using music information retrieval (MIR) and feature extraction techniques to classify phrases and pull information from the ‘past’ to re-shape the ‘present’. Concepts of temporal dynamics will be discussed by examining the compositional process during analysis/feature extraction, classification and re-structuring, and synthesis phases.

This paper presents an exploration platform for locative sonification based on audio feature vectors extracted from urban spaces. Our locative sonification research is part of a larger project called Citygram[17]. Citygram focuses on geospatial research that is concerend with automatically collecting, visualizing, analyzing, and mapping nonocular energies from urban environments. The acoustic data is captured via off-the-shelf poly-sensory Androidbased remote sensing devices (RSD). Audio feature vectors are streamed to and stored in the Citygram database which can then be used for sonification and visualization. The first iteration, Citygram One, concentrates on urban acoustic energies, rendering spatio-acoustic feature vectors with the aim of better understanding our environment, large cities in particular. This paper focuses on using the Citygram framework for creative practice via locative sonification.