Abstract
Audio content-based processing has become a pervasive methodology for techno-fluent musicians. System architectures typically create thumbnail audio descriptions, based on signal processing methods, to visualize, retrieve and transform musical audio efficiently. Towards enhanced usability of these descriptor-based frameworks for the music community, the paper advances a minimal content-based audio description scheme, rooted on primary musical notation attributes at the threefold sound object, meso and macro hierarchies. Multiple perceptually-guided viewpoints from rhythmic, harmonic, timbral and dynamic attributes define a discrete and finite alphabet with minimal formal and subjective assumptions using unsupervised and user-guided methods. The Factor Oracle automaton is then adopted to model and visualize temporal morphology. The generative musical applications enabled by the descriptor-based framework at multiple structural hierarchies are discussed. © 2020, Steering Committee of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Abstract
We present ?Soniferous Resonances?, an ongoing collection of electroacoustic composition pieces that intersect music, digital technologies and architecture. The creative impetus supporting this research is grounded in the interchange of the following two concepts: 1) the phenomenological exploration of the aural architecture [1], particularly the reverberation as a sonic effect [2] through music performance and 2) the real time sound analysis of both the performance and the reverberation (i.e. impulse responses) intervallic content — which ultimately leads to a generic control over consonance/dissonance (C/D). Their conceptual and morphological nature can be understood as sonic improvisations where the interaction of sound producing bodies (e.g. saxophone) with the real (e.g. performance space) and the imaginary (i.e. computer) acoustic response of a space results in formal elements mirroring their physical surroundings. Particular emphasis is given to spectromorphological manipulations by a large array of “contrasting” digital reverberations with extended control over the sound mass [3] and its musical interval content across a continuum between pitched and consonant to unpitched and dissonant sounds. Two digital applications developed by the authors are seminal in Soniferous Resonances?: Wallace [4] and MusikVerb [5]. The first is a navigable user-control surface that offers a fluid manipulation of audio signals to be convolved with several “contrasting” digital reverberations. The second offers refined (compositional) control over the interval content and/or C/D levels computed from the perceptually-inspired Tonal Interval Space [6] resulting in an automatically adaptation of harmonic content in real time. Soniferous Resonances? aims at pushing the boundaries of musical performances that are formally tied to its surrounding space, as well as triggering new concepts and greater awareness about the sublime qualities of experiencing aural architecture.

Abstract
Never The Less is a live audio-visual (A/V) networked performance, where participants are able to interact remotely and collaboratively. It adopts the newly-proposed web-based A/V Akson system, designed for an internet infrastructure, which allows both musical and visual content generation and interaction across multiple devices in remote locations. The system was built with great emphasis on live-performance and human collaboration, where experts and non-experts (i.e., artists and public) exist at the same level.

Abstract
This paper presents an overview of the design principles behind Digital Music Instruments (DMIs) for education across all editions of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Music Expression (NIME). We compiled a comprehensive catalogue of over hundred DMIs with varying degrees of applicability in the educational practice. Each catalogue entry is annotated according to a proposed taxonomy for DMIs for education, rooted in the mechanics of control, mapping and feedback of an interactive music system, along with the required expertise of target user groups and the instrument learning curve. Global statistics unpack underlying trends and design goals across the chronological period of the NIME conference. In recent years, we note a growing number of DMIs targeting non-experts and with reduced requirements in terms of expertise. Stemming from the identified trends, we discuss future challenges in the design of DMIs for education towards enhanced degrees of variation and unpredictability.